Castle Hangnail

by Ursula Vernon

  The shaking intensified. Something huge and pale breached the surface of the earth, far down the pasture, just for a moment, like the back of a whale coming out of the sea.

  “Enough,” said Stonebreaker. “All power moles need.” He brought up his claws and snipped the silver cord that Molly had thought was only in her mind. The sense of magic flowing out of her stopped at once.

  Molly exhaled. She was tired, as if she’d run up a flight of stairs two at a time, but not exhausted. And what on earth was going on?

  The pale leviathan surfaced again, at the entry to the moles’ spiral.

  “What is that?” whispered Molly.

  “Mother of Earthworms,” said Molly’s mole. He paused, then shrugged. “Also Father of Earthworms. Worms complicated that way.”

  The giant worm—and that’s what it was, a worm thicker than a python and longer than a bus—reared out of the ground. Molly saw a great blunt head lashing back and forth under the moon—and then it plunged forward, into the spiral.

  The spiral with Molly at the center.

  However grateful Molly was for the work earthworms did in the garden, a forty-foot specimen was . . . well, it was a little much.

  I’m a Wicked Witch. I’m Wicked. A Wicked Witch isn’t afraid of worms.

  The thought rose unbidden that even Eudaimonia might be afraid of this worm.

  Stonebreaker did not seem afraid. He stood on top of the molehill in the center while the Mother (or Father) of Earthworms plowed through the earth toward him. It moved sometimes deep underground and sometimes right under the surface, leaving a vast wake of broken earth behind it.

  The massive worm threaded through the spiral, coil on coil, until it was so close that Molly could have stood up, walked over, and touched it. Its side was huge and slick.

  I could go invisible. I could go invisible and . . . What? It’s got no eyes, it can’t see me anyway.

  It reached the center of the spiral.

  The blunt head moved back and forth, between Molly and the mole. For a moment, despite the creature’s lack of eyes, Molly had a feeling that the worm was looking at her.

  What’s it seeing? What’s it doing?

  The Mother of Earthworms reared up, far over Molly’s head (she caught her breath), and Stonebreaker moved forward.

  The mole magician took several waddling steps, crossed his claws . . . and bowed to the Mother of Earthworms.

  The worm lowered its massive head. Stonebreaker reached out very lightly and laid his paw on the worm’s head.

  Patterns erupted down the length of the worm, silver spirals and swoops and swirls, like those on the magician’s body. The worm suddenly glowed as if it had been inlaid with pearl.

  The pasture went mad with whoops and cheers.

  “WORMRISE!”

  “Stonebreaker!”

  “Mother of Earthworms!”

  “EH EH EH!”

  (Even Molly was suddenly delighted to hear “Witch!”)

  The moles scurried forward, all of them fighting for a chance to touch the great worm. Dozens of furry bodies glowed briefly as the magic passed on to them—and then faded. The moles, still laughing and cheering, dove into the earth.

  When the last had burrowed away, and only Stonebreaker and Molly’s mole remained in the pasture, Stonebreaker touched the great worm again and said something in the language of moles. Molly didn’t need to speak the language to know that it was “Thank you.”

  The Mother of Earthworms bowed its (her? his?) head. For a moment its eyeless gaze swung back to Molly, and it dipped once—almost a salute—and then dove once more into the earth.

  The rumbling of the worm’s passage faded. Molly saw that Stonebreaker was no longer glowing.

  The mole magician looked exhausted, but happy. He turned to her. “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’m glad I could help. But”—Molly hugged herself tightly inside her jacket—“but what did it do?”

  “Ah.” Stonebreaker smiled. “Many questions, eh? Good. Witches ask questions.”

  “Well—why? Don’t moles eat worms?”

  “Yes. Exactly.” Stonebreaker tapped her boot with his claw. “Moles eat worms. Moles are thankful for worms.”

  Molly was getting more confused. “But if you eat worms, why would you summon the Mother of Earthworms? Doesn’t she mind?”

