Castle Hangnail

by Ursula Vernon

  “I’m the Master . . .” said Molly. She was quite aware that ownership was complicated, and one could just as easily say that Castle Hangnail owned her. She didn’t think Freddy Wisteria was the sort of person who would understand that.

  “How would you like to sell me your castle?”

  Molly stared at him. Angus snorted.

  “I’ll give you . . .” He paused and made a flourishing gesture with both hands. “. . . a thousand dollars!”

  It was bad enough, thought Molly, that he thought she would sell Castle Hangnail. But for such an insultingly low price?

  “How about I give you a thousand legs?” she asked. “It’ll require turning you into a millipede, but I think I can manage it.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” said Freddy.

  “It’s a lot of legs.”

  “Fine. Two thousand dollars.”

  “Houses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Molly. “I might be twelve, but I’m not stupid.”

  “You want a hundred thousand dollars for that decrepit old castle?” Freddy scowled. “No way. It’ll cost that much just to pull it down. It’s a fire hazard.”

  “Pull it down?”

  “Well, obviously. Who would want to live in an old wreck like that?” Freddy stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Fine. Suppose I offered you fifty thousand dollars for the castle and the surrounding lands—”

  Molly shook her head. “It’s not for sale!”

  Freddy Wisteria shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I know for a fact that it nearly went on the market before you showed up. It’ll be for sale again. This is your chance to actually make money off the deal.”

  Molly took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. It was a lot of money. Her parents would insist on putting it in a college fund. “No,” she said.

  “Oh, come on!” Freddy took a threatening step forward.

  Molly folded her arms. Angus put a hand on her shoulder.

  “The lady said no,” the Minotaur rumbled.

  “Seventy-five, and that’s my final offer.”

  “Get lost,” said Pins. “Find someplace else to ruin.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” said Freddy. “We could have done this the easy way.” He turned and stalked away.

  Molly sighed again.

  She’d done the right thing. Castle Hangnail wasn’t hers to sell. It didn’t belong to anyone, except itself.

  “That was a lot of money,” said Pins, a bit sadly.

  “Yeah,” said Molly. “But some things aren’t for sale. Or at least they shouldn’t be.”

  If the Board of Magic decommissioned it and it wound up in the hands of Freddy Wisteria . . .

  “C’mon,” said Molly. “Let’s figure out how to keep that creep from getting his hands on the castle.”

  Chapter 24

  As it happened, Molly made one more trip to town that afternoon. She needed to get a couple of things, in order to do one more spell.

  Her first errand was simple. She went to the hardware store.

  Hardware stores are marvelous places for Witches, almost as good as botanical gardens. Most Witches, even the Wicked ones, enjoy feeding the birds, and all of them usually need bits of copper pipe and useful bits of wire. All of these things—birdseed and pipes and nails and wire of all varieties—can be found at a good hardware store.

  Molly did not actually need any of these things. She needed to buy a box of nails and get a hole drilled. Mr. Jensen, who ran the store, was happy to drill a very small hole for her. He had cordially despised Old Man Harrow and was so tickled about the dragon-donkey incident that he didn’t even charge her.

  She took the box of nails back up the hill to the castle. In the garden, she sawed off a branch of rosemary nearly as long as her arm.

  Then she trudged out to the far side of the donkey’s barn and drove a nail into the ground.

  “Zizzible zazzible,” she murmured, waving a sprig of rosemary at the nail. “Watch-and-report!”

  It was a simple spell. Molly had learned it when she was just seven years old, when her sister Sarah kept going over to her side of the room and trying to “tidy up,” which mostly involved throwing away anything that Sarah didn’t approve of. (Sarah did not approve of bones, comic books, or chewing gum, although Molly had always suspected that she was keeping the gum for herself.)

  It was an alarm spell. If anybody came onto the castle grounds without permission, Molly would know who it was.

  The fields around Castle Hangnail were too large to surround with just one box of nails, but she made a rough oval around the barn and castle. (It wasn’t like anyone could do much harm out in the fields anyway—what would they do, kick down the weeds?)

  The only hard part was driving the nails. On the high side of the castle, the dirt was rock-hard and she had to use her boots like a hammer to sink them into the ground.

  When she’d gotten all the way around the castle, she dusted off her hands and wedged the rosemary sprig under a convenient rock. The spell would last as long as the rosemary stayed in place.

  She took a roundabout path back to the castle. A mole popped out of the ground and waved to her. Dragon grazed contentedly in the meadow.

  A dragonfly droned overhead. Molly banished the last thoughts of the seventy-five thousand dollars from her mind.

  Something, she thought grimly, was going to have to be done about Freddy Wisteria.

  Chapter 25

  Two nights later—Sunday night—Molly was lying in bed, thinking. Bugbane snored on the bedpost, and Molly wound a lock of hair around her fingers. (It was a bit oily. She kept forgetting there was no running water. She’d tried to take a shower earlier and the shower-head had gone “Cluh-GUNK!” and then fallen off on her head, frozen solid. She’d had to take a bath down in the kitchen instead, with water Cook heated on the stove, and it was hard to get all the way clean.)

