by Jean Ferris
Twice Upon a Marigold
Jean Ferris
* * *
Harcourt, Inc.
Orlando Austin New York San Diego London
* * *
The inspiration for Mr. Lucasa's wonderful foreign words
came from The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words
from Around the World by Adam Jacot de Boinod,
to whom I offer my heartfelt thanks.
Copyright © 2008 by Jean Ferris
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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or any information storage and retrieval system, without
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Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the
work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact
or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,
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www. HarcourtBooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ferris, Jean, 1939–
Twice upon a Marigold/Jean Ferris.
p. cm.
Summary: After a quiet, happy year in a small town, Queen
Olympia regains her memory and initiates new plots and
manipulations, as the residents of Zandelphia and
Beaurivage, now ruled by Christian, Marigold, and
Swithbert, feel the effects of her bad energy.
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction.
3. Princesses—Fiction. 4. Amnesia—Fiction. 5. Trolls—
Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ8.F387Twi 2008
[Fic]—dc22 2007035761
ISBN 978-0-15-206382-5
Text set in Minister
Designed by Lydia D'moch
3 5 7 8 6 4
Printed in the United States of America
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OTHER BOOKS BY JEAN FERRIS
Much Ado About Grubstake
Once Upon a Marigold
Love among the Walnuts
Eight Seconds
* * *
For K. A. K., Gillian's prince charming
1
The trouble began with the dogs: big, shaggy Bub and little, dramatic Cate; and the floor mops: Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy. They had lots of toys scattered all through the castle at Beaurivage, as well as at the crystal cave-castle, Zandelphia's royal residence across the river. There were chew toys, balls, flying toys, stuffed toys, toys on wheels, but there was just one blue squeaky toy. And that was the one they all wanted to play with.
When they were at the castle where the blue squeaky toy wasn't, they made do with what was available. But even when they were wildly chasing the bouncy red balls down seven flights of stairs, they were each thinking, I wish I had that blue squeaky toy. When they did have the blue squeaky toy, there were nothing but fights over who got to play with it, and for how long, and whose turn was next.
Nobody could figure out why these dogs, who had been such good friends for over a year, were suddenly so contentious. They should have been the happiest dogs in all the known kingdoms. They had the most luxurious silk pillows to sleep on (as well as every bed—even if there was somebody in it—in any of the 247 bedrooms in both castles combined), the finest and most exotic cuisine (muskrat mixture, chipmunk chews, kangaroo kibble) prepared daily by the royal chefs, so many toys the courtiers were constantly tripping over them and finding them under the many sofa cushions (and still occasionally discovering that their court shoes had been chewed on), and more freedom than was probably good for them. Limits are important and necessary, after all.
The dogs weren't sure why they were so cranky with each other, either. It just seemed there was something in the air that made them feel all prickly and cross.
And then there was something in the air. Rain—lots of it.
The rain started the day a rumor reached the castle at Beaurivage of a woman who had washed ashore about a year before in a village far, far, far downstream, who hadn't been able to remember anything about how she had gotten into the river—or anything at all, really. She apparently had recently regained her memory.
There were no further details, but of course everyone thought of their queen, Olympia, who had fallen into the river the year before.
It kept raining. For days and days and days. Then everybody in Beaurivage—not just the dogs—was in a bad mood.
The suspicions that the woman was Olympia persisted. But no more rumors arrived, and neither did Olympia. Since everyone believed that the first thing she would have done upon recovering her memory that she was a queen would have been to get back to Beaurivage as fast as possible, and since that hadn't come about, they began to comfort themselves with the belief that the woman downstream was not Olympia. It was an odd coincidence, they agreed, that another woman had fallen into the river at about the same time, but coincidences happened, especially in villages alongside rivers.
After a week or so of steady rain, the downpours tapered off and finally stopped. But the persistent feelings in Beaurivage were those of gloom, discontent, and unease. It was hard to believe that such a short time before, around the time of the dedication of the Zandelphia-Beaurivage Bridge linking the two kingdoms, many residents, including the royals, believed themselves to be the happiest they had ever been.
2
One Year Earlier
Mr. Ubaldo Appenzeller, the mayor of Granolah, had very few duties. Ribbon cuttings were few and far between because civic improvements required revenue, which Granolah didn't have; there were no meetings because there was nothing to discuss; and no handshaking was necessary since he already knew everybody in town.
So he went fishing. A lot.
That particular day he'd gone upstream from the village since several other Granolahans were fishing downstream, and he wanted to make sure he got the fish before the fish could get to the other fishers.
He pulled on his waders and slopped through the reeds and weeds into the river. He flung his fishing line out into the water, admiring the silvery pattern it made as it spun through the air and hit the surface. Being able to cast a beautiful line was an excellent quality in a mayor, he thought. He gave his rod a little congratulatory jiggle and frowned when his hook seemed to be stuck on something. He yanked harder and the hook stayed stuck.
