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That evening as the seamstresses left the palace, Merrigan felt contented enough that the little niggling sensation of something wrong caught her attention. The feeling of something out of balance, rather plaintive, a touch of loneliness in the air, had been there every time she visited the palace, but until then she had so much on her mind, she ignored it. Now, with the knife promised to Elli and the dress nearly ready for the wedding, she could pay attention. Elli and the other girls were chattering away about their own dresses for the wedding, and didn't notice when Merrigan slowed her steps. No one saw her when she stopped. Odd, how she had never noticed that door in the wall of the long hallway leading from the royal family's wing to the main body of the palace. She looked up and down the length of the hall and calculated the placement of the wings and rooms. If she wasn't mistaken, there should be an area behind that door as large as an entire wing of the palace. It was in the exact middle of the palace, surrounded by wings on all sides. In fact, just the right place for ...
"A queen's garden," Merrigan whispered.
Her knees tried to fold and she stumbled forward, to clutch at the doorknob, as a waterfall of memories spilled through her mind. Her mother's garden had been in the center of the palace of Avylyn, as all proper queens' gardens should be. The heart of the palace, the heart of the kingdom.
"Bib ... was this door here before?" she whispered, and reached into the bag to pull him out and open him. His "sight" improved greatly when his pages were open. The book was silent so long, Merrigan feared something was wrong. Perhaps wrong with her.
"Forgive me, Mi'Lady," he said, so quietly he could have been speaking into her head. "I believe you are very right. This door was not visible until now. The changes in the palace, in the royal family, have caused other changes."
"It's been invisible, just like—" She choked, but forced the words out. "Just like the door to my mother's garden vanished. Not just locked up, when she died. It vanished when there was tampering."
"When your Nanny Tulip tried to use you to open the door contrary to proper timing, when conditions were wrong."
"She did no such—" Merrigan closed the book and slowly, carefully slid him back into his bag hanging at her hip. "Please, Bib, tell me it wasn't my fault that the door vanished, and the garden filled with thorns. Please?" She took a step backwards, then another, then another as the book stayed silent, until she pressed against the opposite wall.
Elli and the other girls were gone. By now they were likely waiting outside for the carriage to come and take them home. Merrigan couldn't hear them. Of course, part of that could be blamed on her thundering heartbeats.
"It is your fault, Mi'Lady, in the same way that a needle is to blame for ugly embroidery. You were a tool in the hands of someone who considered herself justified to tamper with the magic." The book shuddered inside the bag.
"How do you know all this?" she whispered.
"I know almost nothing, Mi'Lady. I'm sorry. There is so much written in the magic tangling you, so many layers, all of it smoke-filled and nearly impossible to read. You thought of the garden and the door that vanished, and the thorns that filled the garden, so you couldn't even stand in the nursery balcony and look down. I saw bits and pieces of your life."
"So I was used. Dratted majjians. It has to be majjians."
"I believe so. They used your royal blood, they used your magical position as the youngest. They attacked the magical heart of the kingdom through your mother's garden, and it shut itself up and shut itself in and shut the world out, to protect itself."
"But Nanny Tulip wasn't a majjian. Was she?"
"I cannot see clearly in your memories, Mi'Lady. You were a child. Lonely. Feeling unloved, even though your father and brothers and sisters loved you greatly."
Merrigan snorted at that, and didn't care who heard her. She had eavesdropped often enough through her late childhood and teen years, she knew exactly what her brothers and sisters thought of her, and what a trial she had become to her father. Only her mother and Nanny Starling and Nanny Tulip had ever fully loved her, with no reservations or conditions. Leffisand had adored her, but she doubted he loved her any more than she loved him.
Stop nattering and whining, Merrigan. You're thousands of miles away from Avylyn. There's nothing you can do about Mama's garden, and you certainly can't show your face at home looking as you are. Break the curse, then go home. Then maybe you can find some answers to fix the mess you helped make. Even if you were used horribly, abominably.
She couldn't do anything about her mother's garden, but what about this one? At the very least, it would be good practice for when she went home.
"And this garden, here? Was it attacked too?"
"I am sorry, Mi'Lady, I can't tell. I will need more study."
"Well, I know someone who likely has the answers, if there are any answers." She took a deep breath, crossed the hallway to the door, and pressed her hands against the wood. Merrigan only flinched a little when she thought she felt a heartbeat. That had to be a good sign. The garden was alive, likely deeply asleep, rather than dead and dry and hopeless.
