A Hidden Magic (2 page)

But now it was the fashion to scoff at magic. The history book about the enchanted forest was no longer taken seriously. Such foolish stories were put aside to make room for treatises on why the world was flat and how to improve the grain and corn crops. The wall remained only because it did no harm and because no one thought it worth the effort to tear down.

Jennifer was one of the few people who still believed in magic, but she usually didn't say so because people always laughed and called this belief "kid stuff."

Which is exactly what Alexander did now. The hint of adventure intrigued him, though, and he wanted to explore.

"But we don't know what's in there," Jennifer protested.

"All the more reason to explore. It'll be all right. I'll protect you."

"But it could be dangerous," she tried again.

"Nonsense," the prince answered, pulling her through the gateway. "I told you I don't believe in magic."

The door slammed shut behind them, and Alexander laughed confidently as Jennifer jumped.

"Just the wind," he said, starting down the well-cleared brick path.

Jennifer followed reluctantly.

Within a few minutes the wide path narrowed and tall trees laced their branches overhead, blocking out the sun. Chilled and unable to see well, Alexander quickly became bored; so after only a short walk they started back the way they had come. But they had gone only a few yards when they reached a fork in the road.

The prince scratched his head.

"That's odd," Jennifer said. "I don't remember the road dividing. Do you?"

"What? Oh, yes, of course it did. Didn't you notice? It was just about here."

"Oh," Jennifer said. "I must not have been paying attention. Which is the way that leads home?"

Alexander's hesitation lasted only two seconds. "Left," he declared decisively.

They had walked only a short distance when Jennifer stopped again. "Oh, dear," she said. The bricks had stopped and the road continued on as a narrow dirt path.

"Well, don't say I didn't tell you so," Alexander said.

"What?"

"I told you to take the other road, but you just started on down this way as it mv opinion didn't matter at all."

Jennifer stamped her foot. "But you said left."

"I did not," Alexander protested. "I said right."

"You said left."

"Well, I meant to say right."

Jennifer sighed and started walking back without answering.

But although they walked and walked, they couldn't rediscover the fork in the road.

"Are we lost?" Jennifer asked.

"Lost?" Alexander's voice squeaked. "Of course we're not lost."

He sat down on a fallen tree next to the road. "But I'm too tired to walk anymore, so we'll just wait here until somebody comes along who can give us a ride back."

"But what if nobody does?"

"Somebody has to," Alexander reasoned. "Your father, for one, when we don't show up for supper."

"But he doesn't even know we're in the forest," Jennifer said. "We could wait here for days."

"
Days?
" Alexander squealed. "Don't say
days.
"

"That's if they find us at all."

Alexander stood up angrily. "See what you've gotten me into," he snapped. "You and your crazy ideas. Let's explore the forest, indeed!"

"But..." Jennifer sputtered.

"Well, never mind. If we can't depend on your father, I'll have to rely on my own wits to get us out of this mess."

He started walking again.

"Oh, dear," Jennifer sighed.

The forest had been dark and gloomy all afternoon, but now, when they could see the sky through the trees, they could also see the moon, pale and small, low in the sky. Jennifer and Alexander began thinking about spending the night in the forest.

"This is incredible," Alexander said. "I'm a prince, not a squirrel. Princes don't sleep on the ground under trees. What would my father, the king, say?"

"I don't know," Jennifer answered, hoping he wouldn't become overly excited, "but what else is there to do?"

Alexander started to whine, but the sound turned to a whoop of joy. "Look!"

Jennifer clapped her hands in excitement, for there, just beyond some trees, was a little white cottage. "Oh, I do hope someone is home," she thought, for she noticed that all the curtains were drawn shut and no light came through any of them.

Alexander crossed the clearing in bounding strides, with Jennifer just a step behind.

"Aren't we going to knock?" she started as Alexander put his hand to the door. But by the time she had finished, he was already inside.

Jennifer followed reluctantly.

I
T TOOK SEVERAL SECONDS
for Jennifer's eyes to become accustomed to the dark. By then she had already guessed from the stillness that the house was empty.

