by Holly Grant
Anastasia spotted a curio cabinet tucked in the corner. “Oh! Your family has a lot of snow globes, too.”
“My daughter makes them,” Grandpa Baba replied proudly. “You may have heard of Celestina Wata, the great Dinkledorfian glassblower?”
“Aunt Teeny makes all sorts of things,” Gus said, “but mostly snow globes.”
“She supplies the snow globes for my dad’s music boxes,” Ollie piped up.
Anastasia startled. “Did she make the snow globes in the castle? My grandmother has an entire hallway filled with them.”
“Is that so?” Grandpa Baba asked. “How curious! Celestina never mentioned anything about selling her glasswork to the queen—but I guarantee any snow globe within a hundred miles of Dinkledorf came from my daughter’s shop.”
“How does she get them to snow all the time?” Anastasia asked.
“What do you mean?” Gus puzzled.
“The globes blizzard even if you don’t shake them,” Anastasia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Grandpa Baba’s white eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. My Celestina’s globes are beautiful things indeed, but they don’t—er—snow perpetually.” He lifted his cane to point at the cupboard. “As you can see, those globes aren’t storming on their own.”
“Oh.” Anastasia crinkled her forehead.
“Speaking of globes, Princess,” Grandpa Baba said, “Gus told me about your aunt’s celestial sphere. And about your balloon flight amidst the stars. Fascinating! Oh, the sky is full of treasure, and it’s there for anybody—anybody! You just have to look.” He sighed. “If you live abovecaves, that is.”
“And who would want to live abovecaves?” Mr. Wata said, coming in with a tray rattling with a teapot and teacups and scones and a small carton dotted with holes. He set the tray on the coffee table. “The Cavelands are safe, Papa. We’re safe and snug down here, and we have everything we need.”
“Everything except stars,” Grandpa Baba said.
“Nobody needs stars,” Mr. Wata said.
Grandpa Baba frowned and creaked from his chair, leaning on his cane. “You’ll have to excuse me, children,” he said. “I’m suddenly tired. I’m going to take a nap.”
“But you’ll miss tea,” Mr. Wata protested.
“Nobody needs tea.” Grandpa Baba shuffled from the room.
“Well, hellooo!” A large woman, her head hooded in a velour sack, barged into the parlor and promptly elbowed a glass doodad from a credenza. Crash! “Oops! How clumsy of me!”
“Nonsense, my dearest,” Mr. Wata soothed, springing to fetch a broom and dustpan. “You’re graceful as a gazelle. Anybody would have trouble with a bag over their peepers.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Mrs. Wata eased onto a plastic-covered chaise longue. “Angus, introduce me to your friends.”
Gus sighed and made the introductions.
“Such a pleasure to meet you, I’m sure,” Mrs. Wata trilled, accepting a teacup from her husband. “Angus absolutely never brings friends home! But I’m afraid I can’t visit for long—my pianist is due any minute for my afternoon practice. Merkie, did you sugar this?”
“Yes, dear.” Mr. Wata jabbed a straw into Mrs. Wata’s teacup. She threaded the straw beneath the edge of the velour bag and began sipping. “Now, Angus, did you remember to take your vitamins this morning?”
“Yes, Mom,” he grumbled.
“And did you give Lilybelle her ointment? Otherwise, that scale rot will come right back.”
“Yes! Gosh!”
“Don’t swear, dear,” Mrs. Wata said. “If you don’t take care of your snakes, they won’t take care of you. You’ve been giving them mice for lunch, haven’t you?”
Gus darted a look at Anastasia and Ollie. “Sure. Every day.”
“Good,” Mrs. Wata said. “As my mother always said, a gorgon’s serpents are her crowning glory! Keep yours happy. And speaking of mice…” She joggled her teacup to the table and groped for the box on the tray. Faint squeaks chorused from the holes.
“Are those—mice?” Anastasia’s stomach twisted.
“A teatime treat for sweet little snakes!” Mrs. Wata warbled. She plunged one of her large manicured hands into the carton and plucked forth a mouse.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
“Oh dear.” Mrs. Wata clucked. “That must be the pianist.” She returned her teatime victim to its paper prison and stumbled away to answer the door.
