by Holly Grant
Baldwin squeezed her shoulder. Then he hollered, “Pancakes! We need pancakes to fortify this eleven-year-old!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” A footman hurried off to tell the chef.
“Now that you’re eleven, we need to let you soak up some moonlight,” Baldwin said. “You’ll really feel the moon in your bones and blood now. You’ll want to romp and rollick and yodel.”
“The Swiss hills are superb for yodeling,” Penny chimed in.
“We’ll go for moonlight roams in the forest outside Dinkledorf,” Baldwin said. “By gadberry, we all need a moonlight ramble! I’m just twitching to go wolf. Ah, here come our pancakes! I’ll tell you a little secret, Anastasia. Pancakes are a fair treat any day, but they’re especially good on your birthday, and especially especially scrummy on your eleventh birthday. Eleven years is just the right amount of time for your taste buds to ripen. Go ahead! Try!”
Anastasia poked a forkful of flapjack into her mouth. “Yum.”
“This is a present from Wiggy,” Penny said, pulling a parcel trussed in gold paper from beneath the table. “It’s the queen’s privilege to give you your first birthday present of the day, but she’s off at a diplomatic meeting in Limestone-on-the-Lake. She’ll be back in time for your party, though.”
“We have a heck of a hoopla planned for you tonight,” Baldwin said. “I hope that you’re in the mood to whoop it up.”
Anastasia undid the ribbon and tore back the wrap. “Oil paints!”
Her birthday glow sparkled like a firecracker. Wiggy knew she liked art? Perhaps her queenly grandmother wasn’t as remote as she seemed. Anastasia set the paints on the table. “When are the boys getting here?”
“One o’clock–ish,” Penny said. “And then you can play games until your party starts at seven.”
“We have thousands of balloons to blow up,” Baldwin said.
“And cupcakes to frost,” Penny said.
“And streamers to stream,” Baldwin said.
“And,” Penny added, “Baldy and I have a very important, top-secret birthday mission up in Dinkledorf. We’ll be gone for a little while, so tell one of the servants if you need anything.”
“We’ll be fine,” Anastasia said hastily. “We’re going to play hide-and-seek, so you might not see us all day.”
As you already know, perceptive Reader, play hide-and-seek was really Dreadful code for sneak into the Cavern of Dreams. But Penny and Baldwin didn’t speak Dreadful code, and they just smiled at Anastasia.
“If you get up to any birthday mischief, make sure it’s good.” Baldwin winked.
“Oh,” Anastasia assured him, “I will.”
After Gus and the Drybread brothers arrived, and after everyone had traded good-birthday tidings, the Dreadfuls hurried through the network of palace hallways and stairwells, around and up and down, all the way to Wiggy’s cavern. Anastasia tugged Mrs. Wata’s locket from her collar and flashed it at the guard bat, sending him into a deep snooze, and the Dreadfuls infiltrated the queen’s room once more.
“Aisatsana!” Anastasia called, dashing to the Glimmerglass.
“Oh.” Her reflection grimaced. “You again.”
“Happy birthday, Aisatsana!” Ollie said. He pulled a little parcel wrapped in notebook paper and tied with a string from his jacket pocket and set it on the vanity.
“What’s that?” Aisatsana frowned.
“It’s a present!” Ollie said. “It’s your birthday, too, isn’t it?”
A funny look flitted over Aisatsana’s face. She plucked at the reflected knot, and then she pulled back the paper to reveal a squished cupcake.
“It’s my own recipe,” Ollie said. “Peanut Butter S’mores Delight. Go ahead! Try it!”
“We—ell,” Aisatsana hesitated. “I’ve never had s’mores.”
“Sure you have!” Anastasia said. “I’ve eaten hundreds of s’mores!”
“Not in front of a mirror,” Aisatsana quibbled. She bit into the cupcake. She chewed. “It’s good,” she muttered. “It’s really good. Is this marshmallow in the middle?”
“Yep.” Ollie grinned. “But don’t expect me to give you the recipe. We pastry chefs guard our secrets to the grave.”
Aisatsana licked her fingers. “Thank you, Shadowboy. That was delicious.” She didn’t look, however, like someone who had just devoured a scrumptious treat. She looked sort of sad. Faced now with her woebegone reflection, Anastasia harkened back to all the frowns she had shared with Aisatsana in the mirrors at St. Agony’s.
