Twice Magic

by Cressida Cowell

  And on the right-hand side of the page, Wish had written down in completely different beautiful curly writing, the words of a spell.

  A Spell to Get Rid of Witches

  Gather all ingredients and STIR with a living spoon.

  Ingredients

  One: Giant’s Last Breath from Castle Death.

  Two: Feathers from a Witch.

  Three: Tears from a Frozen Queen.

  But after “Three” the writing got a bit smudgy, as if the writer had suddenly been surprised in the middle of doing something.

  “And do you want to know something truly extraordinary?” said Wish, eyes shining like stars.

  Not really, thought Bodkin, who was beginning to get a very, very bad feeling about this.

  “I wasn’t even looking for it! I was just starting to write a story in this section of the book, because Caliburn gave me one of his feathers to do that with, and suddenly the feather started writing all by itself!!!”

  “Oh dear…” said Bodkin, whose bad feeling was getting worse. “Are you sure it wasn’t just you writing it? That’s a bit spooky…”

  “I’m certain!” said Wish. “It’s not my writing, and it definitely isn’t my spelling.”

  It was true.

  Wish was very clever, but she had certain difficulties in the “reeding and riteing and arithmatick” departments. It may have been something to do with being Magic, but somehow all the letters and the numbers wandered about doing complicated alphabet dance exercises in her head, and they wouldn’t stay still however hard she concentrated. It was very wearing.

  Only that morning, her teacher, Madam Dreadlock, had been so exasperated with Wish’s spelling that she had made Wish write “I am a Fule” on a piece of paper and hang it around her neck as a punishment.

  But every single word on the page Wish was showing Bodkin was spelled absolutely correctly.

  “You’re right,” Bodkin confirmed. “That doesn’t look anything like your spelling…”

  “Don’t you see what this means?” said Wish, excitedly waving her arms around. “The Witches have come back, but now we have a spell to get rid of them! We HAVE to get this spell to Xar, so he can give it to his father, and then the Wizards can fight back against the Witches…”

  Bodkin looked at her in horror. There were so many things wrong with this plan that he didn’t know where to start.

  “Princess,” said Bodkin, carefully, as if talking to a dangerous lunatic. “I hate to mention this, but we are sitting inside a locked cupboard, in a Warrior fort encircled by seven ditches, each one protected by your mother’s guards, and Xar is somewhere out there, we have no idea where, on the other side of your mother’s Great Wall. How are we going to get out of the cupboard? How will we get over the Wall? How would we find Xar?”

  Wish frowned, thinking for a second. “We will go to my mother,” said Wish, “and explain everything and ask for her help.”

  “Everything?” squeaked Bodkin. “We can’t explain everything! What about your Magic, and the spoon and the pins and the Spelling Book? Look!”

  There was a large notice attached to the inside of the cupboard door.

  The notice read:

  “Right there! It says, quite clearly, NO ENCHANTED OBJECTS! It’s against the rules!” Bodkin was a boy who really believed in the rules.

  “The spoon isn’t really an enchanted object,” argued Wish. “Admittedly he’s a little… lively… overexcitable perhaps… but he’s only young; you have to make allowances. He can be quiet if he needs to be, can’t you, spoon?”

  The spoon nodded and very obligingly went rigid, falling flat on his face on Wish’s shoulder and playing dead.

  “Look!” said Wish proudly. “Just like a normal dinner spoon!”

  “Normal dinner spoons don’t nod! Normal dinner spoons don’t pretend to be dead! He’s quiet now, but mostly he’s moving around all over the place!” said Bodkin, moving his arms wildly up in the air in his concern.

  Wish thought for a moment.

  And then eventually she said in a very small voice: “Do you think if I told my mother I was Magic, she would be terribly disappointed?”

  “Of COURSE she’s going to be disappointed!” said Bodkin, so alarmed he spoke without thinking. “She’s already so ashamed of you that she’s locking you in Punishment Cupboards so that visitors can’t meet you, and she doesn’t even know about the Magic yet!”

  Too late, Bodkin realized he had said the wrong thing.

  Wish swallowed hard.

  And then three large tears fell down her cheeks.

