The Salamander Spell (7 page)

“Come along, Grassina,” said Chartreuse, hurrying across the paving stones. “I don’t have time to waste. Mother thinks I already left to start my chore, but I’d promised to have breakfast with the princes. If I finish the chore early enough, I’ll be able to meet Prince Miguel in the garden when he comes back from his ride. Oh, look! There’s Prince Clarence! Wait right here. I’ll be just a moment.”

“Not another one,” said Grassina as her sister hurried toward a prince riding his destrier from the stable. Both the horse and the prince were dressed in armor, and neither one looked happy to be delayed.

“Where are you headed so early in the day, Clarence?” Chartreuse asked in her sweetest voice. “You didn’t mention at breakfast that you were going anywhere.”

“My squire told me that there’s talk of a dragon in the woods only a few miles from the castle, dear princess,” said Clarence. His highly polished armor reflected the morning sunlight directly into Grassina’s eyes. She squinted, but didn’t stop listening.

“Your squire must be mistaken,” said Chartreuse. “No dragons would dare come so close.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” said Clarence. “But I feel it is my duty as your suitor to investigate the allegations and protect you if need be. Rest assured, sweet princess, if there is a dragon in those woods, I, Clarence, prince of the Mucking Peninsula and Outer Saltfort, will dispatch the monster so that it cannot possibly harm a single hair on your glorious head.”

Chartreuse’s eyes grew misty as she gazed up at him. “Then ride, my champion, and take my token with you, knowing that I will await your return with bated breath.”

“Could she be any more sappy?” Grassina muttered.

After searching her clothing for something that she could present to him, Chartreuse gave the prince a dazzling smile and said, “Just a moment.” The prince waited while Chartreuse turned and ran to Grassina. “Quick!” she whispered. “You have a ribbon lacing the front of your tunic. Give it to me!”

“What?” squeaked Grassina. “Don’t you have something you can give him?”

“No, and he doesn’t have time to wait while I go to my room. Don’t worry, I’ll give you one of my ribbons later.”

“This is so unfair,” Grassina grumbled as she turned her back and unthreaded the pale green ribbon.

Chartreuse snatched the silky strip of fabric from her sister’s hand and hurried to the prince’s side. After pressing the ribbon to her lips, she tied it on his horse’s bridle, saying, “Take this personal token of my high regard for you, my prince.”

Clarence’s armor clanked as he reached to touch the ribbon. “I shall carry it with pride, my princess.”

“If it’s my ribbon, is he my champion?” Grassina murmured.

“Why did she give your ribbon to that horsse?” asked Pippa, the tip of her nose peeking out of the leather sack.

“Shh!” whispered Grassina. “Here she comes.”

“There you are, sister dear,” said Chartreuse over the clopping of the destrier’s hooves. Taking Grassina by the arm, she hustled her to the drawbridge, nodding when the guards greeted them. “I never realized that the boy cared so much for me,” Chartreuse whispered when they’d passed by the men. “To think he’d be willing to give his life for my well-being. He must really love me!”

“Or love hunting dragons,” Grassina said under her breath. Then she added in a louder voice, “Do you really think there aren’t any dragons in the woods?”

“I’m sure I would have heard about it if there were. Since Mother lost interest in anything but her magic, I’ve been trying to stay informed about what’s going on in the kingdom. When I’m the Green Witch, I’ll be the one to deal with any problems. Unless Clarence goes deep into the enchanted forest, he’s not likely to encounter anything more frightening than a bad-tempered squirrel. Now tell me, what does Mother want you to do? I have to collect blue butterflies, and I know just where to look. It shouldn’t take me long, unless you keep dragging your feet.”

“She wants me to get her a toad with seven warts.”

Chartreuse looked shocked. “Is that all? That’s not fair! She gave you the easy job.”

“I thought you said you knew where to find blue butterflies,” Grassina said, pulling her arm out of her sister’s grasp. “Finding a specific toad will probably take a lot longer.”

Chartreuse’s expression brightened. “That’s true. In that case, I’m glad I don’t have that one!” After patting her sister on the back, she left her at the drawbridge to go her own way.

Pippa peeked out of the leather sack to watch Chartreuse. “How many princess want to marry her?”