"Anybody home?" Alexander called softly.

In the silence, Jennifer heard herself swallow.

Suddenly Alexander was standing behind her. "What's that?" he whispered, pointing over her shoulder with a trembling finger to a gleaming object on the wall facing them.

Jennifer tried to remind herself that this w as nothing more than a dark house and took another step closer. She gave a sigh of relief. "It's only a mirror."

Alexander exhaled loudly. "That's what I thought."

The cottage was one rather large room divided in two by a fireplace that sat in the middle of the floor and was apparently used for both cooking and heating. The furniture, though there were only a few pieces, was surprisingly elegant, made of dark, heavy wood and ornately carved.

Jennifer and Alexander waited a long time for the owner of the cottage to return so they could ask for directions out of the forest. But as the time passed they began to worry that whoever it was might be on a long vacation and therefore would not be coming back at all that evening. So they made themselves at home, lit a tire, and cooked dinner.

Or rather, Alexander made himself at
home while Jennifer lit a fire and cooked dinner because—as he told her—at home his father, the king, always had somebody around to do that sort of thing for him, and he didn't know how.

So he spent a good deal of time admiring himself in the mirror while she chopped the wood (he held the door for her), cooked a soup from vegetables she found in the cupboard (he complained that it took too long), and cleaned up (he had gone to lie down on the bed—just to rest his eyes for a second while they waited for the dishwater to heat over the fire—and had fallen asleep).

Finally finished, she tiptoed to the side of the bed and smiled down at him. In sleep, quiet for once, his face relaxed and handsome, Alexander looked incredibly helpless and lovable, and his faults were easier to ignore.

Jennifer took two blankets from the chest at the foot of the bed and gently draped one over the prince's slender form.

Then she wrapped the other blanket around her shoulders and went to a chair. With her toes tucked under the cushion for warmth, she was so tired that she fell asleep before she realized how uncomfortable her position was.

J
ENNIFER WAS IN A ROTTEN MOOD.

Normally her disposition was a model of pleasantness, but for the moment she was sweeping the floor with a fury that accomplished little more than sending clouds of dust skittering from one corner to the next.

Alexander, not aware that anything was wrong, sat on the corner of the table practicing disarming smiles in the large ornamental mirror that had startled them the night before. He tapped his foot to the vague melody he was humming.

"You don't need any help, do you?" he asked without turning to her.

Jennifer swept a pile of dust over the offending foot. Her bad mood had been caused by Alexander's insistence that they leave the house as soon as possible. Some time during the night it had occurred to him that the owner of the little cottage might be angry with them for taking over the place. The best way to avoid the owner's possible anger, Alexander had reasoned, was to avoid the owner.

But for her part, Jennifer had agreed to stay in the house only after she had decided that there was nothing wrong with doing so. She didn't like the idea of slinking away into the woods as if they were guilty of something.

Besides, there were two advantages that she could name in waiting for the owner's return:

1. Whoever lived in the cottage hopefully knew the woods well enough to direct them on the way home.

2. They would have a chance to explain themselves and to assure the owner that someone from King Frederick's castle would be back to pay for all the firewood and food they had used.

Alexander, on the other hand, could counter these two points with three of his own:

1. He, Prince Alexander, could find his way out of any forest, enchanted or not, that had ever grown.

2. It is, after all, a great honor to have royalty visit, so he didn't see why anybody should be reimbursed for anything. And...

3. He had decided to take the mirror with him.

Now while Jennifer found his first reason privately doubtful and the second openly debatable, she could recognize in the third a downright criminal act when she heard one.

Alexander, however, was determined. He was constantly standing in front of the mirror (whether admiring it or himself was never ac
tually all that clear), and he was sure that the owner would never willingly part with it.

No amount of arguing, pleading, or threatening had been able to convince him to leave without the mirror, and Jennifer was beginning to fear that if she made Alexander choose between her and the mirror, she would be left to find her own way home.

