The Magical Misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle

by Deva Fagan

  THE MAGICAL

  MISADVENTURES OF

  Prunella Bogthistle

  DEVA FAGAN

  Henry Holt and Company New York

  I owe enormous thanks to R. J. Anderson, Melissa Caruso, Megan Crewe, Troy Danko, Justin Hughes, Hope Ring, Charles Schweppe, Pamela Seltsam, and E. Catherine Tobler for reading various incarnations of this book and providing feedback. I am especially grateful to Geoffrey Bottone, who went above and beyond the call of duty to help me stay sane when I was bogged down in a particularly thorny rewrite. Many thanks as well to Kevin Hamor and everyone involved in Grimwode for their roles in the genesis of Prunella and Barnaby.

  I will be forever grateful to my agent, Shawna McCarthy, for being tough on me when I needed her to be, and for sticking with this book through the downs and the ups.

  Many, many thanks to my wonderful editor, Reka Simonsen, for her wise insights and sharp eyes, and to the entire Holt production team for their efforts on behalf of this book.

  Lastly, thank you to the friends and family who encouraged me during the writing of this book, especially my husband, Bob, who provided endless enthusiasm and optimism, and who trusted me to give Barnaby a good home.

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC, Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  www.HenryHoltKids.com

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Deva Fagan

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fagan, Deva.

  The magical misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle / Deva Fagan.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: The personal quests of a young witch who aspires to be a villain and

  a young thief who is determined to become a hero intersect in a swampy bog.

  ISBN 978-0-8050-8743-7

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. Heroes—Fiction.

  4. Blessing and cursing—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F136Mag 2010 [E]—dc22 2009023447

  First Edition—2010 / Book designed by Véronique Lefèvre Sweet

  Printed in April 2010 in the United States of America by

  R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  To my parents,

  Paul and Cynthia,

  for their love, inspiration,

  and steadfast support

  Chapter 1

  All I wanted was to charm a single stinking wart onto my face. Yes, onto, not off. A good bog-witch should have at least one. Grandmother had eleven, and a hooked nose to boot. Of course, there were rare witches who could pull off a certain dark and terrible beauty. My mother was one, according to Grandmother. Maybe that’s how I got stuck the way I was.

  I peered into the moon-silvered water of the rain barrel. No wart. No dark and terrible beauty, either. Just the same clear brown skin and snub nose I’d always had. Blast it! I smacked my palm into the water. A true bog-witch wouldn’t be sniffling, I told myself fiercely. This only made the tears slip faster down my cheeks. Because I wasn’t a true bog-witch; everyone from Grandmother to my littlest cousin, Ezzie, knew it. That was why they were all off on a midnight mushroom spree, and I was stuck here, alone, keeping watch over Grandmother’s garden.

  I blinked up at the moon. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see them: my cousins, my aunts, my great-aunts, my second cousins twice removed. All of them out there under that brilliant silver eye, laughing and teasing and dancing. I could almost smell the sweet wood-smoke, taste the earthy, buttery fried mushrooms. I loved fried mushrooms. But more than that, I loved being a Bogthistle witch. Even if no one else thought I was one, really.

  It wasn’t fair. I could twitch a fire out of soggy twigs as well as any of them. I could charm away Ezzie’s winter sniffles. Grandmother herself admitted that she couldn’t tell where I’d mended the chips in her best tea set. But those were still just baby spells. Until I proved myself with a proper curse, I would never be considered a true Bogthistle. And my curses, well, they just never turned out quite right.

  I cringed, remembering the last one. The mob of Uplanders had descended on us on the eve of the full moon, jabbing the sharp tines of their pitchforks against the night. Their angry shouting drowned the fluting of the peepers. Their smoky torches burned the sweetness of the moonflowers from the air.

  But we bog-witches were no strangers to mobs. Our foremothers had settled their cozy collection of cottages smack in the middle of the bog for a reason. The sucking mire and stinging thistles kept the fools at bay long enough for us to puzzle out some sense from their furious bellows.

