Castle Hangnail

by Ursula Vernon

  The goldfish knew that she should go back. She should go back, and report to Molly, and tell them everything. They needed to know so that they could plan their assault on the tower.

  But it might be Pins up there, she thought, and swam upward, toward the cold water and the light.

  • • •

  Molly had just finished her third scone and was no closer to figuring out how to break Eudaimonia’s wand, when Bugbane winged his way into the kitchen. He had been yawning all night and had nearly dozed off watching for the goldfish, but he was wide-awake now.

  “She’s back!” he chirped. “She’s back—oh, come quick!”

  Molly dropped her scone and ran out to the moat. Majordomo limped after her, carrying the goldfish bowl.

  The goldfish was swimming in agitated circles at the meeting place. “Oh!” she said. “Oh-oh-oh! It’s horrible! Oh!”

  “Here!” Molly grabbed the bowl from Majordomo and dropped to her knees. The goldfish leaped into the bowl, but even then she didn’t settle down. “Oh! Oh!”

  “Come inside,” said Majordomo. “Calm down.”

  They brought her back to the kitchen. She shuddered her fins.

  “Okay,” said Molly. “Tell us everything.”

  “Oh! Oh, it’s horrible!”

  “There, there,” said Sir Edward. “Chin—err—gills up! Stiff upper lip! Start at the beginning!”

  “We can’t help Pins if you can’t tell us what you saw,” said Majordomo quietly.

  That steadied the goldfish’s nerves. She straightened. “Yes. Yes. Oh, it was terrible. The whole room, made of ice. The water’s so cold, it’s frozen all around the edges. And she’s got Pins in a—a jar—like a b-b-bug—”

  The goldfish burst into tears. Since you cannot give a handkerchief to a goldfish, they stood around helplessly, until Serenissima dipped a finger in the water and warmed it by two or three comforting degrees.

  When the fish had calmed down a bit, Molly said, “We’ll rescue him. I promise. But we have to know how to get in. Is there a door?”

  The fish shook her head. “An empty doorway. The first floor is underwater. You can swim right through and up into the tower. The second floor is full of ice.”

  Majordomo nodded. “She’s an ice Sorceress, we knew that. Her magic probably works better if she keeps the room cold.”

  “Her bedroom always was freezing,” muttered Molly.

  “Did she say anything?” asked Majordomo.

  The goldfish nodded. “I couldn’t stay long,” she said. “It was too cold—I thought my fins would freeze—and it wouldn’t help Pins if I froze before I got back to you—”

  “You did exactly the right thing,” said Molly.

  “Well.” The goldfish thought for a minute. “She said that she was keeping him. Even if she had to leave the castle, he was coming with her, to sew clothes for her.”

  “Now that’s interesting . . .” murmured Angus.

  They all looked at the Minotaur. Cook nodded.

  “Yes. Is being very interesting.”

  “What?” asked Molly.

  “Is assuming that she may have to leave. Is thinking she could lose.”

  Molly blinked.

  Eudaimonia thought that she might lose to Molly? That there was a chance she wouldn’t win?

  Molly was aware that her mouth had fallen open.

  “Well, when we defeat her, if she’s made a jar out of ice, we’ll just melt it,” said Serenissima. “We wouldn’t let her take Pins with her. She can get her wardrobe off the rack, like anybody else.”

  Molly knotted her fingers together. “Um,” she said. And then, slowly, “I don’t think we should rely on that. Defeating her, I mean.”

  “Never say die!” said Edward firmly.

  “I’m not saying die, whatever that means! I’m just—look, if I win, great! But what if I don’t? I’ll have to leave and she’ll still have Pins. We need to rescue him and get him away.”

  Cook nodded. “Is good,” she said. “Is hoping for best, but planning for worst.”

  “If you lose,” said Majordomo, “we must all plan to leave. Angus especially.” And he told them about Eudaimonia’s plan to sell the Minotaur.