Elli came back inside to look for her. The other four girls lived close enough to the palace they chose to walk home, rather than wait for the carriage. Merrigan sighed for the days when she had been strong enough, energetic enough to be able to walk anywhere. She remembered long walks across the countryside when Prince Bryan had visited. They had spent entire days adventuring, riding and hiking and climbing trees and wading across streams and telling each other stories they had discovered in their fathers' libraries. When had she changed so that she disdained adventures and hikes? While she knew her body was still the same as when she looked like a young and beautiful queen, and Clara's curse only made her appear old and fragile and dried up, it also affected her spirit. So she felt old and shriveled and wrinkled and tired easily.
Merrigan and Elli found Chancellor Morton in his office, sorting through a carved wooden box that looked rather old. The carvings were worn smooth in some places, the details hard to see through the patina of age. Merrigan thought she could make out frogs and swans and ravens and vines.
"How may I help you, ladies?" he said, standing to give them a polite bow, and flipped the hinged lid of the box closed.
"I would like to know about the queen's garden. Specifically, how long it has been locked up, and how long the door has been invisible," Merrigan said.
That's rather cruel, Mi'Lady, Bib said, when Morton goggled at her a moment, then seemed to lose a little color. Still, there was a touch of laughter in the book's voice.
Queen Adele's great-grandmother was to blame for the door vanishing. Morton told them the story as he escorted Merrigan and Elli back to the royal family's apartments. When she was young, pale skin and fragile voices and tiny waists were all the rage. She refused to learn how to tend the garden from her mother, because she claimed the sun would darken her skin and weeding and watering and transplanting would give her a farmer's appetite and muscles. When she became queen, she locked the door. When her daughters expressed interest in the garden, she told them the plants inside were dangerous, and a terrible curse had been placed on all the women of their family, so they got spots and their noses ran and they sneezed uncontrollably if they did any garden work. By the time her granddaughter had the good luck of falling for a semi-reasonable man who laughed at the story, the door was only visible at the full moon. It vanished entirely from all sight and memory, other than the kingdom records, soon after she died.
The queen and king looked blank when Morton bowed and announced to the royal family that the queen's garden had awakened. Adele knew nothing about the magical healing plants that needed to be tended, the pool of water that connected with other magical pools spread across the continent, or the sanctuary such a garden provided for rare magical creatures such as swans or white ravens. Even talking frogs.
Dulcibella, however, knew a few things, thanks to all the educational books she had been devouring for years, to combat the silliness curse. She insisted she had to see the door immediately. Was it possible to have the garden open, and perhaps have the wedding ceremony take place there? Wouldn't a royal wedding give the garden an infusion of magic that would benefit the entire kingdom?
Merrigan had no idea. She remembered so little of what her mother had taught her, during those idyllic days of her childhood. When Queen Daylily had died, her garden had shut itself off from the world. However, the garden here in Seafoam proved to be awake enough to hear Dulcibella's squeal of delight and her nonstop chatter, and reacted to the princess's emotions. The door shimmered, the light coming from it visible before Dulcibella, Merrigan and Elli turned the last corner. As they approached, the door swung open, sending pieces of old rotted boards flying, and chunks of rusty lock falling to the paving stones. Perhaps that was the garden's response to the old woman who had shirked her duties and then lied, to keep others from fulfilling theirs.
Merrigan crept into the garden, when Dulcibella and Elli nearly danced over the threshold with excitement. She staggered to the closest stone bench and sank down on it, half-expecting it to collapse under her. She looked around, at all the dry twigs poking up from the ground in circles, showing the hedge circles that once created sanctuaries for pixies and winkies and other tiny magical creatures. The plots of bare ground where magical healing herbs had once grown. The dry husks of trees lifting bare arms to the sky. The tangles of dry rose vines still clinging tenaciously to the inner walls of the garden.
The depression in the ground where the pond had once been, silver in the moonlight, blue under the sun, providing water for the whole garden and a hiding place for frogs. Merrigan remembered when a horde of desperate princesses invaded her father's palace, looking for a prince enchanted into a frog. She laughed, and wept a little as she told Elli and Dulcibella about the odd incident.
"It's not dry," Elli said. "I'm better with sea water, of course, but I can feel the water, waiting to come back." She gestured at the dry, dusty bowl of the pond.
