by Holly Grant
Anastasia heaved a deep breath. “Thank you, Grandwiggy.”
Wiggy reached out and stiffly patted Anastasia’s sleeve. “All right, Princess. You may go. I believe we still have a birthday to celebrate, don’t we?”
“Splendid! Just splendid!” Baldwin beheld the Grand Ballroom with delight. Balloons bumped amidst the chandeliers, their long ribbons twirling down to graze tall wigs sprouting from the crowd of guests. Bats cavorted overhead, flinging confetti down on the partygoers. Pippistrella zoomed by to bomb Anastasia with glitter, then wheeled off into the stalactites. “A birthday marvelment indeed!”
“Have you seen Mr. Yukimori’s ice sculpture?” Penny asked.
“It’s super!” Gus said. “It looks just like an electric eel!”
“And it tastes like a kiwi fizzer,” Ollie added.
“This is my favorite song!” Baldwin cried. “Penny, hold my soda! I’m going to ask that fetching Veronica Bunion to foxtrot with me!” He danced off as the musicians struck up a jaunty tune, Quentin’s saw warbling like a ghostly canary.
“Soda, my foot.” Penny sniffed Baldwin’s glass. “There’s something much stronger than soda in here.”
“When are they going to bring out the cake?” Ollie asked.
“It should be any minute now, dear,” Penny said. She slugged back the remainder of Baldwin’s not-soda. “I’m going to fetch your birthday present, Anastasia. Wait right here.”
Despite the frolicsome fun around them, gloom steeped the Dreadfuls’ faces.
“What are we going to do about our quest?” Gus asked. “I don’t think anyone’s ever going to dream in the Canopy again.”
“I don’t think the Canopy really worked anyway,” Ollie said. “Anastasia’s dream about the Wish Hags was all wrong. That wish-goop didn’t help Saskia.”
“But it led us to Borg,” Gus argued. “It’s like the Canopy knew the hags would come after us.”
“Just how far did you get in your first dream before Saskia woke you up? Did you see the Hammer?” Ollie asked.
“No. I hardly saw anything,” Anastasia lamented. “I was swimming, and I saw stars…I think. I could breathe underwater. Oh—shh. Here comes my uncle.”
“Whew!” Baldwin tottered up to them, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “That Veronica has the stamina of an Olympic jitterbugger! Say, where’s my drink?”
“All hail the queen! All hail the queen!” someone cried.
The musicians muzzled their instruments as Wiggy glided into the ballroom. “Good evening. We are all here to celebrate a very special event: my granddaughter’s eleventh birthday.”
A cheer went up. Mr. Yukimori shouted, “Happy birthday, Princess Anastasia!”
“And celebrate it we shall, in just a moment. But now I have an important announcement to make,” Wiggy went on. “This evening marks another momentous occasion, for I have just signed a diplomatic treaty with the Wish Hags.”
Several people gasped.
“Recent inquiries have revealed that any suspicion surrounding their names in the eighteenth century was entirely unfounded. The Wish Hags were innocent of any witchery or witch-sympathy, and the persecution they suffered was unjust. Hags, please come forth.”
The eyeless Wish Hags shuffled through the door, their chain mail chinkling. Tall One raised her shrill voice. “We realize that our wish-granting has been, at best, erratic for the past few centuries. However, we promise to henceforth do our best to grant wishes, within reason, of course. We can’t grant every wish—that would be impossible, you know—but we will be more generous—”
“Can the chatter, Maude!” cut in Spectacles. “You always did ramble on! Princess Anastasia, we hags shall grant your birthday wish as our first act under the new treaty.”
Wiggy twitched her index finger, and two servants wheeled forth a dessert trolley trembling beneath a magnificent cake a-twinkle with eleven candles, plus “one to grow on.” The musicians played a note, and the crowd began to sing:
Happy birthday! You’re oh so old:
If you were cheese, then you’d have mold!
Hip, hip, hooray, and all that rot;
Now make a wish for what is not!
A hush fell over the ballroom as a third attendant set up a ladder beside the cake. Anastasia climbed the rungs and, once at the top, craned her head toward the glittering candles. She closed her eyes. Her cheeks puffed around the wish percolating her wits. Would it work? Could it? Could the hags possibly brew a wish that powerful?
