Any Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder

  “Just say one word,” said Merlin. “One word only. Whisper it into the dish, and the potion will give you a glimpse.”

  “Just one word?” said Emma. “We shouldn’t ask it a question?”

  “Heavens, no,” said Merlin. “Then you’d only get the future of the first word you asked, which would probably be ‘what,’ and let me tell you, a glimpse of ‘what’ is sure to be vague. No fun at all.”

  “Should we close our eyes?” asked Susan.

  Merlin chuckled at the suggestion. “You can, but if you do that, you won’t be able to see the glimpse. Visions are awfully visual. Now, who wants to go first? I’m due for a three-day nap as soon as the four of you leave.”

  “A three-day nap?” Henry couldn’t believe that anyone would voluntarily surrender to such a fate.

  “Yes, I don’t have any visitors scheduled for a bit, and I don’t rest easy when I do rest, so I like to put myself to sleep for a good stretch every few weeks. Gives me a chance to dream.” Merlin got a faraway look on his face. “Such dreams …” He shook his head so that the bird’s nest dangled precariously, and pointed at Susan. “You, nearly grown! You go first!”

  Susan, startled and unprepared, leaned over her bowl and said the first word that came to mind. She murmured the word “love” and then blushed as soon as she’d said it.

  Henry snickered.

  Slowly, a wisp of faint smoke curled up from the bowl and turned into what looked like a round picture frame. In the center of the frame was a small group of people jostling each other. Susan couldn’t help noticing that at the center of that crowd was a young man in a blue T-shirt, with a shock of blond hair that stood straight up. Only his back was showing, but he had a confident posture and he seemed to be laughing at something. Susan barely noticed the other people standing beside him, until something happened to jerk him so that he almost fell over and toppled onto an old lady.

  Henry made a snorting noise in his throat and rolled his eyes, but Susan ignored him and stared at Merlin. “What is it?” she asked. “Who’s that guy? Why am I seeing him?”

  “I can’t answer that for you,” said Merlin. “I only know that it’s just some part of your future. Fate is limited, my dear, and so are visions. I can show you a moment in your future, but what it will mean to you—well, that’s up to you. Free will and all its bothersome trappings.” Susan’s vision began to fade and the wizard turned his attention to the others. “Now you!” he said, motioning to Henry.

  Henry pushed his tongue against his teeth in concentration, thinking deeply before he grinned and said into the bowl, “Trouble.”

  His wisp rose—a paler color than Susan’s—and in no time at all they were all staring at Henry’s picture frame. Inside it was a palm tree on a beach set against a blazing tropical sun. The palm tree waved and small waves rose and fell behind it, crashing to gentle surf before the scene faded.

  Henry was indignant. “That’s not trouble!” he said. “That’s, like, the opposite of trouble!”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” said Merlin as he watched the scene fade. “You just might get it.”

  He patted Emma on the head. “Your turn!” he said brightly.

  Emma’s hands shook as she held her bowl. “Friends?” said Emma, with her lips to the bowl but her eyes on the wizard.

  Emma’s picture frame rose before her, but inside it was not a person or a scene. It was a plain black oval, a circle of absolute darkness.

  “It’s broken, I think,” she said, shaking her bowl of weed water gently from side to side.

  “I don’t think so,” said Merlin. “My magic is pretty unbreakable. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see what that darkness is.”

  Now it was Roy’s turn. “I can’t figure out the best word to say,” he said. “This magic is tricky.”

  Merlin laughed. “By definition! Perhaps it’s best not to overthink. That can be just as dangerous as under-thinking, and sometimes far worse. Maybe you should just say the first word that pops into your head.”

  Roy thought this advice through carefully before he nodded. Then he leaned into his bowl and whispered, “Home!”

  His dish steamed and popped and a wisp of smoke curled from it. Inside the frame that hovered in the air, they saw a man. The man looked enormous, as wide as two men and taller than most. He was heavily muscled and angry, squinting into the sun. He opened his mouth in a snarl, but before anyone could tell why, the vision faded.

  When Emma saw the man, she shivered. “That was home?” she asked nervously. “He didn’t look like home.”

