by Holly Grant
“What about Poppa?” Penny asked. “The Silver Chest has likely remained in the same spot since 1756. And it will probably be there ten years from now.”
“But the Chest is enchanted to stay hidden, Penny,” Baldwin said. “And you know the hags’ wishes aren’t powerful enough to undo witch magic.”
“The Chest is enchanted, but Poppa isn’t,” Penny said. “We wouldn’t wish to find the Silver Chest; just Poppa.”
“Ah!” Baldwin marveled. “A clever loophole! Ingenious! Penny, you should have been a lawyer!”
“It is a good idea,” Wiggy said. “I had it myself. Unfortunately, the hags’ wishes can reveal neither the Chest nor its contents.” She sighed again heavily. “Hag wishes aren’t omnipotent. There are limits to what the hags can do.”
Perhaps, Reader, you have heard the old proverb “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.” It’s another way of saying that wishing is silly and ineffectual. Anastasia did not agree that wishing was silly. She was not going to stop wishing and hoping to find her father. But she was also wise enough to know that wishes and hope often needed a little elbow grease to properly jell. And even if the hags couldn’t supply the elbow grease required to reveal the missing Merrymoons’ whereabouts, Anastasia thought, the Dreadfuls could.
Wiggy reached out to smooth Anastasia’s braid. “The hags did mention that they would love a visit from you, my dear.”
“Maybe they can wish up a unicorn for us,” Baldwin mused. “I’ve always wanted a pet unicorn! I would name it Narwhal.”
“Oh, Baldy,” Penny said. “You know unicorns aren’t real.”
“If you don’t change your attitude, Penny, I won’t let you pet Narwhal,” Baldwin countered. He clapped Anastasia on the shoulder. “Now, eat up this scrummy fondue. A growing Morfling needs plenty of cheese to keep up her strength!”
Penny dunked a morsel of bread into the pot of molten cheese. “This week’s Pettifog newsletter mentioned a school concert next month, Anastasia.”
Anastasia chomped her fondue. “Yep. We got a big lecture about it today. Marm Pettifog says we have to be on our best behavior because Superintendent Sternum is invited. I think she wants to impress him.”
“Then you should put a whoopee cushion on his seat,” Baldwin urged. “I’ll lend you mine—it’s extra-squishy.”
Penny ignored him. “Now that Quentin is first chair saw in the Nowhere Special symphony, does he still play in the Pettifog orchestra?”
“Yes, he—”
“Your Mommyness!” Ludowiga gasped, bolting into the dining hall. “Your Mommyness, did you hear? Oh, disaster! Calamity!”
“Why, Ludowiga!” Wiggy said. “What’s wrong?”
“Senator Gibbeous is dead!”
“Dead?” Wiggy echoed.
“Nonsense,” Baldwin said. “We just saw him today in the Senate Cave. He complimented my cravat. A man of excellent taste!”
“That’s all very well and good, but he’s dead now,” Ludowiga said. “He croaked in the middle of a fondue course at the Gilded Cheddar one hour ago.”
“Oh dear,” Penny said. “Poor man. I did think he was looking rather frail lately.”
“He was over six hundred years old,” Baldwin mused.
“At least he died eating cheese,” Penny said softly.
“A fine way to go,” Baldwin eulogized. “A fine way.”
“But still sad,” Penny said.
“It’s worse than sad,” Ludowiga said. “It’s catastrophic! Gibbeous couldn’t have picked a worse time to kick the bucket!”
Baldwin shot her a dirty look. “Why? Are you worried his funeral will interrupt some important party?”
“Baldwin, don’t you pay the slightest attention in Congress?” Ludowiga demanded. “Senator Gibbeous always backed the Crown. Always. And in case you haven’t noticed, we need every bit of support we can get for the Merrymoon Militia Bill. The vote is in six weeks.”
“This does tip the scales,” Wiggy murmured. “The Dellacavas are campaigning fiercely against my proposed tax increase.”
“They’ve even persuaded Larry and Linus Cummerbund to vote against it,” Ludowiga said. “Victoria Cummerbund hinted as much at my tea party yesterday.”
“Cummerbund?” Anastasia piped up. “There’s a Jasper Cummerbund in my class!”