  Angus stood up and walked to the edge of the garden. Molly started to go after him, but Majordomo caught her shoulder and shook his head. They watched the powerful line of the Minotaur’s muscles tense until they looked like steel cables, then slowly ease.

  He came back to the table and sat down. “I’ll go to Farmer Berkeley,” he said. “Mother—”

  Cook nodded. “Will take knives. And cutting board. Have only just been getting proper seasoning on cutting board, is not going to leave it.”

  “What about you?” asked Edward, looking at Majordomo.

  “I shall inform the Minion’s Guild that this castle is no longer a place of safe employment,” said Majordomo. “You may experiment on your minions or kick them or even eat them when the pantry runs low—but you do not sell them.” He drew a deep breath. “And then I shall leave. If Molly has need of me, I shall serve her. Otherwise I shall present my resume to the Minion’s Guild and see if they can find a place for me.”

  There was a great silence in the room. All the minions knew what it cost Majordomo to say that he would leave Castle Hangnail; Molly did not know, but she could guess.

  “You can come stay with me,” said Miss Handlebram firmly. “I’ll fix up the back bedroom until you’ve got a place of your own. And Sir Edward too.”

  The enchanted armor rattled in embarrassed gratification. Majordomo blinked back tears.

  “I’d rather it wasn’t necessary,” Molly said. “Let’s figure out how to get Pins out, shall we?”

  Chapter 45

  The plan in the end was straightforward. “Because,” Sir Edward said, “the fewer parts of a battle plan, the less parts can go wrong.”

  Bugbane—very tired now, as the early-morning light started to creep over the hills—zipped by the tower windows. “She’s in bed,” he reported. “And Gordon is watching the causeway out the second-story window, in case we try to build a bridge or something. I think the first floor is unguarded.”

  Molly fidgeted. She knew that Eudaimonia knew an alarm spell, like the rosemary one she’d used on the barn. Would she have put alarms around Pins?

  If she has, there’s nothing to be done about it. We’ll simply have to be very fast.

  “Dragonfire and steam melt enchanted ice,” she said. She looked down at the goldfish. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “For Pins,” said the goldfish, “I’ll do anything.”

  Serenissima waded into the moat. The water around her began to steam gently, but she was trying very hard not to make the water uninhabitably hot.

  “All right,” said Molly. “The spell is only supposed to last a minute—it lasts longer on the donkey, but I don’t know how much time you’ll have—”

  She took a deep breath. Balanced on the tip of her finger was a scale the size of a sequin.

  “Accreus Illusus Piscene Accomplicia Margle Fandango!”

  (Piscene is the equivalent of Bovine or Equine, only for fish. Molly wasn’t sure if the spell would even work on a fish.)

  The goldfish blinked. She blinked several times, and then she belched and a tongue of flame shot out of her mouth and set the surface of the water boiling.

  “Excuse m—eee!” said the fish. Her voice cracked, went several octaves deeper, and then she wasn’t a fish at all, but a beautiful golden sea serpent not much bigger than a garter snake. “Oh my . . .”

  Molly would have loved to stop and admire the tiny sea serpent, but she knew they didn’t have time. “Go!” she whispered. “Hurry!”

  They went. Serenissima dove into the moat and the sea serpent went wiggling downward. Bubbles of s
team boiled up from their passage and burst on the surface of the water.

  The seconds ticked by. Molly tried to imagine where they were—had they reached the sunken doorway? Were they inside? Oh, surely they must be inside by now! Serenissima could breathe water, sort of, being a water spirit, so she wouldn’t drown, anyway. And once they were inside, as long as the goldfish was still a dragon, they only needed a little fire, only a tiny bit, and Serenissima could melt the ice and free Pins—

  She looked at her watch. A minute and a half.

  “They’ve got to be at the top by now,” she whispered to Majordomo.

  He nodded. “If there’s an alarm spell, it would have gone off by now, wouldn’t—”

  There was a roar from the tower, like a falling avalanche. Light flashed in the windows. Molly let out a squeak of horror.

  Bugbane zipped past the windows and dove into her hair. “She’s awake!”