  Molly’s mole laughed. Stonebreaker smiled. “She does not mind worms being eaten,” he said. “Someone must eat worms, or worms eat the world, eh?”

  Molly, already a little on edge about the whole giant-earthworm thing, twitched a little at the thought.

  “What worm wants is respect,” said Stonebreaker, leaning forward. “Not just eat a worm, eat a worm, never think about it, eh? Mother of Earthworms wants to know that moles are grateful.” He clapped his claws together. “Moles make offering of magic. Open the way. Then . . . hope, eh?” He wrinkled his muzzle. “Thought she’d come, though. Good magic.”

  Molly took that as a compliment. “And because she showed up . . . ?”

  “Luck,” said Molly’s mole, speaking up. “All moles here. Luck. Grace. Mother of Earthworms a great spirit, knows that these moles honor her. All moles . . .” He sought for a word. “. . . blessed.”

  “Oh,” said Molly. She could understand that, at least a little. “Then . . . I’m glad I could help.”

  “Ever need mole work,” said Stonebreaker, “ask a mole. Eh?”

  “I will,” said Molly.

  Stonebreaker gave her a thoughtful look. “Good,” he said. “Good magic. Could make mole shaman of you, eh? Too tall, though.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t like to eat worms,” said Molly. “And I’m not very good at digging.”

  Stonebreaker gave her a sympathetic look and patted her boot kindly. It occurred to Molly that he considered this a terrible handicap.

  “Still,” he said. “Good magic. Fierce magic.”

  And then he and Molly’s mole dove into the earth, and left her alone in the middle of the field.

  Angus helped her gather the moles’ treasure up and take it back to the castle. There would be time tomorrow to sort it out and find what, if anything, was worth selling.

  For Molly’s part, she thought that even if there was hardly anything in the treasure, it had been worth it. She’d never seen anything like that before. And the moles had been very grateful.

  Majordomo was waiting when they reached the castle. He held up a candle to light their way in as Angus (who had thoughtfully brought two buckets) carried their prizes into the kitchen.

  “We felt a rumbling,” he said to Molly.

  “Yes,” said Molly. She met his eyes. “I just helped them summon the Mother of Earthworms.”

  Majordomo could have laughed, but there was an odd silver light dancing in Molly’s eyes, although she herself seemed unaware of it. “Did you indeed?”

  “Yes,” said Molly. And then, still meeting Majordomo’s eyes, she said, “They wouldn’t have taught that. Even in Witch school.”

  Majordomo inhaled sharply.

  Then—“No,” he said. “They would not have taught that. Not even in Witch school.”

  Molly nodded and went inside, with the silvery mole-light still playing around her shoulders.

  Chapter 22

  Mr. Davenport’s Antiques Emporium looked as if it were an antique itself. There were dusty, dark-stained shelves covered in old photographs and small porcelain statues. There were doilies and antimacassars (which are like doilies with ambitions) and quilts made by the Daughters of the Hangfish Revolution and paintings of cherubs and framed prints of uncomfortable birds. Behind the counter, in a locked case, Mr. Davenport kept antique firearms and old swords with dark, stained blades.

  The entire store had patina.

  Everyone at the castle had stay
ed up very late, cleaning dirt off coins and shaking it out of the bottles. Serenissima had been persuaded to come out of her teakettle and help steam dirt loose—“Oh, very well,” she said, “if you think it’ll—gulp—help!”—and had been very effective, even if she left a trail of scalding tears on the pantry floor.

  Cook hadn’t even complained about the mess all over her nice kitchen table.

  Their final tally was thirty-six coins, including the Imperial Squid, nine glass bottles, an empty tin of something called “Doctor Mawkin’s Shoe Polish & Revivifying Tonic,” a porcelain statue of a fisherman missing its nose, and a Complicated Metal Thing that no one could figure out.

  Looking around the antiques emporium, Molly thought that the mole treasure might fit right in.

