by Holly Grant
“But I don’t count my freckles!” Anastasia protested.
“You did back in first grade,” the mirror-girl said. “When you finally learned how to count over one hundred.”
Anastasia’s face grew hot, remembering. She quickly cataloged all her embarrassing performances before a mirror: shining a flashlight up her nostrils in the hopes of glimpsing her brain. Excavating caramel from her molars. Her reflection had seen her get out of the bathtub! She had seen her buck-raving naked.
“Don’t blush,” the mirror-girl said, rubbing her own cheeks. “I hate it when you make us blush.”
“S-so,” Anastasia stammered, “what do you do when you’re not—er—reflecting me?”
“Oh,” the mirror-girl said, “I go to quite a few parties.”
“Parties?”
“With other reflections.” She laughed. Her laugh was like a tinkly glass bell. It didn’t sound at all like Anastasia’s giggle, which was closer to the yip of a coyote pup. Anastasia appraised her mirror-twin. Even though the girl in the glass looked like Anastasia, she also didn’t look like her. Not exactly. The mirror girl had mousy-brown hair and mousy-brown eyes, but her expression was frosty and her posture was excellent.
“What’s your name? Is it Anastasia, too?”
“Certainly not. It’s Aisatsana.”
“It sounds pretty close,” Anastasia said.
“It’s Anastasia backward,” the girl sighed. “And so am I.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Aisatsana drawled, “for example, you’re obsessed with mystery stories. I can’t stand them. They’re stupid.”
“No, they aren’t!”
“And, unlike you, I like to brush my teeth.” The mirror-girl’s tinkly laugh shivered amongst the stalactites.
“Shhh!” Anastasia hissed. “Someone might hear you. We’re not supposed to be in here!”
“Correction: you’re not supposed to be in here.” Aisatsana folded her arms across her chest. “In fact, you’re trespassing. So, are you just pretending to be that nosy Francie Dewdrop you so admire? Or do you have a good reason for snooping around the queen’s cavern?”
Anastasia hesitated, loath to spill her hush-hush beans. But, she reckoned, a girl from an enchanted mirror-world might know something about the magical chamber. Besides, Aisatsana was her reflection; they were practically twins! And twins were supposed to share a marvelous, practically magical bond—weren’t they?
She decided. “I’m looking for the Cavern of Dreams.”
A smile curved Aisatsana’s silvery lips. “The Cavern of Dreams,” she echoed softly, leaning forward. “I can tell you where it is.”
“Where?” Anastasia also leaned forward.
“It’s a big secret, you know,” Aisatsana whispered. “I really shouldn’t tell you.”
“Please, Aisatsana,” Anastasia begged. “I need to find that door!”
Aisatsana tilted her head. “All right,” she finally agreed. “I’ll tell you. But you’ll have to do something for me, too. Let’s make a little deal.”
“What?”
“I want you to go to Zero Cavern.”
“Zero Cavern?” Anastasia echoed.
“Zero, as in zero gravity.”
Anastasia blinked. “What’s that?”
“Gravity,” Aisatsana said, “is the thing that makes you fall down when you jump. It keeps you from floating up into the air like an escaped helium balloon and flying out into space. It’s what makes the moon go round the Earth, and the Earth go round the sun—”
“I know what gravity is,” Anastasia bristled.
“Well, in Zero Cavern, there’s zero gravity.”
Anastasia stared at her. “That’s impossible.”
Aisatsana flipped one braid over her shoulder, oozing superiority.
“But how do you know about it?” Anastasia demanded. “I’ve never even heard of it!”
“I know lots of things you don’t!” Aisatsana huffed. “Other reflections told me about it. Old reflections. There used to be a mirror there, but vandals stole it a couple of centuries ago. And now nobody from the mirror-world can visit Zero Cavern. A place has to be reflected for it to exist in the mirror realm, you understand.” She lifted her chin. “And I want to have a party there. In case you forgot, it’s almost our birthday.”
“I didn’t forget,” Anastasia said hotly. “Penny and Baldwin were talking about my party last night.”
