by Holly Grant
“Sometimes the stalactite grows so long and the stalagmite grows so tall that they meet in the middle and kiss!” Baldwin said, winking.
“What’s that glowing green stuff?” Anastasia asked. “It looks like nuclear mold.”
“It’s phosphorescent moss,” Baldwin said. “And those blinky little lights up there? Twinkle beetles. They blink like that to attract their girlfriends, randy fellows!”
“Prrrrp! Squee!” Belfry piped up. Anastasia boggled as Virgil screaked in return, then rustled his wings and zoomed out of view.
“Virgil is a courier, you see,” Penny said.
“Sort of like a singing telegram,” Baldwin added. “We don’t have telephones down here.”
“Or electricity,” Penny said. “Everything is lit by lamps and candles, and we have to do things the old-fashioned way. And we use bats to send messages. Virgil just flew ahead to tell Wiggy we’re almost home.”
“Belfry talked to that bat? And told him all that?” Anastasia said. “And Virgil is going to—to squeak the message to Grandma?”
“Precisely,” Baldwin said. “They were speaking Echolalia, the ancient bat tongue.”
Belfry churned his oar, propelling the gondola from Bacon Grotto and down another dark conduit. The lantern swung to and fro, its reflection warping on the rippling water.
“Look!” Baldwin tugged one of Anastasia’s braids, tilting her gaze up to the stalactites. A platoon of enormous bats, their wings spread to reveal steel-tinseled torsos, hung from the scraggy dripstone.
“What are they wearing?” Anastasia squinted at the creatures’ strange vests.
“Chain-mail armor,” Baldwin said. “They’re Royal Guard Bats.”
“They’re called flying foxes, but of course they aren’t foxes at all,” Penny said. “They’re fruit bats.”
“Just try to make a Royal Guard Bat laugh,” Baldwin said. “You can’t! You can’t even make them smile when they’re on duty. These bats are very professional. Highly trained! Just watch!”
“Oh, bother. Anastasia, brace yourself for some very bad jokes,” Penny warned.
“Here’s a bit of fruit-themed humor for you boys,” Baldwin called. “What do you call a shoe made from a banana?”
“A flip-flop?” Anastasia guessed.
“Good try, but no cigar,” Baldwin said. “The correct response is: a slipper!”
“Baldwin, that was pathetic,” Penny chided. “Did you make that up yourself?”
The bats didn’t react at all. They were still as stone, their eyes glittering in the lamplight.
“See?” Baldwin said. “Not a smile! Not a snicker! These bats are stoic as heck.”
“We’re not smiling, either,” Penny said, even though she was.
Belfry cleared his throat. “Next stop: Stardust Cavern.”
Reader, have you ever—perhaps in a great cathedral, or observatory, or state capitol building—beheld a super-colossal vault? Stardust Cavern outsized any such man-made rotunda, and still its splendor surpassed its scope: every inch of it was splendiferous. Anastasia fancied they’d sailed into the belly of a star. Aglitter with snowy-white minerals, a-twinkle with thousands of candles, the luminous wonderland doubled in the silver lagoon carpeting its depths like a wall-to-wall mirror. From the center of this lagoon rose a castle, and a most phantasmagorical castle it was. Its domes puffed like the crowns of soft-serve ice cream cones, and its towers swirled like jet streams tootled by daring stunt planes.
“What is that place?” Anastasia breathed.
“Cavepearl Palace,” Penny said.
“Home,” Baldwin added. “Not too shabby, eh?”
“Home?” Anastasia exclaimed. “Our home?”
“Yes, dear.” Penny’s lips twitched in a silent librarian giggle. “You see, your grandmother Wiggy is queen of the Cavelands. And that makes Baldy a prince, and me a princess.”
“And you’re a princess, too, Anastasia,” Baldwin said.
“Biscuit crumbs! A princess? Me?”
Her head reeled. Freckled, tragically flatulent Anastasia McCrumpet (or Merrymoon), royalty? Absurd! Codswallop! Dottier, even, than the notion that she might one day turn into a mouse or bat or guinea pig!
“We didn’t tell you earlier,” Penny apologized, “because we didn’t want to overwhelm you with everything all at once.”
“And my dad is—”
“A prince,” Penny said.
“Gosh, it’s nice to be home,” Baldwin said. “We’ve been abovecaves for ten years, Penny. Think of that.”
