by Holly Grant
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This moon brings out the wolf in me, you know.”
“And the shadow in me,” Ollie said. “I’m just twitching to umbrate. But I’m not going to, because I want to sled, too.”
“And sled we shall,” Baldwin said. He turned back to the funicular and began heaving out their sleds: sturdy, old-timey wooden beauties borrowed from a Morfo family who lived at the base of Mount Dinkle.
Each member of the sledding crew pulled a sled across the shivery ground and to the top of a snow-packed trail, marble-smooth and glowing silver-white beneath the full moon’s blaze.
“Does this go all the way back down the mountain?” Gus asked, eyeing the slippery chute a bit dubiously.
“It surely does,” Penny said. “It curves and crooks around, though. It’s not a straight up-and-down shot like the funicular.”
“The whole shebang takes seven minutes,” Baldwin said.
“Sit down on your sled and lean back a bit,” Penny instructed them. “Hold tight to your reins. Put your feet on the outside of the runners, like so—”
“And try not to crash into a tree,” Baldwin said, giving Penny a great push. Off she slid down the mountain, letting out a soft librarian huzzah. Next Quentin, then Ollie, then Gus, then Anastasia launched into the wild snowy yonder; and Baldwin brought up the rear.
The jaunt down Mount Dinkle indeed lasted seven minutes, and, oh, what a seven minutes it was! Anastasia forgot about Pettifog Academy. She forgot about Ludowiga. She forgot all about crowns and thrones and witches and CRUD. For seven minutes, the twin stones of worry and loss—hanging constantly at Anastasia’s heart like the weights on a cuckoo clock—lifted. Featherlight she felt, helium-hearted, zinging shooting-star-like through the night with Pippistrella clinging to one of her braids. The yelps and cheers of the sledding party rang out and sang out and shivered upon the crisp frosty air. It was one of those gorgeous occasions when, despite all evidence to the contrary, everything in the world was right and good and lovely.
Whump! Whump-whump-whump-whump-whump! The six sleds disgorged their Morfo cargo into a thick snowbank at the base of Mount Dinkle. Everyone was wheeze-laughing and wobbly-legged, blurry-eyed with tears jiggled loose by the cold.
Then Gus pointed at the sky. “Look!”
Anastasia rubbed her peepers. A smear of color coated the starry vault from the celestial North Pole to the horizon, pale green and delicate pink, gossamer-sheer and scintillating. It reminded Anastasia of the oil rainbows that sometimes slick parking lot puddles, but on a gobsmackingly grand scale. And Anastasia was gobsmacked. Her jaw dropped and she boggled.
“The aurora borealis,” Baldwin whispered.
“Crumbs,” Anastasia breathed. “I’ve never seen anything so pretty!”
“It is pretty,” Penny said, but a tremor rippled through her voice.
Baldwin’s mustache bristled. “As much as I hate to forgo a trip to the S’mores Chalet, I think we should go to ground.”
“Go to ground!” Anastasia protested. “Can’t we sled down the mountain just one more time? Please?”
“I promise not to throw up in the funicular,” Gus added.
“Not tonight,” Penny said. “Quickly now, children. Leave your sleds here.” She was using her No-Nonsense, Brook-No-Argument librarian tone, and she and Baldwin had already begun marching through the snowdrifts heaping the edge of Dinkledorf. Anastasia exchanged a bewildered glance with the boys, and then they scrambled to follow.
The elder Merrymoons didn’t offer a word of explanation until they were safely squished back into the royal gondola, sailing posthaste for Cavepearl Palace.
“There’s probably nothing to worry about,” Penny said. “The northern lights are, in most cases, an entirely natural phenomenon.”
“In most cases?” Gus echoed.
“Sometimes the aurora borealis shows up when witches are near,” Baldwin said.
“You mean a witch might have cooked up that—that boory-alice—with a magic spell?” Ollie squeaked.
Penny shook her head. “Not exactly. It’s very rare, but certain witches influence their surroundings just by being. The magic brimming inside them somehow affects the atmosphere, even if they don’t try to. Even if they try not to.”
“We used to know a witch who couldn’t go near a harpsichord without ruining its pitch,” Baldwin said. “She was banned from the symphony, actually.”
“How horrible!” Quentin cried.