  “We didn’t steal the Mirable Chalice, you fool,” Grandmother called over our spiny ramparts, her eyes blazing—really blazing, with green flames. I always wanted to learn that charm. “We’ve all the magic we could want here in the Bottomlands. What do we need with some Uplander bauble? Go take your torches and burn down the Mistveil Bayou if you want someone to blame. If anyone stole the chalice, it was that villain Blackthorn.”

  The mob gave a rabblesome roar, sprinkled with shouts of “Foul hags!” and “Burn them all!” One particularly mouthy fellow at the front called out, “You stole the chalice, you harpies! You brought this curse to our lands! Our corn withers and dies, our children sicken, our homes crumble. We’re here to put a stop to it!” He waved his torch at the wall of thistles. “Give it back, or we’ll burn this place to the ground!”

  Grandmother’s nostrils flared. She drew herself even taller, like a great thunderhead about to loose a torrent of lightning. A few yelps and yips rose from the Uplanders. Even the mouthy fellow stepped back.

  “So—a bit of trouble with your corn and you think you’re cursed? It’s time you learned the misery and woe of a true bog-witch curse.”

  That was when she’d looked at me. I smothered a yelp of my own.

  “Prunella,” Grandmother commanded, “even you ought to be able to find a suitable punishment for these ignorant lunatics.”

  I thought I had just the curse. I thought that was my chance to show my true bog-witchery, to prove myself. A rain of alligator spoor sounded perfectly horrible. And in my defense, it did chase them hooting and hollering out of the mire and back to their Upland homes. How was I to know it would settle over their land and give them the best harvest in ages?

  They had fields full of golden ears within two weeks. By the third, they were showing up on the outskirts of the bog, begging for more charms to stop crumbling chimneys and heal fevers and coughs. They trampled the mushroom patch and scared away all the nesting herons with their hubbub. In the end, Grandmother had to curse three of them with pustulous boils just to get them to leave us alone. And it was all my fault.

  So that’s how I ended up stuck in the garden, alone. Grandmother’s garden didn’t need watching. It was warded and trapped to the gills, tighter than the queen’s treasure house. And who would want to steal her beans and pumpkins in any case? Someone would have to be an idiot, or desperate, or both, to try. Yet here I was, with only the fluting of the frogs and the twinkle of fireflies for company. The truth was, my family didn’t want me around. I was an embarrassment. Another tear slipped down my nose.

  I needed more than just a wart. I needed a curse as fearsome and powerful as those of Esmeralda herself, the first, and greatest, Bogthistle. Even Grandmother spoke reverently about Esmeralda and her lost magics. Every night after dinner she led all the clan (except me, of course, since sh
e said I’d spoil it) in cursing Lord Blackthorn, who stole Esmeralda’s grimoire ages ago. Sometimes I dreamed of running off and finding that grimoire, and all her long-lost magics with it. Surely with a book like that even I could learn to curse properly. Then I’d lead the mushroom sprees. Then I’d be taught the deepest Bogthistle secrets. Grandmother might even smile at me, once. I’d caught her smiling at Ezzie, so I knew she did, sometimes. Just never at me.

  It was a silly dream. Lord Blackthorn’s manor was charmed up as tight as Grandmother’s garden. And anyway, a true bog-witch wouldn’t be glooming around wishing on stars. I raised my chin, pushing myself up. I might as well try the wart charm again. I had nothing better to do.

  Creeeak. I stood still, sure I must be imagining things. No one could possibly have gotten into the garden without triggering one of the wards. But I knew the squeak of the alchemy-shop door all too well. It was what had given me away last week, when I tried to sneak in and listen to Grandmother teaching Ezzie how to turn herself into a crow.

  “Thief!” I cried out, as I laid my hand on the pumpkin vine beside me, muttering my invocation. The green fronds hissed forward like serpents, coiling around the dark shadow that lurked beside the door.

