Castle Hangnail

by Ursula Vernon

  “Will that work?” asked Molly anxiously. They were all sitting at the police station, and the constable had fetched her a mug of hot chocolate and a blanket to put around her shoulders. (She didn’t really need the blanket, but apparently it said somewhere in the police handbook that if you found someone in a traumatic situation, you put a blanket around their shoulders. Molly didn’t feel like arguing with police procedure.)

  “Yes,” said the constable. “You won’t even need to come and testify. He’s made a full confession.” He smiled. “You’ve done us a great favor, Miss Utterback. He’s a nasty piece of work and we’ve been trying to catch him for something for quite a long time, but he’s as slippery as an eel.”

  Molly nodded. Since there seemed to be nothing else to say, she finished her hot chocolate and carefully folded the police blanket. “Err . . . Constable Singh?”

  “Yes, Miss Utterback?”

  “When I threatened to call the police, Freddy said he’d tell them I was the one breaking in. He said it would be my word against his . . .”

  A rare smile split the constable’s long, sallow features. “First of all, Miss Utterback, Freddy had what we’d call a definite motive. He’s got a history of trying to harass people into selling their property to him, and his interest in Castle Hangnail was well documented. Secondly, you’ve the word of a respected member of the community”—he nodded to Angus, who looked startled and gratified—“and so that’s two against one. And third . . .”

  His smile faded, and he scratched his forehead. “Well, you’re a Witch, so you probably know more than I do about what went on in there. But he didn’t even try to claim that you were up to any mischief. He confessed to everything and begged us to lock him up—‘where the monster can’t get him,’ he said.”

  “Oh,” said Molly. “I—I guess I scared him. It wouldn’t have hurt him, but he was trying to grab me . . .”

  Constable Singh nodded. “Completely understandable,” he said. “And as long as you’re not scaring off good law-abiding citizens—well, I shan’t complain about a little wickedness in a good cause.”

  He smiled and patted her on the knee. Molly and Angus left the station and began the long climb up the hill to the castle.

  “Would it have hurt him?” asked Angus.

  Molly shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Well . . . it never hurt me . . .”

  But she made a note to look the spell up in the library just as soon as she got a chance.

  Chapter 28

  Majordomo was just emerging from the kitchen when he heard someone bang the knocker on the door.

  He hurried into the Great Hall and reached the door just as Molly came skidding down the banister. (She’d been up in the belfry, chatting with the bats. The Eldest had been telling her a fascinating story, but had fallen asleep right at the good bit. Molly didn’t mind because the belfry was currently one of the warmest places in the castle.) “Is it Mr. Davenport?” she asked breathlessly. “He said he’d come today—he’ll have just been back from the antiques show—”

  “I don’t know,” said Majordomo. Despite his desire to keep Molly at arm’s length, he couldn’t fault her recent efforts. “Only one way to find out . . .”

  He turned and opened the door with a proper slow creeeeeaaaaaaak of hinges.

  “Wonderful old hinges,” said Mr. Davenport appreciatively. “You don’t get a creak like that anymore.”

  “We try to keep up the old traditions,” said Majordomo, pleased.

  Mr. Davenport stepped inside—and right behind him, a bit pink from the walk up the steps, was Harry Rumplethorn.

  “Mr. Rumplethorn?” said Majordomo. “I wasn’t expecting—”

  Molly clasped her hands together. “Mr. Davenport! Did you go to the antiques show? Did anybody buy the coins? What about the Complicated Metal Thing?”

  Mr. Davenport shook his head. “I am afraid that I was unable to find a buyer for the Complicated Metal Thing. The coins did reasonably well, but not spectacular.”

  Molly’s face fell.

  “However,” said Mr. Davenport, giving her a slow smile, “I did find a buyer for the tonic tin.”

  “The tonic tin?” asked Molly blankly.

  “The tonic tin?” asked Majordomo.

  “Dr. Mawkin’s Shoe Polish and Revivfying Tonic,” said Mr. Davenport. “I’d never heard of it, but apparently Dr. Mawkin was the most famous swindler and snake-oil salesman for a hundred miles around. But there are precious few tins left, since they exploded if you left them out in the sun too long.”