“And some witches interfere with clockwork,” Penny said. “Not all of them, but some. Franz’s brother, Hansel, owns a watch shop in Dark-o’-the-Moon Common—actually, he’s the queen’s official timekeeper—and he forbade witches from entering his showroom.”
“Anyway,” Baldwin said, “back when witches lived in Nowhere Special, the aurora borealis popped up around Dinkledorf more nights than it didn’t! I’ll wager Calixto Swift triggered ’em. His great-granddaddy was a Lapland wizard, after all.”
“Lapland?” Gus crinkled his brow. “You mean that place in Finland?”
Baldwin nodded. “They used to brew powerful strange magic up in Lapland. The wizards there slopped the sky with their Witch Lights, and they worked all kinds of spells with snow.”
“Calixto used to say snow-magic ran in his blood,” Penny murmured.
“Well,” Baldwin said grimly, “he was certainly cold-blooded.”
Anastasia paled. “Does this mean there’s a witch up in Dinkledorf now?”
Penny hesitated. “Probably not. The world is full of all kinds of marvels and strangeness, and most of it has nothing to do with witch magic. But it is unusual to see the northern lights as far south as Switzerland nowadays—and we’re better safe than sorry.” She removed her glasses and rubbed away the last twinkling bits of frost. “I just hope the news of this aurora sighting doesn’t send Nowhere Special into a tizzy. Morfolk tend to panic at the mere mention of the northern lights.”
Anastasia felt a little panicked herself. The prospect of witches lurking in cozy Dinkledorf sent shivers down her spine.
“Oh, don’t look so perturbed, my girl.” Baldwin tweaked Anastasia’s braid. “Once we get back to the palace, we’ll roast s’mores in the library fireplace. How does that sound?”
Anastasia managed a weak smile. However, Reader, there are woes in life that even the most delicious of s’mores cannot sweeten, and Anastasia suspected her new batch of witchy worries was lamentably s’mores-proof.
WHENEVER ANASTASIA IMAGINED a city in the throes of panic, she pictured people running in circles and tearing at their hair and hollering. She had gotten such notions from television movies depicting earthquakes and alien invasions and the like, and she wondered whether Nowhere Special would spiral into that kind of ruckus once the Cavelanders heard about the borealis in Dinkledorf. However, it did not. Everyone went about their normal business of drinking tea and wearing wigs and going to work, and things seemed normal enough.
But whispers rustled through the Cavelands: witch…witch…witch. Morfolk whispered about witches in their homes and at the beauty parlor and the coffee shop. Witch…witch…witch. Morflings whispered about witches at school. Witch…witch…
“Stop whispering!” Marm Pettifog scolded. “You may not speak in class unless spoken to!”
“But, Marm Pettifog, we’re scared!” Taffline said. “What if there’s a witch in Nowhere Special?”
“Then you best prepare yourself by studying hard for your Practical Survival exams,” Marm Pettifog said. “Speaking of which, it’s time for your first fencing lesson—” Her rebuke dissolved into a fit of coughing.
“Marm Pettifog, are you sick?” Jasper asked eagerly. “Maybe you should stay home tomorrow.”
“Jasper’s right,” Ollie piped up. “Your bellowing is rather raspy today.”
“Nonsense,” the schoolmistress croaked. “Illness is for the weak-willed. Now, go meet Sir Foxglove in the gymnasium! And I recommend you all behave for him: Sir F
oxglove used to be a cutthroat pirate captain, and he doesn’t take kindly to back talk. It reminds him of mutinies.” Her evil smile convulsed into a sneeze, and she waved the children away.
“A pirate captain!” Jasper thrilled as the fifth graders clambered downstairs. “Do you suppose he’ll have a parrot? And a peg leg?”
“What if he has a hook instead of a hand?” Ollie squealed.
A man stood at the front of the gym cave, watching the approaching Pettifoggers with bright-eyed interest, and they stared back at him. He was neat and trim and no taller than most of the fifth graders. He wore a pin-striped suit and a bowler hat, and no diabolical hook curved from either of his crisp white cuffs. He was holding a teacup in one hand and a saucer in the other. A closed umbrella dangled from the crook of his right arm. He resembled any smart businessman you might see in a coffee shop abovecaves, sipping tea before heading off to catch his morning train.
“Are you Sir Foxglove?” Jasper blurted out. “You don’t look like a pirate.”