A low sob rippled through the cavern.
Anastasia patted Baldwin’s arm. “It’s okay to cry. I know what it’s like to be homesick, too.”
“I’m not crying,” Baldwin insisted. “Look at my eyes. See? Dry as a desert.”
Boohoo. Boooohoooohoooo.
Anastasia turned. “Was that you, Aunt Penny?”
“No, dear.”
“You’re merely hearing the lagoon, Princess,” Belfry said.
“Ah! I’d almost forgotten,” Baldwin exclaimed. “This is the Gloomy Lagoon, Anastasia. It’s always moping and weeping. Sometimes it actually bawls, which is very unpleasant.” A wail rose from the silvery water. “Oh, stop your blubbering.”
“But how can water be sad?” Anastasia quizzed.
“Mystery of nature.” Baldwin shrugged.
A fleet of black gondolas bobbed beside a dock stretching, like a snowy lane, from the palace entrance. Belfry eased his craft alongside this dark flotilla. “Your Excellencies.”
“Thanks ever so much for the ride, Belfry,” Penny said.
The royals trod the pier to an arch flanked by two Royal Guard Bats and passed through this into a shadowy corridor. Candles guttered in nooks in the rippling rock walls, and crystal spikes bristled from the ceiling. Penny drew her face close to Anastasia’s ear. “You mustn’t be nervous,” she murmured. “Wiggy is very serious, but she’s also kind.”
“And don’t let her eyes frighten you,” Baldwin cautioned.
“Why would her eyes frighten me?” Anastasia asked, but Penny put her index finger to her pursed lips.
“Look,” she whispered. “There she is.”
5
The Crystal Crown
ANASTASIA’S GALOSHES SQUEAKED as she edged into a forest of twisted stalagmites and shadows and golden candelabra the size of small trees. At the far end of this weird throne room glittered a quartz-studded crevice, and inside this crevice sat a silent figure dressed all in white, surrounded by bats. A crown of tall crystalline spikes crested her white-gold head, and a lace collar puffed around her neck like an enormous snowflake. Anastasia gaped at this mysterious lady: the smooth, solemn face unlike the face of any grandmother she had ever imagined; the queenly dress, voluminous skirts ballooning a good three feet from each hip.
The queen studied Anastasia, too. Her unblinking mirror-colored eyes fastened upon our young heroine, and there they stayed, flaring every few moments with strange light. Anastasia’s skin began to prickle. Was the queen counting her freckles? She shifted her weight and her snow pants made an embarrassing noise.
Finally the queen spoke: “Granddaughter.”
Anastasia tiptoed forth.
Wiggy reached out and gently lifted Anastasia’s chin. “So this,” she said thoughtfully, “is Anastasia.” The name Anastasia sounded utterly lovely strumming from the queen’s regal vocal cords, as though it were the title of a dainty princess living in a fairy tale castle of mists and snow, and not some fifth grader with mousy-brown hair and tragic flatulence.
The queen’s attention shifted to Penny and Baldwin. “My children. You’ve been gone so very long, and you’ve traveled so very far.”
Penny knelt to kiss the gobstopper-big opal curiously aglimmer on the queen’s forefinger, and then Baldwin did the same. It seemed, to Anastasia, an awfully strange way to greet one’s mother, especially after ten years away from home. Maybe the queen didn’t want people crumpling
her fancy collar with hugs. Or maybe, Anastasia reflected, the queen just wasn’t the hugging type.
“How does the evening find you?” Wiggy asked.
“Famished.” Baldwin clutched his stomach.
“Of course.” Wiggy rose with a whisper of white silk, and the cortege of bats rustled from the alcove. “Nourishment at the end of a long journey. At ease, Ugo.”
Anastasia jumped as a man sidled into view. He was half-hidden in the gloom, for he was garbed in gloom-colored finery, but he smiled and she caught the glint of sharp teeth.
“Your Wigginess,” this man said, bowing low. “I am, eternally, in your service.”
And he withdrew into the darkness.
“That was Lord Monkfish,” Penny told Anastasia as they followed Wiggy and her bats from the throne room. “He’s Wiggy’s top adviser.”
“And he’s also a real downer,” Baldwin muttered. “If you ever want someone to poop on your parade, just summon old Ugo.”
