Twice Upon a Marigold

by Jean Ferris

  "But what if it does?" Swithbert said. "That would be terrible. Harming an innocent person."

  "Wendell doesn't have the best reputation for success," Marigold said gently. "And we know nothing about your magical skills. What makes you think you can do something this hard?"

  "Wendell says since he's been at your castle in Zandelphia, he's been getting enough sleep and enough to eat, which he hasn't had for years, and he's had a lot of time to experiment with things. So he's gotten better at magic."

  "Maybe he has," Christian said to Marigold. "I suppose it's possible."

  "Go on, Mr. Lucasa," Swithbert said. "Tell us what you can do."

  "I've lived alone for a long time, in a part of the country where a lot of travelers passed by my cottage. I like to cook, so occasionally one of them would come in for a meal—and sometimes end up staying for days."

  "Say," Swithbert said. "Did you make me boiled eggs for breakfast and lunch one day?"

  "Indeed I did."

  "Then I can understand why they wanted to stay. Best eggs I ever ate."

  "Thank you. Well, I met some interesting people that way, and I learned something from almost every one of them. Including that spell. I confess I've never had to try it, but I have the recipe with me, and Wendell has all the equipment and ingredients we'll need. We're pretty confident we can vaporize Olympia without harming Angelica."

  "But what about the bad energy Olympia would leave behind?" Marigold asked. "That would be almost as bad as still having her here."

  "I think this is the best time to do it, while her heart and mind are still all shaken up by Hannibal. Before her substances settle back to the way they were."

  There was a long silence.

  "Did you have some other solution in mind?" Mr. Lucasa asked finally. "Something you think would work better?"

  After another long silence, Swithbert said, "No."

  Chris, seeing how reluctant Swithbert was, as always, to make a decision that might turn out poorly for someone, acted like a king and spoke. "I know we'd be taking a risk for Angelica, but if we really want Olympia gone for good, this may be the only way. What would you say about asking Angelica how she'd feel about it?"

  More long silence. Marigold went to sit beside her father and held his hand. "Olympia's given you nothing but trouble for years, Papa. And she was willing to eliminate you, and Ed, and Magnus to get what she wanted. Not to mention what she wanted to do to you and me before I married Chris just so she could be the sole ruler. She's evil, Papa. Truly."

  He sighed and squeezed her hand. "I know. I do know."

  "I understand," Mr. Lucasa said, "how difficult a decision this is. But you don't want to be a'anu forever, do you? It's a Cook Island word meaning to sit all huddled up, pinched and miserable. And it seems to me she's made almost her whole kingdom feel that way. It's not good leadership."

  Swithbert sighed again, and said, "All right. Let's go talk it over with Angelica."

  38

  Angie had been calmed considerably by Susan's presence (and Fenleigh's absence), and listened to all they had to say without interruption—something Olympia would have been incapable of doing. As Mr. Lucasa said, Olympia was very good at nyelonong— Indonesian for interrupting without apology.

  When they had finished telling Angie about the possibility of separating her from Olympia permanently, she sat clutching Susan's hands in both of hers, clearly frightened. "This Olympia sounds like a terrible person. I hate the idea that she's part of me."

  "She isn't, actually," Mr. Lucasa said. "She's separate from you. Just sharing your living quarters, let us say. What we want to do is evict an unwanted tenant. An irresponsible, destructive one. One, say, with a long accordéon, which is French for an extensive criminal record."

  "When you put it that way," Angie said, "it makes me want her out of here right now. Except for what could happen to me in the process." Her lower lip began to quiver.

  Swithbert, Marigold, and Christian watched it, amazed. She looked exactly like Olympia, but behaved so unlike her that it was positively disorienting.

  "I suggest we get Wendell up here immediately," Mr. Lucasa said. "We can't waste any time. That bad energy could be settling itself while we speak."

  "Of course," Swithbert said. "I'll send Denby for him."

  WITHIN A FEW MINUTES, Wendell was there, carrying his bag of wizardry ingredients, bowing over and over again. Never before had he been in the presence of so much royalty, and it was making him pretty nervous.

