Sychorax sniffed. “Very foolish of you to hide it in the Nuckalavee in the first place, Encanzo.”
“How was I to know that anyone would be totally idiotic enough to go in there and remove it!” stormed Encanzo. “How could I have predicted the absolute madness of these ridiculous children? It’s absolutely nonsensical of them.”
“Well, if you will be so careless with your heart, accidents are going to happen,” said Queen Sychorax.
“There’s a bit of YOUR heart in there too, Sychorax,” snapped Encanzo.
Ah yes. When you have exchanged a true love’s kiss, a little mixing up of hearts is unfortunately inevitable, even if the kiss is later regretted.
Sychorax blushed. She tapped her pretty little foot on the beach.
“Yes, all right, all right,” admitted Sychorax irritably. “I too may have been a little careless with my heart in the past… But it’s all under control now. Where have you hidden this heart, you beastly bodyguard?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say,” said Bodkin. “I’ll tell you where I’ve hidden it after King Encanzo gives me the four scales that he stole from the Nuckalavee twenty years ago. I expect you keep them in one of those handy pockets you have hanging from your belt, sir.”
There was a stunned silence.
Wish’s and Xar’s heads lifted. Wish could feel her spirits lifting as well.
“Oh, very clever, Bodkin!” said Wish. “Of course! That’s why the Nuckalavee said we had the scales already… We WERE meant to find the last ingredient in the spell to get rid of Witches after all!”
“WHAAAAT!” cried Queen Sychorax. “I keep on telling you! There is no such thing as a spell to get rid of Witches!!!”
But Xar and Wish were not listening.
For them, this changed everything. Fate meant them to get the ingredients, and that meant they had a chance.
“Hand the scales over, Father,” said Xar.
What could Encanzo do? You can’t leave your heart laying around for just anyone to find it.
Absolutely and completely and totally raging, Encanzo reached into his pocket, pulled out the four scales of the Nuckalavee, and gave them to Bodkin.
“Okay, we’ll be off now,” said Bodkin briskly.
“Where have you hidden my heart?” yelled Encanzo.
“I’ll tell you once we’re on our way,” said Bodkin.
“Where are you going, you foolish children?” asked Sychorax.
“Well, we have all of the ingredients now, don’t we, guys?” said Bodkin. “So I expect we’ll go off and put them together and make that spell…”
Wish put up her eyepatch a smidgeon and conjured up an image of the Enchanted Door of the Punishment Cupboard in her mind, and the door that they had hidden under some old bits of wood on the edge of the beach shook off the undergrowth covering it and flew over the sand, hovering helpfully in front of them.
And then Wish thought of shoes, and Wish’s and Crusher’s shoes walked out from the line of shoes on the edge of the beach, and they put them on. Xar and Wish and Bodkin climbed on the back of the hovering door.
Wish moved the key to UP, and as the door moved up and into the air, Bodkin shouted down to the parents while they were still in earshot:
“I buried your heart under the sand about fifty feet behind you. X marks the spot…”
Sure enough, while Encanzo and Sychorax were busy telling Wish and Xar off, Bodkin had crept away and buried the stone, putting two crossed twigs on top of it because it’s surprisingly difficult to remember where you’ve put something when you bury it on a beach.
Encanzo and Sychorax ran across the sand and dug underneath the crossed twigs, and to their great relief, Encanzo’s heart-that-had-turned-into-a-stone was just where Bodkin said it was.
“They’ve done well, really, haven’t they? All on their own and everything,” said the voice of Madam Perdita. “X marks the spot was a clever touch of Bodkin’s…”
Queen Sychorax jumped. Standing at her elbow was Madam Perdita, laughing quietly to herself, with Hoola on her head. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” snapped Queen Sychorax. “It’s very rude to materialize out of nothing without first announcing your presence…”
“Oh, hello, Madam Perdita! Hello, Hoola,” Wish shouted down so guilty that she nearly fell off the door. “We’re so sorry about you losing your job at Pook’s Hill…”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault!” Madam Perdita called up to Wish. “And we needed a break from that learning place anyway, didn’t we, Hoola? You just carry on with what you’re doing. You’re doing really well… We’re very proud of you.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” said Queen Sychorax.
Queen Sychorax shook her fist up at the door hovering just above the adults.
“Come back, Wish!” said Queen Sychorax. “There is no hope! Life is complicated! Here in the real world, your bodyguard has already betrayed you!”
“I know that,” said Wish. “But he’s sorry, aren’t you, Bodkin?”