The queen led them to a dining hall, where her cloud of bats flitted to roost from a chandelier illuminating a glass table long as an ice-rimed river. Wiggy glided to its head, and a white-wigged fellow scrambled to pull out her chair. Three more servants slid out three more chairs for the rest of the royal diners, and Anastasia took a cautious seat. She sneaked a sideways glance at the queen. How in blue blazes could this fanciful figure be Fred McCrumpet’s mother?
“What would you like to eat, Anastasia?” Wiggy asked. “The cooks can prepare almost anything. Lobster thermidor? Caviar? Escargot?”
“Fish eggs,” Baldwin translated. “Snails.”
“Snails?” Anastasia gasped. “Why would anyone eat snails? Could we—could we just have pizza?”
“Three pizzas, Rawlins,” Wiggy told the footman by her elbow. “What toppings?”
“Pepperoni and pineapple,” Anastasia said. “And ham. And honey for the crusts.” Remembering her manners, she added a princessy “If you please.”
“And my usual veggie deluxe,” Baldwin said.
Wiggy waved her hand and Rawlins spun on his heel and strode from the room.
The queen turned to Penny and Baldwin. “How were your travels?”
Baldwin cleared his throat. “We got caught in a blizzard, Your Mommyness. It was pretty bumpy for a few minutes, but we landed right on course. Nothing broken. Except for the balloon.”
“So you weren’t injured?”
“CRUD got Baldy in the ear with silver buckshot,” Penny piped up, and Baldwin shot her a scowl. The scowl said: tattletale.
“How bad is it?”
Baldwin grumbled and tucked his hair back from his face.
“Baldy!” Penny cried. “It’s gotten much worse! Why, your earlobe is simply festering!”
“We’ll send for the doctor.” Wiggy chirruped, and one of the bats dangling from the chandelier whizzed off with the message. “He’ll salve your ear tonight.”
“But I don’t like Dr. Lungwort!” Baldwin quibbled. “And silver salve stings!”
“No arguments, Baldwin,” Wiggy said. “You don’t want to lose your ear, do you?”
“I have two of them, don’t I?”
“Ah! Dinner!” Wiggy announced as a line of attendants filed into the hall, each one bearing a domed platter. White-gloved hands whirred root beer floats and piping-hot pizzas to the table. It was Anastasia’s first real, sit-down-at-a-table meal in months, and she forgot all about the balloon crash, and the Cavelands, and even the slightly frightening queen sitting not two yards away. It was all pizza and root beer and bliss. Then, sitting back with a hiccup, she glimpsed a small black bat alight on Wiggy’s lace collar. The bat peeped, and the queen’s eyes flashed.
“Bring them in.”
The bat zipped away.
“Anastasia, your cousin Saskia Loondorfer has just returned from Paris, where she has been studying art for the last school term,” Wiggy said. “I’m pleased that you two will meet tonight.”
“She likes art?” Anastasia said. “So do I.”
“I haven’t seen Saskia since she was a baby,” Baldwin said. “Tell me, Your Mommyness, is she still very fond of clawing?”
“Clawing?” Anastasia echoed.
“Like a velociraptor,” Baldwin warned. “If she goes for your throat, don’t hesitate to defend yourself. Use your fork.”
“Well, well,” hissed a voice at the end of the dining hall. “The mouse and wolf return.”
Baldwin rolled his eyes at Anastasia, and then he twisted in his chair to grin at the froufrou-gowned woman at the threshold. She was very tall, and the white wig towering from her head made her seem even taller. Anastasia had never seen such a wig. It was at least three feet high, and a dozen small bats rustled amongst the curls.
“Greetings, Loodie!” Baldwin hallooed. “How we’ve missed you, lo these ten years!”
Ludowiga sniffed. Then she sailed into the dining room, trailing in her wake a blond girl in a satin dress.
“Your Mommyness.” Ludowiga curtsied.
Saskia curtsied, too. “Your Grandwigginess.” But her gaze was fixed on Anastasia, and Anastasia gawped back. Her cousin’s pale hair cascaded down her back like a fall of moonshine, and her eyelashes were long as pine needles.
“You look just like a princess,” Anastasia blurted. “Like a princess in a storybook.”
“I am a princess.” Saskia burst into tinkly laughter. It sounded like someone had rammed a music box behind her tonsils.
“So this is the little Anastasia we’ve all been so curious about,” Ludowiga said. “Welcome, my dear.” Her mouth pressed into a smile so thin it was a slit.
Saskia turned to her mother. “I thought you said she was my age.”
