25
“DID YOU EXPECT Prince Charming?” Saskia’s porcelain face simpered down at her.
Anastasia sat bolt upright. “Where are Ollie and—”
“Your little playmates are skipping around the woods,” Saskia said. “Childish.”
“How did you get in here?” Anastasia demanded.
“How do you think? I followed you.”
Anastasia’s thoughts flitted to the door to the Cavern of Dreams. Had they left it open? She cringed. Yes. Sozzled on moonglow, the Dreadfuls had galloped into the forest with nary a notion of closing the silver hatch.
“Anyway, what are you doing in here?” Saskia asked. “Grandwiggy’s cavern is off-limits. Strictly forbidden. Death to all who enter, et cetera, et cetera. You’ll be in serious trouble if Grandwiggy discovers you’ve been sneaking in here with your little friends.”
Panic clotted Anastasia’s tonsils.
“Maybe she’d even banish you abovecaves,” Saskia speculated. “Like a witch.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Anastasia cried. “I’m her granddaughter! Besides, CRUD is still looking for me.”
Saskia smiled nastily.
“Wait.” Anastasia sat up a little straighter. “You’re not supposed to be in here, either.”
Saskia tossed her hair. “Grandwiggy would never exile me. She’s known me for years. How long has she known you? A couple of months?”
Anastasia’s heart sank.
Saskia tilted her face to catch the falling moonbits. “What a pretty bed this is. Perfect for a princess.” Her eyes slewed over to Anastasia. “I said, for a princess. So get out. I’m feeling sleepy all of a sudden.”
Anastasia climbed from the downy mattress, her hands balled at her sides. “It isn’t going to work for you,” she said. “It’s hexed—”
“Hexed?” Saskia echoed drowsily.
“Anastasia!” Ollie yelped, running into the clearing. “Why is Saskia here?”
“She followed us,” Anastasia said. “And she woke me up, right when I was starting to dream.”
“Well, now she’s asleep,” Quentin said.
Anastasia turned. Saskia’s long eyelashes pressed her cheeks, and her chest rose with deep sleep-breaths. Lying in the moonlit Canopy, her silver-blond hair flowing over the pillow, she looked like a storybook illustration. Anastasia’s beautiful birthday glow flickered and snuffed out. Saskia was a real princess. She had grown up in a castle, and—
“Peep!” Pippistrella squeaked and wheeled, drawing their gazes to the sky.
“What’s happening to the moon?” Gus asked.
The magical moon dimmed, its luster going the blackish green of tarnished silver, its fall of glitter turning into ashy bits.
“Is this some kind of eclipse?” Gus asked.
Anastasia bit her lip. “Did that happen before?”
“No,” Gus said.
“We should go,” Ollie pleaded.
Anastasia shook Saskia’s shoulder. “Wake up.” But Saskia remained limp as a ragdoll, not even fidgeting to flick away the moonsoot collecting on her lovely face. “Wake up, Saskia!”
“Look at the moonbits!” Quentin gasped. “They’re moving!”
Anastasia snatched her hand back, boggling at the tiny cinders. First they wriggled, and then they began to dance and dart, to tiddlywink and tic-tac-toe, just like little fleas.
“Those bugs are going into her ears!” Ollie said.
“Stop!” Anastasia slapped at the magical mites, but still they skittered under Saskia’s golden-silver locks. The princess finally stirred, letting out a whimper.
“Get her out of that bed!” Gus urged.
The Dreadfuls yanked Saskia’s arms, but the comforters cinched her tightly. The peculiar mooncooties continued to snow down and Saskia’s mewls pitched into shrieks.
“Why is she still sleeping?” Ollie wailed.
“I don’t know,” Anastasia said. “Maybe the bed is doing this because she’s full Morfo.”
“Or maybe the magic just went sour,” Ollie said.
“I don’t think so.” Gus pointed at the carving on the headboard. “I think it’s working just like Calixto Swift meant for it to.”
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite!
“Those things are bedbugs?” Anastasia said.
“I think so.” Gus circled the Moonsilk Canopy, and then he lay on the ground and scooched under the bed.
“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.
“Investigating. Oh, crumbs! Look at this!”
Anastasia and the Drybread brothers knelt to peer at the bed’s dark underbelly. Carved deep in the planks were the words:
O worm who worms into my bed,
A hundred nightmares blight thy head!
The nightmare bug shall your mind creep
Wi’ nightmare-gnawed and wretched sleep.
Your thoughts my bugs shall munch and munch
Until there’s nothing left for lunch.
Think not upon a type of cure—
This spell is sealed stronger than steel;
This magic bed shall be thy bier.
“Bier?” Ollie said.
“It’s a table for a dead body.” Quentin blanched. “Before it goes into a coffin.”
Anastasia gasped. Saskia was no paragon of kindly cousinhood, but the prospect of the princess meeting a terrible end in the witch’s bed plumbed Anastasia’s heart with horror. “We have to get help!”
“I don’t know if anyone can help.” Gus slid from the bed’s shadow and stood up, trembling. “Saskia triggered the hex.”
“We need a doctor!” Ollie said.
“Do you really think a doctor can cure a—a nightmare bug infestation?” Gus asked. “The poem says there’s no cure.”
“Then we need an exterminator!” Ollie said.
“We need to do something,” Quentin agreed. “Might Princess Penelope and Prince Baldwin have ideas?”
“They went abovecaves, and Wiggy won’t be back from her meeting until the party starts.” Anastasia pulled Miss Viola’s watch from her pocket and checked the time. “And that’s hours away.” A tear slid down her cheek. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Quentin said firmly. “You didn’t invent this loathsome bed. You didn’t bewitch a swarm of—er—nasty bedbugs to creep into Saskia’s ears.”
“Do you think they’re eating her brain?” Ollie asked.
“Her thoughts,” Gus said. “And they’ll munch until there aren’t any more thoughts left, and then…I think Saskia will—will die.”
An idea nibbled Anastasia’s mind. It was dangerous. It might even be deadly.
From the depths of her haunted slumber, Saskia screamed.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, dear Reader. For example, should the quirks of life one day seal you within a Victorian mansion lacking modern plumbing, you may find yourself stooping to the ghastly last resort of a chamber pot. Anastasia, as you already know, was no stranger to desperate measures. She scrambled into the bed, drawing dismayed shouts from the Dreadfuls.
“What are you doing?” Gus cried.
“Looking for a cure.” Anastasia squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed her cousin’s icy hand. How can I save Saskia? How can I save Saskia? How can…