  Angus carried the entire load in a cardboard box, and Pins rode on his shoulder to make the introductions.

  Mr. Davenport was the only thing in the store that didn’t look like an antique. He was a black man in his late twenties and looked entirely too young to be surrounded by so much age and dust.

  “Mr. Pins!” he said as they came through the door. “So good to see you again! And Mr. Angus, how is your mother doing?”

  “She’s very well,” rumbled the Minotaur.

  “Still—err—not happy about the letter Q? I had a marvelous old cookbook come in the other day, but it’s by a Miss Daphne Quaylinghurst . . .”

  Angus shook his head.

  “Ah, well . . . Now you, miss, I don’t think I’ve met.” He leaned over the counter and extended a hand to Molly.

  Molly shook it. “I’m Molly. I’m the Wicked Witch up at the castle.”

  To Mr. Davenport’s credit, he did not get that look in his eye that so many adults (even the very nice ones) did at this news. The look that said “Oh, aren’t you precious?” and “My, what a big imagination you have!” Molly, like most intelligent children, could pick out a look like that a hundred yards away.

  But to an antiques dealer like Mr. Davenport, who was used to objects that might be a century old or more, the difference between twelve and twenty was insignificant. Compared to the stock in his store, everyone was young.

  “We were hoping you could help us,” Molly said. “We’ve got a bunch of old coins and things that were dug up behind the castle, and we were wondering if they were worth anything.”

  She crossed her fingers for luck.

  Mr. Davenport knew all about the boiler, of course—Harry Rumplethorn had told his wife, and his wife had told Postmistress Jane, and once you told Jane, you told the world. So he didn’t ask any questions about why they might want money or why they were bringing him things to sell.

  “Let’s take a look,” he said.

  The porcelain statue he dismissed immediately. The bottles he held up to the light and turned, checking their bottoms for stamps.

  The Complicated Metal Thing had him baffled as well. “It’s . . . um . . . maybe a . . . could be . . . you know, I have no idea what this is.”

  “Cook thought it was an egg-beater,” said Molly. “I thought maybe it was some kind of farm equipment.”

  “Can’t imagine any animal letting you get near it with that,” said Angus. He prodded the Thing with one hoof-like finger. It went clunk! and a little gizmo on the side turned and a little metal lever popped out and did nothing whatsoever.

  “Are you sure it’s not one of old Ungo’s?” asked Mr. Davenport. “We can’t sell magical artifacts, you know, it’s against the law after all those people wound up with cursed monkey’s paws.”

  “How were they cursed?” asked Molly, professionally interested.

  “They’d give you whatever you asked for, but they’d just take it from somewhere else. So if you asked for a million dollars, it would disappear out of a bank vault, and the police would turn up and start asking a lot of questions.”

  “Ooh . . .”

  “It’s not one of Ungo’s,” Pins put in. “Majordomo’d never part with those. And anyway, those tend to explode if you move them.”

  Mr. Davenport spent the longest with the coins. He had a large book and he kept looking back and forth from the pictures to the coins in front of him, moving them into separate piles.

  “I’m not a coin collector,” he explained. “There are people who spend their whole lives doing it, and could tell you how much these are worth just by glancing at them. But here’s what I know.

  “These”—and he indicated the largest pile—“aren’t worth more than a dollar or two apiece. There’s a lot of them around.”

  Molly sighed. There were more than twenty coins in that pile, including the Imperial Squid.

  “These”—and he indicated the next-largest pile—“might be worth a bit more. Five or ten apiece, say.”

  This was a little better. There were eleven coins in that pile. That might be a hundred dollars for the boiler fund.

  “Now, these last three . . .” He indicated the remaining coins. “These might be valuable. Twenty or thirty dollars apiece, at the very least, but possibly more. There’s an antiques show this weekend up in Rumbling Falls, and with your permission, I’d like to take them up there and see if I can’t find a buyer.”

