Jennifer Murdley's Toad (Magic Shop Books) (13 page)

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surprised into speaking. But curses can be counterproductive. I suppose that crone in the woods who first cursed my tongue with the vermin spell intended to teach me a lesson. Well, I learned many lessons in the long run. But they all came from the witch who finally took me on as an apprentice."

Spreading the tweezers on the counter before her, she began to point at them with one neatly manicured fingertip.

"I need to choose my tools carefully," she said, half to Jennifer, half to herself. "As a comrade of mine once said, 'These things must be done delicately.' Ah--this should do just fine."

Lifting the largest pair, she held them to the light.

"I still don't understand," said Bufo.

It was clear to Jennifer that he was stalling for time.
Probably clear to the witch, too,
she thought.
But I guess when you're five hundred years old, a few minutes one way or the other doesn't make that much difference.

"In order to get the spell removed, I had to find someone who had the knowledge to remove it," said the woman. "Which in this case meant I had to find a witch. She took me on as an apprentice. But the fee was high: I had to bring her a Jewel of Perfect Happiness. When I asked her where to find it--spitting out a few spiders and snakes in the process--she told me that the first two toads to come forth from my mouth, one male, one female, each carried such a jewel in their foreheads.

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All I had to do was find one of the toads, remove the jewel, and she would teach me everything she knew--including how to control the curse."

"Esmerelda!" cried Bufo, and this time there was no trace of an imitation, only his own voice, thick with grief and loss. "You stole my Esmerelda.
What did you do to her?"

"The same thing I'm about to do to you," replied the witch calmly.

"Where is she?" demanded Bufo, his grief giving way to anger. "Is she alive?"

"I don't have the slightest idea," said the witch, her voice calm, unruffled.

"But how can you do this to him?" said Jennifer. "I mean, he's like your kid or something!"

The witch turned to Jennifer. "There's always more where he came from," she said softly, her eyes glittering, cold, deadly.

"What do you mean?" whispered Jennifer.

"I told you, the spell is under control. Not gone. Just under"--here she paused for a moment, closed her eyes, and then finished the sentence--"control."

As she spoke the last word, a rat tumbled out of her mouth, dropping to the floor at her feet.

"Run for your life!" cried Bufo.

Eyes wide with astonishment, the rat scurried across the floor and disappeared behind the cabinet.

Jennifer shivered. The witch opened her eyes. "Disgusting, isn't it?" she asked, her voice bitter.

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"I have to constantly be on the alert to keep it from happening. Means I tend to keep to myself a lot. One slip in polite company, one careless word at a tea party, one toad in a teacup, and I'm not invited back. It's been a lonely few centuries. I think I'm about due a little happiness. I've always regretted giving away that first jewel. After all, it came out of
my
mouth, even if it was wrapped in a toad when it arrived. So it should have been mine. Fortunately, I knew there was one more available-- one more chance at perfect happiness.

"And now I've found it," she said, stepping toward Bufo, the tweezers outstretched before her.

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THIRTEEN

The Temptation of Jennifer Murdley

"Bufo!" cried Jennifer, hopping across the counter. "Kiss me!"

Bufo looked at her in astonishment.

"What do you think you're doing?" shrieked the witch.

"Kiss me, you fool!" said Jennifer.

Suddenly Bufo understood. Lunging forward, he planted a kiss on Jennifer's lips.

"Again!" she cried. "Again! Again! Again!"

"Stop!" screamed the witch. "Stop!"

But it was too late. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. With every kiss Jennifer doubled in size--from four inches to eight, from eight to sixteen, from sixteen to thirty-two.

With the fourth kiss she was more than five feet long.

The fifth kiss turned her into a toad the size of a Volkswagen.

"Stop!" screamed the witch again, and she raised

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her hands to cast a spell. But before she could speak a word, make a gesture, Jennifer's tongue shot forward, pinned the witch's arms to her sides, and drew her back into Jennifer's mouth, where she was held fast, her feet sticking out of one side, her head out of the other.

"Well, that was very good," said Bufo. "My congratulations."

Jennifer looked at him but said nothing, as it was difficult to speak with a mouthful of witch.

The witch noticed the problem immediately. "What are you going to do, Jennifer?" she asked, her voice soft, wheedling. "You can't keep me this way forever. Are you going to spit me out--or swallow me? I don't know about swallowing; I might get stuck in your throat. I could do a lot of damage before I'm done, or down, or whatever."

"Ignore her, Jennifer," said Bufo desperately. "She's got a voice like honey; she could talk a cat into a doghouse."

"That's not entirely wrong," said the witch. "And I can do more than that. I can offer a trade. Look around you, Jennifer. Look in the mirrors, and let me show you what might be. Remember, I have powers, I can change things. Look at yourself."

From every mirror in the shop stared a giant toad, a witch dangling from its mouth.

ME!
thought Jennifer, in fear and revulsion.

But even as she stared at the mirrors, the image began to shift. First the toad dissolved. In its place stood a familiar image, one Jennifer had tried

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to see as little as possible over the last few years: her own plain face with its small eyes, big nose, and puffy cheeks, framed as always by limp, mousy hair. How she hated that image!

But as she watched, it began to shift: The nose shrank, the eyes grew. The limp hair became a thick, shaggy mane of sun yellow as the cheeks narrowed and slimmed. Cheekbones rose beneath those cheeks, like mountains stirring beneath the earth's crust, and beauty crept across her face like dawn across the sea.

Great tears formed in Jennifer-the-toad's enormous eyes. This was the secret image she had held within, the way she would have chosen to look, if only she had the power.