  “Whoever that man is, he has the posture of a Saxon,” muttered Merlin distastefully. Then he slapped his hands together, ready to be done with them. “Well, I guess that’s that,” he said brightly. “See you around!”

  “But, Merlin,” Susan said, “that really wasn’t home, not at all. We know everyone at home, pretty much, and that man was nobody we know.”

  Merlin knitted his unruly eyebrows and said, “Perhaps, Susan, there is more to your home than you know. Places and times and people you’ve never seen. Things beyond your experience.”

  Susan said nothing in reply.

  “But why would the magic show us that?” asked Emma timidly.

  “Oh, little Emma,” said Merlin. “Even I can’t know why magic does what it does, though I know as well as anyone how magic does what it does.” Then he yawned. “Okay, time’s up. I’m off to my nap, but I do hope you’ve enjoyed your visit. Good night.”

  “Wait!” said Roy. “What if—”

  “No,” said Merlin, brushing away Roy’s question with a wave of his hands as though it were a flimsy spider web he’d walked through. “No more waiting. We all have visions, and mine wait for me in sleep. You’d best run along.”

  Saying this, he walked over to the lumpy pile of blankets and leaves, picked his nose and wiped his finger on his sleeve, lay down, and turned over. He waved his hands over his own face and said, “Soporifica!” and before his arms could even drop back down, he began to snore deeply.

  The tiny blue fire in the metal bowl blinked out and the room grew cold.

  THERE WAS NO POINT in arguing with the sleeping wizard, and there didn’t seem to be any hope of waking him (though Henry poked a few times just to be sure), so the kids crept from the smoky lean-to into the moonlight of the muddy courtyard. When they did, they found that the pigs had run off.

  A faint grayness was creeping into the sky above the trees, and this reminded them that although they had not yet seen a knight or a jester, they were going to have to head home. Morning was coming and they had to get to bed before their parents woke up.

  “Man, this was kind of a bust,” muttered Henry as they started back for the big wooden door. “I thought I might get to joust or slay a dragon or something. Even a small dragon would’ve been pretty cool.”

  “The visions were neat,” said Susan, blushing again.

  “And I liked Merlin, even if he wasn’t a princess,” said Emma. “He smelled like Halloween.”

  They all made for the door of the stone castle. Once inside, they started back up the stairs they’d come down, but about halfway up the spiral staircase, they heard a faint sound. Someone was crying.

  “The queen!” said Emma excitedly, bouncing up and down. “I want to see the queen. Can we?”

  “We don’t have time,” Susan reminded her.

  “Besides,” said Henry, “she doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Listen.”

  Emma stuck out her bottom lip. “I don’t care,” she said. “It’s my wish and it’s smelly and dark here, and if I don’t get to see something pretty, I’ll decide to cry.” She sat down on the stairs and pouted.

  Emma was good most of the time, but when she wanted to, she could be impossible.

  “Just what we need,” sighed Susan. “Emma in rare form.” This was what Mrs. O’Dell called it when Emma misbehaved. “Can’t we just let her get the queen’s autograph or something?” />
  Henry shook his head. “I’m not getting in trouble for a dumb queen,” he said.

  Roy looked at his watch. “I have to side with Henry on this one,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

  But Emma refused to budge. She shook her head from side to side. “No!” she said. “No and no and no!” The others were suddenly reminded that she was up waaaay past her bedtime.

  Susan sighed, “Look, I’ll take her. We’ll just go peek in the door, okay, Em? Just one quick minute?” Emma nodded with a pout.

  Susan said, “You guys head up without us, and we’ll meet you back in the tower room. Cool? That way, if we don’t come soon, you can go on ahead and somehow cover for us, and we’ll follow right behind.”

  Roy and Henry agreed (though Roy was nervous about the plan) and turned to head farther up the spiral stairs. Emma and Susan exited the staircase and walked in the direction of the weeping sounds, but they only made it a few feet before they heard a commotion from above: yelling and scrambling and the sound of a ten-year-old being thrown rudely onto a stone step, followed by the sound of another ten-year-old being thrown on top of the first ten-year-old.