“She is,” Penny said, putting her hand on Anastasia’s shoulder. “She’ll be turning eleven in a couple of months.”
“So, cousin,” Saskia drawled, “can you metamorphose yet?”
Anastasia’s voice lumped, like a piece of super-sticky taffy, somewhere behind her molars. She shook her head.
“You can’t turn into a bat or a shadow or”—Saskia’s scrutiny traveled from Anastasia’s mussed hair to her dripping galoshes and back up again—“a rat?”
“There’s nothing wrong with rats,” Penny said crisply. “Or any rodent, for that matter.”
“Oh, of course not,” Ludowiga said. “Why, our own brother Fred shifts into a guinea pig! It’s a marvelous shape. So…nonthreatening.”
“I metamorphosed in Paris. Madame Legrand says I shift like a fourteen-year-old.” Saskia tossed her hair to reveal a dainty bat clinging to her collar.
“You’ve always been advanced for your age,” Ludowiga said.
“Indeed you have,” Baldwin said. “I remember you scratched me like a full-grown Siberian tiger when you were only four months old.”
“Remember, Saskia,” Ludowiga said, ignoring him, “Anastasia is a Halfling, and as such she won’t develop at the same rate as you. Why, she may never metamorphose at all.”
“Isn’t that funny, Mother?” Saskia asked. “A Halfling princess.”
“Very funny.” But Ludowiga wasn’t smiling.
“In terms of Anastasia’s development,” Wiggy spoke up, “I am hoping, Ludowiga, that you will tutor her in matters of Cavelands dress and decorum.”
“Your Mommyness,” Penny protested, “Ludowiga is not…that is to say…I’m sure that Baldy and I could help Anastasia acclimate.”
“And so you shall,” Wiggy replied. “But Anastasia has much to learn, and Ludowiga is particularly well versed in ceremony. Let us not forget, Anastasia is completely unschooled in courtly manners.”
“I’m mannerly,” Baldwin complained. “And so is Penny.”
“Nonsense, Baldwin. Neither of you has ever taken an interest in politesse.” Ludowiga smirked. “Worry not, Your Mommyness. I shall take the burden of the princess’s finishing lessons upon myself.”
“Excellent,” Wiggy said. Anastasia sank a little lower in h
er seat.
“Speaking of dress,” Ludowiga said, “what an unusual coat you have, Anastasia.”
“Oh.” Anastasia finally found her voice. “I actually hate fur coats, because I love animals. I think it’s wrong to—”
Ludowiga swooped down, her pointed nose inches from the collar. She sniffed.
“Um.” Anastasia froze. Perhaps smelling one another was a Morfolk courtesy? Maybe her etiquette lessons were starting already.
“What kind of fur is this?” Ludowiga demanded.
“I—I don’t really know. I found it in a wardrobe at the asylum—”
Ludowiga’s thin nostrils shrilled. “This coat is Morfolk.”
“What?” Penny cried.
“You’re wearing a Morfolk coat.” Ludowiga glared at Anastasia. “That’s the fur of a Morfo skinned when he was in wolf form.”
“Disgusting!” Saskia said.
“A Morfolk coat?” Anastasia leapt from her chair in a panic, tearing back the furry lapels.
“Coats like that are illegal,” Ludowiga spat. “Where did you say you got it? From those humans with whom you’ve been hobnobbing?”
“You know full well that Anastasia wasn’t hobnobbing with anyone,” Penny objected. “She was abducted and held captive.”
“Those old crab apples practically starved her to death, and she had to use a chamber pot,” Baldwin bristled.
The coat slithered to the floor. “I—I didn’t know,” Anastasia stammered, tears prickling her eyes.
“It’s all right, dear.” Penny hopped up and hugged her tightly. “I didn’t know, either.”
“Well,” Ludowiga snapped, “in the future, Princess, I trust you will avoid wearing the fur of our dead fellows. We wouldn’t want the public to question your loyalties.” Her eyes narrowed. “After all, we’ve never had a Halfling in the palace before.”
“Nobody’s going to question Anastasia’s loyalties,” Baldwin scoffed.
Ludowiga patted her wig. “Saskia, we’re going to be late for the Duchess of Dunlop’s banquet.”
“It’s a welcome-back party,” Saskia simpered. “Sorry I can’t chitchat more with you tonight, Anastasia, but I’m the guest of honor.”