  The shadow grunted. I darted forward, my heart hammering a jubilant beat. I had done something right, finally. I’d caught a thief. Now, that ought to make Grandmother smile.

  A cloud shifted. I crooked my finger. My curse had to work this time. The honor of the Bogthistles demanded it. Wan moonlight outlined the thief’s features. It was a boy. The shock of it froze my bent finger in midair, jabbing out at him.

  It wasn’t that I’d never seen boys before. There were a few things we just couldn’t get in the Bottomlands, and Grandmother could not do without her daily helping of licorice. I had been to the nearest town of Withywatch four times, trotting along after Grandmother as she did her shopping, both of us cowled and cloaked against prying eyes.

  I’d watched straggly farmer boys goggling at me from their hay-heaped wagons. I’d beheld snappy city boys scrumming and playing like a pack of young hounds. Frankly, I hadn’t seen what I was missing by living out in the bog. Yet something about this boy now standing in front of me made me hesitate.

  He pushed back a fringe of honey-brown hair, looking fine and proud and determined. “Go on and curse me, bog-witch.”

  The words of the spell scrambled against my throat. He’d called me a bog-witch. He knew what I was! In that moment, I didn’t care that he was glaring at me. If it weren’t an entirely unwitchly thing to do, I would have flung my arms around his neck and danced with him under the moonlight.

  “Well?” he said after a moment. “Are you going to stand there posing, or are you going to get it over with? I’m three inches deep in mud here.”

  I smothered my smile. “I’m just deciding on the best punishment for a thief.”

  “I’m not here to steal anything,” he said, scowling.

  “Oh? You sneak into bog-witch gardens for fun, do you?”

  “I’m…I’m on a quest.” He raised his chin slightly. “For the Mirable Chalice.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, and of course we must be the ones who took it. Just like we’re the ones to blame for every cough, storm, and broken wheelbarrow in the Uplands.”

  “You bog-witches tried to steal it once already,” said the boy, crossing his arms. “Everyone knows that story.”

  “That was two hundred years ago!” I protested. “Besides, Esmeralda never wanted the chalice. She was trying to help you stupid Uplanders. And what thanks did she get? Chased off into the bog by a pack of ignorant goons!”

  He shrugged. “So a few Uplanders think you stole the chalice. What’s it matter to you? Seems to me you lot settled yourselves nice enough, if you don’t mind the mud and muck.” He gestured around at the garden. Something fluttered in his hand.

  “What’s that?” I saw a flash of purple checks as he tucked it behind his back. “That’s one of my aunt’s best dishtowels! Give that back!”

  “Fine, fine. Don’t get yourself in a twist.” The boy tossed the wad of cloth at me. “I was just…borrowing it. A fellow needs to keep his hands clean. This place is filthy.”

  “If you don’t like mud, you should have stayed in the Uplands, where you belong.” I crossed my arms. “But you’d better learn to like it, seeing as I’m about to turn you into a frog.”

  “You can’t do that,” he protested. “I need to bring back the chalice. The whole of the Uplands is cursed.”

  “Oh, so you’re some sort of hero, are you? Going to save the Uplands?”

  His cocky air faltered, just for a moment. “Something like that.”

  “How did you even get in here?” I demanded. “Grandmother’s wards and traps are the best in the land. Better than the queen’s.”

  The boy leaned against the door. “Pff. It wasn’t that hard.”

  How dare he look so nonchalant with pumpkin vines wound around his feet and a bog-witch about to curse him? Being a frog was too good for him. I clenched my teeth, trying to remember Grandmother’s pustulous-boils curse.

  “The squealer over by the cabbages was a good one,” he added. “Nearly got me. You might have noticed if you weren’t so busy with your beauty charms.”

  “Beauty charms?” I roared. “That’s it!”

  For an instant, in the flash of greenish light, I could see his fear. Why did it make my insides wither like a bit of old fish-bait? I faltered, stumbling over the invocation.

  Suddenly he was moving, slithering free from the vines. The next moment, he had ducked behind one of the giant pumpkins. I ran forward to the limp green fronds he left behind. How had he gotten free? Had he cut them?