“The golden days of piracy ended many years ago, my dear lad,” Sir Foxglove replied in polished tones. “And with them went the pirate traditions of yore.”
“So you don’t have a parrot?” Jasper persisted.
“Certainly not,” Sir Foxglove said. “I never understood the appeal. My colleague One-Eyed Greenbeard had a big African gray, and went about with his shoulder absolutely coated in bird droppings. Most unhygienic.” Sir Foxglove drained the last of his tea. “But you aren’t here to learn about pirates. You’re here to learn how to defend yourselves in the event of a witch attack.”
Sir Foxglove flung up teacup and saucer and umbrella. With his right hand he grabbed the umbrella handle, and with the left he yanked off the nylon canopy, revealing a long, metal skewer. Slash! Whiz! The spike sliced back and forth, smashing the teacup and saucer to bits midair. CRASH! Tinkle! Before the stunned Pettifoggers could even blink, the broken bits of china pattered to the gymnasium floor, and the sharp red tip of Sir Foxglove’s foil hovered a mere inch away from Ollie’s lapel. A foil is a type of thin, pointed sword. The Pettifoggers now stared at the red-tinged tip of Sir Foxglove’s foil.
“Witches could strike at any moment,” Sir Foxglove said. “They won’t send a telegram asking whether it would be convenient to strike after tea next Friday. Witches are most impolite!”
He pressed the foil ever closer to Ollie, urging the Shadowboy backward. The Pettifoggers followed its crimson point with their eyes, hypnotized.
“That’s why you must be ready for a witch invasion at any moment. No matter if you’re taking tea or watching the ballet or sitting in the loo. If witches sneak down to the Cavelands, what will you do?”
“My daddy and grandfather say witches will never return to the Cavelands,” Ophelia Dellacava declared. “And they should know.”
“My nanny says witches will attack within the year. She says she can feel it in her bones,” countered Rupert. “That’s why the queen needs more money for the army.”
“I bet your nanny’s never even seen a witch,” Ophelia scoffed.
“If I saw a witch, I’d run away!” Taffline cried. “I’d run home and my mother would protect me!”
“But sometimes you can’t run,” Sir Foxglove said. “Sometimes a witch will back you into a corner.”
Indeed, Ollie’s shoulders were now firmly pressed against the gymnasium wall. Sir Foxglove did not lower his sword, and he did not remove his gaze from Ollie’s lapel. “Some witches will get you with magic. If you come up against an older witch who knows plenty of spells, you’re a goner.”
Anastasia gulped.
“But most younger witches don’t fight that way,” Sir Foxglove went on. “No, they’ll try to stab you with a silver weapon. They’ll try to run you through the heart with one of these, except coated with silver.”
A collective shudder went up at the mention of silver.
“Abovecaves now, tens of thousands of witchlings are learning how to fence with foils like this one. A foil is nice and light and even children can carry them around,” Sir Foxglove said. “And older witches like foils, too. If a witch has drained all her magic for the day, she might switch to her foil. Some witches even sharpen their silver wands at the end, so they can stab you if their spell doesn’t do the trick. Do you know what a witch calls her sword?”
“No, Sir Foxglove,” the Pettifoggers chorused.
“A Morfolk sticker.” Sir Foxglove paused a moment, letting the grim implication sink into the minds of the twenty fifth graders. “A witch wants to stick you. She wants to stick you with a silver blade, right in your Morfolk heart.” Sir Foxglove returned his sword to its umbrella sheath. “So you’d best learn how to fight. Suit up in the locker rooms, and we’ll begin.”
As it turned out, the red at the tip of Sir Foxglove’s foil was no more than chalk dust. Sir Foxglove now passed around bits of red chalk to all the students, and they rubbed the chalk on their own foils.
“If you leave a red mark on your opponent’s jacket, you’ve scored a touch,” Sir Foxglove said. “Your goal is to leave your rival’s jacket crimson.”
Anastasia glanced down at her white fencing uniform, wondering how long it would be before she looked like a walking tic-tac-toe grid. After forty minutes of stumbling through footwork drills and learning how to handle a foil, she had concluded that she would quickly bite the dust in any real sword fight.
“Time for your first bout,” Sir Foxglove announced. “Get into position, two per mat!”