"How?" Dulcibella said.
There's no harm in simply asking, Bib said. All anyone can do is say no. Unless of course they're frightened or angered by the request. Then they might get angry, but I doubt that is the case here. However, it might be wise to start out by apologizing for the silliness of her great-great-grandmother, and then ask.
Merrigan repeated the advice aloud, and Dulcibella showed her good sense by stopping to think before acting. She stepped into the depression and found the center point, knelt, pressed both hands into the spot, and very prettily apologized for the neglect and lies of her ancestors, and promised she would do the best she could to rectify matters.
"If you could help me fight the silliness curse, I would appreciate it very much," she added. "I want to do my duty as queen. You will help me, won't you? The people of our kingdom certainly don’t deserve all the trouble they've had to suffer because of my family."
She waited in silence for a few moments. A rustling sound in the doorway of the garden got everyone's attention, and Merrigan turned to see the king and queen and Morton standing in the doorway, looking tearfully proud.
Queen Adele let out a little gasp when Dulcibella got up and walked back to the edge of the dry pond. She couldn't speak, and had to point. Everyone gasped, and then laughed, when they saw the streaks of mud on Dulcibella's dress, where she had been kneeling. Sure enough, water bubbled up in the center of all the dust and dry dirt.
Dulcibella sent for Warden, and they spent the evening searching the king's library for everything they could learn about the queen's garden in Seafoam, and queens' gardens in general. Merrigan spent the evening trying to recall everything she could of her mother's garden. When she returned to the palace in the morning, her duties changed from overseeing the final details of the wedding dress to revitalizing the garden. While the pond was halfway filled with water, and the trees had the first buds of leaves popping out in a soft green haze by morning, the other parts of the garden didn't seem to be awakening. Merrigan and Morton consulted together for only an hour, determining the plants that could be found in Seafoam to be transplanted into the garden. The more rare and necessary plants that weren't native would have to be sent for.
Twilight softly fell in gray and lavender shadows, by the time Merrigan was willing to give in to the aches in her legs and back, and limped to the door of the garden. Large patches of green had replaced the abundance of twigs and sticks and dust. The pond was full, reflecting the first curve of the moon as it peered over the gables of the palace. Merrigan thought she saw a few flickers of fireflies. They could have been other magical creatures, sparkling as they ventured into the garden. She was quite happy with ordinary fireflies.
In the doorway, Merrigan looked around one last time. Her eyes blurred as she couldn't fight off the bittersweet memories of her own childhood. How different would her life be if her mother hadn't died, if the garden hadn't closed its doors, if she and Nanny Tulip hadn't been used by evil majjians to attack the garden?
Plop. The sound was unusually wet and small. Several more plops followed. Merrigan shivered and turned to face the pond. Several small, dark forms hopped up the path toward her. She retreated over the threshold, a thick sensation aching in her throat. Was she about to scream, or perhaps vomit? For a moment, she could taste all the frogs' legs she had eaten, during that awful, shameful, regretful time in Carlion, when she and Leffisand had been battling that wretched, cursed, magical apple tree.
Five frogs. All a dark greeny-brown, none of them longer than her thumb. They stopped halfway up the path, where the dust of years of neglect had been swept away to uncover lovely painted green and blue and lavender tiles. They reared up on their hind legs, and Merrigan braced herself against the doorframe. She regretted advising Morton that, to avoid further problems in the future, the door to the garden should be completely removed and taken far away. She wished for the option to slam that door closed. Those frogs were going to jump on her, she just knew it, and she feared she couldn't take another step to flee.
Staying up on their hind legs for a good four heartbeats, the frogs extended their right front legs, crossed their chests ... and bowed low to her. More tears filled her eyes.
"Tell—" Her voice cracked. She coughed. "Please, tell Veridian—tell him—I'm sorry."
The frogs croaked in unison three times, then dropped into normal froggy crouches, turned somersaults over each other, and hopped back to the pond.
"Why did you never mention that you were friends with the prince of frogs when you were a child, Mi'Lady?" Bib asked.
"I suppose ..." She sighed, found her handkerchief tucked up her sleeve, and dabbed at her eyes. "I suppose I was ashamed and tried to forget. And then there was the whole ... oh, it's so shameful. I ate frogs' legs for so long, demanded them, just to make sure I never ran into a frog while I was living in Carlion."
"If it's any comfort, Mi'Lady, I think what we saw just now means you're forgiven."