  Molly did not approve of snake oil—it tended to make the snakes very cross when you tried to extract oil from them—but she grasped the point immediately. “It was rare?”

  “Rare and very valuable.” Mr. Davenport took off his glasses. “Twelve hundred and forty-five dollars, to be precise. I took the liberty of bringing Mr. Rumplethorn with me, as I expect you’ve some business with him.”

  Harry Rumplethorn touched an imaginary cap and nodded to Molly. He spoke to Majordomo, however. “With your permission, sir, I’ll be ordering replacement pipes. My apprentices and I can get started tomorrow.”

  Majordomo was struggling to keep up with this unexpected fortune. His math skills, however, were very much intact. “I’m afraid we still don’t have eighteen hundred dollars,” he said. “I’m very sorry you’ve come up here for nothing—”

  Harry shook his head. “Fifteen hundred,” he said. “For the parts, for the company that makes them won’t take any less than nine hundred. But my apprentices have agreed to work for half-wages on this job. We’ll have the parts installed in a trice.”

  “But—but you have to pay your apprentices—” Majordomo knotted his hands together.

  Harry smiled down at Molly and ruffled her hair. (Molly permitted this, although she generally detested adults ruffling her hair, because she knew that it would be very foolish to offend the plumber when he was offering to fix the plumbing cheaply.)

  “We talked it over. For the Wicked Witch who drove off Freddy Wisteria!—we’re willing to put in a few days of work on half-wages. We’d no way to do that ourselves, you see.” He nodded to Molly. “A nasty piece of work he is, and been hanging around town hassling people far too long. But pipes we can fix. And we take care of our own.”

  Majordomo opened his mouth, and Molly cringed internally—was he going to say something foolish and grown-up about not taking charity? Grown-ups were very stupid about accepting help sometimes. But however proud Majordomo was, his love of Castle Hangnail was stronger.

  “Thank you,” he said simply. “We’re very grateful.”

  Mr. Davenport smiled and handed him the Complicated Metal Thing. Both of them took themselves off.

  “Well!” said Lord Edward, who had been watching from the hall and approaching at a slow clank. “Well! Bless my soul, did you ever hear the like?”

  Majordomo shook his head. He thought he might cry, and that would never do. For one thing, when Ungo the Mad had been sewing him together, he’d put the tear ducts in completely the wrong place.

  “I knew it would work!” said Molly jubilantly. “I knew we’d figure something out! And here—look—”

  She pulled the list of Tasks out of her pocket. The red seal from the Board of Magic flapped as she unfolded it.

  The black line under “Secure and defend the castle” was fading away.

  “It won’t go away until they actually fix the plumbing, I guess,” said Molly, “but it knows that we’re trying.”

  Majordomo nodded. The Tasks were much more intelligent than any of the normal paperwork he filled out for the Board.

  “But look,” said Edward, pointing to the next line.

  The line that read “Win the hearts and minds of the townsfolk” had been crossed out.

  Molly looked up and me
t Majordomo’s eyes, astonished.

  “Well,” said Majordomo. “It’s not keeping their hearts in jars, or grinding them underfoot, but I suppose driving off a nuisance is pretty good. At least, it counts as a Task done.”

  “That’s the way to do it!” said Edward. “Fine tactics, doing one thing to do another.”

  Molly folded up the list again, looking at Edward. “I didn’t really mean to—oh! I almost forgot—wait right here—”

  She ran up the steps two at a time, the boots clattering and clonking on each step. Edward creaked his head toward Majordomo.

  “Bless her heart,” said the enchanted armor. “I know you were worried at first, her being so young, but she’s a proper Witch, isn’t she?”

  Majordomo exhaled. “Yes . . .” he said slowly, and continued, only in his mind, . . . yes, but she’s leaving us at the end of the summer, and however will I explain it to you? Edward had always been the most sentimental of the minions.