  “Ugh!” I snatched back my hand, covered in something slimy and slippery. “What did you do?”

  “Don’t blame me,” came his voice from somewhere among the gourds. He sounded annoyed. “I didn’t ask you to douse me in oil. Though it sure did make it easy to slip free. I don’t suppose you’d give me that rag back?”

  “Oooo!” I tried to slow my hammering heart. I was not going to let myself get riled up by a straggly snot of a boy. “It was supposed to be boils, not oils!”

  “If it makes you happy, you did ruin my favorite jacket,” he said. “But I’ll take that over boils any day. And now I think I’ll leave you to your cabbages and your beauty charms. Though, if you ask me, you don’t need them. You’re pretty enough already. For a bog-witch.” I caught the flash of his grin before he slipped away, deeper into the garden.

  I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have a curse strong enough. Then the asparagus fronds rustled. Oh no.

  “Stop!” I cried.

  “I’m not sticking around to see—”

  “There’s a spirit-rending ward in the asparagus bed!”

  The rustling stopped.

  Why was I helping him? He deserved— No, blast it, he didn’t deserve to die. I knew that asparagus ward was Grandmother’s best and most terrible. Asparagus is her favorite. She doesn’t let anyone else have any, not even Ezzie.

  I licked my lips, forcing the words out. “Did you…did you already step on the crooked root?”

  “I’m standing on it now.” His bravado couldn’t entirely cover the shiver of fear in his voice. Good. At least he believed me.

  “Don’t move. If you step off it, the ward will trigger. Do you see something that looks like a big white stone?”

  “Yes…eagh…that’s not a stone.”

  “Crow skull,” I said, making my way gingerly through the pumpkin patch. I didn’t dare go much closer. Grandmother’s traps would get me as easily as they’d get the boy. “You’ll have to turn it round. So it’s not watching the root. But carefully! If you jiggle it, you’ll set it off.”

  “Don’t worry, I can handle that.”

  “I’m not worried. It would serve you right to get your spirit obliterated.”

  “Then why are you helping me?”

 
I was asking myself the same question. Bog-witches didn’t go around helping people, not unless they got something out of it.

  I still had no answer a moment later, when he strolled out from the asparagus bed, a single green spear clamped between his teeth. He snapped off the tip. “Not bad,” he said, crunching the mouthful. His boots squelched slightly as he stepped toward me. “Thanks for the warning. That was a spiffing good trap. I—well, of course I would have been fine, but, still, thanks. My name’s Barnaby, by the way.” He stuck out his hand.

  I don’t know what I would have done. My fingers shook. Half of me wanted to reach out and take his hand, while the other half still wanted to turn him into a frog. But I never found out, because that’s when Grandmother came back.

  She swept out from the night with her robes crackling. “Prunella!” she thundered. “What is this disgrace? I leave you to watch my garden and return to find you consorting with an Uplander?”

  The force of her anger pressed me back. Blast it, I was cowering. I couldn’t help it. “Grandmother, I—”

  She seized fistfuls of air, as if prepared to tear the night in two. “If you can’t keep the garden safe for one evening, how do you expect to become one of us?”

  “I am a Bogthistle,” I said, trying to ignore the shivers racing through me. Stinking sloughs, I could not cry in front of her. That would doom me forever. “Please, I just need another chance.”

  “Please? Please? When does a Bogthistle ever use that polite twaddle?” She swatted my hands aside. “What Bogthistle would free a thief rather than cursing him?”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” said the boy, with considerably more gumption than I would have expected, even from him. “She did curse me. Sort of…I mean, look at this jacket. It’ll never be the same.”

  I wanted to wring his neck and hug him at the same time.

  “That’s quite enough out of you, boy,” said Grandmother. She crossed her arms, her elbows poking out sharply. “I’ve given you chances, Prunella. I wanted to see you succeed. But it’s clear as cloudless skies that you just aren’t one of us.”