“Oh, joy.” Aisatsana rolled her eyes. “I’ve been to your so-called birthday parties, and they’re dull as ditchwater. You might like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey with your dad while a gerbil watches, but I don’t.” She sniffed. “At least we’re in a palace now, so I might expect something a little grander.”
Tears needled Anastasia’s eyes. “Muffy is a guinea pig, not a gerbil. And I’d rather see her and my dad than eat cake in a castle.”
Aisatsana shrugged. “Well, I’m having my own party this year anyway. And I’m having it in Zero Cavern, which means you need to go there.”
“But what exactly do you want me to do?” Anastasia asked.
“I want you to take a looking glass to Zero Cavern,” Aisatsana said. “And you have to let yourself be reflected in it, and then leave it behind. I can’t visit anyplace where you haven’t been mirrored.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Deal?”
Anastasia sighed. “Okay.”
“Promise me.” Aisatsana eyed her coldly. “And just so you know, breaking a promise to your own reflection would be very foolish. Remember, we’re connected for your entire life. You can never go past a mirror, or a window, or even a puddle or a shiny spoon, without summoning me. I’m always watching you.”
Anastasia’s stomach wambled. “I promise,” she said nervously. “Now, how can I get into the Cavern of Dreams?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Aisatsana said. “After you go to Zero Cavern.”
“But—”
“And try to brush your hair for once! I’m tired of going around looking like bats roosted on my head.” She looked pointedly at Anastasia’s plait, where Pippistrella clung upside down. Then she turned her back to the mirror and plugged her ears with her forefingers.
Anastasia ground her teeth. Really! Her reflection was unbearable!
“Come on, Peeps,” she muttered. “Let’s go.”
19
How to Eat Cake
“I HAVE A special treat for you,” Ludowiga announced at that Saturday’s etiquette lesson.
Most children, when promised by their aunt a special treat, will clasp their hands in joyful anticipation. However, Anastasia’s nerves jangled. What sort of diabolical scheme did Ludowiga have tucked up her frilly sleeve?
“Tonight, Princess, we will learn how to eat petit fours. Have a seat.”
“Petit fours?”
“Cakes, you simpleton. SAMPSON!”
Sampson scurried in, propelling a cake-laden tea cart into the sitting room and swerving it expertly between all the ormolus and ottomans and whatnots.
Anastasia eyed the tray of pink dainties. A cake-eating exercise? Was this some sort of trick to ferret out the éclair poisoner? She squirmed.
“Anastasia, dear?” Ludowiga said.
“Yes, Aunt?”
“Would you care for a petit four?”
Anastasia thought. Someone who didn’t go around poisoning pastries would probably say yes. “Yes.”
“No, no, no!” Ludowiga tossed her hands in exasperation. “Never appear eager! It is gauche! It is loutish! You don’t want to seem hungry, do you?”
“But what if I am hungry?”
“How you feel doesn’t matter, you silly girl. Whenever anyone offers you a pastry, be it petit four or common cupcake, you must always decline.” She cleared her throat. “From the beginning! Anastasia, would you care for a petit four?”
Anastasia sneaked a sideways peek at the cakes. “No, thank you.”
“But I insist,” Ludowiga said.
“They’re simply divine. You must try one! Won’t you please have one?”
Her mouth watered, but Anastasia steeled her resolve. “No.”
“Wrong again!” Ludowiga shrieked, hopping out of her chair. Pippistrella squeaked and flapped to a higher stalactite. “You have to accept the second offer! Do you want to offend me? How dare you decline my cakes? Do you fancy yourself too good for my petit fours? Well, I daresay my cakes are too good for you!”
“But you told me to say no!”
“I said nothing of the sort.” Ludowiga sat back down. “I instructed you to refuse the first offer, but even a complete fool knows you accept the second one! Otherwise you will offend your hostess.”
Anastasia fidgeted. “But what if I actually don’t want cake? I mean, I’m hungry now, but what if I just had a tooth pulled, or—”
“IT WOULDN’T MATTER!” Ludowiga screamed. “YOU ALWAYS, INVARIABLY, AND AT ALL TIMES ACCEPT THE SECOND OFFER!” She brought her knobby fist down on the coffee table, making the teapot and creamer and sugar bowl jump. Anastasia jumped as well.