  Susan and Emma ran back to peer up the dark staircase.

  There were more thumping noises and a gruff voice called out, “I don’t know who they are, but I know where they’re going! Ha-ha-ha!”

  A high, squeaky voice said, “We’ll see how they like it downstairs.”

  The girls heard a sharp cry, and the gruff voice said, “Ow! He bit me, this one did. Nasty boy!” After that, Henry yelled and Roy yelled and then everyone was yelling.

  It sounded to Susan and Emma as though the boys put up a valiant effort, but somewhere on the staircase, the men got the upper hand, and Henry and Roy were subdued. The girls ducked out of sight as everyone stomped down the stairs past them. They caught only a quick glimpse of two leather-clad men carrying their large spears and Henry and Roy.

  As he was carried past, Henry made sure to yell at the top of his lungs, “Ods bodkins! I wish there was someone to help us. I wish we weren’t all alone in this castle, just the two of us by our lonesome selves. That way we’d have someone to break us out of the dungeon!”

  When Susan and Emma were sure they were alone again, Susan said, “Wait here. I’m just going to see how far down the staircase goes, but I can move faster on my own. Just don’t let anyone see you, okay?”

  Emma’s lip began to tremble. “I’m sorry I made a bad wish,” she said. “I’m sorry I wanted to see the queen.”

  Susan leaned over and hugged Emma. “It isn’t your fault, Em,” she said. “Not at all, but we need to rescue Roy and Henry right now! Look!” She pointed down the hallway behind Emma to a small shuttered window. The sky beyond the window was growing light. “It’s getting to be morning,” she said, “and once it’s morning here, it’s morning at home too. I think.”

  “Oh,” said Emma. “Oh!”

  “Yeah, and we are going to be in big, big trouble if we aren’t all back in the tower soon, so can you just stay put?”

  Emma nodded, trying not to cry, as Susan stepped into the staircase and headed down the stairs. But then—more terrible luck! Just as Susan disappeared into the dark spiral of stairs, Emma heard the sound of more heavy feet from above, and another voice, this one firm and official, called down, “I think that’s the last of ’em. No more scamps to be seen!”

  As the feet and the firm voice marched past the doorway where Emma stood, she held her breath, waiting, waiting, waiting to see what would happen, and then—

  Susan squealed below, and Emma heard her shrieking, “Hands off me, you loser! You big dumb freak!” There was a thunking sound that Emma thought might have been Susan kicking the stone walls of the staircase, and a series of grunts that didn’t sound at all like Susan.

  Emma stuck her head in the hallway. She could make out the sound of one good hard slap and an “oof!” but then the firm voice said “Got ’er!” and the noise in the stairwell ceased.

  Emma was all alone and she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. The hallway was silent except for the faint noise of the queen crying. Emma wished there were someone to ask for advice. She wished she had time to think for a while, but there wasn’t any time—not if they wanted to get home before their parents woke up, which they most certainly did.

  How had this happened? Emma was never on her own, except when she was sleeping or in the bathroom (neither of which counted). She couldn’t remember being left alone for more than a minute in her life, not ever. She was lonely sometimes, sure, but there was always someone nearby, keeping an eye out. Someone was always telling her what to do. Her mother even laid her clothes on a chair every night before she went to bed. She’d wished a hundred times to be left in charge of herself, but it had never actually happened. Now, here she was with no practice at being alone and with what seemed like an awfully big job to do.

  But she wasn’t getting anywhere sitting on the floor of the hallway, so she got up. She figured that if she didn’t want to do this all alone, she needed to ask for help, and since Merlin was fast asleep, she decided to find the queen. She followed the sound of weeping down the hallway and to another wooden door, which stood cracked open just the slightest bit. She peeked around the door, and gasped.

  Why?

  Because Guinevere was all that Emma had hoped for in a queen. At last, here was Camelot as Emma had imagined it. For just a moment, she forgot about Henry, Roy, and Susan as she gazed at the splendor before her. The queen stood directly across the room from Emma. Even from behind, Emma could tell that Guinevere was beautiful—tall and willowy, clothed in a heavy green gown, with long black hair that tumbled down her narrow back, hair that could only be described as tresses. Silver thread was laced in and out of her tresses, and flowers were tossed casually about her feet. On the wall before the queen was a mirror of polished metal, and Guinevere gazed into it. Emma stared, awestruck, at the gorgeous reflection.

