by Jane Yolen
From the side of the room came an answering scream.
Squark! cried Dr. Mo in her cage.
Thornmallow tried to recall the rest of the nettle names. After Blind Nettle came … He got it!
“False Nettle!” This time he was able to say it aloud easily.
Once again the magic traveled across the span of the children, making the false wizard Nettle writhe in disgust. His wicked deeds multiplied in his mind and he dropped the staff. It clattered to the floor.
“Deaf Nettle!” Thornmallow cried out, not daring to look at the wizard, but certain he could hear Nettle’s deafness creeping up on him.
And then Thornmallow sat up, simultaneously letting go his hold on the next boy’s leg. He shouted triumphantly, “Dead Nettle!”
Nothing happened.
“Dead Nettle!” Thornmallow cried again, desperation in his voice.
Again nothing happened except that the wizard, now blind and deaf and furious, felt his way up the line of children until he came to Thornmallow.
“You!” he spat, grabbing Thornmallow’s arm. “You think you are some kind of hero.”
Thornmallow trembled in the wizard’s grasp.
“You have a magic I do not know. But I will take it from you before I quilt you to the Beast. Give it to me.”
“Please, sir,” Thornmallow said, painfully aware he was whining, “I am no hero at all. And I have no magic. I am completely tone deaf.”
But the Master, blind and deaf, could neither see nor hear his excuse. He grabbed Thornmallow up by the ears, yanking him to his feet.
From somewhere to his right, through the muffling of the wizard’s hands, Thornmallow could hear Tansy call out, “Roses in snow, Thorny. Remember—roses in snow.”
Thornmallow squeezed his eyes shut until he was as blind as the Master, concentrating on the feel of the wizard’s palms over his ears. He remembered what had happened when Magister Beechvale’s hands had covered his ears: how the heat had spread from the hands into his ears and down into his brain. But that had been a quiet, comforting heat, and this was red-hot and stinging. Still, when that red-hot stinging heat burrowed into his brain, Thornmallow opened his mouth and a proper magical tone came out. On the dominant.
He began to sing, making up both words and tune as he went, and if it sounded a great deal like a jump-rope rhyme from Hallowdale, that is not surprising:
Cut the Nettle, grind it small,
Save the day for Wizard’s Hall.
White and Bee and Hedge and Red,
Blind and False and Deaf and …
he hesitated, drew in a deep breath, and sang out loudly, “DEAD!”
As Thornmallow sang out the last word, he opened his eyes wide, staring into the Master’s face, adding, “Rule number five—Magic happens when it’s meant.”
The wizard’s pearly eyes stared straight ahead. His ears were deaf. Yet still he could somehow sense the spell. Without speaking another word, and with a look of monstrous surprise on his face, he dropped senseless to the floor. Then, as Thornmallow watched, Nettle disappeared one limb at a time: right leg, left leg, left arm, right arm, the edges fuzzing slightly like trees in a fog. Next his body went, and finally his head. The last to go were the pearly eyes, which suddenly winked out like stars behind passing clouds.
At once the heat in Thornmallow’s brain vanished, and the tone in his brain was gone as well, but the stinging on the outside of his ears went on and on and on.
20
UNQUILTING THE BEAST
After a long moment, someone touched Thornmallow on the shoulder.
“Thorny,” Tansy asked, “why are you weeping?”
He looked at her, and she seemed all fuzzy at the edges. For a moment he was afraid she was going to disappear like the Master. Then he realized she was fuzzy because there were tears in his eyes, and that is when he really started crying. “Because …,” he blubbed, “because I should feel like a hero—powerful and strong and victorious and triumphant. Only I feel awful instead. Awful. And unclean. As if I did something wrong.”
“You really are squishy within,” said the orange-haired girl. “And you’ve got smudges on your nose.”
“Nevertheless,” one of the boys said, “you killed the wicked wizard.”
“And,” added the other, “there’s nothing at all wrong with that.”
Just then the Beast turned its gigantic head and looked mournfully in their direction. It opened its tongueless mouth, and the great silver teeth glittered. But the only sound that came out was “Moooooooooo.”
“It’s … it’s just a beast after all,” said Tansy.
“A beast of burden,” the two boys said together.
“Ghastly burdens,” reminded the girl with orange hair.
“So it was the Master who had all the magic,” Thornmallow mused. “And not the Beast. With the Master dead, how will we ever get our friends back?”
“Quilts,” Tansy said suddenly in a very matter-of-fact voice, “are simply articles of bed furniture, pieces of scraps stitched together.” By the way she recited it, Thornmallow knew she was remembering what she had read.
“At home,” the girl with the orange braid said, “whenever I was especially naughty, my father sent me to my room to unpick the day’s embroidery. It was to teach me patience and obedience.” She grinned. “It didn’t work! But it did teach me a great deal about unpicking.”
“And that is …?” Thornmallow asked.
“Find a place to start. A loose thread,” said the girl.
