by Holly Grant
“Dear…?” Moona said. “It’s the big blue book. Right in front of you.”
Still holding the photograph, Anastasia turned around. “Why,” she asked in a voice so low it was nearly a whisper, “do you have a picture of my father in your parlor?”
MOONA BLINKED. SHE blinked three times; fast, like her eyes were stuttering. “Your father?”
“This is my dad.” Anastasia tapped the frame’s glass breastplate.
Moona smiled. She replaced her teacup to its saucer, and the saucer to the table. “You’re mistaken, child,” she said. “The light in here isn’t very good.”
Anastasia shook her head. “I can recognize my own father, for crumb’s sake!” She swiveled her gaze around the parlor, as though Fred might pop up from behind a chair. “When was this picture taken? When was Dad here?”
Moona stared at her. Her eyes had stopped stuttering. They now glowed with strange light. “The man in that photograph was never here, child. My daughter sent that picture to me in a letter, years ago.”
“Why would your daughter have a picture of my dad ?” Anastasia demanded.
“Let me see it!” Ollie grabbed the picture out of Anastasia’s hands. “Yep! That’s Fredmund, all right. I recognize him from his portrait.”
“Fredmund?” Moona cried. “As in—Fred?” The light in her eyes was growing brighter and brighter. She hopped from her chair and tiptoed up to Anastasia. She leaned forward, and she peered. She peered at Anastasia’s nose and peepers and freckles. “Oh, my stars. You are—but you can’t be! But—yes! You are!”
“I’m what?” Anastasia asked hoarsely.
“The young lady in that photograph is—was—my daughter. My Rosemary,” Moona said. “And the man standing with her is my son-in-law, Fred. And the baby inside Rosie’s belly…” The light in her eyes finally spilled out into two tears, and the tears wriggled down her crinkled cheeks. “That baby is my granddaughter, whom I’ve never met. All I know is her name: Anastasia Rose.”
Anastasia gulped. “That’s my name.”
“Yes.” The witch wiped her tears away and smiled, and she grabbed Anastasia into a big, squishy hug. “Yes, I thought it might be.”
Normally, family reunions swell hearts with delight and tweak vocal cords into exclamations of hooray. Anastasia’s vocal cords did not vibrate into any joyful whoops, however. Her throat closed up completely, and she wrenched from the witch’s embrace and staggered backward.
“Anastasia is not a witch!” Ollie said. “She’s a Morfo!”
“Half Morfo,” Moona murmured. “Half witch.”
“That can’t be true,” Gus protested. “A Morfo wouldn’t marry a witch! It’s absolutely forbidden to even talk to a witch!”
“You’re talking to me,” Moona pointed out.
“It’s impossible,” Anastasia finally croaked. “Impossible.”
But it wasn’t; not really. Through her distress, Anastasia’s keen detecting mind turned over the evidence. Hadn’t she napped unscathed in Calixto Swift’s Moonsilk Canopy, hexed to bedevil Morfolk with nasty dream cooties? Hadn’t she breathed a door of frost upon the warlock’s spellbound glass case? And had not magic followed in her wake, lo these past few months? An aurora borealis shellacked the night sky as Anastasia jubilated beneath the full moon. Clouds pirouetted above Dinkledorf as she tromped its snowy lanes. The props she had painted in the Cavepearl Theater transformed and rioted and created a magical hullabaloo.
Poor Miss Ramachandra, languishing in the palace dungeons, had taken the rap for it all. But to the objective observer, Anastasia was a far better suspect. She had been at the scene of each and every enchantment. The Cavelands’ strangeness had started when she arrived in Nowhere Special.
And, of course, there was that photograph of her father hugging a witch.
Anastasia removed the portrait from Ollie’s grasp and stared again at the smiley couple. Could the freckled lady really be her mother?
“It’s a trick,” Gus urged. “It’s witch magic. She could have hexed that photograph to picture your dad, Anastasia.”
“I most certainly did not,” Moona said indignantly. “I’m just as surprised as you are—believe me, I never expected to find my granddaughter in a group of three wayward Morflings! I had no idea Fred was a Morfo! I never met him, but Rosie told me he was a plain old human.” She bit her lip and squeezed Anastasia’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, dear. I don’t care if you’re half Morfo. You’re one hundred percent my granddaughter, and that’s what counts.” Her eyes misted up again. “I’ve been wishing to meet you all these years, and finally my wish has come true.”