"Yes, I think it is some comfort."
She had some doubts about that, however, when her dreams that night and several nights until the wedding, were of misty, twisted, indecipherable memories from childhood. Merrigan woke to the sounds of brassy honking overhead, and at first thought it came from her dreams. Her ugly little gray, awkward duck, whom she had named Honk, had made the same sound. He had followed her everywhere, waddling around the palace, sticking his long neck and oversized bill and feet into everything. She had adored him. Or rather, she had adored him until her world changed, her mother died, and she listened too well when Nanny Tulip told her how to be a proper princess.
Bib flipped open to offer her a lace-edge handkerchief that smelled of the spicy leaves of her favorite bush in her mother's garden. Merrigan couldn't remember the name of the bush, but she did love the sweetly delicate, slightly peppery aroma. She blotted her eyes and told Bib about Honk, how she had been so cruel until finally he flew away, never to return.
"Veridian, and Bryan, and the children I used to play with among the palace servants and the nobles and ..." She sighed one last time. "I'm afraid, Bib, I have a dreadful, cruel habit of driving people away. If I have no friends, it is my own wretched fault."
"Forgive me, Mi'Lady, but you are sadly mistaken."
"Hmm?" She blotted her eyes one last time and sat up, sniffing delicately.
"You will never drive me away."
Bib had to produce a second sweetly spicy handkerchief, and Merrigan had to resort to dousing her face in water until she came near drowning, to soothe her red, tear-swollen eyes.
She felt better when she learned that the honking hadn't been entirely in her dreams. A pair of swans had arrived on the dawn breezes from the sea, and settled in the queen's garden. A sure sign of blessing and the return of healing magic to Seafoam. She had helped to do that. She had done something good.
~~~~~
THE DAY OF THE WEDDING, Chancellor Morton presented Merrigan with Elli's knife. All the jewels encrusting it had indeed been removed. The money had to come from somewhere, after all, to pay for the festivities that included the entire town. Merrigan tried not to feel a few flickers of resentment, because didn't she deserve a few jewels for helping to resolve several sticky problems for the kingdom? Then Bib pointed out that she had no idea how to remove the jewels without damaging the knife. Besides, he suspected the jewels had been put there to help stunt the magical powers of the knife.
"Do you mean to tell me if it was still covered with jewels, it wouldn't help Elli?" Merrigan dropped the knife on the table next to Bib and scrubbed her hands on her skirts.
They had returned to their room at the inn. Elli, Miles, Rosa and Quincy were still out dancing and enjoying the wedding festivities. Merrigan felt rather tired, maybe a little sad, and had decided to go upstairs and rest.
"It is possible." Bib flipped his pages open. "I think if I'm touching it, I can study it better and be absolutely sure."
"That villain. That wretch. That ... snot!" Merrigan picked up the knife by the end of the handle, with two fingers, and placed it in the center of Bib's open page. "I hope Arabella's portion of the curse is so large, his entire kingdom lacks the sense to come in out of the rain."
In short order, Bib confirmed the scheming prince had tried to limit the magic inherent in the knife used to cut the mermaid's hair. However, whoever he hired to do the job had bungled. The most he and the jeweler and the minor enchanter had managed was to cast an unsteady I'm-not-really-here spell on the knife. Merrigan elected not to tell Elli about that part of the prince's nasty schemes. After all, she had started to fall in love with him, and might still have a few tender feelings.
"The world would be a much better place if men weren't such useless, childish fools and women didn't fall in love with them," Merrigan mused.
Then Elli and Miles burst into the room with flowers and a skin of wine and an enormous meat pie to share. Merrigan's eyes got misty when they declared they didn't think it right she should be alone while all the kingdom was celebrating. After all, without her cleverness and hard work, this day never would have happened.
The marriage of Dulcibella and Warden seemed to have opened a door, because betrothals were happening all over the town of Windward. Quincy and Rosa were downstairs right that moment, obtaining her parents' blessing.
"But I thought Rosa was going to run the inn. How can she do that if her husband is traveling the high seas most of the year? She isn't going to abandon the inn to travel with him, is she?" Merrigan cried. The odd, dropping sensation, she decided later, was from fear that Rosa and Quincy's marriage was doomed from the start.