Tansy ran over to the Beast and put a hand on its jaw. The Beast stood there impassively. “Whew! He sure does smell.”
“So would you if you were made up of over a hundred people,” answered Thornmallow. He went to the rump end.
The boys each took a front leg, and the orange-braid girl took the Beast’s right side.
Hand over hand they began to search the Beast’s patchworked hide. But each thread seemed secure and wet with its continual oozing. They kept it up for almost an hour.
“Nothing!” Tansy said. “We’ve won, and yet we’ve lost.” She patted the bright square on the Beast’s neck that had been Gorse.
“Don’t give up yet,” Thornmallow said. And as if he heard his own dear ma speaking to him again, he added, “We must try.” So saying, he reached as high up on the Beast’s rump as he could get, and his hand accidentally brushed the stringy tail. “That’s it!” he whispered to himself, grabbing onto the thing. He gave it a great pull as if ringing a church bell.
At the first tug, the tail made a wrenching noise, and the Beast opened its mouth again. But the sound that came out this time was a great ripping noise, like a tent tearing in the wind.
“Wind it up!” shouted the orange-haired girl. “Wind it—never mind, give it to me.” And with consummate skill, she began to wind the unraveling threads, thick as good yarn, around her arm and hand.
At each turn of the yarn, a piece of patchwork popped off the Beast’s hide, fluttering down to the ground: red patches and blue, turquoise and gold, lavender and umber, sepia and henna, sorrel, copper, apricot, and green. At last the Beast was nothing but a mouth, two eyes, and a sigh.
“What now?” asked Thornmallow.
But none of the others had an answer.
“Squark!”
21
SAVING WIZARD’S HALL
“We’ve forgotten Dr. Mo,” Tansy cried. “She’ll know what to do.”
The two boys ran down the stairs together and grabbed the cage. They brought it back carefully, setting it gently between the piles of patches and gowns.
“What should we do, Dr. Mo?” Tansy asked, kneeling down so she was eye to eye with the tiny wizard.
“Squark!”
“She may know what to do,” Thornmallow said, “but we can’t understand her if all she says is ‘squark’.” He opened the cage door and reached in. “But maybe she can show us.” Gingerly he picked her up between his thumb and first finger.
“Squark.”
Thornmallow let out a gasp and almost dropped her.
“What is it?” the others asked.
“She distinctly said to put her in between the Beast’s jaws,” he answered.
“She distinctly said ‘Squark,’” said the orange-haired girl.
“And there’s no Beast left,” added the boys.
“But there is a jaw,” said Tansy, pointing. “Upper and lower.”
Indeed there was: upper and lower floating in the air, along with the mournful eyes and the sharp silver glittering teeth.
“But you can’t really mean to put her there,” Tansy said. “If the jaws still work, the teeth will chew her to pieces. And if not, the fall from that height will kill her. Are you sure you understand her correctly, Thornmallow?”
“Squark!”
Thornmallow’s mouth was set in a thin, grim line. “I understand.”
“Then you must think, Thornmallow,” Tansy said.
“Yes, think!” agreed the others.
Thornmallow thought. “Pile the gowns up as high under the jaws as they will go. And get Magister Hickory’s staff. We’ll prop the jaws open so the teeth can’t close to bite. And we’ll cushion her fall with the gowns.”
“That’s a great solution!” cried Tansy.
“But not a magical one,” added the orange-haired girl.
Thornmallow smiled shyly. “Maybe not, but I wasn’t lying to the wizard. I really don’t have any magic.”
“But you certainly do try hard. And so will we,” said Tansy, starting to pile up the gowns beneath the Beast’s still-visible jaws. The orange-haired girl helped her.
It took both boys to carry the heavy staff, and then they had to stand one atop the other in order to jam the staff in place between the teeth. But after a moment of teetering and another moment of tottering, they were done.
“Now,” the boy on top called out, “give me Dr. Mo.”
Carefully, Thornmallow handed up the tiny wizard.
“Squark,” complained Dr. Mo as she was passed from hand to hand.
Thornmallow put his right hand on the lower boy’s right shoulder, his left hand on the left shoulder, and sang—not at all well but at least on the dominant:
Through the jaw and over the teeth,
Straight on to the gowns beneath,
From such greatness she will fall,
Through the Beast, returns to all.
“Let her go!” Thornmallow shouted.
The boy dropped Dr. Mo straight through the Beast’s gaping jaws. The jaws, in mindless reflex, chomped down on Magister Hickory’s staff, breaking it in two.
As the two pieces of the staff clattered to the ground, a mighty wind blew up, guttering all the torches in the room, and in the dark came screams of a hundred voices.
“Relight those torches,” came one voice overriding the screams, a voice that was both sweet and commanding. “Wizard’s Hall must blaze with light. You will find candles in the hallways.”