  In her heart of hearts, Wish knew that she was a disappointment to her mother—she could see it in her mother’s eyes when she looked at her. She wishes I was more like my stepsisters… But to hear it confirmed by another person made it even worse. “WHY doesn’t my mother want me to meet visitors? WHY doesn’t Madam Dreadlock like me, however hard I try? It’s because I’m a bit weird, isn’t it?” said Wish desolately.

  Bodkin patted her on the back sympathetically. “Your mother doesn’t know you like I do, Princess. You’re going to be a brilliant Warrior one day, and you have loads of wonderful Warrior qualities. It’s just going to take a little time…”

  Wish wiped away the tears with the end of her sleeve, leaving big teary smudges on her cheeks.

  “My mother is a magnificent person,” said Wish fiercely, “but she shouldn’t be ashamed of me, and I’m going to tell her that we need to get out there and help the Wizards!”

  “But the Wizards are our enemies!” said Bodkin, a little hysterically.

  “They’re fellow human beings!” said Wish. “And Xar is our friend! My mother has built this Great Wall, to keep all us Warriors safe, but what about all those poor Wizards who she’s left to fight the Witches all on their own?

  “Sometimes, when I lie awake at night,” said Wish, with big eyes, “I think I can hear, beyond the Wall, the sound of giants howling, as if they’re being attacked by Witches… Don’t you hear that, Bodkin? Are we supposed to just stay here, safe behind our Wall, and let that carry on?”

  Oh dear, Bodkin did sometimes think he heard that. You see, this is the problem with meeting your enemies. Once you have met them, it’s really quite difficult to carry on hating them in the way you absolutely ought to.

  “Xar wouldn’t let his father lock him up in cupboards when visitors came,” said Wish mutinously. “Xar stands up to his father when he thinks he is wrong. That is what I should be doing, not sitting around in dark horrible cupboards, too scared of my mother to stand up to her…”

  “You’re quite right to be scared of your mother!” said Bodkin, now thoroughly confused and beginning to panic. “Queen Sychorax is super scary! Scarier than Ghostshrieks! Scarier than Hellhounds! Scarier than an Ice Warlock in a really, really bad mood! Oh by the green gods… what are you going to do???”

  “I’m going to break out of this stupid Punishment Cupboard, go down there, and tell my mother that we need to find Xar and his father and get this spell to them,” said Wish. “There is good in my mother, she is firm but fair, and she will see my point and help us.”

  This was one of the most annoying things about Wish. She persisted in thinking the best of people even when they quite clearly did not deserve it.

  “Your mother is not firm but fair!” objected Bodkin. “Your mother is a terrifying tyrant who locks people up in Punishment Cupboards for a really long time when they’ve done absolutely nothing at all!”

  “Well, that’s exactly my point,” argued Wish. “She needs to understand that what she is doing is wrong.”

  “You don’t tell terrifying tyrants they’re wrong!” gibbered Bodkin. “You just do what they say! And I take it back—there’s probably some excellent reason for her keeping us in this cupboard… It’s quite comfortable in here, don’t you think? They’ve given us some food, so we won’t starve…” There were indeed a couple of bowls of soup in there with them, and some bread. “And
a bit of legroom… I can wriggle my toes! Quite cozy, wouldn’t you say? Nice and warm for midwinter and SAFE! It’s very safe in here… not many cobwebs… There’s plenty of oxygen for two people…”

  “It’s a cupboard,” said Wish. “We can’t stay in a cupboard forever. And she’s leaving us in here for longer and longer amounts of time… No, we’re getting out.”

  “WE NEED TO STAY IN THE CUPBOARD, WISH!” said Bodkin in a strangled whisper.

  But Wish knelt down and looked at the keyhole.

  The Spelling Book had a handy alphabet at the beginning, and when Wish tapped her fingers on the letters to spell out “U-n-l-o-k-k-i-n-g L-o-k-k-s” the pages magically turned themselves to the “Spells for Unlocking” section in the book.*

  Wish pushed up her eyepatch just a smidgeon (not too far—the Magic eye was horribly powerful), then muttered the words of the spell under her breath and the key on the other side of the door wriggled out of the lock and shot underneath the bottom of the door to their side of the cupboard, picking itself up off the floor and making them both a small bow.