“How did Dad meet Rosie?” Anastasia asked.
“They met in Peru,” Moona said. “Rosie was a zoologist, and she was in Lima studying guinea pigs. I understand your father was on holiday down there.”
Anastasia knit her brow. Fred had never mentioned any South American travels to her. Perhaps he had ventured to Peru when he left the Cavelands for good, when he renounced his Morfolky ways after a family fight and tried to live an ordinary human life. But why would he have befriended a witch?
They must have fallen in love before realizing they were mortal foes, Anastasia mused.
“Rosie didn’t tell me much about their courtship,” Moona confessed. “I only found out she was married when I received a postcard from their honeymoon. Then Rosie and Fred moved away to some little town, and they wouldn’t tell anyone where it was—not even me, and your mother and I were very close. I didn’t understand it at the time, but it makes sense now: nobody would approve of a witch-Morfo marriage.”
Anastasia’s skin crept. No, they certainly wouldn’t. And the fact that Fred was a Merrymoon prince made matters even worse! What would Wiggy think if she knew her granddaughter—the heir apparent to the Morfo throne—was half witch? Ludowiga would probably charge Anastasia with treason and try to send her to the guillotine! How would Penny and Baldy receive this news?
What did Gus and Ollie think?
The boys were staring at her, wide-eyed. Did they still consider Anastasia their friend and ally, or did her witchy blood thrust her into the ranks of the enemy? Her lower lip trembled.
“Have some tea, dear.” Moona ushered Anastasia back to the love seat. “You’ve had a shock. You’ll feel much better after some tea and cake.”
Once Anastasia started eating her cake, Ollie and Gus ate theirs. They even had two slices each. It was utterly scrumptious. As they ate, Moona told Anastasia about Rosie.
Rosie had always been shy.
Rosie had adored animals.
Rosie had been a bit klutzy.
Rosie had loved Anastasia very much.
Rosie had died mysteriously just one week after Anastasia’s birth.
“Mysteriously?” Anastasia’s fork clattered to her plate. “What do you mean, mysteriously?”
Moona sighed and stood up and rustled in a little desk. She pulled out a faded, folded sheet of pale green paper, and she handed it to Anastasia. Anastasia smoothed it out, letting out a cry of recognition upon spying the handwriting.
Dear Moona,
I write with broken heart and the worst news in the entire world: our Rosie—our lovely, sweet, funny, darling Rosie—is dead. I took Anastasia for a stroll in her buggy, and when we returned, the house was on fire. Rosie was in the house.
The police say it was an accident, but—
I’ve no time to write more; we must leave this place. It isn’t safe. I won’t write again, Moona. Anastasia and I are going to disappear, and this time, no one will find us.
I’m so sorry.
Fred
“Dad thought Rosie was murdered ?” Anastasia whispered.
Moona shrugged sadly. “Fred was frightened, that’s for sure. Perhaps he worried someone realized Rosie was a witch. Humans turn into nasty little firebugs around witches, you know.”
“Or maybe Fred thought CRUD was after them,” Gus suggested. “If CRUD knew Fred w
as a Morfo, they might have thought Rosie was, too.”
“I don’t know exactly what ideas were rattling around Fred’s brain,” Moona said. She reached out and squeezed Anastasia’s hand. “Your father was in shock, I’m sure, and people sometimes think strange things when they’re in shock. I don’t know whether there was really anything suspicious about that fire. It might have been an accident, after all.” She sighed. “And I never got the chance to discuss it with Fred. I looked for you both for years, but…well, your father is very good at vanishing.”
“He’s missing now,” Anastasia said in a wobbly voice.
“He is?” Moona’s eyebrows jumped.
So Anastasia told the witch about the CRUD kidnapping. She told her that Fred had disappeared, and that nobody could find him.
“Is that what you three are doing in Stinking Crumpet?” Moona asked. “Looking for Fred?”