“Now, let’s try again! Would you please have a cake, my dear?”
Anastasia cringed. “Yes, please.”
Sampson plucked a cake from the tippy-top of the stack. He set the cake on a fragile china saucer and set the saucer in front of Anastasia. She noticed that one corner had already been nibbled off. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
“Say it to me, not him,” Ludowiga flared. “I am the one who ordered the cakes made. I am the one who ordered the royal taster to test every one of these lousy crumpets. I am the one whom you must thank.”
“Thank you for the delicious cake, Aunt Ludowiga.”
“You are welcome.”
Ludowiga watched closely as Anastasia finished the petit four and delicately brushed a few crumbs from her chest and onto the napkin in her lap.
“Fine,” she said. Then she glared at Sampson. “We no longer require these cakes. Dispose of them.”
“But I’ve only had one!” Anastasia cried as Sampson whisked the tray of petit fours away. She stared in openmouthed horror as he marched straight to the fireplace and chucked them in.
“And one is all you shall have,” Ludowiga declared. “You must never eat more than one cake. It would be indelicate. One cake is it. Then the remaining cakes are destroyed. They are stamped beneath feet. They are tossed out the window, or smashed in a vise, or squished beneath pillows. I once knew a duchess who liked to blow up pies with firecrackers. She was a genius!”
“But that’s a waste of perfectly good cake!”
Ludowiga sniffed. “My dear girl, I could afford to throw away truckloads of cake! That’s the entire point! You have to show off your wealth somehow, and only so many diamonds can fit on a necklace. And that,” she said, “concludes today’s session. You now know how to eat petit fours.”
Anastasia’s stomach twisted as she noticed Aisatsana’s face, tiny and squashed, observing her from a teaspoon’s shiny hollow. No doubt the mirror girl was impatient for her freckled twin to visit Zero Cavern. Anastasia glowered. Ludowiga’s little lesson constituted not only a waste of cake but also of time. Every minute frittered away in teatime talk was a minute lost from the Dreadfuls’ great search-and-rescue mission. Or…Anastasia regarded her aunt thoughtfully. Perhaps Ludowiga could teach her something worthwhile, after all.
In Francie Dewdrop’s thrilling case Mystery of the Purloined Doily, the plucky detective gleaned all kinds of clues from a snobby socialite named Millicent Winterbottom. It wasn’t because Mrs. Winterbottom was wise or perceptive. It was because Mrs. Winterbottom liked to gossip. And sometimes, mixed within the prattle and yakety-yak, there rattled a significant nugget.
If Calixto Swift had been like an uncle to Penny and Baldwin, it followed that Ludowiga had known him, too. Anastasia hesitated to mention Calixto to Penny and Baldwin, because they knew her. They knew about her love for detection. They knew she wanted to find her father. They might descry, within the web of Anastasia’s innocently pitched questions, her plan to track down Nicodemus and Mr. McCrumpet. And then they would halt her great investigation.
But Ludowiga wouldn’t suspect anything, because she was oblivious. She knew Anastasia was clumsy and freckled and ate moths. But she didn’t really know Anastasia. She certainly didn’t realize her niece aspired to be a great detective-veterinarian-artist.
Sometimes, Reader, it’s advantageous to be underestimated.
“I said, we’re done for tonight.” Ludowiga flicked her hand, as though shooing a particularly dim-witted fly.
“Did Calixto Swift ever come over for cake?” Anastasia asked. “I mean, before the Dastardly Deed? I—I just wondered what his manners were like.”
“Calixto Swift was a boor,” Ludowiga snapped. “Always blustering about with stupid jokes and making rabbits pop out of hats. Of course, all that buffoonery was just a screen for his real nature. It never fooled me. But Penny and Baldwin and Fred ate up that nonsense like Hansel and Gretel gobbling witch’s gingerbread.”
“Penny said Calixto put on a puppet show for her eleventh birthday,” Anastasia said. “He even gave her a puppet.”
Ludowiga laughed. It was a nasty sound. “A powerful warlock, and he spent his spare time playing with dolls. Ridiculous!”
“Did he ever give you a present?”