“I’m very sorry,” said Bodkin. “Couldn’t be sorrier, but Xar and Wish have forgiven me, and I won’t do it again.”
“Is that IT?” raged Queen Sychorax. “He just says he’s sorry, and you FORGIVE him? How can you ever trust him again, you fool?”
“I don’t know,” explained Wish. “I just can…”
Isn’t it strange that the only conversations that mother and daughter seemed to have were shouted ones from the backs of doors?
“The thing is, Queen Sychorax,” Bodkin shouted down over the edge of the door, “in your Warrior world, there’s these immovable class distinctions and everything—once a servant, always a servant… Whereas in Wish’s world, a bodyguard can still be a hero.”
“Wish’s world has never existed and it never will!” Queen Sychorax yelled.
“Come back down here, or I will arrest your snowcats and your giant! I’M GOING TO LOCK UP THAT GIANT AS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
Crusher was lumbering out of the sea. He looked mildly surprised and anxious to find that Queen Sychorax had drawn her bow and arrow and was pointing it at him.
“UH-OH…” said Crusher.
In front of Queen Sychorax’s and Encanzo’s eyes, the mountain of a giant disappeared, faded into the wind as if there were no giant there at all.
The snowcats and wolves were also there one minute and gone the next.
And when an extremely frustrated Sychorax pointed her arrow upward at the door, it too had vanished, melted into air.
“It is incredibly ill-considered of you to teach them invisibility, Madam Perdita,” said Encanzo. “They are way too young to be able to deal with such a dangerous power.”
“I told them how risky it was,” said Perdita. “I warned them not to stay invisible too long. I trust them to cope.”
“You have taught Wish too much,” said Encanzo grimly, looking up at where the door once was. “Beware, Madam Perdita, for you may have signed her death warrant. Once Wish is too powerful to be contained, she can only be destroyed.”
“Tut-tut-tut,” tutted Perdita. “Such violent talk is unnecessary. You and Sychorax still have so much to learn.
“Children have a way of growing, even if you try and stop them,” said Perdita. “Catch them if you can…”
“Well, real life has caught up with you, hasn’t it, Madam Perdita?” snapped Queen Sychorax. “You’ve lost your precious learning place. See what happens if you meddle? You should never have taken the child in.”
“I know,” said Perdita sadly, eyes already welling with tears, for Perdita cried easily. “But they are worth it, the young people. And they are more grateful than they sometimes look.”
“HOO!” hooted Hoola rudely, as if she did not agree with Perdita. “Twenty-five years! Twenty-five years of building that Pook’s Hill up from nothing!” she mourned. “In the face of all those dreadful Droods saying a woman could never be the head.”
“Did they say that?” said Sychorax, outraged. “How dare they?”
“I’m sorry, Madam Perdita, I know you will miss the teaching and all your experiments, not to mention your beautiful garden,” said Encanzo, with genuine concern.
“I’m even missing those pesky pixies,” admitted Perdita, tears running down her face with such regularity that her rose-colored glasses were misting up. She clicked her fingers, and one of Sychorax’s handkerchiefs wormed its way out of one of Sychorax’s pockets and danced up to Perdita’s nose, and Perdita blew her nose on it with a great trumpeting blast.
“I’m sorry too, even if it was all your own fault,” said Sychorax, sympathetic despite herself. She could appreciate the struggles of fellow women trying to run things. “Keep the handkerchief,” (for Perdita was offering it back to her).
“Oh! Thank you, how kind,” Perdita said, smiling and recovering her composure. “Never mind. If you ever need any help with your children in the future, all you need to do is… knock three times.”
“If we need any help?” said Sychorax, recovering from her moment of sympathy and remembering what a danger Perdita was to the future of the wildwoods. “We’re never going to need any assistance from you! You’re a total liability! You’re completely irresponsible!”
“And in the meantime, well, you’re never too old to start again.” The sparkle had come back into Perdita’s eyes. “I’ve always wanted to see what went on in the northern territories… to find out what happens if you follow the Giants’ Footsteps to the utter bitter end. So I’ve got out my favorite walking staff and the old trusty walking boots.”
She looked down at her feet. The boots really were old, decaying at the edges and falling to bits, and, frankly, even a bit smelly. Perdita stamped them a bit and one of the heels fell off, with, yes, a definite stinky whiff. “A little brisk walking will work off the smell,” said Perdita enthusiastically. “You could see this as a bit of a godsend… Wandering free, once again, with the wind in our hair and a song in our hearts, just as a Wizard ought to do. Isn’t it wonderful to be given a chance to go a-wandering once again, eh, Hoola?”