“Er—yes,” Anastasia said. And it was true, in a roundabout way; the Dreadfuls were tracking Nicodemus Merrymoon and his Fred-finding tattoo. However, Anastasia did not want to divulge that fact—not yet. It was dangerous enough to be a Morfo (half Morfo) in the witch woods. It would be far worse to be a Morfo princess in the witch woods. If the other witches ferreted out that little fact, they might hold Anastasia hostage. They might try to ransom her from the Crown.
Gus and Ollie must have been pondering the same sorts of things, because neither of them piped up to ask about the Silver Chest.
“But why would you look here?” Moona quizzed. “There hasn’t been a Morfo in Stinking Crumpet—well, ever.”
“We took a wrong turn,” Ollie said again.
“Would you be able to help me find Dad?” Anastasia asked. “Could you brew up a spell, or look in a crystal ball, or…?”
The corners of Moona’s mouth drooped. “I don’t know, dear.”
A stream of impatient chatter issued from the bookshelf.
“Oh, Waldo! I haven’t forgotten your bedtime story,” Moona said, standing up to fetch the blue fairy tale volume. “It’s about everyone’s bedtime now, I should think. The guest room is on the fourth floor. You’ll find pajamas in the chest of drawers. Just tell it what you want and knock three times. Go on, and no arguments! I can see how sleepy your eyes are.”
The Dreadfuls didn’t argue. They hiked up the curving stairs to the third floor (some kind of craft room, crammed with bolts of fabric and a rainbow of spools), and thence to the fourth.
“Oh!” Ollie said in surprised delight.
Three hammocks, spun of indigo and shot through with gold, stretched across the room. Elegant crochet work tasseled the hammocks’ edges, and pillows and quilts padded their silky bellies. A jar of fireflies hummed and glowed upon a narrow bureau carved of black wood. Anastasia checked the compartments of this bureau. “Empty.”
“You have to tell it what you want,” Gus said.
“Er.” Anastasia shut the drawers and cleared her throat. “I’d like some warm jammies, please. And slippers.” She rapped three times. She slid the topmost drawer out and gaped at the red plaid pj’s nestled within. “Oh! And fuzzy bunny slippers—just like the ones I had in Mooselick!”
Gus and Ollie procured pajamas of their own, and after everyone had visited the (magical, self-cleaning!) chamber pot one floor above, they climbed into the hammocks. Have you ever lolled in a hammock, Reader? Hammocks as a rule are very comfortable, and the hammocks in the witch’s tree house were perhaps the cushiest, cuddliest, coziest hammocks in the entire world. Snuggled amidst the pillows and quilts, the Dreadfuls listened to Moona recite a fairy tale from Waldo’s favorite blue storybook. Then the witch kissed each of their foreheads.
“Now, remember: when Myrtle comes banging at my door tomorrow morning to get her wand, you’re all witchlings,” Moona cautioned. “We can’t have anyone discovering there are three Morfolk children in Stinking Crumpet.”
Anastasia trembled. “Do you think she’ll try to stab me again?”
“No,” Moona chuckled. “You mustn’t mind Myrtle. She’s a bit of a crab apple, to be sure, but we’ve been friends for ages. And she adored your mother, dear; in fact, Myrtle gave Rosie this book.” The witch placed the blue volume in Anastasia’s hands, giving her knuckles a fond little pat. “Good night, children. Be sure to let the fireflies out to play before you go to sleep.”
And she padded downstairs to do whatever it is that witches do after children go to bed.
For a moment, Anastasia admired the silver design of moons and flowers tooled across the storybook’s cover. Her mother’s book! She wondered how many times Rosie had read it, and what her favorite story had been. Had Rosie rooted for the witches? Had she tried to mimic the magic spells?
She turned back the cover, and she gasped.
“What is it?” Gus asked.
“There’s a note written on the first page,” Anastasia said. “ ‘To sweet little Rosie, may your eleventh year brim with magic. Love, Myrtle Honeysop.’ ”
“Honeysop!” Gus exclaimed. “Do you think that fussy witch could be related to Calixto’s old nanny, Agatha Honeysop?”