“I suppose I should go repair this.” Mr. Wata stared at the contents of his dustpan. “Well, children, enjoy those scones.” He withdrew to track down superglue.
“Gus,” Anastasia urged. “The secret weapon?”
Gus jumped up. “I’ll be right back.”
“Imagine watching your mom eat mice every day,” Ollie whispered. “Just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Here comes Gus,” Anastasia shushed him.
The gorgon tiptoed back into the parlor with a twinkly gold chain dangling from his hand. “As promised: one secret weapon!”
“A necklace?” Doubt scrunched Ollie’s forehead.
“Are we going to try to bribe the guard bat?” Anastasia asked. “I don’t think that will work.”
Gus shook his head. He opened his fist to reveal a large golden locket, overlaid with a coral cameo of a lady’s solemn profile.
“How is this going to help us?” Ollie demanded.
Gus grinned at them. “It has my mom’s photograph in it.”
“So?”
“So,” Gus said, “we’ll show my mom’s picture to the Royal Guard Bat!”
Anastasia’s eyes widened. “But wouldn’t that turn him into stone?” she protested. “We can’t do that!”
Pippistrella squeaked angrily.
“It won’t hurt him a bit,” Gus assured them. “If someone looks directly at a lady gorgon, they turn to stone. But if they see a photo of a gorgon”—he swung the locket like a hypnotist’s pendulum—“it just knocks them out for a few hours.”
“Gus!” Ollie exclaimed. “You smart cookie!”
“The bat will just go into a very deep sleep. And he won’t remember anything, either,” Gus promised, pressing the locket into Anastasia’s palm. “Don’t tell anyone you have this. It’s kind of against the law for gorgons to have their photos taken.”
“Just imagine what could happen if a pickpocket got hold of that!” Ollie said.
Anastasia hesitated. “You’re sure this won’t petrify the guard bat?”
“Pinky swear,” Gus said. “But you’ve got to keep it hidden. I’m not even supposed to touch it.”
“I won’t show it to anybody. Anybody besides the guard bat, I mean.” Anastasia shoved the necklace into her satchel, guilt prickling her conscience. It didn’t seem right to borrow Mrs. Wata’s necklace without permission.
A squeak from the coffee table drew her attention back to the mice. “What about them? Are they just waiting to be eaten?”
Gus cringed. “Isn’t it awful? I used to have a hamster named Twinkie, but my mom’s snakes ate her. I cried for a week.”
“Was that squeaking in your lunch box a bunch of mice?” Anastasia asked.
“Yeah.”
“And were you the one who let the mice loose in the caveteria kitchen?” Ollie gasped.
“It wasn’t a joke, like Marm Pettifog thinks,” Gus said miserably. “I just couldn’t bring them home or Mom would know I wasn’t feeding them to my snakes.”
“If you’re not giving them mice, what are you feeding them?” Ollie asked.
Gus shrugged. “Gorgons’ snakes don’t actually have to eat. They absorb nutrients from their host. My mom just spoils hers.”
“A gorgon’s serpents are her crowning glory,” Ollie quoted. “Keep yours happy.”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Over Christmas vacation, Mom gave me a huge lecture about nurturing my snakes. And ever since the semester star
ted, she’s been putting mice in my lunch pail! It’s mortifying! Can you imagine what everyone at school would say?”
“Ophelia Dellacava would probably scream bloody murder and jump on the table,” Ollie speculated. “That might be pretty fun to see, actually.”
“I’ve starved through lunch every day this week, because I was scared to open my pail,” Gus went on. “What if a mouse hopped out when I was getting my sandwich?”
Anastasia eyed the box of mice. “Maybe we should liberate them.”
“You mean, set them free?” Ollie asked.
Anastasia nodded. After her ghastly sojourn at St. Agony’s Asylum, she knew what it was like to imagine some terrible creature was planning to devour her. It was one of the worst feelings in the world. It ranked up there with wondering whether her father had fallen into the nefarious clutches of CRUD.
“I like mice,” Ollie said.
“So do I,” Gus said. “But my mom will ask a million questions if they just disappear.”
“I know!” Ollie cried. “We can say we need the mice for our science project!”
“Grand!” Gus agreed. “My parents won’t complain if they think it’s for schoolwork. We can just build a mouse maze or something.”