WSSSSSHHHHHHH! The flames fizzled into trailing plumes of smoke.
“Out in one breath!” Baldwin reported, and everyone looked at the Wish Hags.
“Well,” said Maude, “we think…”
“Your wish is strange but fine,” said Spectacles.
“And we shall be delighted to grant it!” proclaimed Bottle Hair.
If every single person in the ballroom had a bit of dynamite powder in their soul, then the Wish Hags’ words ignited this powder. The crowd erupted into applause.
“But remember,” Maude warned, “you mustn’t reveal your birthday wish! If you blab it, it won’t come true!”
“Birthday wishes must be brewed in an atmosphere of absolute secrecy,” said Bottle Hair.
“Article Seventy-six, Clause Two of the Birthday Cake Wish Bill: spilling the beans renders your wish null and void,” cited Spectacles.
“Crumbs,” Ollie moped as Anastasia tiptoed back to the floor. “I’m dying of curiosity!”
“You’ll find out soon,” Anastasia promised.
“Here, dear,” Penny said. “Here’s your present from Baldy and me.” She pressed a box riddled with holes into Anastasia’s hands.
“This is what you had to go into Dinkledorf for?” Anastasia asked.
Baldwin nodded. “This birthday present is the culmination of weeks of plotting, secret communiqués, and a hush-hush transatlantic voyage for two of our best spies.”
“Really?” Gus cried. “Open it, Anastasia!”
She tore off the lid. “MUFFY!”
“Who’s Muffy?” Ollie asked.
“My guinea pig.” Anastasia pulled the fluffy rodent into a hug. “We had to leave her back in Mooselick when we escaped.”
“Our agents had to fetch Muffy with the greatest caution,” Penny said. “We knew the minions of CRUD would be watching to see if we came back for her.”
“Oh, Muffy! I missed you! Muffy—ow!” Anastasia peered at her thumb, prickled with tiny teeth marks.
“She must be fussy after her long trip,” Penny hypothesized.
“Muffy’s always like this,” Anastasia said. “She’ll probably poop on my pillow tonight, too. Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!”
Baldwin’s eyes glossed with tears. “I just love happy endings. And a happy ending plus a happy birthday is the happiest thing of all.”
Anastasia nodded, cradling her guinea pig. But, she thought, if her birthday wish came true, this wasn’t an ending at all. It was just the Beginning, and the Beginning of Something Very Big at that.
Early the next Monday morning, Anastasia jolted upright in bed, her head still swimming with dream-shadows. What time was it? She fumbled in the pocket of her pajama pants for Miss Viola’s watch and held its face close to the bedside candle. Five o’clock. The science fair was in a mere three hours.
She sank back against her comforters, trying to knit the gossamer shreds of her dream back together. The Wish Hags had granted her birthday wish and delivered it swiftly to the fanciful dream-center of her nighttime mind. If only she could remember…She closed her eyes. Shadows. Shadows dancing. Not Ollie and Quentin. Lovely, lacelike shadows…
Anastasia’s breath caught in her throat. She slid from her bed and padded to her wardrobe and flung back the doors. She rummaged for Calixto Swift’s biography, stashed beneath two pairs of unworn silk slippers. She opened the tome to the very middle page and pulled out the witch’s paper doll.
But it wasn’t a p
aper doll. Not really. Anastasia returned to her candle and held the paper maiden before the flame. Her delicate silhouette sprang into being on the wall, filigreed tattoos traced in shadow. Anastasia tugged the paper arms, watching the shadow creature dance and wave.
“Pippistrella! Pippistrella, wake up!” she urged. “I need you to deliver a message to the rest of the league!”
29
Look and Ye Shall Find
“CONGRATULATIONS, CHILDREN!” PENNY cheered for the umpteenth time, smiling proudly as she straightened the blue award ribbon festooning Anastasia’s lapel. “Winning the Pettifog Academy Science Fair is a tremendous accomplishment!”
“It’s a grand achievement,” Baldwin agreed. “Just grand!”
“Squeak!” Pippistrella chimed in.