He waded a little farther out into the river and saw that his hook was caught on a pile of clothing. Now that was just annoying. The main plank of his election—in fact, the only plank—had been the cleanup of the river. As congenial as most of the Granolahans were in general, when it came to the river they seemed to think it was their town dump. With a lot of nagging and some serious penalties (an afternoon in the stocks, a day spent standing in the corner, a week without doughnuts) he had finally, he thought, gotten them to stop throwing their trash into their pretty stretch of the river. And now there was a mess in there, and who was supposed to do the actual cleaning up? That was just too much to require of one's mayor.
Grumpily, Mr. Appenzeller sloshed out far enough to grab hold of the bundle and pull it in. And it was heavy! Not until he got it close enough to shore for it to drag on the bottom did he realize that the clothes were inhabited. He knew this because whatever was in them began struggling. He was so startled he let out a very unmayoral squeal before hauling the bundle up onto solid ground.
There was so much sodden fabric wound around the floater that Mr. Appenzeller at first couldn't tell what was hidden in
the folds. As he stood watching the struggle going on inside the sopping clothing, a dripping wet lump of fur worked its way to the top of the mess and stood with its teeth chattering, uttering pitiful little whimpers. By reflex, Mr. Appenzeller reached out to the poor creature, which responded by baring its fangs and snapping at the outstretched hand. As Mr. Appenzeller retracted his hand in shock, a head popped out of the wet clothing, its eyes wide and frightened. The little animal flung itself on the person's neck, making hysterical sounds.
Arms came out of the soggy heap, frantically pushing the animal away. And the more the arms pushed, the harder the animal tried to wrap itself around the person's neck.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" the person cried in a voice full of fear and bubbles.
Mr. Appenzeller wasn't the kind of man to ignore a plea for help, but he'd already had a good look at that animal's fangs and he didn't want to get any better acquainted with them. He dithered for a moment, then grabbed his fishing creel and popped it over the hyperactive animal, scooping it inside. He slammed the lid shut and pulled the buckles tight while the creel bounced around in his arms, issuing alarming yowls.
"Oh, thank you," the waterlogged person said. "I don't know what that animal was trying to do, but it scared me to death."
"Do you think you can stand up?" Mr. Appenzeller asked. "I apologize for not helping you," he said, "but as you can see—" He extended the agitated fishing creel.
The pile of wet clothing struggled around at the riverside, grabbing first a reed, which uprooted, and then a boulder, which offered sufficient support for it to become upright. Then Mr. Appenzeller could see that the clothing fell into a gown with a voluminous skirt and an embroidered bodice, and that the river survivor was a female of middle years.
"Of course, of course," the woman said. She stood, leaning against the boulder, trying to adjust her clothing and the stringy strands of her hair.
"Are you all right?" he asked, which seemed a perfectly ludicrous question considering that she had been floating in a river for who-knew-how-long with a wild animal inside her dress.
She looked down at herself, then flexed each arm and swiveled her neck around. "I seem to be. I think everything is working as it should. Where am I?"
"Forgive me," Mr. Appenzeller said, juggling the fishing creel. "My name is Ubaldo Appenzeller. I'm mayor of the village of Granolah, which is where you are. Where did you—ah—enter the river?"
It was a bit of a ticklish question, as he didn't know if she'd fallen in by accident, been pitched in by an angry mob, or flung herself into the river in despair over some tragic situation.
"Well, I suppose it must have been—" She scratched her wet head. "How odd. I haven't the slightest idea. I can't remember at all how it happened."
"Perfectly understandable," Mr. Appenzeller said. "You've been through quite an ordeal. Perhaps if you tell me your name, I'll be able to make a connection with one of our nearby towns. Well, the kingdom we're part of is so far from everything that we're not actually nearby to anything, but I'll do my best."
"Certainly." The woman was now sitting on the boulder. "My name is—" Again she paused. "Huh. I must know my own name, but I can't seem to ..." She trailed off. After a moment, she lifted the hem of her skirt and looked down at her feet. "I have only one shoe," she said, "but it's a very nice one, isn't it?"
The mayor looked. The shoe was silvery, with a bow on the toe. It was rather the worse for wear at the moment, but he could see that it had once been, indeed, a very nice shoe. He knew this because his wife, Wivinia, loved shoes. Her shoe collection was so large that it required its own cupboard in their cozy cottage, and she was primarily responsible for keeping Granolah's shoemaker in business.
"And this dress," she went on. "It's brocade, isn't it? Or damask, or something like that? It seems I was all gussied up for something when I went in the river. But for the life of me, I can't remember what it was." She shivered.
Mr. Appenzeller sighed. Clearly, his quiet morning of fishing was over. "Come on, then," he said. "Let's get you where you can dry off and warm up and then we'll see what comes back to you. Some rest and a hot meal can do wonders."
She limped off along the path to town accompanied by Mr. Appenzeller, a fat little man juggling an unruly fishing creel.
***
WARM DRY CLOTHES, a hot meal, and a nap did nothing to refresh the woman's memory, though they did refresh her looks—and quite a handsome, wall–set-up matron she was.