'7 have the power," whispered the witch, as if she had read Jennifer's mind. "I can make you look like that if you want; if you're willing to trade. Just say the word, Jennifer. Let me go. I can make you human again. And not merely your old, ugly self. I can make you beautiful ..."

Jennifer hopped forward, a leap that covered several feet. The image in the mirror, not that of a toad, but of a girl more beautiful than Sharra, came forward to greet her.

The Jennifer that might be, the midnight dream that haunted her days.

"Beautiful
... ," whispered the witch.

"Jennifer," said Bufo desperately. "Don't listen to her! Remember what she--"

"Quiet, you," hissed the witch.

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Ignoring her anger, Bufo tried again. "Remember what she really--"

"Quiet!" bellowed the witch. Losing control in her wrath, she spit out not only the word but another rat, which came hurtling out of her mouth and landed halfway across the room.

Jennifer-the-toad took another step toward the mirror. Jennifer-the-beautiful stepped forward to meet her.

"This is what you look like inside," whispered her reflected self, and Jennifer could not tell whether the words were spoken aloud or only in her mind. "Like the geode. Let me out. She can help you--help
us.
She can set me free, release the beauty inside you."

Like the geode,
thought Jennifer, her mind whirling as if lost in some fever dream.
But if you turn it inside out, it's beautiful outside, and ugly inside.

"Where does beauty matter?" whispered the reflection. "Where you can see it! What else counts?"

"Barbie and Ken!" bellowed Bufo. "Perfect plastic people! Is that what you want, Jennifer? If that's it, go ahead. Spit the witch out. She can have the jewel in my head, and let what happens happen."

I don't want to trade you for being beautiful,
thought Jennifer, still unable to open her mouth, for fear of letting the witch escape.
But oh, how I want to look like that. Oh, how I want to be beautiful.

If only someone would make the decision for her.

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But no one would.

"It's your choice," whispered the mirror.

"Decide, Jennifer," hissed the witch. "Give me the toad, and I'll let you go free--free and as beautiful as you could wish."

Jennifer sat in silence, her mouth closed.

"He's only a toad," wheedled the witch. "And a rude one at that. It's not as if I want your brother; I only got him by accident, anyway. I thought I was stealing this one. But your brother did make a perfect trading card--I gave you the child, you gave me the toad. You were willing to sacrifice the toad for your brother. Why not for yourself? He's only a toad, Jennifer. Only a toad."

Only a toad,
thought Jennifer. But the words burned, because she had heard words like them too many times, sneered once by Sharra, and whispered over and over in her memory thereafter.
A toad for a toad.

In the mirror, the witch's image appeared beside that of the Jennifer-that-could-be. She was as beautiful as night, with eyes you could drown in.

"Or you could join me," the witch whispered, putting her arm around the false reflection. "Stay with me and learn the secrets I have to offer.
I
traded the jewel of happiness for them. All
you
have to trade is a single toad. I get the jewel, you get the beauty and wisdom and immortality. And Bufo gets to go on living, only slightly--altered. Why not, Jennifer? Why not stay with me and learn my secrets? Look at me. See how beautiful I am? See

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how beautiful you can be? Stay with me. Be beautiful. Stay with me ..."

Jennifer ached with the sight of the self that could be, the face in the mirror that had, until now, existed only in her imagination.

Only a toad,
she thought.
He's only a toad. I only met him two days ago, and life has been nothing but trouble since. I don't owe him a thing. And he's only a toad, after all. And I could be beautiful ...

And then she remembered Mr. Elives' words: "Take good care of this toad. If you don't, you'll have me to answer to."

Would the old man pursue her, punish her, if she traded Bufo in for beauty? What would he do? Would the witch protect her?

"Beautiful," crooned the witch. "So beautiful ..."

"Most mirrors are mere errors," said Mr. Elives. Jennifer blinked. Mr. Elives? What was he doing here?

But it wasn't Mr. Elives--it was Bufo, using the old man's voice.

"Shut up!" snarled the witch.

But it was too late. Like sand in butter, the words had grated against something, shaken Jennifer out of her stupor. She stared at herself in the mirror, at the Barbie-perfect image the witch and her imagination had conjured up, and knew it was not, could not, ever
really
be her. With a cry of rage and sorrow, she lashed out at it with her most powerful weapon--her tongue. The great length

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of solid muscle shot across the room. The witch was still stuck to it. She struck the mirror, which shattered against her back, glass tinkling to the floor.

Unconscious, the witch fell from Jennifer's tongue and lay amid the shards of glass. Yet her image and the image of the false Jennifer remained, surrounding them in all the other mirrors that lined the walls of the shop.

"Jennifer," the images crooned, as if they had taken on a life of their own. "Jennifer, it's not too late. Trade the toad. He's only a toad."

But Jennifer had had enough of mirrors. Nearly blind with rage, she lashed out again and again, her powerful toad's tongue slamming the smooth reflective surfaces, shattering one after another, until suddenly she found herself standing not in a modern beauty parlor but inside a cottage that looked as if it had been lifted from a fairy tale.

"It's my home!" cried Bufo in astonishment. "Jennifer,
this is the cottage where I was born!"

Jennifer didn't answer; her tongue was sore and bleeding, and speech was more trouble than it was worth.

Bufo seemed to understand. "Let's get out of here," he said, glancing at the unconscious form of the witch.

She nodded, though getting out wasn't going to be easy, since the cottage's only door was less than half her width. She hopped toward it, nudged it with her nose.

Not a chance of getting through.