Gus grinned. He grinned so broadly that his smile crept all the way over into Anastasia’s face. The good score from their Musical Wheel for Discerning Mice would bump her own class grades into a pretty nice place—she didn’t think Marm Pettifog would flunk her for the year.
“And I understand Mrs. Wata has sworn off eating mice,” Penny added. “That pleases me to no end!”
Gus nodded. “She said she could never eat another mouse, knowing that they appreciate music.”
Ollie beamed, and so did Anastasia. As an aspiring veterinarian-detective-artist, she was happier about Mrs. Wata’s dietary switch than snagging a frilly first-place ribbon. Of course, watching Saskia fling her Certificate of Second Place (“For a Decent Effort!”) to the floor and storm from the Pettifog auditorium had been plenty satisfying, too. It was the cherry atop an already delectable sundae.
“Was that your birthday wish?” Ollie whispered. “That we’d win the fair?” He glanced at the Dreadfuls’ acclaimed invention. One keen-whiskered, nimble-footed rodent jogged within the twirling mouse wheel, cranking the cylinder of the attached music box. Tinkle bingle tingalingaling!
Anastasia shook her head. “No. But my wish came true this morning. It didn’t take the hags long to brew it.”
“We need to celebrate your triumph!” Baldwin said. “How about a trip to the Soda Straw?”
“Actually, Baldy,” Ollie said, “I promised my brother that I’d go with him to the Cavepearl Theater. He has—um—”
“A new solo he wants us to hear,” Gus interjected. “He’s practicing with the Nowhere Special Orchestra this afternoon for the upcoming symphony.”
“There he is!” Ollie said, standing on tiptoe to find Quentin amidst the hubbub of young Pettifog scientists packing up their projects. “Q! Q!”
“Can Peeps and I go, too?” Anastasia pleaded.
“Well—” Penny hesitated, no doubt thinking of the Dreadfuls’ perilous shenanigans the weekend before.
“How could we deny these triumphant scientists their fun?” Baldwin said. “Run along with your friends, Anastasia, and we’ll come pick you up in an hour.”
“Thanks!” Anastasia grabbed Gus’s and Ollie’s hands and pulled them to Quentin before Penny could protest.
“So, what’s your big surprise?” Quentin asked as they fled Pettifog Academy to hurry by alley and avenue toward the opera house. “Pippistrella wouldn’t tell us much this morning. She just flew over before school and told me what to bring.” He jiggled his saw case, rattling its secret contents.
“I think it has something to do with her birthday wish,” Ollie said. “What did you wish for, Anastasia? You can tell us. It’s already come true.”
“I wished to finish the dream I started on my birthday. The one about swimming.”
“What happened?” Gus quizzed.
“It was really short,” Anastasia said. “I swam into a tunnel, and at the end there was a dancing shadow. A man’s shadow.”
“Was it Nicodemus?” Quentin puzzled. “He’s a Shadowman.”
“Nope. I’m getting to it. When I woke up and thought about it, I realized that I hadn’t been swimming at all,” Anastasia said. “I’d been floating. And the twinkles around me weren’t stars—they were twinkle beetles.”
“Like in Mrs. Honeysop’s cavern?” Gus asked.
“Exactly. And the shadow wasn’t a Shadowman. Remember that paper doll I found in the witch’s bedroom?” Anastasia slipped the paper maiden from her satchel. “It’s not a doll. It’s a shadow puppet.”
“So what?” Ollie said. “So the old witch liked puppets. Why is that important?”
“Calixto Swift made puppets,” Anastasia said. “Ludowiga told me a mob killed Calixto at his last puppet show, and that people said ‘even the puppet screen bled that night.’ I thought she meant the painted scenery at the back of a little puppet stage, but maybe it was the screen of a shadow puppet theater. And if Calixto used shadow puppets…maybe he made this one and gave it to Mrs. Honeysop.”
“I wonder if Calixto enchanted that cavern to be zero gravity,” Gus pondered. “That would take pretty powerful magic, you know. I don’t know if an everyday witch could do it.”
“But there aren’t any tunnels in Mrs. Honeysop’s house,” Ollie said.
“No tunnels,” Anastasia agreed, “but there is a fireplace. And fireplaces have chimneys.”