It had begun to cross Mr. Appenzeller's mind that he and Wivinia might be having a long-term house-guest—which is exactly what they ended up with. After some days with the Appenzellers, the stranger suggested they find a name for her since she wasn't remembering anything, and none of their unmethodical inquiries had turned up any information about her. "You can't keep calling me 'her,'" she said.
"Do you have any suggestions?" Wivinia Appenzeller asked. "Any name that strikes your fancy? Any name you especially love?"
The stranger pondered for a moment. "Hmm. Camilla? Diana? Olympia? Bathsheba? Cinderella? Guinevere? Fatima? None of those seem quite right. Oh. I know. Angelica! Isn't that a pretty name? Angelica. It's so ... so angelic. Does that seem presumptuous? I mean, I'm not suggesting I'm angelic."
"Of course not," Wivinia said. "But it is a lovely name. And it suits you."
INDEED IT DID. Angelica was always eager to help in any way around the house, though she was surprisingly inept at even the simplest chores. At first she burned anything she tried to cook, pulled the flowers out of the garden and left the weeds, and didn't even know where to begin when it came to laundry. She must have lost her memories of how to perform these basic survival tasks along with all her other memories.
She was a quick and eager learner, though, and soon could prepare a simple meal, sweep out the cottage, and haul water from the well without spilling any. She and Mrs. Appenzeller sewed a wardrobe for her that was a little out of the ordinary since the visitor always wanted extra embellishments on her garments—more ruffles, bows (especially bows), and trimmings were always better than fewer. Bonding the two women was their love of shoes, which the visitor was able to buy from the village shoemaker with a supply of gold coins found sewn into the hem of the dress she'd washed up in. No one could figure out why anyone would have a hemful of money, but there it was.
Before long, everyone in Granolah was calling the new arrival Angie, and had accepted her presence as part of their village life. The only problem was with the animal that had been trapped inside her dress. He was miserable, as well as terribly noisy, inside the fishing creel. But when the Appenzellers tried to dump him outside in the woods, he raced them back to their cottage and sped straight for their visitor, who was ter-rifled of him.
"Perhaps he was your pet in the life you've forgotten," Ubaldo finally suggested. "Maybe he remembers what you don't." He handed Angelica a scrap of platypus left over from their previous night's dinner. "Here. Try feeding him. See how he reacts to you."
"You try," she said. "I'm afraid he'll bite my hand off."
"It's you he seems so fond of," Ubaldo said nervously, pressing the platypus scrap into her palm. He flipped up the lid of the creel. "Don't cringe," he encouraged her. "Be brave."
The animal jumped out of the creel, looked around, and headed for Angie, fast as lightning. He scaled her like a mountaineer, bypassing the platypus and nestling on her shoulder with his nose in her ear, making pitiful little mewling noises.
"See?" Mr. Appenzeller said. "He likes you. Better than platypus even."
Angie sat as still as a post, her eyes wide and terrified, the platypus forgotten in her hand. But when all the animal did was continue his whimpering in her ear, she gradually relaxed. Tentatively, she patted his furry back, which caused him to snuggle even closer.
"Maybe you're right," she whispered. "Maybe he was my pet."
"Sure looks that way to me," Ubaldo said. He removed one of the leather straps from the fishing creel, and said, "
We can put a collar on him, and a rope. That way we can keep control of him." He dangled the strap toward the woman. "He'd probably like it better if you did it."
It took some coaxing and jockeying by both of them, but finally they got the collar on the creature's neck. The length of rope tied to it seemed unnecessary considering how closely he huddled against the woman's skirt.
"I guess he needs a name now," Ubaldo said. "Anything come into your mind?"
Angie looked down at him. "No. So why don't we call him—I don't know—Fenleigh, let's say."
"Pretty highfalutin name for a—whatever he is—but I guess that's his name now."
TO EVERYONE'S SURPRISE, Angie made a friend of the village's most troubled resident—Lazy Susan.
Lazy Susan was Sleeping Beauty's half sister, and she had never gotten over her resentment that Beauty was so much younger, so much more spoiled, and had grown up in a castle. Lazy Susan had been left behind in Granolah with her grandparents when her mother, a pretty young widow, married the monarch of a distant kingdom and went off to forget she'd had any life before that. By doing absolutely nothing, Beauty had won herself a handsome prince, while Susan herself did a few things (though none of them very well, or very fast) and couldn't even get the local sheepshearer to give her a second look. And now that she was past her prime, the sheep wouldn't look at her, either.
Most of the Granolahans were pretty tired of hearing about all this, especially since Lazy Susan wouldn't take any advice, such as "Get over it," or "Stop frowning so much," or "Learn to do something really well." But Angie, always accompanied by a meek Fenleigh now, was willing to listen endlessly to Lazy Susan complain, or mourn, or rehash the past. This caused some Granolahans to believe she really was angelic.
In these ways, a year went by, smoothly and peacefully, as almost every year in Granolah went. And during that time, almost everybody forgot that Angie hadn't always been there.