Hoola ruffled her feathers indignantly. “We’re way too old to wander, Madam. Personally, I prefer a roof over my head.”
“That can be arranged,” said Sychorax with grim promptness. “I’m going to put out a warrant for the arrest of you and your owl, Madam Perdita, throughout my Warrior kingdom. You’d better get used to being invisible…”
Sychorax had drawn her bow and arrow once more.
But Perdita hadn’t worked with teenagers for twenty-five years without learning to be prepared for unexpected changes of emotion. One minute she stood in front of them as a human in very old walking boots. The next she was a bear—a great roaring bear. And then she vanished. And all about the beach around them, bearprints appeared, one line going this way, another that way, wandering around in scatterbrained circles, myriad illusions of multiple bearprints appearing, disappearing, here one second, gone the next, lost and found all at the same time, in a way that thoroughly confused Sychorax, for she didn’t know where to shoot.
Hoola hovered before them for a moment longer, hooting: “HOOO! HOOO!” (which meant, “How ruuuuuude! How ruuuuuude!”) before disappearing like mist into the sea.
And King Encanzo and Queen Sychorax were left alone upon the beach.
The Witches up in the sky had disappeared. It was just the two of them, and Encanzo’s very ancient sprite, his old snowcat, and the wind.
“Being a parent is very, very hard,” said Encanzo after a while.
“It most certainly is,” agreed Sychorax.
“They are extraordinarily annoying, those children,” said Encanzo. “But I have to admit, I miss Xar when he is not there. And at heart, I know the silly little boy does mean well. I wish I could help him…”
Sychorax said nothing.
“You don’t think,” said Encanzo slowly, “we might possibly be wrong about the choices that we made in the past?”
“Of course not!” snapped Queen Sychorax. “We had responsibilities! Duties to our people! Not to mention TRADITION.”
“Ah yes,” said Encanzo. “Tradition… of course…”
There was another long silence.
“So… what do we do now then?” said Encanzo meditatively as he watched Queen Sychorax’s little irritated foot going tap, tap, tap in annoyance on a rock on the beach, and her pretty little nostrils flaring in and out with temper.
She really does have an extremely pretty nose, thought Encanzo.
I wish…
But then he stopped himself. For the world cannot be lost for the sake of pretty noses.
“We will have a temporary truce,” said Queen Sychorax. “Not just for one night, but for however long it will take to catch those children. This is a state of emergency, and in a state of emergency, normal rules do not apply.”
“So, you will stop setting fire to the wildwoods?” said King Encanzo. “And stop capturing my giants and my elves and generally making a menace of yourself?”
“Temporarily,” said Queen Sychorax. “And in the meantime, I will take care of the Kingwitch and put him where he can never get out of that iron casing. You will get your Droods and Wizards to try to retrieve all these undesirable objects released from the guardianship of the Nuckalavee. And we will both strain every nerve… every sinew… every breath in our lungs, every itch in our fingers to CATCH those children.”
(Alongside the bearprints, an invisible hand was writing something on the beach, in letters so large they could only be read from above.)
“We will both lose our thrones, Encanzo, if we do not catch them,” warned Queen Sychorax. “The emperor of Warriors is watching me; the Droods are watching you…”
“I have always admired your fighting spirit, Sychorax!” Encanzo smiled in admiration. “You never know when you’re beaten. What a magnificent woman you are, indeed! You’re the only person even trickier than I am!”
“Well, I’m so glad you said that,” said Sychorax, her usual wintry smile warming up a bit, “because most people see my strength as a bit of a downside, but when you’re being a monarch you have to take difficult decisions and—Hang on a second!”
“Hang on a second, indeed…” repeated Encanzo, as both monarchs’ smiles faded. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Is Perdita tricking the both of us? A TRUCE… working together, side by side… is that sensible, Sychorax? Do we trust ourselves?”
“Working together, from a distance,” said Sychorax firmly. “No turning into swifts or any such nonsense. I’m going to go right back behind my Wall and make it even bigger. And if Perdita can trick us, why, I think we can out-trick Perdita.”
Sychorax reached into a pocket hanging from her waist. “This is something I carry around with me always, as a sort of promise to myself.”
She drew out a small glass vial from the pocket.
“It is the last drops of the Spell of Love Denied,” said Sychorax.
“You didn’t drink it all!” said Encanzo in surprise.