"No." Miles chuckled and caught Elli up in his arms, spinning her around before putting her back on her feet and planting a kiss on her tiny, upturned nose. "Quincy is giving up the sea to stay here and run the inn with Rosa. I'm going to become his partner and take over the Fleetwind." He dropped to one knee, startling a squeak out of Elli and a groan from Merrigan. "And I hope you'll be willing to sail with me all the rest of my days, my love, my seafoam maiden." He kissed her hand, front and back.
Honestly, Merrigan thought to Bib, where do commoners learn such courtly gestures?
Still, she rather admired Miles for his gallantry. Then she pitied him when Elli just stood there, staring at him, her eyes getting bigger in proportion to the dimming of Miles' smile.
"But—I'm—Miles, you should know—Mara, what do I do?" Elli wailed, turning to Merrigan. She didn't free her hand of Miles' grip, and that had to be a good sign.
Bib flipped his pages open and revealed the knife lying there. It glistened. Merrigan did not want to know how the book had managed to shine the knife. It boggled her mind.
"Is that it?" Elli asked.
In unison with Miles.
She turned to stare at him.
"Yes, I know about the knife." He stood and kept her facing him. "I know you need it to regrow your hair and get your tail back. I know you're a mermaid."
"Well, you're one of the few observant, sensible people in this town," Merrigan muttered.
"Not really." He grinned and nodded to her. "Quincy told me, when he guessed I was—that we were—he told me if I broke your heart, he'd use my guts for bait. I could never make you stay on dry land. All my life, I've dreamed of going to sea, to hear the song of the waves. How can I take that away from you? But if I'm on the sea, if I'm a captain with my own ship ... well, we can be together whenever you come up into the air. Even if it's only one day in ten years, it'll be worth it."
"I take back what I said." Merrigan sighed but couldn't fight her grin. "You're a ninny just as much as she is. That is an entirely different curse and has nothing to do with mermaids."
"Elli, what I'm trying to say—"
"Yes," she squeaked, sounding more like a dolphin than ever. She grabbed hold of his collar, pulled herself up to his height, and kissed him until the gill slits opened in the sides of her neck.
Miles was red-faced and slightly dizzy-looking when Elli released him. Then he whooped and spun her around four times, until he ran into the side of Merrigan's bed and stumbled. He nearly dropped her and they both ended up giggling and clutching at each other, struggling to regain their balance.
Merrigan shuddered, feeling as if she might be ill. She wanted to laugh at them and scold them. She wanted to hug them and absorb some of their happiness. In the end, she settled for picking up the knife from Bib and holding it out to the two happy ninnies.
Elli burst into tears, snatched up the knife, and flung her arms around Merrigan. The air buzzed, then turned into a shimmering, chiming sound that dropped in the scale until it became the roar of a single enormous wave crashing down around them. When Elli released her and stepped back, Merrigan thoroughly expected to find both of them drenched. Instead, they were tangled in the squirming, growing curls of thick, glossy, sea-scented hair sprouting from Elli's head. In seconds, it fell around her like a cloak, and moved as if pulled by distant sea currents. She chuckled when Miles and Merrigan stared at her moving hair.
"You don't think we swim so fast just with our tails, do you?"
"I—well, I never really thought about it." Merrigan took a step back. As much as she liked Elli, there was something uncanny about her hair moving like that. It reminded her of tales of the gorgons, and she could easily envision that hair reaching out and strangling her, quite by accident. "What are you going to do now?"
"I think we should go swimming," Miles said.
Elli laughed like dolphins chattering, caught hold of his hand, and they dashed out of the room. Merrigan sank down on the side of her bed, feeling rather like a slowly deflating balloon. The smell of the meat pie filled the room, once the fresh sea scent of Elli had faded away. Somehow, it just wasn't very tempting, even though she was hungry. Merrigan shook her head, knowing it wouldn't do her any good to sit and feel sorry for herself.
"That's what it is. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I need to keep moving west, heading home." She sighed and stepped over to the table where Bib waited, softly glowing. "Well, Bib, it's just the two of us again. What do you suggest we do next?"
"Set yourself up as a dressmaker."
"I thought we already did that. And didn't you hear me? I want to keep moving closer to home." Home, she knew now, clearly meant her father's court, not Carlion.
"Once you finish your commitments to all those girls who want new dresses, I suggest you establish Elli as your heir, so to speak. Leave her here to set up shop whenever she decides to stay on dry land with Miles, because he certainly can't be at sea all year, can he? Outfit yourself with a wagon and plenty of cloth and supplies. You can go from country to country, earning your keep, sewing and designing clothes as you go. When you think about it, everyone loves seamstresses and treats them well, because a well-made suit of clothes makes everyone feel so much better. Don't you agree?"