  The handle of the key formed the shape of a mouth, and the key said in a tiny, creaky, excitable little voice: “How can I help you?”

  “It’s speaking!” whispered Wish, delighted, for she had never made an enchanted object speak before.

  “Will… you… stop… BRINGING THINGS TO LIFE?????” whispered Bodkin through gritted teeth.

  “You can help us unlock the door, key,” said Wish, and the key bowed again, absolutely delighted, for there is nothing that enchanted objects enjoy more than doing the things they were created for. The key hopped up the door and unlocked their side of it with such overenthusiasm that there was a small explosion, and the wood of the door split in half.

  “Whoops,” said Wish as the half-broken door swung open.

  “It’s not too late to stay in the cupboard!” cried Bodkin as Wish scrambled out.

  “Oh brother… she’s not staying in the cupboard! I’m going to have to follow her…” groaned Bodkin, grabbing his weapons.

  “She’s exploded Madam Dreadlock’s cupboard! She’s left the schoolroom without permission!” moaned Bodkin, eyes wide open with horror as he stumbled out of the cupboard, through the schoolroom, and onto the battlements. “We’re going to be in SUCH TROUBLE…”

  Clank! Clank! Clank! Bodkin staggered after Wish, as fast as he could, given that he was wearing two sets of body armor.

  “Wait… for… me…” puffed Bodkin.

  Wish slowed down a little. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Bodkin. Am I going too fast for you? Wow, you’re wearing a lot of armor…”

  Bodkin paused a second for breath. “You see, Wish, this is why Madam Dreadlock doesn’t like you…” groaned Bodkin. “What about your New Year’s Resolutions?”

  It was true, Wish’s New Year’s Resolution number two, “mak a gud impresshun on the teecher,” wasn’t going so well, what with one thing and another.

  “Bodkin,” said Wish, “I’m sad that Madam Dreadlock doesn’t like me, but there are some things that are more important than teachers and exploding cupboards. Look! Somewhere out there, over that Wall, Xar and the Wizards are in trouble, and we can help them!”

  Bodkin swallowed hard.

  “Oh dear, you’re right, you’re right, we have to help them… It’s just that Witches are SO SCARY… And they’re invisible until they attack so they could be anywhere!” whispered Bodkin with boggling eyes. He tried to look over his shoulder, but the weight of his helmet and body armor meant he had to shuffle his entire body around a hundred and eighty degrees. “I keep thinking they’re here already… that we’re being followed! That’s why I’m wearing so much body armor!”

  “Yes, it’s probably better not to wear so much armor that you can’t actually move, Bodkin,” advised Wish.

  “And your mother’s busy… It won’t be a good moment… She’s expecting visitors… I can see her already, up on the Royal Stage!” Bodkin pointed down, into the courtyard.

  “My mother’s ALWAYS busy! There’s never a good moment. Don’t worry, I’ve been practicing my Visitor Manners, Bodkin…” said Wish.

  And she dashed off down the stairs.

  Bodkin hopped unhappily from foot to foot, in an agony of anxiety. There was no stopping the little princess when she was in this kind of mood. He left the shield and the backpack behind because they were too heavy and slowing him down, and—Clank! Clank! Clank!—he staggered after Wish down the stairs.

  “At the very least,” begged Bodkin, catching up with Wish as she reached the bottom of the tower, because she’d lost one of her shoes and had to go back for it, “give me all the enchanted objects. You can’t go on the Royal Stage with your pockets full of banned Magic things… I’ll look after them while you’re up there.”

  Wish did see Bodkin’s point.

  She gave him the spoon, the Spelling Book, and all of the Enchanted Pins, who neatly pinned themselves all over Bodkin’s shirt. And then she hurried off, pushing her way through the crowd toward the stage, practicing saying very firmly, “You are wrong, Mother, wrong. We have to help the Wizards!” and her Visitor Manners, just in case: “How do you do? What do you do?”

  The Executioner, who was a kind man when he wasn’t doing his job, helped her up onto the stage beside her sisters.