  “There was an alarm spell . . .”

  The surface of the moat went as flat as a sheet of paper, and ice crackled and zigzagged across it, until it was frozen solid.

  Majordomo and Molly clutched each other’s forearms. There was nothing they could do.

  “Turn me into a dragon!” said Majordomo. “I’ll melt the ice—”

  “I can’t! It only works on animals! You can’t turn people into dragons! You’d get stuck or explode!”

  Bugbane fell out of her hair. “Me!” he squeaked.

  “I don’t know the magic word for bats!”

  (Should you ever find yourself in this situation, by the way, the word is Chiropteran. Molly looked it up as soon as they got back to the castle and learned it by heart.)

  The voice of Eudaimonia rang over the icy moat. “Very well! You may have gotten your precious doll back—but he won’t do you much good locked under the ice!”

  “They got him,” whispered Molly. “They got him! He doesn’t need to breathe, does he?”

  Majordomo shook his head slowly. “No . . . but the goldfish . . . she’ll freeze.”

  They clung together by the side of the moat. Molly felt tears prickle her eyes.

  And then, a few feet away, the surface of the moat seemed to sink a little, as if an invisible foot had stepped in it. The ice turned to slush and the slush fell away.

  Serenissima rose out of the hole.

  Pins clung to her hair. Steam rose off her.

  Cupped in the minion’s hands, fins barely moving, lay the goldfish.

  “Oh no,” said Molly. She and Majordomo grabbed Serenissima by the arms and pulled her up. Her normally scalding skin was barely lukewarm and her teeth were chattering together.

  Molly held out the bowl, and Serenissima gently dropped the fish in. She did not swim, but drifted toward the bottom.

  Pins leaped to her shoulder. Molly ran for the kitchen, one hand over the top of the bowl to keep the water from splashing out. The fish sloshed back and forth.

  She threw herself past Cook and set the fishbowl on the counter next to the stove, where the heat could warm the water.

  “Fish,” moaned Pins. “Oh fish, fish, love, you saved me, you were glorious, please be okay . . .” He reached into the bowl and pulled the sweater around her with agonizing tenderness.

  The minions held their breath.

  For a long, long moment, the goldfish simply lay there. Molly put a hand on Pins’s burlap shoulder.

  Then the fish opened one eye and whispered, “I shall get ich . . . and fin rot . . . and moat fever . . . and sarcoptic mange . . .”

  Her voice trailed off into a tiny goldfish snore.

  The kitchen erupted into cheers.

  They had saved Pins, and their tiny aquatic hero had survived.

  Chapter 46

  When the alarm went off, I thought we were done for,” said Serenissima. “Ice grew over everything. Fortunately the goldfish was still a dragon, and we managed to melt a hole in the ice over the opening to the moat. She was hopping mad when she saw that Pins was in that jar, and she was breathing fire on everything.”

  The steam spirit was bundled up by the stove with her feet in a bucket of hot water. Cook dumped a boiling kettleful into the bucket and Serenissima sighed in relief. “It was so cold,” she said. “I knew we had to get back out of the tower, and it was getting light enough that I could just see the door—but I’ve never been so cold.”

  “We’d better start on the moat now,” said Molly. “The less time she has to prepare, the better.”

  Angus and Miss Handlebram tramped out to the donkey pasture with her. The basilisk glared at them balefully over the stable door.

  “If we win, I hope we can do something for him,” said Angus. “Send her to a nice home for orphaned basilisks, perhaps. She’s not a bad monster, but she hasn’t been treated well at all.”

  It didn’t take Molly long to find what she was looking for. The early-morning light was gray and faded as the sun crept over the hills, and in the first rays, she saw a little mound of dirt and a hole.

  She knelt and put her mouth near the hole. “Excuse me? Can anyone hear me? I need to speak to Stonebreaker, please. It’s urgent.”

  She sat back on her heels.

  A few minutes passed, and then a fuzzy head popped up. “Eh? Eh?”