“More than she can count,” said Grassina. “A lot of princes want to marry a princess who’ll be queen in her own right as well as a witch who could help their kingdom.”

“There might be another reasson,” said Pippa. “She might have shed her old sskin recently. Then she’d be nice and ssmooth. That might make her more attractive to maless.”

Grassina laughed. “Maybe that’s it. I’ll have to ask her sometime.”

Knowing that she didn’t have long to take Pippa somewhere safe, Grassina decided to go to her tree house. It was on the way to the swamp—a perfect place to look for toads—and was unlikely to attract any other visitors.

When they approached the trunk of the tree that supported the miniature cottage, a squirrel chattered, “Go away!” Jerking its tail in anger, it skittered around to the other side of the tree when Grassina began to climb the ladder. Once inside the tiny house, the princess opened the sack and let the snake loose to explore. She’d brought a waterskin with her from the castle and used it now to fill a bowl for the snake. “It’s just for a few days,” she said, setting the bowl on the floor. “Your tail should be healed soon.”

“It’s nice and warm in here,” said Pippa, raising her head to look around the room. She stopped when she saw the fireplace where the embers were still warm in the grate.

“That fireplace lights itself whenever the tree house gets cold,” said Grassina.

“A ssnake could get ussed to this,” Pippa said, slithering toward the hearth.

The copper finches twittered overhead while one of the few remaining glass birds rustled its transparent feathers, making them click softly. Pippa tested the air with her tongue, looking disappointed when the birds didn’t smell real.

“You’ll be safe here,” said Grassina. “I have to go to the swamp to find a toad for my mother.”

“Why? Doess she eat them?” the snake asked, her eyes glistening.

Grassina laughed and shook her head. “I have no idea what she plans to do with them, but at this point, nothing she does would surprise me.”

“Doess anyone live here? Asside from the birdss, I mean.”

“It used to be a playhouse for my sister and me,” said Grassina. “No one comes here much anymore.”

“Good,” said Pippa. “Then my bad luck won’t hurt anyone elsse.”

Although Grassina had considered introducing Pippa to Marniekins, she decided that it might not be such a good idea. Pippa would probably fret about her bad luck more if she thought someone else might be hurt, and there was no way to tell how the doll would react to a snake.

Confident that her mother’s old spell would keep Pippa safe inside the tree house, Grassina climbed down the ladder while clutching her toad-collecting sack. Starting at the base of the tree, she began lifting leaves and moving stems until she found a fat toad under a skunk-cabbage leaf near a mostly collapsed stone wall.

“Pardon me,” Grassina said, picking up the toad to count the lumps on its back.

“What are you doing?” croaked the toad. “Put me down! This is so undignified! Why, I never . . .”

“I’m sorry,” said Grassina. “I need to count your warts. These bumps are warts, aren’t they? Mother told me to find a toad with seven warts, but I’m not sure these are what she meant.”

The toad squirmed in her grasp and leaked something clear onto her fingers. “Ick!” she said. “What is that?”

“It’s your own fault. You startled me. I can’t help it if I have an incontinence problem when I’m startled. Now, if you wouldn’t mind putting me down, we’ll forget this whole thing ever happened and—”

“I can’t put you down. Hold still so I can count your warts!”

“They’re not warts! They’re . . . uh . . . signs of age and wisdom. Yes, that’s what they are. I’m not as young as I once was.”

“Are you sure?” said Grassina. “They look like they could be called warts.”

“Of course, I’m sure,” said the toad. “It’s my back, isn’t it?”

Grassina sighed and crouched down, setting the toad back where she had found it. “There you go,” said the toad. “That’s right . . . put me on the nice soft moss and I’ll . . . hop off as fast as I can!” The toad hopped wildly away from the skunk cabbage and into a crevice in the jumbled stones of the wall. “You won’t catch me again. No, sirree! I’m safe in here, warts and all!”

“You little liar!” said Grassina. “I never should have believed you.”

Resolving not to listen to any other toads no matter what they said, Grassina straightened her back and strode into the swamp, the empty sack swinging from her hand. It took some time before she found another toad, but it didn’t have the right number of warts. Knowing that her mother would make her life miserable unless she returned with the desired toad, Grassina kept searching.