  She had counted down the days to the six-week deadline three times, and wound up with twenty-eight days, no matter which way she counted. She sighed. Doing the math over wasn’t going to help at all.

  Mostly, though, she was thinking about magic. The Wormrise spell had gone beautifully, and even though she had given magic to Stonebreaker for it, she hadn’t been exhausted afterward. She’d been a little bit tired, but she felt great.

  That was the thing that was puzzling her.

  She’d given magic to Eudaimonia before. She’d done it a lot. And every time, afterward, she felt exhausted. Drained. Feeling like she’d spent all day weeding the garden and then doing laps around the neighborhood.

  But the spells she’d done for Eudaimonia were such little things. The older girl had borrowed Molly’s magic for spells that Molly couldn’t do herself—and they were such minor spells! Mending tears in fabric or changing the color of the paint on the walls. Changing a C on Eudaimonia’s report card to an A. (Molly knew this was bad, but Eudaimonia was, after all, an Evil Sorceress. And Sorceresses are expected to summon ice and fire and ride dragons, not do algebra.)

  Spells like that couldn’t possibly be as big a magic as summoning the Mother of Earthworms. So why hadn’t she felt tired?

  Maybe Stonebreaker only needed a little magic. Maybe he almost had enough himself.

  Molly twisted the lock of hair around her finger in the other direction.

  Maybe Eudaimonia wasn’t very good at borrowing magic.

  She frowned into the darkness.

  Maybe—

  And then something went BONG! in her head and she smelled a sudden overpowering scent of rosemary.

  Someone was trespassing on the castle grounds!

  She concentrated. If it was just somebody out for a late-night walk . . .

  Come on . . . come on . . . where are you and what do you want?

  The spell wasn’t v
ery specific, but what Molly got back involved the barn.

  And fire.

  Molly sat bolt upright in bed, threw the blankets off, and dove into her clothes. She had to get down there—and fast!

  She snatched Bugbane off the bedpost—he went “Hnrrhg?! Whazzit!?”—and ran down the stairs. “Angus!” she yelled. “Angus, come quick!”

  Lord Edward woke up with a clatter of armor. “Eh? What? Who goes there? Are we under attack, my lady? I’ll rout the devils! Where’s my sword?”

  “Somebody’s breaking into the barn! Where’s Angus?”

  “I know I put it somewhere in here . . . big sword, blue gem on the handle, can’t miss it . . . forget my own helmet next . . .”

  Molly ran past him and into the kitchen. “Angus!”

  Fortunately the Minotaur had only just gone to bed. He clomped out into the kitchen, wearing his pajama bottoms. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “What is being ruckus?” cried Cook from her room. “Is needing sleep!”

  “Somebody’s breaking into the barn! I think they want to burn it down! We have to stop them!”

  Angus gave an angry snort. “We will! No time to lose!” He opened the door to the garden. “Come on—”

  The smell of rosemary was getting awfully thick now, and even though it was all in her head, she wanted to sneeze. The barn was at the bottom of the pasture, well away from the castle, and even as she watched, Molly thought she saw a light.

  “Have you ever ridden a horse?” asked Angus.

  “Well—yes, once, but it was at a pony ride—”

  He snorted again, this time with amusement. “This will be different.” He reached down, grabbed Molly around the waist, and slung her up on his shoulders.

  “Whoa!” Molly grabbed his horns to keep from falling off. “What are you—”

  “Hold on,” said Angus. “Hold on very, very tight.”

  He dropped to all fours.

  Humans can’t run on all fours, at least not very well. They’re not built for it. But Minotaurs have strange, twisty joints and long arms and extraordinary muscles. A Minotaur can run on all fours as easily as he can walk upright . . . and much, much faster.

  Molly found herself riding a bull down the pasture.

  There were a few awkward moments when she tried to find the right way to sit, and it was a good thing that Angus’s horns faced forward, because otherwise her career as a Witch might have come to a sharp, pointy end. But there was an intruder and Angus and Molly were the only ones who knew it, so she sat up straight and gripped the horns tight and yelled, “Run!”

  He ran.

  The barn stood dark and apparently quiet at the end of the field, but Molly never doubted that someone had broken in. She might only know a few spells, but she could have set the alarm spell in her sleep. She just hoped they’d arrived in time.

  Angus slid to a great splay-hooved halt in front of the door, and Molly leaped off his back and ran for the barn door. “Go around back!” she hissed over her shoulder.

  The door was ajar. Molly knocked it open with her elbow and stepped inside.

  Chapter 26

  Witches are brave. Witches walk in dark places. And there was a Minotaur with her. Molly lifted her chin and walked forward.

  Her boots wanted to stomp, but she lifted her feet and set them carefully instead.

  The barn was quiet—almost. Dragon the donkey was restless in his stall, shifting from hoof to hoof. At the end of the line of stalls, in the little room where all the straw was kept, Molly saw a flicker of light.

  They’re still here. Whether it’s Freddy or someone he hired—they’re still here.

  Great! I can catch them red-handed!

  Err . . . if they don’t catch me first . . .

  She took a deep breath and held it until she was sure that she was invisible, then poked her head around the doorframe.