"Yes," she said with a sigh. "Yes, I do. Bib, you are brilliant." She stroked down his spine, eliciting a purring sound from him that made them both laugh. "I don't know what I would do without you, my dearest friend."
~~~~~
A FORTNIGHT LATER, Elli and Miles were married on Quincy's ship, a day's journey out to sea, so Elli's mer relatives could attend. The Sea King himself came up onto the ship. His wedding gift was to turn the cursed knife into two magical bracelets around Elli and Miles' wrists that would never come off. Now Miles could swim with Elli and breathe underwater. As their love grew stronger, so would the magic, until someday he would have a tail of his own and be able to stay with her, as long-lived as all the sea folk.
After the ceremony ended and the dancing began, the Sea King took Merrigan to the prow to speak privately.
"You're learning the oysters' lesson, Princess," he said, as his skin turned green. "The girl asked me if I could undo the spells wrapped around you like poisoned seaweed. They're so tightly bound to the essence of you, cutting them could kill you." He frowned, as his long, silver-green hair turned to strands of seaweed. "That might be the key. You have to die."
"No, thank you." She tried to delicately tug her hand free of his, as it was feeling decidedly cold and fishy.
"There's a bug you drylanders know. It dies and it's beautiful after it dies. Think about that." He winked at her, then flung himself backward over the railing. His legs merged into an enormous tail and waved as he went headfirst into the water without a splash.
~~~~~
WARDEN AND DULCIBELLA seemed deliriously happy together. King Devon and Queen Adele appeared delighted with their new son-in-law. Rosa and Quincy set off after Elli and Miles' wedding, to let the entire enormous clan at the Bookish Mermaid know of their marriage and his decision to follow his mother's footsteps as an innkeeper. That left Miles and Elli to begin the venture that had earned shouts and tears of delight from her many relatives when they proposed it. They would travel up and down the coast, finding sturdy, honorable young men who loved the sea more than their lives, and would be willing to pledge their hearts to the many lonely mermaids longing for a husband and children.
Merrigan wished them well. She had laughed when they pleaded with her to stay with them and guide them in the venture, because after all, hadn't she done amazingly well with three couples already? It was on the tip of her tongue to confess to them how badly her one attempt at love and happiness had turned out, but she couldn't destroy their good opinion of her. She suspected she would never unwrap her heart enough to let someone else touch it. A queen couldn't afford to love, after all. She couldn't afford to be so vulnerable.
She tried to buy a wagon that an old woman could handle by herself. Chancellor Morton wouldn't hear of it. He presented her with a cart just the right size, and a lovely little donkey, fitted out with a magical harness that hitched itself to the wagon every morning and unhitched itself every evening. He couldn't send any guards with her because the guardsmen of Windward were as much bound to the kingdom as the royal family. However, he gave her a magic cloak that was impervious to knives and arrows and swords, once she had closed the brooch that fastened it and turned it three times. It was a princely gift.
So much so, Merrigan wondered if Morton, with all his wisdom and insight, had seen through the curse enfolding her. She knew better than to reveal her true identity. Even if someone could be trusted with her secret, how could she guarantee the wrong people wouldn't overhear, and use that knowledge against her?
No, she decided, the day she drove out of Windward with her cart full of cloth and all the bits and pieces to be a successful seamstress. Better that she and Bib make their way through the world on their wits. The victory when she regained her life would be all the sweeter.
Three days later, she crossed the border of Seafoam. That evening, she was alone in the forest. For the first time, there was no inn, or a hospitable farmer and his family eager to help an old lady traveling alone. Morton had given her the old wooden box she saw him examining in his office, and told her it would serve her when she had need. Merrigan searched it and found a bundle of sticks that, according to the instructions on the paper wrapped around them, became a lovely little fire when she crossed them over each other. In the morning, all she had to do was kick them apart and they turned into sticks again, unscorched. She hung a pot over the flames to make tea, ate some bread and cheese and an apple for her dinner, and was quite content. With the impervious cloak Morton had given her, how could she not feel safe?