  "Wendell," Marigold said, "would you like a moment to collect yourself and get prepared?" The idea of a twitchy wizard with a poor record of successes attempting a tricky spell was making her feel the need to collect herself as well.

  "Good idea. Yes, indeed." He mopped his brow with his sleeve.

  After a few minutes in the dressing room with Mr. Lucasa, reviewing the process, while the others paced anxiously and Angie lay, ashen, on her pillows, Wendell and Mr. Lucasa returned, smiling and apparently confident.

  Angie sat up. "What should I do?" she asked in a trembling voice.

  "We need some items from you," Mr. Lucasa said. "Things that only Olympia would have touched. Nothing that you've had contact with since you became Angie again."

  "That would be almost everything she owned, since I've been Angie for only a few hours. But take it. Take it all. Gowns, furs, jewels, whatever you can find. I don't want any of it enough to be her again."

  Swithbert winced watching Mr. Lucasa go through the drawers of Olympia's jewelry chest. Nothing in there had cost him less than—well, he wouldn't want to say, but a very great deal—and he would hate to see so much of an investment be melted, or whatever was going to happen to it. But on reconsideration, he decided he agreed with Angie—he didn't want any of it enough to get Olympia back. "Take it all," he encouraged Mr. Lucasa.

  "This is just what I need." Mr. Lucasa picked up a handful of tortoiseshell hairpins. He held them in front of Angie. "Now, breathe on them. Don't touch them, just breathe." Angie huffed a little puff of air onto the hairpins. "Now spit on them."

  "Really?" Angie said. "I mean ... your hand ..."

  "It's all right," he said. "I'm washable."

  "Are you sure about this?" Wendell asked. "I've never seen such a thing."

  "It's in the recipe," Mr. Lucasa said. "There are times when one can improvise with a recipe, but this is not one of them. Now lie back and close your eyes."

  Angie fell back onto the pillows with a thump and squeezed her eyes shut, as if expecting a blow.

  Mr. Lucasa, humming softly, set a stone bowl on the bedside table and began asking Wendell for items. "One tablespoon slime mold, half a cup of wrack, pinch of Venus flytrap. Thank you. Two grams figwort, one of deadly nightshade, dash of bittersweet. Thank you. Now the hairpins, three shakes powdered canker-worm, and a third of a cup of slivered snout beetle. That's it."

  "They do seem to know what they're doing," Marigold whispered to Christian. He patted her hand and held his breath.

  Mr. Lucasa stopped humming and began muttering as he crushed the ingredients in the bowl with a big stone pestle. Wendell muttered along with him, reading his lines from the recipe card. A strong odor was released—part sweet, part rotten, part spicy. "Like most people," Wendell commented, while the others held their noses, and Angie squinched her eyes more tightly closed.

  A dark purple cloud rose above the stone bowl and swirled like a little tornado. It meandered about the room indecisively and then stopped, as if gathering strength. After a moment, it tore across the room like a purple arrow, straight for Angelica.

  Marigold gripped Christian's arm so hard he winced.

  The purple arrow went straight into Angie's right ear and disappeared. Everyone gasped at once as Angie began to thrash and writhe on the bed.

  Swithbert covered his eyes with his hands. Susan covered her mouth with her hands. Mr. Lucasa covered his ears with his hands. Marigold clutched Christian hard enough to leave br
uises. And Wendell's mutterings changed to whimperings. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear," he moaned.

  The battle inside Angie went on for several minutes. Then suddenly she was still. Totally, utterly still. A pale lavender vapor leaked out of her ear and lay on the pillow, a misty smudge. All that remained of the odor was a faint sweetness.

  Susan was the first to move, taking Angie's limp hand in her own. "Angie, dear," she whispered. "Are you there?"

  No answer.

  Susan put her arms around Angie, tears welling in her eyes. "You were the bravest person I knew," she said, weeping.

  Angie coughed, and Susan sat up. "Angie?"

  "Huh?" Angie opened her eyes. "What happened? I feel so strange. As if I'd been turned inside out or something."