  Molly came pounding back down the stairs. “This is for you, Lord Edward,” she said. “Pins gave me a ribbon to hang it on. It was your idea to take the coins to a numismatist.”

  She held up the Imperial Squid. The man at the hardware store had drilled the hole right at the top of the squid, and the black ribbon threaded through it made it look like a medal of honor.

  For a moment, Edward could hardly speak. Then he said, very slowly, “I’ll wear it with pride, my lady. It’s been a long time since I won a lady’s favor in a joust, and I never won one that I’d treasure half so much as this.”

  Molly grinned. It’s hard to hug a suit of armor—they aren’t made for it—but she gave one of his gauntlets a squeeze and reached up to place the Imperial Squid around his neck.

  “Let’s go tell Cook,” she suggested.

  Majordomo watched them walk away—Molly stomping, Edward clanking—and thought again, How am I going to explain it to you when she leaves?

  Chapter 29

  The workmen took three days to fix the pipes. It was three days of banging and clanging and a little too much of Harry Rumplethorn on display. The ravens retreated to the roof of the tower in the moat, and the bats complained about not being able to sleep and Cook flatly refused to cook anything, so they dined on sandwiches in the evenings.

  Even when you are in a very good mood, having pipes worked on is hard on the nerves. And the apprentices were nice boys, but they could never remember that frozen toilets don’t flush very well, so Angus had to get out a plunger and a blowtorch at least three times a day.

  Molly set herself to finishing some of the other Tasks. She turned three pigeons in the park into glossy gray rats with marvelously twitchy whiskers. She Blighted a stand of daylilies and turned them into thistles. (Thistles are actually much more useful than daylilies, particularly if you are a butterfly.) And, with the aid of the Little Gray Book, she worked a complicated spell and gave one of the statues in town the gift of speech. It was a statue of a Roman soldier, just outside the post office, marking the place where some old ruins had been found.

  The statue mostly just muttered insults—it was a Wicked spell, after all—but he muttered them in Latin, so they sounded very grand and impressive.

  “Malum! Spurcifer! Malus nequamque!”

  “He’s better than the radio,” said Postmistress Jane. “Lets you know whenever anyone’s coming. Postmistress Emma over in Foggy Heights wants one for her office.”

  “Pessime et nequissima!” grumbled the statue.

  Molly was rather proud of the statue. She’d always been able to Blight plants, and pigeons-into-rats was a very easy spell from the front of the Little Gray Book, but the statue had been complicated and she’d had to come back at dawn and dusk and do the spell twice over to make it work.

  Best of all, the thistles and the statue counted as two acts of Blighting for the Tasks. (Turning pigeons into rats didn’t count—apparently rats were a step up from pigeons, as far as the Board of Magic’s paperwork was concerned.)

  “Very good,” said Majordomo, watching a red line grow through the word Blighting on the list of Tasks. Blighting the daylilies was a fairly standard bit of witchery, but the statue was quite impressive. “One more ought to do it.”

  “Does anyone need anything Blighted?” asked Molly, pushing up her sleeves.

  “Pediculose!” the statue yelled after them.

  As it happened, the waitress down at the café did need some Blighting done. “I’m not sure if you can Blight this,” she said, wringing her hands. “Only, we’ve got mushrooms in the carpet in the office.”

  Majordomo blinked.

  Molly, however, laughed. “Carpet mushrooms! Oh, I’ve heard of those! Can I see one?”

  “We keep a very clean café,” said the waitress, looking quite upset. “I don’t want you to think we don’t. I vacuum every day. These are extremely clean mushrooms. But they do keep growing out of the office carpet. It’s the most embarrassing thing. I’d hate for the customers to find out, but—well—you’re a Witch. You know all about mushrooms, don’t you?”

  She cast Molly a pleading look.

  Molly grinned. “I’ve read about them in garden books,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s not that you’re not cleaning enough, honest. There may be a leak somewhere.”

  “It’s under the coffeepot,” said the waitress, sighing. “Sometimes the owner splashes water when he’s making coffee. He’s a dear, but he’s absentminded. Do you know, I shampooed that rug four times?”