“Aisatsana?” she ventured.
“What?”
Anastasia darted a glance at her fellow Dreadfuls, suddenly reluctant to ask about the frost pictures. Pippistrella wouldn’t laugh at her, but might Gus and the Shadowboys deem her dilly?
“Um,” she faltered. “Happy birthday.”
“All right,” Gus spoke up from across the room. “Let’s get cracking at that bed.”
“Aisatsana, we need you to show us the door again,” Anastasia said.
The girl in the glass stared at her for a moment, her eyes extra-bright. “I—well, fine.” She sidled over, revealing the silver door glimmering in the depths of the reflection. Aisatsana and Anastasia bebopped through a backward bunny hop and then the Dreadfuls were in the Cavern of Dreams once again. Of course, it was Quentin’s first venture into the magical hollow.
“The moon!” he cried.
“It’s still full!” Ollie exulted.
“Maybe it’s always full in here,” Gus said.
Perhaps it was the full moon, or perhaps it was the birthday glow pepping her body, but an irresistible urge to cavort jazzed Anastasia’s feet into a sprint. “Catch me if you can!”
“I’ll get you!” Quentin yelled.
“Wait for me!” Ollie howled.
Pippistrella looped and whirled, sing-peeping above them as the Dreadfuls dashed between the pines. She dive-bombed a bough, sending moonflakes avalanching onto Gus’s head.
“Hssst!” The snakes uncoiled, snapping at the twinkles.
“They’re lively now!” Ollie laughed. He leaned against a tree trunk, panting. “Too bad Aisatsana can’t come in here.”
“Aisatsana?” Gus exclaimed. “Why would you want to hang out with that pill?”
“I feel sorry for her,” Ollie said. “Don’t you think she gets lonely?”
“She has her mirror-realm friends,” Anastasia said. “Besides, she hates everything I like, remember?”
“She liked that s’mores cupcake,” Ollie pointed out. “You like s’mores, too, Anastasia. You’re not complete opposites.”
“I guess,” Anastasia allowed.
“She seemed so sad when we left for the Cavern of Dreams,” Quentin pondered. “I think she was about to cry.”
“She’s just contrary,” Anastasia argued, but she lapsed into thought. She had never really considered Aisatsana’s wishes or wants before, aside from the mirror-girl’s demands to visit Zero Cavern. What would it be like to live in a reflected realm, subject to the whims of a world you could never truly enter?
“Come on,” Gus said, dragging Anastasia from her cogitations and down to the moon-plated dell. There the Canopy shimmered, its supernatural bloom illuminating the surrounding trees.
“This time,” Gus said, “think about the Silver Hammer before you fall asleep! But don’t just ask where it is. You might dream of some basement or shed that nobody knows about. Think about how we’ll find it.”
“Okay.” Anastasia shucked off her galoshes and clambered into the bed. The dreamy voice crooned from the pillow as soon as she rested her head. Anastasia…Anastasia…
“She’s already falling asleep!” Quentin said.
“Remember,” Gus urged, “the Silver Hammer.”
Anastasia stretched and tried to focus her fuzzy thoughts. Sleep, warm and sweet as a swallow of hot chocolate, spread through her body. The Canopy was so soft. She felt like she was floating. Was she floating? Her eyelids flickered. It wa
s dark, and her braids bobbled above her head. Was she underwater? She cricked her gaze upward. Hundreds of tiny lights pinpricked the murk. Stars? Was she deep in a star-dimpled pond? Anastasia frogged toward the glimmer—
“Move over!”
The dream sucked from Anastasia like water guzzled down a drain. She was back in the Canopy, and someone else was with her, elbowing and shoving.
“Saskia?”
25
Bedbugs
“DID YOU EXPECT Prince Charming?” Saskia’s porcelain face simpered down at her.
Anastasia sat bolt upright. “Where are Ollie and—”
“Your little playmates are skipping around the woods,” Saskia said. “Childish.”
“How did you get in here?” Anastasia demanded.
“How do you think? I followed you.”
Anastasia’s thoughts flitted to the door to the Cavern of Dreams. Had they left it open? She cringed. Yes. Sozzled on moonglow, the Dreadfuls had galloped into the forest with nary a notion of closing the silver hatch.