She found another toad in the short grass beside the edge of a pond, but it didn’t have enough warts. A toad under the old willow had too many. All three toads that she found on the way to the northern edge of the swamp had too few. The sun was at its highest point when Grassina found the toad she needed. It was partially hidden under a rotting log, and she would have missed it if it hadn’t made the dry leaves rustle when it moved.

Grassina bent down to peer under the log. The toad looked up at her and blinked. Before it could get away, she reached down and picked it up, counting the bumps on its back out loud. “. . . five, six, seven. You have seven warts. Finally! I was beginning to think I’d never find one like you.”

“Now, isn’t this just perfect!” said the toad. “As if my day isn’t bad enough, a human has to come along and . . . Hey, what are you doing?”

Grassina carefully lowered the toad into the sack. “Taking you home with me,” she replied, forgetting her resolution not to talk to the toads.

“Really? But we just met. Aren’t you being a little presumptuous?”

“My mother needs someone like you,” she said, peering into the bag.

“What for?” asked the toad.

“I’m not sure. She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“Is she a nice person or should I be worried?”

“She used to be very nice, but lately . . . Let’s just say that she’s not quite the same person anymore.”

“In that case . . . ,” said the toad, and with a giant leap, it flew out of the bag, hit Grassina squarely on the chin, and landed sprawling in the mud.

“Ow!” said Grassina. “Hey, come back here! I need you! My mother will turn me into something awful if I don’t bring her a toad with seven warts!” As the toad hopped away, Grassina chased it, half bent over and nearly stumbling over the hem of her gown. She was still chasing the toad when she noticed the first paw print in the mud. It looked like it might belong to one of her father’s hounds, only it was bigger and slightly longer. “That’s odd,” she said to herself.

Seeing another paw print a short distance from the first, she forgot about the still-hopping toad and knelt down to examine the prints. Grassina was familiar with nearly every kind of creature that had ever set paw in the swamp, yet this print was new to her. She went on, hoping to see which way the animal had gone, and stopped short. Another print was placed right where the creature’s next step would have landed, yet it was different enough from the first that it could have been made by some other, perhaps larger, beast. The pads were longer and set farther apart. The print beyond that was also different, and the one beyond that was . . .

Grassina looked up at the sound of leaves rustling in the underbrush. It was a very little sound, yet it was loud in the still afternoon air. There was a smell as well—a musky kind of odor that was as unusual as the paw prints. Grassina shivered with the feeling that someone or something was watching her. Slipping her hand into the leather sack, she wrapped her fingers around one of her smooth, round throwing stones. She glanced at the prints again as she backed away. Whatever had made them was heading toward the enchanted forest. From the way the prints seemed to change with every step, Grassina was almost sure that it had come from there as well.

The rustling stopped as she backed away, but the sudden silence made her uneasy. Pulling the stone from her sack, Grassina took two more steps backward, then turned and started back the way she’d come, her ears straining to hear anything unusual behind her. The same sixth sense that had kept her safe so many other times had told her it was time to go home.

Grassina left the swamp and was passing the practice field when Chartreuse called out, “Grassina, is that you? Come over here and give me a hand!” Chartreuse tapped her toe with impatience until Grassina reached her side. Handing her younger sister the small wooden bucket she’d been carrying, Chartreuse said, “Mother is ruining my life! It didn’t take me long to find those butterflies, but when I took them to her, she sent me out to pluck dandelion fluff. And I so wanted to talk to Prince Pietro. I told him how much I like poetry, and he was going to write me some. But look at what that fluff did to my fingers! No one will want to write poetry to my beauty after this.” Still talking, she shoved pink fingertips under Grassina’s nose. “It felt soft at first, but I’ve pulled so much of it that my fingers are worked nearly to the bone. It was bad enough that they were practically pickled in that vinegar last night. My hands are probably scarred for life. A princess shouldn’t have to do things like this. It’s a disgrace! I’m so tired, I could lie down right here and fall asleep—if the ground was cleaner. What have you been doing?”

“Looking for the toad I told you about,” Grassina said, her face flushing as she remembered that she’d let the toad get away.

“And it took you all day? Just be glad you didn’t have to pick dandelion fluff. My back is so sore from bending over that I feel like an old crone. Take that in to Mother for me,” Chartreuse said, pointing at the bucket. “I need to wash before supper. I just hope I don’t run into any of my princes before I change out of these dirty clothes.”