The Witch's Glass

by Holly Grant

  It was also the perfect place to whisper about Secret Missions of Life-and-Death Importance, and whisper the Dreadfuls did the following afternoon.

  “Did you find anything good in Calixto’s notebooks?” Anastasia asked.

  Gus frowned. “I’m not sure. There was some kind of plan for a flute that plays music on its own.”

  “Oh!” Anastasia said. “I wonder if Calixto wanted to hypnotize alligators?”

  “Alligators?” Ollie asked. “What does a magic flute have to do with alligators?”

  Anastasia told them about Calixto’s journey to New Orleans and his cousin François’s triumphs in reptile enchantment. Then she summarized Calixto’s globe-trotting. “He even went to Iceland and Japan!”

  “How could he have traveled so far so fast?” Gus asked.

  “Magic carpet?” Ollie suggested.

  “Calixto did fly on a magic carpet,” Anastasia said. “One of his warlock friends in Morocco had one. But that isn’t how he got around.” She leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “He made magical doors that open up to different countries.”

  “Incredible!” Gus’s eyes widened. “Do you think Calixto might have built a door that leads to the Silver Chest’s hiding place?”

  Anastasia’s heart thumped. “That’s what I was wondering.”

  Gus gave a little jump. “Maybe the magic doors are somewhere in the castle.”

  “Why would they be here?” Ollie asked. “Calixto’s office is clear across Nowhere Special!”

  “Yes, but this was his home,” Gus pointed out. “Calixto lived here before the Perpetual War, remember? He designed Cavepearl Palace.”

  “If there were any magic doors in this castle, don’t you think someone would have found them by now?” Ollie asked. “The Merrymoons have been living here for over two hundred years. Surely someone would notice that one of the palace doors opened into a Louisiana swamp!”

  “Cavepearl Palace is enormous,” Anastasia said. “I bet there are all sorts of nooks and crannies that nobody’s discovered yet. There could be secret doors and tunnels, too.”

  “She’s right,” Gus said. “Calixto was a genius, you know. He was great at hiding things. Who else would think of hiding a secret study at the top of a chimney? And even if we don’t find a magical door,” he went on, “we might find something else that belonged to him.”

  “It can’t hurt to look,” Quentin philosophized. “But where should we begin?”

  Were you, dear Reader, an evil warlock genius, where might you hide your magical portals to foreign and faraway lands?

  “In Francie Dewdrop mystery one hundred and one, The Case of the Cryptic Cockatoo,” Anastasia mused, “a bank robber melted down a million dollars’ worth of stolen platinum bars and turned it into a big birdcage for his parrot. Lots of people ransacked his house looking for the missing platinum, but nobody paid any attention to the birdcage.” She paused. “Until the cockatoo told Francie the secret.”

  “What does a birdcage have to do with magical doors?” Ollie demanded.

  “Nothing,” Anastasia said. “The point is: sometimes the best hiding place is right in plain sight. People overlook the obvious. Maybe the door is disguised as a window!”

  “Anastasia!” Gus cried. “That’s brilliant! I can just imagine Calixto leaping through a window and landing halfway across the world. You’re really thinking like a witch now!”

  “You’re not going to jump out one of the windows, are you?” Ollie cried. “You’d land in the lagoon, and the lagoon is full of electric eels!”

  Gus chewed his lip. “We could just throw something out and see if it disappears into thin air.”

  “Paper airplanes!” Quentin said.

  The Dreadfuls spent ten minutes folding a sheaf of Anastasia’s notebook paper into a squadron of airplanes, and then they set off in search of windows through which to fling them. As in many castles of yore, the windows outfitting Cavepearl Palace were not actually paned with glass. They were simply holes in the wall.

  “No wonder this place is so chilly,” Anastasia said.

  “Everywhere in the Cavelands is chilly,” Ollie said. “All right! Three…two…one…blast off!” He sent an airplane sailing through the window, and the Dreadfuls gathered around the ledge in breathless anticipation.

  “It just fell into the lagoon!” Anastasia groaned.

  “But did you see how far it flew?” Ollie preened. “That was a pretty good airplane.”

  After they had torpedoed their entire stock of planes, Gus drummed his fingertips on his chin. “Hmmm. What next?”

  “I suppose we’ll just have to wander about and see if we spot anything interesting,” Anastasia said. “Maybe Calixto hid his doors somewhere else.”