  Wish’s six older stepsisters were tidy, handsome Warrior girls, as muscled and hairy and unwelcoming as six well-groomed blond gorillas. When she scrambled up beside them, the sister nearest to her in age, Drama, gave her such a big shove in the stomach with her elbow that Wish nearly fell off the stage.

  “What are you doing here, you weird little rat?” growled Drama. “Mother is ashamed of you. You’re not fit to be seen by company.”

  And the next oldest sister but one, Unforgiving, gave a great stamp on Wish’s toe and added, with satisfaction, “Mother is going to be SO ANGRY…”

  It seemed they could be right.

  The great queen Sychorax was sitting on a magnificent throne, right in the center of the courtyard. She was dressed in elaborately regal armor, with one black earring and one white.

  Wish, already gasping for breath and hopping on one foot from her stepsisters’ rather violent greeting, felt her stomach plunge with anxiety.

  What had seemed such a good idea in the cupboard suddenly didn’t seem such a good idea now.

  Even to Wish’s hopeful eyes, her mother didn’t look firm but fair.

  She looked absolutely hopping mad.

  “What are you doing here, Wish?” hissed Queen Sychorax in the voice of a sweetly striking cobra. “How dare you disobey my orders?”

  And then she gave Wish That Look.

  In most people’s eyes, Wish’s mother, Queen Sychorax, was the most petrifying Warrior leader in the entire western wildwoods, known for her stern punishments, her short temper, and her dungeons of interminable depth.

  In Wish’s eyes, her mother was the most wonderful, beautiful, splendid person in the entire world, and more than anything else in the world Wish longed to please her mother, get her golden approval.

  Wish had meant to tell her mother she was wrong.

  She meant to explain about the spell to get rid of Witches, and how they needed to get it to Xar and his father, and how they shouldn’t be building Walls that left the Wizards and the poor Magic things to be attacked.

  But when her mother gave her That Look, a Look of Deepest and Most Furious Disappointment, all the brave words Wish had been intending to say went completely out of her head.

  She opened her mouth… and shut it again.

  “I will deal with you later,” snapped Queen Sychorax through gritted teeth.

  It was too late for Wish to leave the stage.

  For Queen Sychorax’s visitors had already arrived, one of them stepping toward the throne in a curiously crabwise, menacing fashion.

  “Be quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself!” Queen Sychorax ordered Wish. “Don’t
droop! Don’t fidget! Don’t move! Don’t blink!”

  “Oh! Yes, Mother, I won’t cause any trouble, I promise…” said Wish miserably.

  Queen Sychorax’s visitor was a tall, alien figure of such alarming aspect that Wish felt a little sick and her hair began to move and stand up on the back of her neck, softly wriggling itself into a bird’s nest of tangles as if each little individual hair had a life of its own.

  “Who, or what, is that?” exclaimed Wish, in a kind of fascinated horror, desperately trying to flatten down her hair in the hope that no one would notice.

  “Don’t you know anything, you ignorant little ant?” demanded her stepsister Drama, trying to sound careless, even though she was extremely frightened herself. “That is the Witchsmeller.”

  We should have stayed in the cupboard! thought Bodkin, who had reached the Royal Stage and was peering up at the Witchsmeller. We should have stayed in the cupboard!

  4. The Pointing Finger of the Witchsmeller

  The Witchsmeller had a face that seemed to be entirely composed of nose. A nose that quivered and trembled sensitively at the tip, as if at any moment it might wander around to left and right like a pointing finger.

  The Witchsmeller had bony fingers that quivered like the legs of a praying mantis, as if he could smell with his very fingers themselves.

  Beards of dwarves hung from his cloak. Little skulls of poor sprites hung from his neck.

  From his belt hung goblin hearts and the beards of elves and toenail clippings of famous giants he had killed (AFTER they gave themselves up, for the Witchsmeller did not think you needed to keep promises you made to giants).

  He was a little annoyed at having to come so far out west to this godforsaken uncivilized jungle. He supposed the food would be terrible out here, but the emperor had insisted. He gave Queen Sychorax a very perfunctory bow.