  Molly perked up. Maybe one of them would be really valuable! If they could get the money to fix the plumbing, she’d be able to cross the item back off the list—and she wouldn’t have to go down three flights of stairs and a hallway to find a toilet that wasn’t solid ice.

  “Some of the bottles are actually worth more than the coins,” Mr. Davenport said. “This one here is a fine example of New Bedford milk glass. I’ll give you thirty dollars for this one alone.”

  Molly glanced at Pins. Pins nodded—he didn’t know glass, but he knew that Mr. Davenport would give them a fair deal.

  “Sold!” said Molly. “What about the others?”

  They settled on a final price of one hundred and seventy-three dollars for the bottles and the less valuable coins. (Molly kept the Imperial Squid.) Mr. Davenport also agreed to take the rare coins and the Complicated Metal Thing to the antiques show, and to sell them there if he could get a good price.

  He dropped the coins and the Thing into the tin of Revivifying Tonic. “That’ll remind me they’re yours,” he said. “Pleasure doing business with you! Come back Monday and I’ll have news!”

  Molly was practically skipping as she left the store. A hundred and seventy-three dollars! That was a lot of money toward the plumbing—and maybe those rare coins would get them the rest of the way!

  Her mood diminished somewhat when she tried to do the math . . . even with the new money, it was a long way to eighteen hundred dollars . . . but it was more than they’d had before.

  Chapter 23

  They were walking down the street when Angus let out a startled grunt.

  “Stop him!” cried Pins.

  Molly turned, and saw Freddy Wisteria standing just outside a cottage fence. He had a rock in one hand, pulled back to throw at a window.

  “Hey!” yelled Molly. “What are you doing?”

  She stomped toward him. Angus followed closely behind her, which gave her a confidence that she wouldn’t have felt otherwise. There is nothing like three hundred pounds of bovine muscle to really level the playing field.

  Freddy looked up, startled, and dropped the rock on his own foot. He let out a yelp and jumped up and down.

  “You attacked me!”

  “Did not,” said Molly. “You dropped your rock on your own foot, and served you right!”

  “I wasn’t doing anything,” said Freddy, shoving his hands in his pockets and hastily kicking the rock into the bushes.

  “You were about to throw a rock through that house’s window!” said Pins indignantly.

  “Oh yeah? What are you supposed to be, some kind of puppet?” He sneered at Pins. “And a little girl, and . . . um
. . . ”

  His eyes traveled slowly over the Minotaur. His sneer didn’t vanish, but it did get rather weak around the edges.

  “A valued member of the agricultural community?” Angus suggested mildly.

  “Uh . . . yeah. That.”

  “Look, we saw you with the rock,” said Molly. “It’s not like people just wave rocks in the air at people’s windows for no reason.”

  “Maybe I do! Is there some law that says a man can’t wave a rock around?”

  Molly stared at him. For a grown-up, he was acting . . . well, childish didn’t seem like the right word. Most children she knew would have had more sense.

  “Seriously?” she said.

  “I’m sure the police would know whether there’s a law about rocks being waved around,” said Pins. “Why don’t we ask them?”

  Freddy went a little green around the gills. “Look, don’t get all uppity . . .”

  “Uppity?” said Molly.

  The real-estate developer rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Look, there’s no need to bring the police into it, is there?”

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. “Is there?” She gave him a hard look. “Is that window going to get broken? Because if it is, I think there’s a very good reason.”

  “Look, the window’s business. The old woman who lives here needs to sell me her house. I’m just trying to make sure she understands that.”

  “By breaking her windows?” said Pins.

  “Some people don’t take hints well. It’s all part of the business.” Freddy waved a hand. “Look, never mind that. You’re the Witch, aren’t you? The one up at the castle.”

  She was hardly going to deny it, since she was walking around with a talking burlap doll and a Minotaur, in addition to wearing several pounds of Witchy silver jewelry. “I’m the Witch, yeah.”

  “Great!” said Freddy. He leaned down to try and look honest. It was not an expression that came easily to him. “You own Castle Hangnail, right?”