  Molly repeated herself.

  “Stonebreaker,” said the mole. “Witch. Eh?” He considered for a moment. “Eh!”

  He dove back into the earth.

  “Not much for conversation, are they?” said Angus.

  “And to think of all the trouble I’ve gone to keeping the little devils out of my garden,” said Miss Handlebram. “I had no idea they were so smart. I’m a little embarrassed now.”

  The ground rumbled. Molly stepped hurriedly aside, and a white snout broke out of the earth.

  “Witch,” said Stonebreaker, clasping his claws together.

  “Stonebreaker,” said Molly respectfully.

  He smiled. “You need a mole?”

  “Very much,” said Molly. “You know the moat around the tower? I need it drained.”

  Stonebreaker listened carefully. His whiskers twitched occasionally as she described the mud and the moat and the empty tower.

  “But you have to be careful,” said Molly. “There’s a very bad Sorceress in the tower. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

  Stonebreaker waved his claws. “Sorceress won’t see us. For Witch of Wormrise—yes. Moles will do this. Be ready.”

  He dove back into the earth.

  “Not much on long good-byes, are they?” asked Angus.

  Molly and the minions tromped up to the belfry. It was the best place in the castle to watch the tower from, although at first, there wasn’t anything much to watch.

  Cook handed around hot chocolate. From overhead, the bats snored quietly. (The Eldest opened one eye, said “Oh, it’s you,” and went back to sleep.)

  Then—“Look!” said Pins.

  They all crowded to the window.

  From all directions, like the points of a strange and wobbly star, mole tunnels were converging on the moat. They zigzagged back and forth, avoiding boulders and fence posts, coming in from all directions.

  “Ten—” said Pins. “Twenty—thirty-five—look at them all!”

  Moles began popping up out of the ground all over, scurrying over the grass and diving back into the dirt. Molly held her breath.

  “Is it some kind of magic?” asked Miss Handlebram.

  “No,” said Pins, quicker to catch on. “They can’t burrow right into the moat—they’d get washed away. They went right up to the edge, though, and now—”

  A large molehill formed. Stonebreaker came up out of it. He was a tiny white shape from this far up, but Molly saw him lift up his claws.

  The ground began to shake.

  Stones fel
l off the tower—all the towers. The floor rocked. The Eldest grumbled and pulled her wing over her head. Majordomo grabbed for Pins to keep him from falling out the window.

  From down below, the voice of Eudaimonia floated over the moat. “What is going on?!”

  “He’s breaking the end of the tunnels!” said Molly. “It’s a little tiny earthquake! Now the water’s going to drain into the tunnels!”

  And so it was. The ice in the moat teetered and split apart into chunks, like a river breaking up in spring. The water level was clearly sinking. There was a sharp crackling noise.

  A bolt of cold fire snaked out of the tower window at Stonebreaker.

  Before the minions could do more than gasp, the mole shaman had thrown his claws in the air in front of him. The magical attack sprayed in all directions, like cold sparks, and then Stonebreaker himself dove into the earth.

  The damage was done. The moat was already half drained.

  “We’ve got to move, before she figures out how to refill it!” said Angus.

  “Seeds!” said Miss Handlebram.

  “Spells!” said Molly.

  “Keep it down . . .” grumbled the Eldest.

  A few minutes later, Molly and the minions came out the front door, carrying bags of seeds. Angus had an enormous planter full of mint.

  Molly had wanted to go alone, but the minions wouldn’t hear of it. “If it’s just you, she’ll have one target,” said Angus. “If it’s all of us, she’ll have to think about who to freeze, and there’s more chance we’ll all get away.”

  He smiled. “And anyway, even if that’s rubbish, we’re not letting you go alone.”

  “For the Master!” said Edward.

  “For the Master!” cried the other minions and Miss Handlebram.

  Majordomo met her eyes. Molly held her breath—

  “For the Master,” he said.

  She blushed.

  The moat was completely gone now, leaving an expanse of mud. The empty doorway to the tower gaped open.