“Or teach them tricks,” Anastasia suggested.
“Sure,” Gus said. “But you guys better take the mice home with you. Even if Mom thinks I need them for our project, she won’t be able to resist eating them.”
“Hooray!” Ollie cheered. “Can I have them? I’ve never had a pet.”
And that is how ten little mice escaped becoming a gorgon’s snack.
18
The Girl in the Glass
AS I’M SURE you are already well aware, dear Reader, school cancellations can be delicious things indeed: even for children who adore learning, a special day off merits celebration. And for children under the baleful watch of tyrants like Marm Pettifog, any extra morsel of liberty would rank with a round-the-world luxury cruise.
However, no jollification or jubilee would accompany the Cavelands school cancellation that Friday, aka the anniversary of the Dastardly Deed. It was a time for grim remembrance. It was a time for shutting oneself into a trunk. Or a closet.
“Or even a cupboard,” Baldwin said. “Any uncomfortable little cubbyhole will do.”
“It’s to honor Poppa,” Penny explained. “It’s to give everyone a feeling for what he endures every day.”
“Be quiet!” Ludowiga hissed. “Don’t you twits know anything about solemnity? And for goodness’ sake, Anastasia, do try to frown.” She patted her wig and assumed a tragic expression.
Anastasia blinked around Stardust Cavern. Boats dotted the Gloomy Lagoon, and the Morfolk in these boats gazed in solemn silence at a black chest at the end of the dock. A choir of bats circling above screeched an eerie carol as Wiggy glided down the noble-thronged pier to this chest. She climbed inside and stood there for a moment, statue-still, her glass eyelids winking in the candlelight. Then she folded into the trunk like a deflated jack-in-the-box.
Two senators swung the lid shut and the bats hushed their song. The lord mayor of Nowhere Special scampered forth, bearing a hammer.
“In this somber coffer our queen shall stay until midnight,” he proclaimed, pulling a nail from his pocket and positioning it at one corner of the crate. “In darkness dark as the dark wrought by witches, she remembers!” He swung the mallet. “Remember you all—ouch! My thumb! I hit my thumb!”
Saskia giggled.
“Eight nails!” the mayor went on. “As eight silver strikes to a Morfolk heart—ow! Blast it!”
After much howling, the mayor finally tamped the last pin and four dukes hefted the chest into a waiting gondola. The crowd on the pier dispersed to their own boats.
“Belfry will steer Wiggy through the canals of Nowhere Special,” Baldwin said, “so all the Morfolk in town can see the procession. And then everyone goes home and shuts themselves into their own nooks and crannies.”
“Come along, dear,” Penny said. “The royal family rides with Wiggy.”
Anastasia watched the Loondorfers boarding the gondola, the gears in her mind cranking.
“Ooo-ooooh,” she moaned. “My tummy aches.”
If you read the first thrilling installment of the Beastly Dreadfuls’ adventures, you will recall that Anastasia’s stepmother, Trixie McCrumpet, spent her days snuffling and sniveling in bed when she was actually hale as a horse. Anastasia had not witnessed these shenanigans without learning a few tricks of the crock’s trade. She knew how to grabble her stomach. She knew all about slumping her shoulders, quivering, and gulping.
“Why, Anastasia!” Penny said. “You don’t look well at all!”
“No…I’m okay…,” Anastasia mumbled. “I just…feel really cold.”
“I think you should stay home today,” Penny fretted. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No,” Anastasia wheezed. “I think I just need to sleep.”
So Anastasia was “sick in bed with a tummy ache” while the rest of the royal family sailed off on their dismal pageant. “Sick in bed with a tummy ache” means, in this particular paragraph, “crouching behind a limestone pillar and eyeing the guard bat patrolling Wiggy’s chamber.” As you may already have guessed, perceptive Reader, Anastasia was not ill in the least. She didn’t have a tummy ache. She had a fire in the belly to find the Cavern of Dreams, and within it, inklings of the Silver Hammer.
She took a deep breath and crept toward the flying fox. “Hi there.”
The bat stared straight ahead, neither twitching toe nor flicking whisker. Anastasia pulled the locket from beneath her collar and cracked the gold oval. She held it before the bat’s nose and—Bob’s your uncle!—his eyes squeezed shut and his wings curled closed. His armor jingled around little snores.