Anastasia’s heart pitter-pattered. “Probably! Honeysop is a pretty unusual name. Maybe we can get some clues out of Myrtle! Remember, Calixto said Agatha knew about his Silver Chest. He left that cuckoo clock note for her, telling her to come to Stinking Crumpet.” She hugged the fairy tale book. “Maybe she did. Maybe she knew where the Chest was, and maybe her family’s passed down the secret.”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Ollie pointed out. “And even if those maybes turn out to be yeses, why would an old witch blab the great Honeysop secret to three Morflings?”
“She wouldn’t,” Anastasia said. “But she might tell three witchlings visiting her best friend. She might even tell us something without realizing how important it is. Myrtle Honeysop’s our best lead, and we’ll see her tomorrow morning!”
“Speaking of tomorrow,” Ollie faltered, “when are we going home? And how are we going home?”
“I don’t know,” Anastasia admitted.
“I think we’re in America—in California,” Gus said. “We’re in a redwood forest, aren’t we? I did a project on redwood trees in fourth grade, and I remember reading that the only redwood forests in the world are in California.”
“Oh, Bundt cake,” Ollie swore. “We really are halfway across the world.”
“You and Anastasia could morph and fly to Switzerland,” Gus said uncertainly.
“I’m not ready for that kind of trip! The farthest I’ve flown is from Gruyère Gutter to the palace, and that only took ten minutes,” Anastasia said. “What if I changed back into a girl halfway across the Atlantic Ocean? Besides, Gus, we’d never leave you.”
“Then maybe Moona will help us,” Ollie said. “She could magic up some plane tickets. Or—well, do you suppose she could loan us some flying brooms?”
“Do you think she’ll even let us leave?” Gus murmured.
“What do you mean?” Ollie asked.
Gus shifted up onto his elbow so he was facing the other hammocks. “Stinking Crumpet is a secret witch village. We found it. Do you think Moona will just let us go back to our Morfolk families? We’re at Perpetual War with the witches, you know. Moona seems to like us, but that doesn’t mean she’ll trust us not to share witch secrets with her enemies.”
“Oh no!” Ollie moaned.
“Didn’t you notice how Moona sent us to bed without even mentioning our parents? She didn’t say any normal grown-up things about how worried our families must be,” Gus said. “I bet it’s because she can’t let us leave.”
“Q must be wondering what happened to us,” Ollie quavered. “Pippistrella, too.”
“I’m sure everyone knows we’re missing by now,” Gus said.
Anastasia imagined the Merrymoon-Wata-Drybread search party scouring the Cavelands for the vanished Morflings, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s my fault we’re stuck
here.”
“I’m not sorry,” Gus said. “I’m glad to be sitting in a tree house in a redwood forest, breathing fresh air and mist and listening to rain and hearing night birds! I’ve been waiting my entire life to get out of Nowhere Special, and now I have!”
“Well, you’ll have to go home sometime,” Ollie snuffled. Anastasia suspected he was trying not to cry. Or perhaps he was already crying and was trying to stop.
“Sure,” Gus said. “But tonight I’ll just enjoy being here.”
“I might never go back,” Anastasia said softly. “Witches are forbidden in the Cavelands, remember?”
Gus gulped. “Wouldn’t the queen make an exception for you?”
An owl hoot drifted through the porthole.
“I don’t know. She might,” Anastasia said doubtfully, “but the rest of Morfolkdom wouldn’t.” She stared at the tree rings grooving the ceiling. “Besides, I’m not going home until I find Nicodemus and my father. I’m too close to finding the Silver Chest to just give up!”
“Do you think Calixto buried the Chest in this forest?” Ollie asked.
“It’s somewhere in Stinking Crumpet,” Gus said. “It can’t be far.”
“No,” Anastasia agreed, “it can’t.” She got up and lifted the firefly jar off the nightstand, and then she padded to the window and gazed into the darkness beyond. The forest was very dark indeed, untouched by electric light or moonbeam or starshine. Anastasia unscrewed the lid of the jar, and she set it on the windowsill. The fireflies bumbled over the glass lip and thrummed into flight.
“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle,” Gus murmured, stepping up beside her. “Francis of Assisi said that.”
Anastasia turned in surprise, but in the gloom-drenched tree chamber she could not see his face. Yet his hand found hers, and Ollie’s cake-sticky fingers slid into her other palm and clasped it tightly.