“Anyway, what are you doing in here?” Saskia asked. “Grandwiggy’s cavern is off-limits. Strictly forbidden. Death to all who enter, et cetera, et cetera. You’ll be in serious trouble if Grandwiggy discovers you’ve been sneaking in here with your little friends.”
Panic clotted Anastasia’s tonsils.
“Maybe she’d even banish you abovecaves,” Saskia speculated. “Like a witch.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Anastasia cried. “I’m her granddaughter! Besides, CRUD is still looking for me.”
Saskia smiled nastily.
“Wait.” Anastasia sat up a little straighter. “You’re not supposed to be in here, either.”
Saskia tossed her hair. “Grandwiggy would never exile me. She’s known me for years. How long has she known you? A couple of months?”
Anastasia’s heart sank.
Saskia tilted her face to catch the falling moonbits. “What a pretty bed this is. Perfect for a princess.” Her eyes slewed over to Anastasia. “I said, for a princess. So get out. I’m feeling sleepy all of a sudden.”
Anastasia climbed from the downy mattress, her hands balled at her sides. “It isn’t going to work for you,” she said. “It’s hexed—”
“Hexed?” Saskia echoed drowsily.
“Anastasia!” Ollie yelped, running into the clearing. “Why is Saskia here?”
“She followed us,” Anastasia said. “And she woke me up, right when I was starting to dream.”
“Well, now she’s asleep,” Quentin said.
Anastasia turned. Saskia’s long eyelashes pressed her cheeks, and her chest rose with deep sleep-breaths. Lying in the moonlit Canopy, her silver-blond hair flowing over the pillow, she looked like a storybook illustration. Anastasia’s beautiful birthday glow flickered and snuffed out. Saskia was a real princess. She had grown up in a castle, and—
“Peep!” Pippistrella squeaked and wheeled, drawing their gazes to the sky.
“What’s happening to the moon?” Gus asked.
The magical moon dimmed, its luster going the blackish green of tarnished silver, its fall of glitter turning into ashy bits.
“Is this some kind of eclipse?” Gus asked.
Anastasia bit her lip. “Did that happen before?”
“No,” Gus said.
“We should go,” Ollie pleaded.
Anastasia shook Saskia’s shoulder. “Wake up.” But Saskia remained limp as a ragdoll, not even fidgeting to flick away the moonsoot collecting on her lovely face. “Wake up, Saskia!”
“Look at the moonbits!” Quentin gasped. “They’re moving!”
Anastasia snatched her hand back, boggling at the tiny cinders. First they wriggled, and then they began to dance and dart, to tiddlywink and tic-tac-toe, just like little fleas.
“Those bugs are going into her ears!” Ollie said.
“Stop!” Anastasia slapped at the magical mites, but still they skittered under Saskia’s golden-silver locks. The princess finally stirred, letting out a whimper.
“Get her out of that bed!” Gus urged.
The Dreadfuls yanked Saskia’s arms, but the comforters cinched her tightly. The peculiar mooncooties continued to snow down and Saskia’s mewls pitched into shrieks.
“Why is she still sleeping?” Ollie wailed.
“I don’t know,” Anastasia said. “Maybe the bed is doing this because she’s full Morfo.”
“Or maybe the magic just went sour,” Ollie said.
“I don’t think so.” Gus pointed at the carving on the headboard. “I think it’s working just like Calixto Swift meant for it to.”
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite!
“Those things are bedbugs?” Anastasia said.
“I think so.” Gus circled the Moonsilk Canopy, and then he lay on the ground and scooched under the bed.
“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.
“Investigating. Oh, crumbs! Look at this!”
Anastasia and the Drybread brothers knelt to peer at the bed’s dark underbelly. Carved deep in the planks were the words:
O worm who worms into my bed,
A hundred nightmares blight thy head!
The nightmare bug shall your mind creep
Wi’ nightmare-gnawed and wretched sleep.
Your thoughts my bugs shall munch and munch
Until there’s nothing left for lunch.
Think not upon a type of cure—
This spell is sealed stronger than steel;
This magic bed shall be thy bier.
“Bier?” Ollie said.
“It’s a table for a dead body.” Quentin blanched. “Before it goes into a coffin.”