  “Sometimes they just settle into a place,” said Molly kindly. “I’ll see if I can’t get rid of them.”

  (She herself would have been perfectly happy with mushrooms growing out of the carpet in Castle Hangnail, but she could understand not wanting them in an office.)

  Funguses don’t respond easily to Blighting. It took Molly three hours before the mushrooms agreed to go away and bother someone else.

  “Perfect!” said Majordomo, watching the red line grow until it struck through the word Blighting completely. “And that’s a Task done!”

  The waitress loaded them up with armfuls of cookies, and begged them not to tell the other customers.

  “Certainly not,” said Molly. “A Wicked Witch is always discreet.” She adjusted her hat.

  And then, on the afternoon of the third day, the banging and clanging stopped and Harry hitched up his pants and said, “It’s all done.”

  All the minions gathered round the toilet in the bathroom off the Great Hall.

  “Would you like to flush it, miss?” asked Harry, nodding down at Molly.

  Molly felt a trifle awkward flushing a toilet—even a toilet with nothing in it—in front of everyone. But she realized that it was a grand occasion nevertheless.

  “Serenissima?” she asked. “I think you should do it.”

  “Oh—well—oh—if you’re sure—” The steam spirit let out a long teakettle whistle of a sigh, then glided forward. (Cook hastily threw a tea towel over the puddle she’d left on the stones.)

  Serenissima took a deep breath—and depressed the handle.

  There was a distant rattle and bang. “Air in the pipes,” said Harry. “It’ll sort itself out in a bit—you always get some on a start-up.”

  They waited.

  Water gurgled into the tank. It hissed . . . it clanged . . . and then it flushed.

  Molly let out a long sigh. You never knew how much you relied on indoor plumbing until it stopped working.

  Harry hitched up his pants again. “You give me a call if it isn’t working up to spec, but those pipes should last a hundred years.” (He pronounced “hundred” as “hun’rd.”)

  “Thank you,” breathed Serenissima, leaving a fine fog of condensation on the mirror.

  Harry blushed—Serenissima was lovely, in a grown-up, misty kind of way—and mumbled something. He nodded to Majordomo,
ruffled Molly’s hair again—she bore this stoically—and let himself out.

  “Well!” said Cook. “Is being a fine thing. Is having hot water again.” (Molly nodded vigorously to this. Bathing in a bucket in front of the stove is all very well in theory, but it gets old quickly.)

  And indeed, the boiler worked better than ever before and the hot water was delivered so piping hot that Molly nearly scalded herself the first time she went to take a shower.

  In the days while the plumbing was being fixed, Molly herself had not been idle. She had gone through all the spellbooks and encyclopedias of magic, looking for references to the shadow dancing spell.

  It hadn’t gone well.

  There were references to shadows, of course—lots of them, in book after book. There were spells for wrapping shadows around yourself so that you became hard to see (which is easier than invisibility, if you can’t just hold your breath as Molly could). There were spells that called for shadow milk as an ingredient, and a whole article in the Encyclopedia Thaumaturgica about how you milk a shadow. (Carefully.)

  There was even, in a square book with a greasy leather binding, a deep dark spell for stepping into the Kingdom of Shadows, where the shadows that have escaped from their Masters go to slide and slither and whisper together. Molly shuddered when she read that spell, and put the book on a high shelf. The greasy binding made her fingers itch. That was an Evil spell, not merely a Wicked one.

  My shadow wouldn’t do that, she told herself. So I’ll never have to go to the Kingdom of Shadows to get it back. Mine just likes to dance.

  And indeed, her shadow lay docilely across the rug, shifting slightly in the glow of the hill-giant candle.

  “It must be here somewhere,” she said to Bugbane. “It’s such an easy spell!”

  Eudaimonia had taught it to her, Molly remembered. It was just after I’d gotten a spell right for once—I turned that sheet of paper into an origami tiger without touching it. And she laughed, and she said “So good, dear Molly! Getting to be quite the little spellcaster, aren’t you? You’ll be teaching me magic next. Here, why don’t you try this one, since you’re doing so well . . .”