Ludowiga nodded. “Linus Cummerbund is his father. Anastasia, sit near Jasper in the Pettifog caveteria this week, and keep your freckled ears pricked. See if he mentions anything about the bill.”
“Ludowiga!” Penny cried. “Really! Anastasia is not a snoop.”
“Oh, get off your high horse, Penny,” Ludowiga snapped. “Every member of this family needs to do their part to protect the Crown’s interests, including silly Halflings like Anastasia.”
Anastasia ignored this barb. “What is the Merrymoon Militia Bill?”
“It’s a proposal to increase our military budget,” Wiggy said. “We would use the money to fortify the Cavelands army.”
A shiver tickled Anastasia’s spine as she remembered Marm Pettifog’s Practical Survival lecture. “Because of witches?”
Wiggy nodded. “You understand, the witches consider these caves theirs. There’s still a silver mine somewhere down here to fuel their magic, and plenty of space in which to practice it far from the prying eyes of humans.” She steepled her fingers. “Should the witches ever return, I fear it shall prove the bloodiest chapter of the Perpetual War. I fear it shall prove the final chapter.”
“Why?” Anastasia whispered.
“Because, my dear child, it would be a fight to the death. It wouldn’t end until one side was utterly crushed. The witches won’t come back unless they’re prepared for that.” The queen’s strange eyes flashed. “And, as you know only too well from your experiences at St. Agony’s Asylum, witches aren’t the only threat to Morfolk safety. CRUD remains a constant menace. The Merrymoon Militia Bill would bolster our abovecaves espionage network, too.”
Penny smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, we have quite a few enemies.”
“Including the Dellacavas,” Ludowiga snapped. “They’re doing everything they can to sabotage this bill.”
“But why?” Anastasia asked. “Don’t they want Morfolk to be safe?”
“The Dellacavas put their pocketbooks before everything else,” Baldwin gruffed. “They don’t want to pay higher taxes, even though they’re one of the richest families in Nowhere Special.”
“But their main agenda is political,” Ludowiga hissed. “The Dellacavas grasp any opportunity to undermine the Crown. They’re certainly not going to support a bill that would strengthen the queen’s army!” She slapped the tabletop, jouncing the fondue pot. “Those silvermongers have been stirring up trouble for centuries!”
“So they have,” Wiggy said wearily. “But let’s put aside matters of state for the evening, shall we? Tonight, I am going to mourn the passing of a dear colleague.” She stood and crooked a finger, summoning her bats-in-waiting to follow her from the hall.
“But, Your Mommyness!” Ludowiga wailed, scurrying in the queen’s wake. “We need to strategize….” Her protestations faded down the hallway.
“Thank goodness I’ve been blessed with a stalwart stomach.” Baldwin reached for a lump of bread. “Otherwise, I would have lost my appetite after that little scene.”
Anastasia frowned. “Why did Ludowiga call the Dellacavas silvermongers?”
Penny twiddled a button on her jacket. “Back before the Perpetual War, the Dellacavas exported silver for the witches.”
“But silver is poisonous to Morfolk!” Anastasia cried.
“Indeed it is,” Baldwin said. “But there was a thumping good trade in silver abovecaves back then, as now. The witches owned the silver mines in Nowhere Special, as you know. They used silver in their magic, but they also sold silver in abovecave markets. And the Dellacavas helped them.”
“The Dellacavas blocked quite a few of the bans the Morfolk Senate t
ried to impose on the witches’ magic,” Penny said.
“Hmph!” Baldwin harrumphed. “Witch sympathizers! They were just looking out for their own business interests.”
Penny reached across the table to squeeze Anastasia’s hand. “You mustn’t worry too much about Caveland politics, my dear. You have your own concerns. For one: homework.”
Normally, Anastasia would protest and bellyache and carry on in the face of homework, but this evening she kept her mouth shut. The sooner she muddled through her history paper and Echolalia worksheets and math problems, the sooner she could begin reading Calixto Swift’s secret journals.
THAT NIGHT, BY the golden glow of her candelabrum, Anastasia munched a plateful of snickerdoodle cookies and pored through the fancier of the two books she had pilfered from Calixto’s study. It was a lovely volume, leather-bound with silverwork filigreeing the cover.
