7. Are They in the Learning Place for Spectacularly Gifted Wizards or Are They NOT?

Caliburn had to give quite a long explanation about what was going on, about Sychorax and Encanzo being in love once long ago, and the Spell of Love Denied and everything—I won’t go into it all again, because you, dear reader, know it already.

Perdita was furious. “You mean that’s what you wanted my Droods’ tears for???”

“Yes, but I’d looked into the future, you see, and I saw that a curse would fall on the wildwoods and disaster and calamity would follow if I didn’t stop the love from happening…” explained Caliburn.

“The curse fell on the wildwoods anyway!” stormed Perdita. “And I think what we have here is disaster and calamity in spades. When will you ever learn, Caliburn, to be very, very careful about looking into the future? It can so easily end in tears, and you can’t change it regardless!”

“I know, I know,” said Caliburn, hanging his head. “I really have learned my lesson this time…”

However, Caliburn ended, rather craftily he felt, with “…but the children’s ancestors are not the children’s fault, and you have to admit the girl’s enchanted objects are charming…”

Realizing that it was his moment, the Enchanted Spoon gave a happy little somersault on Wish’s head, and the fork and the key came hopping out enthusiastically, followed by the pins, and they put on a lively little gymnastic display, trying to look cute in order to win over Perdita. The little owl, Hoola, put a wing to her forehead and groaned.

“They’re delightful, you see!” said Caliburn. “Very well-intentioned little enchanted objects… reflecting the character of the girl…”

“But they’re made out of iron!” objected Perdita. “Everyone’s going to be after that kind of Magic! The emperor of Warriors, Sychorax, the Droods and, oh my goodness… the KINGWITCH…”

“And… hang on a second.” Hoola’s head swiveled around 180 degrees, in that disconcerting way that owls are so fond of, to get a good look at Xar. “We’ve heard about the girl’s disastrous, dangerous gift… what’s wrong with the boy?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Caliburn innocently.

“You heard,” said Hoola. “What’s wrong with him? You said he had some sort of gift too…”

“The boy just had this teeny accident with a Witch-stain…” said Caliburn, and again, he went into a long, complicated explanation about what had happened, trying to play it all down, but ending with “He is, admittedly, finding it a little difficult to control…”

“That’s not true!” objected Xar. “I have it perfectly under control!”

Xar took his glove off to show Perdita how brilliantly he could control the Witch-stain, and a green bolt of lightning shot randomly off it and incinerated her chair. Hurriedly, Xar put his glove back on again.

There was a horrified silence.

“Maybe not perfectly,” admitted Xar.

“The spell that gets rid of Witches will get rid of Xar’s Witch-stain as well, though,” explained Wish.

“If it really is a true spell,” said Hoola. “It could be just make-believe… Wish wants so much to find a cure for Witches that she has made up this spell of yours.”

“However the spell was written with MY feather,” said Caliburn. “So it might be a memory of a spell written by MYSELF in a former life, when I was the great Wizard Pentaglion.”

Perdita was impressed. “Yes,” admitted Perdita, “that does mean the spell is worth a closer look.”

“Spelling Book!” commanded Wish, putting up her eyepatch a little. The Spelling Book jumped out of Wish’s pocket and eagerly turned its own pages to the spell to get rid of Witches.

Perdita snapped her fingers. The desk that she had sent flying with her bottom when she was a bear was currently upended, the top against one of the walls, legs stretched out stiffly in the air. The little wooden desk legs softened and waggled as the desk struggled to turn itself upright. With a final heave, the desk tipped itself the right way up, all four legs landing on the floor, and then it scuttled sideways like a crab toward Perdita, coming to a halt in front of her. Everyone had to duck as papers, feather pens, books, and boxes flew through the air and landed higgledy-piggledy all over the desk. A chair scuttled into place just in time to catch Perdita as she sat down.

Perdita knocked once, twice, thrice on the top of one of the boxes sitting on the desk. The box opened, and five pairs of eyeglasses waved their legs in the air and grappled with each other in a tangled and untidy mess.

“Oh!” exclaimed Wish in delight. “Living spectacles!”

The spoon, the key, the fork, and the pins hopped forward curiously, unsure of what to make of these new enchanted cousins. None of them had ever met anyone else who had enchanted objects before, so this was a fresh and fascinating experience.

The spectacles were horrified at this attention, firmly snapping down the lid of their box.

“They’re a bit shy,” warned Perdita, and in response to a quiet word from Wish, the spoon and his companions retreated back into Wish’s pockets and hair so as not to alarm the eyeglasses further.

Slo-o-owly the box opened and the eyeglasses blinked through the crack of the lid, like the huge bug eyes of jungle creatures that had just woken up.

Blink, blink.

Wish held her breath with the effort of trying not to laugh.

Gra-a-adually the eyeglasses climbed over the edge of the box like cautious spiders. Haltingly, they stalked gently forward on their long unsteady limbs, still clearly a bit sleepy, and circled in front of Perdita with tentative daddy-longlegs strides so that she could choose one of them to look through.

“Choose the one with the limp,” whispered Wish. She had already decided that her favorite was a pair of glasses that had clearly been through a difficult time, and had one smashed glass and a stem that had been broken and mended again several times.

“Yes, I love that pair,” said Perdita, “but this time I think I’ll go for… the rose-colored ones.”

“Oh noooooooo…” said Hoola, furiously putting her wings in front of her eyes. “Mistress! Not the ROSE-COLORED ones! When will you ever learn?”

But the four other pairs of spectacles scrambled back into the box, clearly delighted to be able to go back to sleep, and the pair with the pink glass and twiglike stems stalked up Perdita’s untidy clothes onto her face and settled themselves on her nose.

“Let me see now…” said Perdita, adjusting them more firmly and opening up the Spelling Book.