“I could not quite bear to at the time,” admitted Sychorax. “I wanted to save a smidgeon of the love, a memory of it, so that it was not entirely forgotten.”
Encanzo’s face, so stern, so sad, turned young and eager for a second, like clouds lifting on a darkened hillside. It was as if, after all these years, the distant ghost of a young Warrior princess had arrived at the hut of his younger self, the poor Wizard-who-waits, and he lifted up his head, and there in the doorway… there she was.
“You did love me, after all!” cried Encanzo.
“But that was my weakness,” said Sychorax. “If I had drunk the whole spell, Wish would never have been born with this curse, and none of this would have happened. So now we have to drink the last drops of the spell together, so that we can be strong enough to make this right again.”
Encanzo’s sprite, a very ancient one that age had turned so twiglike in nature it very rarely spoke, now felt an urgent need to express its opinion. “I must urge you, Majesties, not to drink this liquid…” And the sprite was so exasperated that it slapped its little sticklike hand on its forehead in its incredulity at the idiocy of these humans.
It had to be said, the mixture in the bottom of the vial Queen Sychorax was holding up looked very evil indeed. As soon as she uncorked the bottle, there was a small explosion and queasy wisps of greasy green smoke curled up from the wicked liquid remains sloshing around in the bottom of it. It was even crackling a little, as if infested by a mini volcano and little drops spat over the rim of the bottle, landing on the grass, which promptly turned black and died.
Short of a large sign saying “DO NOT DRINK ME. I AM RATHER MORE DANGEROUS THAN A DEADLY DEATH CAP MUSHROOM SOAKED IN ARSENIC,” this was a potion that couldn’t be making itself any more clear that it would be thoroughly disagreeable to digest.
“Excellent idea,” said Encanzo, producing a cup from beneath his cloak.
“I cannot stress more strongly that YOU SHOULD NOT DRINK this spell!” said Encanzo’s sprite, panicking on Encanzo’s shoulder.
“Nonsense!” snapped Queen Sychorax. “I’ve drunk this before! It’s a little spicy but perfectly safe… Cheers! Love is weakness!”
And Queen Sychorax threw back her head and took a good swig of the spell. “It has gotten a little spicier over the last twenty years,” Queen Sychorax admitted as her lips turned yellow-black and parched as lemons, and she handed the cup to Encanzo. King Encanzo took the cup, drained the last drops, and then he threw the empty cup at a nearby stone so that it smashed.
Every piece of grass around the stone promptly burst into wicked yellow-green flames.
King Encanzo turned to Queen Sychorax. He swept her a magnificent bow.
Encanzo had been wondering what he should do with his heart now that it was turned into stone. Where could he keep it so it stayed as safely lost as it had been in the throat of the Nuckalavee?
And now he knew.
The safest place for this stone was around the neck of Queen Sychorax, the coldest woman in the wildwoods.
“Sychorax, Queen of Warriors,” said King Encanzo. “Will you do me the honor of keeping this stone on your necklace for me? For safekeeping? I know it will never turn back into a heart when it is around your cold neck.”
Queen Sychorax looked at King Encanzo. Without speaking, she put the small gray pebble around her neck, next to the other, much more splendid beads.
Queen Sychorax nodded. And then she turned away.
If she hadn’t been such a magnificent queen… if she hadn’t just drunk the last drops of the Spell of Love Denied… you might have thought she was thinking about crying.
But…
“LOVE IS WEAKNESS!” cried Queen Sychorax.
“LOVE IS WEAKNESS!” replied King Encanzo.
And then they both climbed on the back of Encanzo’s snowcat.
“I will escort you to your troops,” said Encanzo.
“I will allow you to escort me,” said Queen Sychorax.
They had a short, swift exchange about who was going to be driving the snowcat. (Queen Sychorax won.)
And then they had a conversation that I am at a loss to understand, given the terrible nature of the spell they had just drunk.
“Will you also allow me to lend you my cloak?” said Encanzo. “You look a little chilly.”
“Warrior queens never get cold—we are far too tough,” said Sychorax, shivering. “But you look a little warm yourself. So I will carry your coat for you as a favor just this once, to prevent you from overheating…”
Encanzo gave his cloak to Queen Sychorax, and Queen Sychorax kicked her heels imperiously, and Encanzo’s snowcat set off in the direction of Queen Sychorax’s army.
Inexplicable.
And then the beach was empty.
Looking down over the edge of the door, high up in the air, Wish and Xar and their companions could finally see what Perdita had written in enormous letters in the sand of the empty beach.