  Wander they did. They tiptoed betwixt armless statues in shadowy salons. They peered behind heavy tapestries embroidered with scenes of wolves galloping through midnight forests. They snooped beneath carpets in the hopes of glimpsing trapdoors. They even clambered into empty fireplaces and stared up the chimneys.

  “Nothing,” Quentin lamented, staggering from his thirteenth hearth and coughing up a handful of soot.

  They roamed the winding corridors, discovering rooms Anastasia had never seen. Some were fanciful bedchambers similar to hers, and others were deserted hollows. An arch at the end of a quartz-encrusted hallway led into a long cavern chock-full of artworks.

  “Mightn’t Calixto have hidden a magical door behind a painting?” Quentin asked.

  “Perhaps,” Gus said. “I wonder whether the queen brought these paintings in, or if they were here when the palace belonged to Calixto.”

  The Dreadfuls prowled through the gloomy gallery, peeking behind the gilded picture frames.

  “Anything interesting?” Gus called.

  “Nope,” the Dreadfuls chorused.

  “Maybe the paintings are magical,” Ollie said. “Maybe Calixto could hop into them, just like Mary Poppins!” He laid his palm flat against a still life of s’mores and roses. He pressed gently. To everyone’s disappointment, his hand did not reach into a far-flung realm. It only left a few candy-sticky fingerprints on the canvas.

  “Ollie!” Quentin scolded.

  “These paintings definitely didn’t belong to Calixto.” Gus paused in front of a section of portraits. “They’re all of the Merrymoon family.”

  There was an enormous oil of Baldwin in wolf form, and dozens of little portraits of noble-looking mice—Penny, Anastasia knew, from the intelligence gleaming in their bright mouse peepers. She stared at a painting of a solemn young woman dripping with armor and clutching a sword at her hip. A small golden tag bolted to the frame read WIGFREDA MERRYMOON AT THE BATTLE OF PENUMBRA CAVERN. It was Wiggy, girding her loins to chase witches from the Cavelands.

  Wiggy didn’t match up with the cozy, huggy, cookie-baking grandmothers in Anastasia’s old storybooks, but Anastasia was beginning to think that was just fine. Wiggy was brave and fierce. She was a hero.

  The admiration brimming in Anastasia’s eyes fizzled away as she slid her attention to a picture of Ludowiga, bewigged and beauty-marked, nostrils arched in their trademark sniff. Beside Ludowiga, a rococo-framed likeness of Saskia simpered: porcelain-skinned, silver-golden-haired, clasping a rose to her lacy bodice. Saskia looked every inch the princess. Anastasia scowled.

  Then she shifted her gaze to the next portrait: Fred McCrumpet, slightly ridiculous in a frilly collar the likes of which he had of course never worn in Mooselick. He didn’t look fierce like Baldwin, or noble like Wiggy, or clever like Penny, or imperious like Ludowiga, or beautiful like Saskia. He was plain and little, and his mustache drooped. But the artist had captured Fred’s gentle, kind expression.

  A dull ache throbbed through Anastasia’s chest.

  “That’s my dad,” she said.

  “Prrrrp.” Pippistrella snugged Anastasia’s ear in a batty hug.

  “He looks really nice,” Gus said softly. “He looks like you.”


  Anastasia bit her lip. Where did she, Anastasia, fit into this Merrymoon gallery? She couldn’t visualize herself among the frills and armor.

  “What’s this?” Quentin crossed to an alcove wherein hung a curtain of black velveteen. He plucked the corner of the shroud between forefinger and thumb and peeled it upward. “Oh! It’s Nicodemus!”

  “It’s the painting in our Cavelands History textbook!” Gus said.

  “Why do you suppose Nicodemus is covered up with a curtain?” Ollie asked.

  “Maybe it makes Wiggy too sad to see him,” Anastasia pondered.

  “I think it’s sadder still to cover him up,” Quentin said.

  Anastasia leaned closer, examining the compass tattoo gilding Nicodemus’s hand. A shivery thrill limned her veins. Could this cluster of circles and stars really guide her to Fred? What if Calixto’s magic had gone sour, and the compass instead pointed the Dreadfuls to a random hot dog stand on Coney Island?

  Still, the compass was her best bet of finding her father. Anastasia let the velveteen fall and checked her pocket watch. “It’s half past three,” she said. “Baldy and Aunt Penny said we’d leave for Dinkledorf around four o’clock.”