  "Wait," Swithbert said. "You are Angie, right? You wouldn't answer to the name Olympia if I called you that, would you?"

  "No," Angie said, and coughed again. "Because that's not my name."

  "What about me? What's my name?"

  She started to speak, and then frowned. "I guess I never heard it. I'm sorry. We were never actually introduced."

  Still not convinced, he stepped over to the jewelry chest and took up a handful of sparkling baubles. Carrying them to the open window, he said, "What would you say if I were to drop these out the window?"

  "I would hate to see such valuable things thrown away, but they're not mine. I can't tell you what to do with them."

  "She's Angie, all right," Swithbert crowed. "Olympia would have been out of that bed in a flash, saving the jewelry and dropping me out the window!"

  Mr. Lucasa stepped up to Wendell and shook his hand. "We did it! We actually did it! I don't know how much call there is for that kind of a spell, but you really nailed it. I feel like giving you a present. How would you like a new robe? That one's definitely seen better days."

  Wendell tottered weakly and held on to Mr. Lucasa. "It really did work, didn't it? To tell you the truth, I was pretty sure we couldn't do it."

  That wasn't exactly what Marigold would have preferred to hear, but it didn't matter now. The spell had vaporized Olympia.

  Wendell recovered himself and went to examine the pale lavender stain on the pillow. "I thought there'd be more left," he said. "But Olympia fought like a tiger. There was just barely enough."

  "Where—," Swithbert began, "where is she now? Do you know?"

  "I don't," Wendell said. "But it's somewhere she can't come back from, we're sure of that. I just hope we acted in time, and there isn't any negative energy left behind."

  As he said that, the big gold-framed mirror over the vanity table cracked right down the middle, releasing a little puff of lavender smoke.

  "Oooh!" they all said, as a shiver went up their spines.

  "I guess there is," Wendell whispered. "But maybe that was the last of it."

  At that, a picture on the wall next to the door fell off its hook and hit the floor with a crash, breaking its frame.

  "I should have known she wouldn't go quietly," Swithbert said.

  "But she is going, right?" Marigold asked.

  "Oh, she's going, all right," Mr. Lucasa said. "She's gone. But I'm afraid we weren't quite in time to vaporize all her bad energy. At least it's not in Angie, but some of it got left behind in the atmosphere. So just remember that. If you're having a rough spot and feel extra cross and critical, that's probably just leftovers from Olympia getting in your head and making you behave badly."

  "What should we do to stop it?" Christian asked.

  "You should work extra hard to be your best selves. True evil has a hard time operating in the face of strenuous manifestations of good. Especially if you act right away. The longer you let evil hang around and get a grip on you, the harder it is to get rid of it."

  "Yes, I know." Swithbert sighed, thinking of all the years with Olympia.

  "You never acted evilly, Papa," Marigold said, consoling him.

  "I never acted at all," he said. "I was weak."

  "Evil can do that to you, too," Wendell said, packing up his bowl and pestle and the leftover ingredients. "Scare you into inaction."

  "Is there something I can take? Some powder or elixir that will give me strength against it?"

  Wendell shook his head. "Not that I know of. The only antidote to evil I've ever heard of is what Mr. Lucasa told you—just to be as actively good as you can be in the face of it. Now, about my fee—"

  "It's not going to be a firstborn child," Marigold said, stepping in. "I can tell you that right now. And not an arm and a leg, either."

  Wendell shook his head. "I wasn't even going to ask."

  "Come with me," Swithbert said. "We can discuss terms." He took Wendell by the arm with one hand and guided Mr. Lucasa with the other, and they went out into the sitting room.

  Marigold turned back to Angie. "Still feeling all right?" she asked.

  "Just fine," Angie said, fussing with her hair—always a sure sign that someone is improving. "I suppose I should start thinking about what I'll be doing next. I think it would be a mistake for me to hang around here looking like the queen everybody disliked so much."

  "You could go back to Granolah," Chris said. "I hear you liked it there."

  She turned to Susan. "We could do that."

  "Oh," Susan said. "I'm ... I'm not going back to Granolah. I'm going into business with Mr. Lucasa. But you could come with us. We're going to need lots of help."