So now, as Alexander waited impatiently, Jennifer tidied up and tried to figure some way around the situation.

The prince gave the mirror his most dazzling smile. Then he reached over to take it off the wall.

"I wouldn't il I were you," a low voice warned.

Alexander whirled toward the door. It was still closed, and as far as he could tell, he and Jennifer were the only ones in the room.

"I said I'm taking the mirror, and that's that," he said.

Jennifer, who had heard nothing, looked up from making the bed.

"What?" she asked, pushing a long, dark strand of hair out of her eyes.

"I said, i'm taking the mirror, and that's that.'"

Jennifer was puzzled. "Yes, I know."

"All right," Alexander scowled as Jennifer gave him a funny look.

"All right," he repeated, reaching for the mirror.

"You'll be sorry," the same voice whispered.

"Now cut that out!"

Jennifer straightened up and put her hands on her hips. "Alexander, what is the matter with you?"

"Would you please stop telling me not to take the mirror?"

Jennifer sighed. "Well, you shouldn't, but I didn't say anything."

"Fine, just leave it at that." Alexander took a step forward.

"Third warning is the last."

This time she heard it, too. "Who said that?" she demanded.

"Oh, come on," Alexander chided. "Stop playing games."

"Who spoke?" she asked again.

"I did," the voice said.

Jennifer glanced around even though she was already certain that they were the only two in the room. "Where?" she asked.

"Here."

The voice seemed to be coming from the mirror. Jennifer looked at it doubtfully. "Here?"

"Of course. Do you see anybody else in the room?" the mirror laughed.

"Hey, that's pretty good," Alexander said to Jennifer. "How do you do that without moving your lips?"

Jennifer ignored him. "Who are you?" she asked the mirror.

"Let's just say I'm someone who wants to remain where he is."

Alexander laughed. "That's very clever."

"Alexander!" Jennifer cried. "I'm not doing anything! The mirror is talking!"

"Hi, there," Alexander said, trying to hold his lips together. "I'm a talking mirror. Who are you?"

"Really," she insisted, "it's not me."

The prince stepped closer to the mirror, grinning widely, but this time hardly moving his lips.

"Ds izha pdy gid tik efu no ha," he announced.

Jennifer raised her eyebrows at him.

Alexander looked disappointed. "I said. This is a pretty good trick if you know how.'"

"Alexander." Jennifer put her hand on his arm and looked directly into his eyes. "This is no trick. I am not talking for the mirror. Now, Mirror, say something."

The mirror cawed and whistled like a parrot. "The prince is a jerk."

"Wait a minute," Alexander said.

"Did you see my lips move at all?" Jennifer asked. "Did the voice even come from this spot?"

Alexander looked around in bewilderment.
"No," he admitted slowly. "But if you aren't talking, who is?"

"The mirror is." Jennifer was becoming impatient.

Alexander wore a look that said he couldn't be convinced that easily. "But a mirror can't talk."

"A magic mirror could."

"But there's no such thing as magic," he protested.

The mirror cawed and whistled again.

"You, be quiet." Alexander stood defiantly glaring at the mirror. "There is," he repeated slowly and deliberately, "no such thing as magic."

"The prince is a jerk," the mirror repeated.

"Someone is playing a trick on us!" Alexander bellowed, dashing to the door. He flung it open. No one was there.

Jennifer watched him spend the next several minutes running around the cottage, alternating directions in an attempt to catch whoever he figured had to be out there.
Finally she went outside to look for him, and the prince, edging craftily around a corner, found himself nose-to-nose with her. Each gasped loudly.

"Would you stop fooling around?" she pleaded.

Alexander growled an answer she couldn't understand and slunk back inside.

"Anyone out there?" the mirror asked.

"No," Alexander admitted.

"Too bad."

"You are not magic!" Alexander insisted, crossing his arms over his chest and looking as though he felt just a bit silly addressing a mirror. "There is no such thing as magic. I've never seen a witch fly by on a broomstick, or an alchemist change lead to gold, or a frog turn out to be anything but a frog. Those things just can't happen."