Thornmallow scrambled down the pitch-black stairs and up the darkened aisle, feeling his way until he came to the door. When he swung it open, the hallway candles were a welcome sight, glowing in their sconces. He grabbed up two and ran back, lighting torches along the way.
When all the torches were lit, Thornmallow could see that the stage was crowded with students and magisters, hugging one another, weeping, and sorting through the scholastic robes.
Will stepped to the front of the stage, and Gorse was beside him. They began to wave madly. “Thorny—here. We’re all right! You’ve done it.”
And Gorse added, her voice cracking with emotion, “You’ve saved Wizard’s Hall.”
22
THE ENHANCER
Within minutes the students were back in their seats, stomping and whistling and clapping until their hands hurt. The magisters let them celebrate, and even Magister Beechvale found himself tapping his foot in rhythm to the applause.
But at last the cheers began to subside, and Magister Hickory strode up to the stage, his hair standing about his head like a red-gold lion’s mane. A tall woman greeted him. She was dressed in flowing white robes, and her dark hair cascaded down either side of a heart-shaped face.
Thornmallow recognized her at once: Magister Dr. Morning Glory. Dr. Mo.
Magister Hickory picked up one end of the shattered staff, and Dr. Morning Glory picked up the other. When they placed the two halves together, the entire assembly arose and began cheering madly again. But the cheering stopped when it was clear that the two halves were not sticking together.
Dr. Morning Glory raised her hand, and the room was immediately still. “Young Thornswallow, you who saved Wizard’s Hall,” she called out. “Come up here to us.”
Shyly, Thornmallow stood. He had to push his way through several of his friends before marching proudly up the stairs. This time he didn’t stumble. All the while, the students below the stage were calling, “Thorn-ny! Thorn-ny! Thorn-ny!”
When he reached the top step, Dr. Morning Glory held her hand up again for silence, then once more placed her end of the staff against Magister Hickory’s.
“Now, my boy,” she said, her voice as lilting as a song, “come and put your hands on top of the stick, but do not touch our hands.”
Thornmallow did as he was told, and all at once a glow encased the staff, moving up and down the stick, healing the break even as they watched.
“Now, child, take your hands away,” whispered Dr. Morning Glory.
He did—and was amazed. The staff held together.
Dr. Morning Glory raised the staff above her head so that all the hall might see.
“That’s wandy!” cried out a third-year student, and they all clapped.
“I don’t understand,” Thornmallow mumbled. “Do I have a talent for magic—or don’t I?”
She smiled at him but then looked past him and spoke to the entire room. “Thornpower asks if he has a talent for magic.” She smiled slowly and shook her head. “He does not. At least, he does not have a talent for enchantment. His talent is far greater. He has a talent for enhancement. He can make any spell someone else works even greater simply by trying.”
Slowly Dr. Morning Glory lowered the staff and handed it to Magister Hickory. “Alone he is only an ordinary boy, the kind who makes our farms run and our roads smooth, who builds our houses and fights our wars. But when he touches wizards he trusts and admires—or their staffs—he makes their good magicks better. When he touches wizards he hates and fears, he turns their own evil magicks against them.”
She turned and spoke to Magister Hickory, but her voice had such power, everyone could hear her. “We magisters—in our pride—thought we understood the dark magic that was at work. We were given the rhyme by Nettle:
Ever on the quilting goes,
Spinning out the lives between,
Winding up the souls of those
Students up to one-thirteen.
And we read it thinking we needed one hundred and thirteen students here at the Hall. But we didn’t need all one hundred and thirteen. We needed just the one. The final one. The enhancer. The one who would really really try.”
There was a sudden whispering throughout the room, and Dr. Morning Glory let it go on for a while before silencing it.
“My fellow wizards,” she began again. “My dear students, my colleagues, my friends: every community needs its enhancers. Even more than it needs its enchanters. They are the ones who appreciate us and understand us and even save us from ourselves.”
She put her hands on Thornmallow’s shoulder, and all at once he could feel the stinging in his ears again.
As if she felt the pain herself, Dr. Morning Glory leaned over so that her mouth was close to his left ear. “You will always have that pain, child,” she whispered, “whenever a wizard touches you. The stinging nettle hairs are embedded deep. But the pain will remind you of your strength, of what you have done, of what you can do—if you truly
try.”
He looked over his shoulder at her, and it was suddenly as if he were staring at his own dear ma.
“Can I stay?” he asked. “Here at Wizard’s Hall? Even if I am not an enchanter?”
“It may often be painful.”
“I don’t care about that.”
She smiled and pulled a white handkerchief embroidered with the letters MG from the air. Carefully, gently, she rubbed a spot on his nose. “Of course you can stay. We couldn’t do without you, Thornbarrow.”
“Thornmallow,” he said. Then he looked back at the cheering crowd. Ears burning, he waved his hands triumphantly, feeling nicely prickly on the outside and—if truth be known—fairly squishy within.
A Personal History by Jane Yolen
I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!
We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.
When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.
I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.