Anastasia stared now at this delicate metalwork, thinking of witches and Dellacavas and silver mines. Nobody knew where the witches’ old mines were now, which suited Morfolk just fine. You wouldn’t catch a Morfo in a silver mine. Sometime around age eleven, Morflings developed a severe allergy to silver. Just touching silver made a Morfo break out in painful blisters and stinging rashes, and prolonged exposure to silver sapped a Morfo’s strength. For this reason, Primrose and Prudence Snodgrass had clasped a silver cage over Quentin’s head back at the asylum. And Prim and Prude had packed their kidnapper lair with silver doodads and loaded their Watcher shotguns with silver bullets. Silver injuries were very bad for Morfolk.
In fact, a nefarious warlock had burned off Wiggy’s eyelids with a silver spell many ages earlier, in the first battle of the Perpetual War. The queen had had them replaced with glass so she could always watch for the return of witches, even in her sleep.
Tucked now into the safety of her comforter, Anastasia scrutinized Calixto’s silver-bound journal. She then reached out her right hand and pressed her palm firmly against the poisonous metalwork.
Perhaps you are bracing yourself for a scream of agony. Perhaps you’re even expecting smoke to seep out from between Anastasia’s fingers. However, neither of these things happened. Nothing happened. She didn’t even feel itchy.
Anastasia stared at her palm, bemused. Why didn’t she react to silver in the manner of every other Morfo in the world? The Merrymoons had explained to Anastasia that her Morfolky development might differ, since her mother had been a human. Anastasia, the Merrymoon princess, was a Halfling.
Anastasia was nonetheless puzzled. She had metamorphosed that very morning, after all.
“Most mysterious,” she informed Pippistrella.
“Squeak!” Pippistrella replied from her nook in the canopy.
Anastasia shrugged and carefully opened the silver-bound book. After scanning the first page, she realized it was some kind of diary.
Now, gentle Reader, reading someone else’s diary is usually a no-no. Diaries are sacred places in which to unburden one’s heart and pour one’s soul. Even the most hard-boiled detective or villainous rogue knows that opening someone else’s journal without permission is a gamble with fate.
You might expect Anastasia to now hesitate. However, she didn’t even bat an eyelash before diving into the jumbly cursive. She had no scruples about reading Calixto’s diary, not if it provided a clue that would lead her to Nicodemus.
September 13, 1753
At breakfast this morning Nico bemoaned his craving for a proper beignet. Aha! thought I, ’tis the perfect opportunity for a little magic trick! I excused myself on the pretext of visiting the loo, but I actually whisked upon a whirlwind trip to visit Cousin François in New Orleans. Of course, I arrived in the middle of the night!
François lives in a grand mansion on the bayou, and he wears the same frilly fashions he wore back in France. He looks every inch the foolish popinjay, which is how he best camouflages his witchery from the humans. Nonetheless, I teased him about his silk stockings. Mind you, François’s magic is powerful strange, and he’s been training in voodoo. He’s even hypnotized the alligators living in his swamp—he plays them a tune on a bewitched flute, and up from the mossy depths the beasts march like a small reptilian army. I wouldn’t tease him too much.
Imagine Nico’s astonishment when I brought a dozen beignets back to the breakfast table, still piping hot from François’s griddle!
Anastasia goggled at the page. How could Calixto travel from Louisiana to Nowhere Special before his donuts cooled? It was impossible! Even a supersonic jet couldn’t blast from New Orleans to Switzerland in the five minutes or so it would take for a pastry to lose its heat. And Calixto had written this in the eighteenth century, well over one century before the Wright brothers rigged up the first airplane. Was Calixto just exaggerating? Or had he used some kind of hocus-pocus to travel across the globe? Had he flown on an enchanted broomstick?
Anastasia plucked a snickerdoodle from her plate and crunched into it, leaning again over Calixto’s journal.
October 24, 1753
Last Monday I received an invitation from my good friend Youssef, urging me to come to Morocco to admire his newest project: a rug enchanted to fly. All week I labored to craft a magic door to Marrakesh, and last night I set upon my merry jaunt.
’Twas a pleasure to see old Youssef, but a greater pleasure still to behold his magic carpet! Oh, what a ride it was! We loop-the-looped starry stories above the town, cloaked in the gloom of a night of new moon. I was positively giddy by the time we landed.
I implored Youssef to bind a magic carpet for me, and the good fellow agreed. We set off for the markets, and I chose a rug from one of the stalls. Zounds, I shall be on pins and needles waiting for Youssef to spellbind it!