  Venturing from the gallery, Anastasia found that she’d lost all sense of direction. The Dreadfuls muddled through the labyrinth of palace corridors until they emerged in a great hallway filled with snow globes. In the gloomy realm of shadow and candle glow, the spheres shimmered like miniature moons.

  “I recognize this,” Anastasia panted. “We’re in the Hall of Snow Globes—the dining room is at the end.”

  “The queen’s snow globes!” Ollie said. “Pretty! Ooooh—this one has a little Cavepearl Palace inside it!”

  Gus peered into one of the snow-sprinkled little worlds. “This one is snowing all on its own!”

  Sure enough, artificial snowflakes whirled within the rondure as though stirred by their own private wind.

  “How does that work?” Gus asked, amazed. “We didn’t even touch it! Do you suppose—”

  “Ludowiga! Really!” Penny’s protest drifted from the dining hall. “Anastasia is a child!”

  The Dreadfuls exchanged wide-eyed glances and then shuffled closer to the door.

  “Oh, Penny,” Ludowiga sneered. “Your holier-than-thou attitude isn’t serving Anastasia here. The princess needs to know about Caveland politics.”

  “Sweet mother of teacup, Loodie!” Baldwin bellowed. “Anastasia’s only eleven.”

  “Ah,” Ludowiga said. “But she won’t be eleven forever, Baldwin. And, unfortunately for us all, she’s the firstborn of the firstborn. Even if you two are content to let her while away her days gobbling pizza and reading cheap mystery novels, I am not. She must prepare for her duties as queen.”

  “Duties as queen!” Gus whispered, eyeing Anastasia.

  Her stomach wambled. Queen?

  “Stop pretending you have Anastasia’s best interests at heart,” Baldwin said.

  “I have this family’s best interests at heart,” Ludowiga hissed. “If anything happens to Wiggy, Anastasia is next in succession.”

  “Unless Fred is here,” Penny said.

  “He won’t be,” Ludowiga said. “Fred is long gone. He’s dead, or maybe he ran away again. And if Anastasia is queen, don’t you want her to have a strong army? Or would you rather roll out a welcome mat and toss confetti at the witches as they storm the castle?”

  “Penny and I will always safeguard Anastasia,” Baldwin said. “If anything happens to Her Mommyness before Anastasia’s ready to rule, we’ll just take her abovecaves. We’ll go hide out in the Arctic Circle, if that’s what it takes! Then you can have the throne. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

  “It’s what I deserve,” Ludowiga cried. “Fredmund is a lump, and he always has been. He’s only two minutes older than me—two minutes! Do you really think two lousy minutes better equips him than me for the throne?”

  “No,” Penny said. “I think Fred’s heart better equips him.”

  “His heart?” Ludowiga raged.

  “Fred’s heart is wide and warm and good,” Baldwin said. “He’s kind and compassionate. Whereas you, Ludowiga, aren’t.”

  “Let’s consider the rest of Fred’s anatomy, shall we?” Ludowiga’s voice trembled with rage. “He’s lily-livered. He’s gutless. He’s spineless! He turned his back on this family—and our subjects—to marry a human and hole up in some dinky town halfway across the world. And now he’s gone missing yet again and left us with a Halfling heir apparent. So forgive me if I don’t care about Fred’s mushy, gushy heart—when he’s proven to be the Crown’s Achilles’ heel!”

  The clickity-click of high-heeled slippers punctuated this diatribe. Ludowiga had quit the dining hall, Anastasia gathered, and Penny’s and Baldwin’s murmurs faded away as they, too, departed. Anastasia turned from the doorway, shaking.

  “Anastasia,” Gus said, his eyes round, “you’re not just a princess. You’re the crown princess. You’re next in line for the throne.”

  BACK IN THE library, the Dreadfuls gathered around Anastasia.

  “Did you have any idea?” Gus asked.

  The Halfling heir apparent stared at him in a daze. “No. I knew Dad and Ludowiga were twins…but for some reason, I thought she was older. She seems older.”

  “Your dad has been out of the Cavelands for years,” Gus said slowly. “I’ve only heard Ludowiga mentioned as the heir. I think everyone sort of assumed Fred abdicated his right of succession, and that Ludowiga was next in line.”