  Although she continued to make weeping sounds, the queen didn’t look like she was crying. Her shoulders didn’t shake and there were no actual tears on her face. It was as though she was practicing for a play. She stared at herself as she wept. She stared into the mirror and looked almost pleased.

  Emma remembered Henry, Roy, and Susan, but she couldn’t help staring for a minute longer at Guinevere’s reflection in the mirror. Guinevere was that perfect. When the queen stopped making the crying sounds and took something from a tiny box in her hand, Emma craned her neck to see what it was. Without meaning to, she pushed on the door, which gave way with a cree-ea-ea-kkk. Emma froze, and the queen turned gracefully, slowly, and stared.

  Neither of them spoke for a heartbeat, but then Emma saw what the queen held: a butterfly. In one hand, she held the body of the butterfly, and in the other, a single wing. The queen tilted her head to one side and thoughtfully rubbed the wing along her face, leaving a trail of shimmering lavender along her finely arched cheekbone. “Hello,” she said. She leaned forward and reached out a hand. “Are you a girl? Can it really be that there’s a girl in my castle? Oh. For joy.” Although the queen smiled and reached out to Emma, her voice sounded as passionless as her weeping had looked.

  Something inside Emma said “Run!” Something told her that a flat-voiced queen who breaks butterflies and cries without tears is not the kind of queen who helps little girls rescue their brother and friends. Emma turned and fled to the stairwell, and when she got there, since down meant the dungeon, Emma ran up.

  Behind her, the queen called out in a voice that fell on Emma like snow, soft but cold, “Hello? Little girl? Oh, please come and visit with me. It’s so lonely in the castle. I have nobody to play with at all.”

  When Emma, skittering up the stone stairs, heard the queen behind her, she stopped and almost turned. Despite her eerily even tones, the queen did sound lonely. But the sound of Guinevere’s heels clicking purposefully along on the stone floor frightened Emma, so she ran even faster,
her heart pounding. She took the stairs two at a time, which was no easy feat, since the stairs were as steep as Emma’s legs were short.

  Behind her, she could hear the queen moving faster too, though still in long, even strides. As she grew closer to Emma, Guinevere’s voice changed and became a little harder. “Little girl, why won’t you listen to me? Why does nobody listen to me? Little girl, just what are you doing in my castle?”

  When Emma didn’t answer, the voice turned sharp. “I thought we could be friends,” called the queen. “I thought you’d come to visit me, but you’re leaving, like Arthur, like everyone.” Then the footsteps ceased and the queen clapped her hands and called loudly so that her steely voice rang in the stairwell. “Guards!” she cried. “To the tower! We have an intruder! A little sneak!”

  Immediately, footsteps began to tromp up the stone steps from below.

  If the queen had been a little more hot-blooded and willing to run, she’d probably have caught Emma herself, but she stopped on the stair instead, trusting that her guards were on their way, so Emma arrived in the top tower room alone.

  She looked at the wall and thought of home. She looked at the stairs and thought of the dungeon. She looked at the lightening sky through the window and thought of her parents. What to do? She asked herself what Susan would do, but no answer came.

  The thunder of feet was on the stairs. The day was coming, and so were the guards. Emma sat down on the cold stone floor, lost. She was tired and confused. For a second, she closed her eyes and wondered if maybe this was all a dream. She thought perhaps if she fell asleep, she’d wake up at home in her comfy bed, but this thought made her feel like a baby and she hated that feeling, so she opened her eyes and gritted her teeth. She waited for the guards to come and take her to the dungeon with the others, where she knew she’d be locked forever in a pit of snakes or bugs and fed only bread and water.

  Suddenly a thought struck her—a good thought! Afterward, she couldn’t explain how she knew—just knew—that the wall would help her. It only made sense. It was a wishing wall, after all, and this was her wish.