Ludowiga snorted. “No, he did not. And if he had, I certainly wouldn’t have accepted it. I saw that man for what he was: a schemer.” She drummed the table with her long fingernails. “I’ve always been a better judge of character than my siblings and even, if I may say so, than my dear, missing father. Poppa adored that treacherous warlock. Allow me to teach you another valuable lesson tonight, you lucky child: never trust anyone.”
Anastasia gulped.
“Did Penny tell you about Calixto Swift’s most famous puppet show?” Ludowiga asked.
Anastasia shook her head.
“It was the evening of the Dastardly Deed. Calixto locked Father in the trunk that afternoon and set off to stage The Mermaid and the Magic Key in Dark-o’-the-Moon Common not three hours later. Callous! And arrogant! Just like a witch.” She sighed. “I do regret missing that show.”
“But I thought you didn’t like puppet shows,” Anastasia said.
“I don’t.” Ludowiga smiled. “After we discovered Poppa was missing, a Morfolk mob stormed The Mermaid. They said even Swift’s puppet screen bled that night, but of course that’s poetic exaggeration.” She sipped her tea. “It was all Swift’s blood. Now, run along, Princess—I have to get ready for a ball.”
20
Drybread & Drybread’s Music Box Emporium
“OH DEAR.” PENNY rustled the Sunday newspaper. “Three Morflings went missing yesterday.”
Baldwin stopped marmalading his toast. “CRUD’s handiwork, I presume?”
“Quite positively.”
Even though Anastasia was safe in the Cavelands, sitting at a perfectly cozy breakfast table between her perfectly protective aunt and uncle, her heart kicked like a caffeinated kangaroo. “Three? Were they triplets?”
Penny shook her head. “No, child. CRUD is a global ring, and they’re ambitious. They snatched one of the children from the beach in Spain, and another from a playground in Peru, and the third one from La-La-Land Amusement Park in Texas—right in the middle of his eleventh birthday party, too! Rupert disappeared from his seat on the Mind-Scrambler somewhere between the second and fourth loop-the-loop,” she read aloud. “Goodness me, CRUD is kidnapping children off roller coasters? How do you suppose they managed that?”
“Poor kid,” Baldwin said sadly. “What a sorry end to his birthday jollifications. I wonder if he even got a piece of cake before CRUD swooped in to spoil things.”
Anastasia, whose own eleventh birthday approached at a gallop, nibbled her fingernails. Were Prim and Prude still looking for her? Or had they moved on to a new victim? If she ever wanted to venture abovecaves again, perhaps she shoul
d invest in a proper disguise. She touched her upper lip, making a mental note to check whether Sir Marvelmop sold mustache wigs.
“Our counter-CRUD agents will investigate,” Penny said. “But it may…well, it may be too late.” She folded the newspaper and stirred her tea, frowning.
Too late. Anastasia’s heart sank. Was it too late for Fred McCrumpet? Nobody would utter the words aloud, but that’s what her family was thinking. Were they right? Was Anastasia foolish to keep hoping to find her father?
In many ways, Reader, hope is like a telescope. In the depths of darkened space, the soul peering through a telescope perceives a star. Perhaps it is far-flung; perhaps it is a mere speck; but it is there, and that makes all the difference. Anastasia lifted her jaw. She wasn’t ready to throw down her telescope, not by a long shot.
She itched to discuss her first expedition into the queen’s cavern with her fellow Dreadfuls, but Gus was stuck at home that weekend, and Quentin had orchestra practice, and Ollie was helping his parents ready Drybread & Drybread’s Music Box Emporium for its grand reopening. And, of course, Anastasia couldn’t telephone her friends. As you will remember, attentive Reader, neither electric cable nor utile telephone wire hummed within the Cavelands.
School on Monday was even worse. There were Ollie and Gus, just a few desks over, and she couldn’t utter a word. Her news would have to wait until after school, when the Dreadfuls would convene at Ollie’s house to “work on their science project.” (Of course, clever Reader, you already know that science project was Beastly Dreadful code for secret mission to track down the Silver Hammer.)
Anastasia stared at the classroom clock, willing its brassy arms to move faster. Soon it would strike three o’clock and the Dreadfuls could consider her findings.