“We have been lucky with chimneys,” Quentin said. “That’s how we escaped St. Agony’s Asylum, Gus.” He led them through the musician’s side entrance and into the theater. “I’m skipping practice to come with you, so we have to be extra-stealthy when we’re sneaking out the back.”
Fortunately, the backstage area was deserted. The Dreadfuls sidled through the hole in the back corner and into Sickle Alley, and thence ran to Mrs. Honeysop’s strange old house.
“Why, this is fun!” Quentin cried, executing a somersault in the parlor. His Pettifog wig levitated off his head and swirled up to the stalactites.
Anastasia, however, had no time for acrobatics. She beelined to the fireplace grille, lacing her fingers through the mesh to keep from drifting away. “See how the gate is bolted down? I thought it was to keep it from sailing off, but maybe it’s to hide something that’s inside the chimney. Quentin, did you bring your dad’s tools?”
“Yep.” Quentin opened his saw case. “All in here—oops.”
Metal gizmos floated from the trunk and began to wander the parlor. Anastasia grabbed a screwdriver and fiddled with the screen. “One,” she muttered as the first rivet blurted from its hole. “Two…”
“What do you think is in the chimney?” Ollie asked. “The Silver Hammer?”
“I don’t know…three…four…”
After Anastasia had prized loose all the bolts, the Dreadfuls tamped the tips of their screwdrivers in the seam between the grate and the wall. They wriggled and wiggled the steely tips of their tools, cracking the screen from the stone bit by bit until at last it wrenched free. Anastasia shoved the grate aside and stuck her head into the fireplace.
“Tons of twinkle beetles,” she reported. “Just like my dream. I’m going up! You stay here in case—well, just in case.”
“In case it’s some kind of Calixto Swift booby trap?” Ollie faltered.
“Something like that.” She pulled herself into the flue, floating up amongst the glittering insects, her petticoats puffing around her kicking legs, Pippistrella clinging to her back like a baby opossum. It was easy to imagine she was traveling through a starry tunnel to outer space. Through the glow she rose, remembering Baldwin murmuring to her in the HMB Flying Fox: Find your star and follow it, Anastasia. Trust your star over anybody else’s idea of where you should go.
The bugs shining her way may not have been real stars, but she sensed that, for the moment, she was just where she was supposed to be.
“I’m at the top,” she called.
“Did you find anything?” Gus asked.
A swarm of twinkle beetles corked the chimney. She brushed them aside, scattering the glow. “Shoo.”
“Anastasia!” Quentin hallooed. “What’s up there?”
The last bugs glided off, winking their annoyance.
“Anastasia!” Ollie cried.
Craning her neck, Anastasia could now see what lay at the end of the tunnel. Her eyes widened.
“Anastasia!” Quentin bellowed.
“I don’t think this was ever really a fireplace.” Her voice trickled down the shaft.
“What is it, then?” Gus asked.
“It’s a secret passageway. And it leads to a trapdoor.”
The click of a doorknob, the squeal of old hinges, and then…silence.
“I’m not just going to wait here,” Gus muttered, diving into the chimney. Quentin and Ollie followed behind him, and they shimmied up the flue and through the little door at the end.
Anastasia’s eyes, big and bright in the glow of a match, turned to meet theirs. She touched the match to the tapers of a candelabrum and shined it around the secret chamber. A massive wooden desk drifted through the cavern like a drowned ship, flurrying a school of little vials. An hourglass cruised by, sand swimming in its fragile bulbs. Thick books hovered in the dust, their yellow pages fanned open.
Gus peered at the silver letters stamped on one tome’s spine. “Codex of Spells!”
“Witch books are forbidden,” Ollie yipped. “They burned them years ago.”
“This one’s handwritten,” Gus said. “Protection Spell…Binding a Looking Glass…Curative Spell for Ye Stomack Maladie…oops!”
A flock of shadow puppets fluttered from between the book’s folios and meandered into the gloom.
The Dreadfuls stared at each other.
“I think,” Quentin murmured, “we’ve found Calixto Swift’s secret study.”
“I think you’re right.” Gus peeled back the pages of Codex of Spells to show them a green-inked inscription inside the front cover: FROM THE LIBRARY OF C.S.