“Success!” She shoved the necklace back into her shirt and darted furtive glances up and down the corridor. It was empty. How long might the queen’s procession last? An hour? Two? Wiggy would stay in the trunk until midnight, but where would the trunk be? Would the palace staff drag it to the queen’s chambers once the royal family returned from their ride?
“Come on, Peeps,” Anastasia said. “We have to be quick.”
Purple quartz encrusted the entire cavern, glinting and glittering in the glow from chandelier upon chandelier. An enormous metal ring—large enough to be a hippo’s hula hoop—hung from the ceiling, and long curtains of chain mail drooped from this ring to mantle a massive bed. It was a chain-mail canopy. Trepidation twiddled Anastasia’s guts. Not only did Wiggy have guards, and glass eyelids through which she could watch for intruders even in the depths of sleep, but she was also possessed of an armored bed. Anastasia shivered. Perhaps the Cavelands were safe from CRUD, but would Morfolk ever feel safe from witches?
As glamorous and glimmery as was the queen’s cavern, there wasn’t much in it. Anastasia surveyed the width and length of the cave, spotting, aside from the bed, only a vanity with a tall, splotched mirror. No doors chinked the cavern walls; at least, none that she could see. Of course, from following Francie Dewdrop’s adventures in detecting, Anastasia knew that doors could be concealed in manifold manners.
“You fly up and look around the ceiling. Look for anything that could trigger a hidden door,” she told Pippistrella. “I’ll hunt down here.” The bat squeaked and glided up to the stalactites, and Anastasia dropped to her hands and knees and crawled on the marble floors. After several painstaking minutes, she creaked to her feet and combed the crystal-spiked walls.
Nothing.
Pippistrella dived from a chandelier and lit on the dressing table, regarding herself in the mirror.
“Peeps, we don’t have time to primp,” Anastasia scolded. “We’re on a mission.”
Pippistrella ignored her, twisting to examine her batty rump in the glass.
“What are you doing?” Anastasia asked. “Is this because Baldy said you looked like you put on some weig
ht? He was joking! You weigh eight ounces. Hey!”
Her breath snagged as Pippistrella spun, toppling a perfume bottle. “Watch it!” She hopscotched to the vanity and righted the flask. “You could have broken that, Peeps, and then we’d be in huge trouble.”
Pippistrella screaked, battering the mirror with her wings.
“It’s a shame you don’t speak Echolalia.”
“Who said that?” Anastasia whirled, but the cavern lay empty; she dashed to the door, but it was shut fast. The hairs at the nape of her neck prickled like the quills on a spooked porcupine.
“Peeps!” Anastasia scurried back to the vanity. “Did you hear that?”
“Squeee peep! Crr-crreakity prrp!”
“I was saying, it’s a shame you don’t speak Echolalia, because your clever bat has interesting things to say.”
The voice again! Anastasia squinted at the stalactites, panicking. Might Wiggy have stationed a Shadowperson to patrol her chamber’s darkest corners? “Where are you? Stop hiding! As—as princess of the Cavelands, I command you to show yourself!”
“Interesting things like: look right in front of your nose.”
Breathing hard, Anastasia lowered her gaze to the mirror. Carved in the wooden frame were the words LOOK & YE SHALL FIND, and below these words, her reflection grinned. Trembling, Anastasia raised her fingers to her lips. She definitely was not smiling. Her mouth was round as an O.
“Hello,” the reflection said. Pippistrella shrilled and zipped from the vanity to cower beneath Anastasia’s braid.
Anastasia goggled at the girl smirking from the glass. She cautiously stretched to touch her, but her fingertips just bumped the mirror’s silvered flank.
“You can’t come in here,” the girl informed her, sounding amused.
“This must be witch magic!” Anastasia said. “You can’t be real!”
Her reflection’s grin capsized into a scowl. “Of course I’m real. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining you.”
“Don’t be insulting,” her mirror-twin retorted. “I have an entire existence outside anything your silly noodle could invent. There’s a vast mirror-world for me to play in: all the places reflected in all the mirrors of the world. My life doesn’t start and end with reflecting you, you know.” She examined her fingernails. “I’m not stuck watching you blow your nose and count your freckles—not all the time, anyway.”