  “I don’t want to be queen.” Anastasia’s voice wobbled. “Did you hear what Ludowiga said about witches storming the castle?”

  “We won’t let anything happen to you,” Ollie declared, giving her a fierce hug. “We’d run away first!”

  “Peep!” Pippistrella agreed.

  “We won’t need to,” Gus said firmly. “Because we’re going to find Nicodemus and your dad, Anastasia. Even if something happens to your grandmother, you won’t have to be queen for a long time.”

  Anastasia nodded, but a ghastly chill had settled deep inside her chest. What if Ludowiga was right? What if Fred was dead?

  “Oh, here you are!” Penny said. Her voice was bright, but her eyes were red and puffy behind her glasses.

  “Are you ready for our abovecaves frolics?” Baldwin dumped a jumble of hats and mittens and scarves onto one of the library tables. “It’s supposed to be a full moon tonight!”

  Anastasia dragged her thoughts from crowns and thrones and her father. She wanted to find out whether the moon sozzled her bones the way it sozzled other Morfolk’s bones. “Yes,” she said. “We’re ready.”

  “Goody,” Baldwin said. “And we should have time to visit the cuckoo clock shop, too. I’m simply dying for a new cuckoo.”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “Boys, your parents know you’re coming abovecaves with us, right?”

  The boys all nodded. Gus nodded especially vigorously.

  “They’re not worried?” Penny said.

  The boys all shook their heads. Gus shook his head especially vigorously.

  “We’ve been to Dinkledorf lots of times,” Ollie said. “Our dad takes us up on snow globe runs.”

  “Ah yes,” Baldwin said. “For his music boxes. I’ve been meaning to drop by your shop and get a present for a certain lady friend.”

  “For Penny?” Anastasia asked.

  Baldwin crimsoned. “Ah—no. A different kind of lady friend. Of course,” he added, “we could just drop by Celestina Wata’s workshop and get a snow globe there. Besides, I’m sure Gus would like to visit his aunt.”

  “O-o-oh,” Gus stammered. “You know, I can see Aunt Teeny anytime. And I’d much rather see that cuckoo clock shop. I’m—er—curious to know how cuckoo clocks work.”

  “Good for you!” Penny said. “I’m rather peckish for a little lesson in mechanical engineering myself!” She snugged a knit cap over Gus’s head. “Now, keep this on the en
tire time we’re in Dinkledorf. You don’t want anyone up there seeing your snakes.”

  “And we’re off!” Baldwin declared. “The game’s afoot!”

  “What game?” Ollie asked.

  “Why,” Baldwin puzzled, “general fun and tomfoolery, I suppose.”

  A jaunt in the royal gondola took them to a pier on the outskirts of Nowhere Special, and thence the sledding party hiked up a steep, ninety-nine-step stairwell to Dinkledorf. To be precise, they hiked ninety-nine stairs to a little cavern jam-packed with cheese. This petite cave was the cellar of the Merry Mouse, Dinkledorf’s premier cheese shop.

  “Ah!” Penny cried, savoring the bouquet of one hundred ripe wheels of stinky cheese. “Delicious!”

  They scaled a second flight of stairs, arriving in a cramped chalet chockablock with even more cheese. An elderly lady, pink-cheeked and white-aproned, was busy adjusting jars of jam on one of the wooden shelves. Upon spying her new visitors, she launched herself at Penny with a hug. “Ah! Penelope, liebe!”

  “Guten Tag, Gisela,” Penny mumbled into the cheesemonger’s collar. “Oh, it’s good to see you!”

  “And here is the good Baldwin, strapping and handsome as ever.” Gisela beamed. “But who are these little ones?”

  Penny introduced the Dreadfuls. “And this,” she said, “is Fräulein Dinkle. Her family invented the recipe for Merry Mouse Gruyère over three hundred years ago, and Dinkledorf is named after them.”

  “My son invented Merry Mouse Gruyère,” Gisela clarified. “He was history’s greatest cheesemonger.” Her eyes twinkled, and she dabbed them with the edge of her apron.

  “Stolen from us far too young,” Baldwin snuffled, clasping Gisela’s shoulder. “When Klaus left us, the world lost a true cheese genius.”

  “And Penelope and I lost more than that.” Gisela smiled sadly at Penny.

  “He’s clog-stomping in the great hereafter,” Baldwin eulogized.