  "You're going into business? But you never liked working when I knew you in Granolah."

  "Well, that's changed. I'm not gorogoro anymore."

  "Gorogoro?"

  "It's Japanese for lying around doing nothing. I'm learning languages from Mr. Lucasa. In our new business, it will be an advantage to speak as many as we can."

  "What is this new business?" Angie asked.

  Susan looked around. "It's still sort of a secret."

  Chris took Marigold by the arm. "We were just leaving," he said. And they did.

  39

  They strolled along the terrace that had been the scene of so much drama during their acquaintance: where they had first communicated by p-mail, where Marigold had saved Christian's life, where they were married, where Olympia had fallen into the river.

  "A lot has happened to us on this terrace," Chris said.

  "I was just thinking that," Marigold said. "This seems like a good place to make another big important decision."

  "Perhaps you're right," Chris said. "Do you want to be queen of Beaurivage and Zandelphia?"

  "I have a lot of unhappy memories of Beaurivage. Maybe coming back and correcting some of the sad things would be good for me."

  "Olympia's gone. That's one big correction. But I wouldn't want you to do something you don't feel right about." He took her into his arms. "I already feel terrible about every little thing I've ever done that's made you sad."

  "I've been thinking about that, too," she said, resting her head on his chest. "I'm starting to believe that happily ever after includes people doing things that upset each other. We all get cranky, or impatient, or worried, or careless enough to do or say things that hurt someone else. Like it or not, that's normal. We can't blame it all on Olympia's bad energy. The important part is that we feel sorry about what we've done and make up for it. That's something Olympia never did."

  "That makes perfect sense. You were brilliant to think of it." Chris had begun to figure out that most people got way more criticism than praise, and that any bit of praise that could honestly be given, should be. Especially to a loved one. "I'll go along with whatever you want to do. Because I want what makes you happy. If you're happy, I am, too."

  Marigold raised her head and looked at him. "I think we'll make perfectly splendid rulers of Zandelphia-Beaurivage."

  He kissed her with his whole heart, and it was as glorious a kiss as the first one they'd ever shared.

  40

  Swithbert, Mr. Lucasa, and Wendell negotiated a decent price for the vaporization of O
lympia, and in the process Swithbert discovered that Wendell had accumulated master points in snipsnapsnorum.

  "Is that because you use magic?" Swithbert asked. "I cheat, but I'd be open to learning something even more helpful."

  "No magic is allowed in any card game," Wendell said sternly. "Only cheating."

  "Then would you be interested in joining Ed and me in some play?" Swithbert asked. "We'd welcome some new blood at our table. And if Chris and Marigold accept my offer to combine our kingdoms, I'd like to start running snipsnapsnorum tournaments in my retirement. I want to do something lots more fun than ruling a kingdom. Maybe you'd be interested in helping with that."

  "I suppose I could stay on." Wendell restrained himself from jumping up and down. "I have no other immediate commitments." He actually had none at all, and had been wondering what he would do with himself as wizardry technology passed him by, leaving him fussing with lungwort and salamander eyes and chicken feet while the younger wizards had moved on to runes and telepathy, snake stones and divining rods.

  He'd never been very good at wizardry anyway, but he'd been pushed into it by his father, who had been something of a legend in his time. It's always hard to follow in the footsteps of a legend, especially when you don't even want to. What Wendell really loved was working with animals, which was why he and Hannibal got along so well. The vaporization spell had used up everything he had—he could feel that—and its success he could only call a miracle, which he actually thought he believed in more than magic. But he was done now, and he knew it. As ready for retirement as Swithbert was.

  "You don't mind having an elephant as a guest?" he asked Swithbert.

  "Not at all. I'm a great animal lover myself. I'll have to introduce you to my unicorn, Razi. And I saw how Christian looked at your beast. He'd love having him around for as long as you want to stay. Now, what do you say we go downstairs and get ourselves one of those nice big desserts Mr. Lucasa made for the rebels, and dig up Ed for some snipsnapsnorum?"

  "It would be my great pleasure."