Magic door! So that was how Calixto zipped across the globe so quickly. Her gaze drifting back to the Louisiana entry, Anastasia wondered just how many enchanted doors the old warlock had forged.
The following entries described similar trips. Calixto had gone to Egypt and Iceland. He claimed to have toasted marshmallows with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. He had picnicked beneath cherry blossoms in Japan and sniffed roses in the gardens at Hampton Court Palace in England. The silver-bound volume was not, Anastasia realized, the sort of diary into which one scribbles their deepest, darkest secrets. It was a travel journal.
Still, she mused, it might provide a clue about the Silver Chest’s whereabouts. She jotted in her sketchbook:
LOUISIANA—BAYOU
MOROCCO—MARKETPLACE
EGYPT—GREAT SPHINX OF GIZA
JAPAN—SHINTO SHRINE, CHERRY TREE
ICELAND—REYKJAVIK
ENGLAND—HAMPTON COURT PALACE
PHILADELPHIA—S’MORES?
Anastasia stared at her notes. She certainly hoped Calixto hadn’t hidden the Silver Chest deep in a gloopy Louisiana swamp, guarded by beignet-chomping alligators. How on earth would the Dreadfuls ever manage to dredge out Nicodemus?
She shook her head and turned the page to the final entry.
June 9, 1754
Still squiffy after last night’s gallivants with Nico…by the stars and the moon, that man can outdrink any pirate! Together we finished off two bottles of rum. Speaking of pirates, in the midst of our potted revelries we ventured to Penzance. (I blindfolded Nico for the trip—imagine his surprise when he found himself in the English port town!)
Many of the details of our great whoop-de-do eluded me this morning, until I glimpsed upon my forearm a mermaiden penned in emerald-colored ink. She actually winked at me, the saucy lass! Then bits and pieces of our adventure in Penzance came back to me, like fragments of a dream: Nico and I went to a tattoo parlor in the wee hours!
Now I remember: the tattoo artist inscribed a compass on Nico’s hand—a compass to guide him to ever-wandering Fredmund, who ran away again last week after another quarrel with his twin, Ludowiga. I bound the ink with a finder spell, so the compass should work like a charm!
Nico and I have a little j
est in mind for Fred. Tonight we’ll challenge him to a game of hide-and-seek….He may go anywhere in Nowhere Special, with a half-hour head start….We’ll astound the poor child with our “tracking skills”! Nico promised to wear gloves today to conceal the tattoo, so as not to ruin the joke.
He’s still wondering about our trip to Penzance—he came by my workshop for brunch, full of curiosity. “By gum, Calixto,” said he, “I’m simply dying to know how you got us a thousand miles away in the blink of an eye!” I told him I couldn’t possibly reveal the magic mechanisms—that I derive far too much pleasure in surprising and confounding him. But really, there are some secrets I can’t tell even Nico. I trust him with my life; I love him dearer than a brother; but I cannot make all my witchery plain. Like so many good and dutiful husbands, he tells his wife everything. And lovely though Wigfreda may be, she’s still a Von der Mond, and the Von der Monds have made no bones about their distaste for magic. No, my magic doors are a secret between the Glass Lady and yours truly.
Anastasia looked up from the journal, her thoughts all out of kilter. Up until then, she had imagined Calixto Swift as a cardboard villain, a crafty witch who had cloaked evil intentions behind smiles and gags and puppet shows. However, through Calixto’s jolly travel memoirs, she was beginning to glimpse a different character altogether. It was difficult indeed to reconcile the merry jokester of the journal jottings with the backstabber behind the Dastardly Deed.
What in caves had twisted the warlock’s heart so horribly? What had provoked the donut-sharing, prank-playing wizard to consign his best friend to a fate worse than death? Anastasia was baffled, because one truth shone through page after page of the silver-bound chronicles: Calixto Swift had loved Nicodemus.
THE LIBRARY IN Cavepearl Palace was, Anastasia reckoned, one of the coziest spots in the entire world. Packed with thousands of Penny’s tomes, chockablock with Baldwin’s collection of cuckoo clocks, crammed with old globes and brass telescopes and squishy chairs, the palace book nook was the perfect place to dive into a novel or a nap, or both.