Anastasia gasped. Saskia was no paragon of kindly cousinhood, but the prospect of the princess meeting a terrible end in the witch’s bed plumbed Anastasia’s heart with horror. “We have to get help!”
“I don’t know if anyone can help.” Gus slid from the bed’s shadow and stood up, trembling. “Saskia triggered the hex.”
“We need a doctor!” Ollie said.
“Do you really think a doctor can cure a—a nightmare bug infestation?” Gus asked. “The poem says there’s no cure.”
“Then we need an exterminator!” Ollie said.
“We need to do something,” Quentin agreed. “Might Princess Penelope and Prince Baldwin have ideas?”
“They went abovecaves, and Wiggy won’t be back from her meeting until the party starts.” Anastasia pulled Miss Viola’s watch from her pocket and checked the time. “And that’s hours away.” A tear slid down her cheek. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Quentin said firmly. “You didn’t invent this loathsome bed. You didn’t bewitch a swarm of—er—nasty bedbugs to creep into Saskia’s ears.”
“Do you think they’re eating her brain?” Ollie asked.
“Her thoughts,” Gus said. “And they’ll munch until there aren’t any more thoughts left, and then…I think Saskia will—will die.”
An idea nibbled Anastasia’s mind. It was dangerous. It might even be deadly.
From the depths of her haunted slumber, Saskia screamed.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, dear Reader. For example, should the quirks of life one day seal you within a Victorian mansion lacking modern plumbing, you may find yourself stooping to the ghastly last resort of a chamber pot. Anastasia, as you already know, was no stranger to desperate measures. She scrambled into the bed, drawing dismayed shouts from the Dreadfuls.
“What are you doing?” Gus cried.
“Looking for a cure.” Anastasia squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed her cousin’s icy hand. How can I save Saskia? How can I save Saskia? How can…
26
Wish-in-a-Bottle
ANASTASIA OPENED HER dream-eyes to the commotion of Dark-o’-the-Moon Common. Morfolk clogged the cobblestones, rushing to work, laughing, shopping, licking electric eel ice cream cones.
“This
way, Q!”
Ollie! Anastasia elbowed through the Morfolk, peering over shoulders and past wigs, trying to spot the Shadowboys. There they were, standing by the Be-Careful-What-You-Wish-For Well! Dream-Ollie and Dream-Quentin nodded at each other, and then they umbrated. Their clothes collapsed to the ground in two heaps, and their shadow shapes unfurled to snake up and into the crumbling column.
“Wait!” Anastasia scurried to squint down the murky shaft. Of course, being shadows, the boys were well nigh invisible. “Ollie! Q!” she hollered, but her voice just boomeranged back up the well’s throat.
Was she supposed to wish for Saskia to wake up? Or was she supposed to follow the Shadowboys down the well? Anastasia eyed the bucket dangling from the pulley. She tugged the frayed rope, wondering whether it would hold her weight. What if she broke her neck? Would it really hurt her? Could an injury from a dream seep into her waking life?
There wasn’t time to worry about it.
Anastasia boosted herself onto the edge of the well and grasped the prickly cord with both hands, yanking the bucket down. She stepped on the pail’s wooden lip. Then she sucked in a deep breath, like someone tottering on the tippy end of a high-dive board.
She jumped.
WZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
The bucket, and Anastasia with it, zinged into the darkness. Before she could think or squeak or scream, the entire kit and caboodle jerked to the end of its tether, jouncing her heart into her throat. She swayed in the gloom, her stomach yo-yoing. How far was she from the bottom?
Crooking one elbow around the rope, she fumbled in her pocket for a match. She pretzeled to strike it against the sole of one galosh. The tip flared with phosphorescent fizz, illuminating the shaft’s slimy flanks and, just inches below, water puddling over the shimmer of wish coins. The Drybreads’ silhouettes skulked in the pool like ink jetted from an octopus’s rump.
Anastasia hopped to hunker beside them in the shallow splash. Why were the Shadowboys belly-flopped in the puddle? Was there a wish hidden down there? Faint strains of off-key singing tickled her nerves; the strange carol piped from beneath the coins. She plunged one hand in the dark puddle and pulled out a fistful of wet queenlies. The gold gleamed on her palm, each disc stamped with Wiggy’s solemn profile. Anastasia flung the coins into the bucket and kept digging, plumbing the well for whatever secret its mossy gullet might hide.