Ten long, narrow rubber mats stretched side by side on the gymnasium floor. Anastasia took her place on one of these mats, careful to stay behind the en garde line scored about six feet from the center. She bent her legs slightly, as Sir Foxglove had taught them, and looked across the mat at her opponent. Because everyone was wearing identical white fencing costumes and metal masks, it was impossible to tell who faced her. Gus? Jasper Cummerbund?
“Try to score as many touches as possible without being touched yourself,” Sir Foxglove said. “You move forward and backward along the mat using the footwork we just reviewed. If you step off the mat, you lose. Try to drive your opponent off the end of their mat.”
Anastasia eyed her partner’s foil. Even though she knew the sword was blunted with a safety tip, she still didn’t much like the sight of someone standing opposite her with a weapon.
“En garde!” Sir Foxglove commanded, and the twenty Pettifoggers began to shuffle across the mats. Clink! CLANK! Swords clashed. Anastasia hesitated. Her fencing partner’s sword was raised, but the figure in white didn’t move. He—or she—was still as a statue.
“Cleave ’em to the brisket, you scurvy scalawag!” Sir Foxglove hollered, quite losing his posh accent in all the excitement. “Give ’em no quarter! Blow the man down, I say!”
Anastasia shambled forth. She thrust her foil toward her partner’s jacket.
CLUNK! Her opponent sprang to life, deflecting the flimsy attack. Anastasia’s sword juddered to the left. “Oops!”
Now her rival was full of ginger, leaping and twirling and lunging. The foil zinged at Anastasia again and again. Pippistrella, observing from a nearby stalactite, squeaked and chirped in distress as her mistress stumbled backward, trying to evade the blade. CLINK! CLUNK! Anastasia toppled off the mat, catching her right heel on her left shin and sprawling to the hard gymnasium floor. “Oof!” All the wind puffed from her lungs, and the adversary stood over her for one final blow, jabbing the point of their sword into Anastasia’s chest.
“Shiver me timbers!” Sir Foxglove cried. “Er—that is to say, jolly good! Your technique is superb! I’ve never seen anything quite like it—why, you were practically dancing!”
“I expect it’s all my ballet training,” oozed a muffled drawl from behind the metal visor.
“Saskia!” Anastasia wheezed.
The Loondorfer princess pulled off her mask with a flourish.
“I tip my hat to you, young lady!” Sir
Foxglove congratulated her. “You would make a splendid pirate.”
“I’ve been taking fencing lessons since I was five.” Saskia shrugged. “I’m a royal, after all. I need to know how to protect myself.” She sneered down at Anastasia. “You’d better hope Congress gives Wiggy her extra soldiers, because if you ever have to defend yourself in a witch attack, you’ll be mincemeat. Halfling mincemeat.” She skipped away as Ollie and Gus hurried to Anastasia’s side.
“That was brutal,” Gus panted, helping up his fallen Dreadful. “I’ll never learn to—Anastasia, look at your jacket!”
She peered down. Chalk marks scarred the pale fabric, and betwixt these slashes and dots, a swirly scarlet S emblazoned the spot directly above her heart.
“Crumbs, Anastasia!” Ollie yelped. “Saskia just gave you the Zorro treatment!”
ANASTASIA MAY HAVE been a lousy athlete, but she was plenty good at other things: she could draw, and she could sleuth. The first meeting of the Pettifog Art Club would provide Anastasia with opportunity to flex both these talents, and she was looking forward to shining in a Saskia-free zone.
However, Anastasia’s happy little glow dwindled as Miss Ramachandra ushered the art-clubbers into the theater auditorium. A waltz tootled up from the orchestra pit, propelling a troupe of ballerinas onstage through leaps and gambols. Smack-dab in the center of these frolics twirled Saskia, her golden hair gleaming star-bright beneath the spotlight.
“I didn’t know the Twinkle Toe Ballet would be practicing here,” Anastasia muttered to Ollie and Gus as the art-clubbers clumped stage-ward down the aisle. The melody tweedled to its finale, and the ballerinas froze in place.
“Well done, Saskia!” shouted a tiny lady standing off to the side. “Those were some bang-up pirouettes!”
“Thank you, Madame Pamplemousse.” Saskia preened.
“The rest of you are lumps!” the instructor howled. “Saskia, take five. You others, give me a hundred pliés!”