  A dark figure stood in a beam of light. There was something in his hands that Molly couldn’t make out.

  It was Freddy. He was wearing black clothes, and had set a flashlight on the counter to see by.

  Molly reached out, groped along the wall—the light switch should be there, shouldn’t it?—and heard a chilling sound.

  Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

  It was the sound of someone trying to light a match.

  “Strike anywhere matches,” Freddy muttered. “Huh! Strike nowhere is more like it.”

  Was Angus in position? If Freddy lit the straw on fire, would they have time to stomp it out? Molly didn’t know and couldn’t take the time to find out.

  If he sets the barn on fire—if he scares Dragon, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll do something!

  Her fingers found the light switch.

  “Stop right there!” yelled Molly, and flipped the light on.

  Freddy let out a yelp and dropped the match he was holding.

  It’s not lit, it’s not lit—whew!

  It has to be said that Molly wasn’t a particularly imposing figure. She wasn’t wearing her coat or her Witchy hat and she hadn’t had time to put on any silver jewelry. Her hair was tangled from the wild ride down the hill, and the pounding smell of rosemary was making her nose run.

  “Oh,” said Freddy, “it’s you.” He folded his arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “Stopping you!” said Molly. “What are you doing breaking into the barn in the middle of the night!”

  “I could ask you the same question,” said Freddy. “You’re here too!”

  Molly stamped her foot, which might have been childish, except that the boots made it a fierce stomp. “I’m the Master of Castle Hangnail! You’re breaking and entering!”

  “You can’t prove that,” said Freddy. “I might just have been passing by.”

  “You’re wearing all black! You’ve got a flashlight!”

  “You’re wearing black too.”

  “I saw you trying to light a match! You’re trying to burn the barn down!”

  Freddy folded his arms. “So you say. I say it’s dark and I wanted a light. It’s your word against mine, isn’t it?”

  Molly gritted her teeth.

  I’m a Wicked Witch. Witches don’t lose their tempers over stupid people. Witches fix things. Wickedly.

  “You’re right,” she said, wonderfully calm. “You’re absolutely right. We’ll just call the constable to sort this out, shall we? There’s a phone up at the castle.”

  Freddy took a step back. “I don’t think we need to do that.”

  “I’m pretty sure we do,” said Molly. “Since one of us is lying and I know it’s not me.”

  “But if the constable comes, I’ll say you were going to burn down the barn. They’ll think you’re a juvenile delinquent.”

  Molly grinned. Freddy thought he could scare her with that? You didn’t grow up with a good twin without learning a thing or two about blackmail.

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” she said. “After all, I’m twelve. What are they going to do to me? But you . . .” She half turned toward the barn door, keeping an eye on Freddy.

  She made three steps toward the stalls—and Freddy yelled “STOP!” and tried to tackle her.

  Molly saw him move. She’d been half expecting it. Somehow, though, expecting someone to attack you doesn’t prepare you quite as well as you think it should. Molly dove sideways, into an empty stall, and hissed the first spell that came to mind.

  “Shanks and shadows—

  up and down—

  inner and outer and magic unbound!”

  Her chest felt fizzy, as if someone had poured a bottle of soda over her heart. Molly never liked that feeling, so she didn’t do the spell often, and she wasn’t quite sure why she’d done it now.

  Freddy yanked the stall door open.

  “Now I’ve got you
—”

  Molly’s shadow stretched, yawned, and peeled itself away from Molly.

  Freddy blinked.

  The shadow grew. Molly had never tried the spell except in daylight, when the shadow was sharp and clear and firm, and not much taller than she was. But surrounded by darkness, cast by the light from the flashlight, the shadow was large and blurry and indistinct.

  It rose . . . and rose . . . and rose . . .

  Its head brushed the ceiling, then slid along it in the manner of shadows.

  Molly was lying on her back against the wall, straw poking through her clothes, and couldn’t see over the wall, so she wasn’t sure why Freddy suddenly whimpered and cowered back.

  When she summoned the shadow, she danced with it. That was all the spell did—peeled your shadow off and made it a dance partner.

  So why was Freddy bone white?

  “Get back!” he yelled. “Get back! You can’t take me there! That’s not a real place—go away—”

  What’s he talking about? It’s just a shadow . . .

  Well. You can’t leave a spell half finished.

  “Dance with him,” Molly croaked.

  The shadow stood up straight and lifted one arm in the opening positions of a waltz. The moonlight through the window and the light from the end of the hall combined to give the shadow long grasping fingers.

  It reached for Freddy.

  The real-estate developer let out a shriek and whirled, running for the back door—

  —straight into Angus’s arms.

  Chapter 27

  The town constable was not fat and jolly, despite many stereotypes about policemen. Constable Singh was tall and thin and he took his job very seriously. But he was also a very intelligent man, and when Molly explained about the rosemary spell and why she’d done it, he nodded and took careful notes and called her “Miss Utterback.”

  “Seems pretty cut-and-dried,” he said. “We found matches and a can of gasoline. We’ll press charges and have him up for breaking and entering and attempted arson before the end of the week.”