By the light of the flames, she dug through the box, and chuckled when she realized it was larger inside than it was outside. Morton had put a good dozen books in the box, and several maps. The books discussed the many small kingdoms displayed on the maps. She let Bib absorb all the information in the books and maps, and then they had a lively discussion about options.
"We don't want to go through Sylvanglade," he announced, and tsked several times.
"Whyever not?" Merrigan's heart gave a couple rapid thumps.
"Such a sad story. The heir brought home a princess under a sleeping curse before her crucial seventeenth birthday."
"And?" she prompted, when the book stopped there.
"Well, curses like that can't be outrun. It unfolded just like the angry witch decreed, and most of the kingdom is sleeping now."
"Not just the palace? Not just the capitol city, but the kingdom?" Merrigan shuddered, imagining the terror washing over people the moment they crossed the border into Sylvanglade and they found themselves falling asleep. What did it look like from the other side of the border? Piles of people lying along the road, even their horses asleep in the harness?
"I don't have all the details, but yes, it's expanded beyond ... ah, here come the details." Bib sounded somewhat uncomfortable. "It seems the crown prince and the princess had an awful argument the day of her birthday. She wanted to get married before her birthday, for true love's kiss to ward off the evil spell. He resented how her parents bullied him into taking her to Sylvanglade. He had rather looked forward to riding through the barrier of thorns and perhaps fighting a dragon and being a hero. She declared she hated him and he responded that he was glad, because he wouldn't marry her to save her entire kingdom from an entire flight of dragons."
"Now that's a great, ignorant ninny. Didn't anyone ever tell him that you shouldn't make oaths like that when evil spells are about to awaken?" She shuddered and imagined all the green fields and lush forests of Sylvanglade, wrapped in the unnaturally quiet, constant twilight that accompanied a sleeping spell.
Bryan had told her all about his home. He had given her drawings of the places he loved, and books about his kingdom's history. Before everything turned sad and cool between them, they had made plans for her to visit Sylvanglade. Odd, that after all these years, she still remembered those conversations and books and pictures so clearly.
"Because of the vehemence of their argument," Bib continued, "the sleeping spell is growing. All that anger sort of gave it a boost. It only took over the palace when it unfolded, but as time passed, the tendency to fall asleep for no reason crept outward into the capital, then the countryside. It's been going on for three years now and has completely swallowed eight towns, and portions of six more. At the rate it's going, the entire kingdom should be swallowed up in sleep in eight more years."
"Was everyone caught in it?" Merrigan's hand shook slightly as she lifted the pot off the fire, and dipped up some tea. She needed something hot and bracing right now. "The entire royal family?"
"Hmm ... it says most of the younger princes were out on adventures or on diplomatic missions. It doesn't say which ones. Not that it matters, when you really think about it. Being a prince without a kingdom is powerful magic. Whatever they do, as long as they remember to act like princes, they will succeed and become heroes. It's sad for their family and kingdom, but when you think about it, they are much better off now than they would be as the third and fourth and fifth sons."
"Bib ... sometimes you can be quite mercenary," she murmured, and stared unseeing into the fire as she sipped her tea.
Five nights later, Merrigan climbed down from the cart at the end of the day in another stretch of woods with no inns or friendly farmers. She unharnessed the donkey and tethered her in the middle of a thick patch of sweet grass, and paused a moment to stroke the donkey's nose. The sweet creature nuzzled her once and snorted. Merrigan was sure it was her way of saying thanks. She walked around to the back of the cart to unload the magic box and take out the sticks for her fire. The shadows clustered in the trees overhead turned into six men who leaped down at her.
One snatched up the harness from the seat of the cart. Another yanked the donkey away from her grazing. Two pulled the cart toward the road while Merrigan let out a shriek. The last two leaped on her, swinging cudgels at her knees and head.
The cudgels snapped against the magic cloak. The two leaped on her, punching and kicking, but howled in pain and came away with bloody knuckles. One tried to pull the magic box from her hands. The cloak's protection enclosed it, so the bandit couldn't keep a grip on it. His partner tripped Merrigan. She didn't let go of the box, however.
Meanwhile, the other four harnessed the donkey to the cart and shouted for their comrades to come. Two drove the cart and the other two ran alongside. The two attackers flung handfuls of pebbles and forest trash in her face, then ran after their comrades. In moments, the evening forest shadows closed in around Merrigan as she gasped and struggled to sit up without letting go of the box. Soon even the sounds of running feet and the angry, protesting brays of the donkey faded into the distance.