A Well-Timed Enchantment

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "That's hard to say," Lady Marguerite answered. "Algernon comes and goes. Why don't you ask him?"

  "Maybe I will," Deanna said. She was sure she'd made the wrong decision.

  Late in the afternoon, Leonard joined them. He brought a mandolin, which he played softly, but at least he didn't say anything embarrassing.

  By evening she could make passable button holes; but while buttonholes were nice, they were hardly in the same class as saving human civilization. On the other hand, surely Oliver had everything under control. Surely. She hoped.

  Oh, Oliver, she thought as she went back to her room to freshen up before the evening meal, be there. Please be there.

  He wasn't.

  NINE

  Evening

  Someone, someone—if she had three guesses, they'd all be Leonard—someone had put a potted rosebush outside her door. Deanna unsnagged her gown from it, then went inside and sat down on the edge of her bed in exhaustion. "Freshen up," they had said, as though it weren't her very life that was at stake. Lady Marguerite, after quizzing her on what might be Oliver's favorite color, had announced that she would change for supper. They were all supposed to meet in the Great Hall. Deanna threw down the silly conical hat in frustration.

  Someone tapped on the door.

  Oliver! she thought. But before she could say anything, Baylen's voice called, "Lady Deanna?"

  She told herself that the sinking sensation she felt was due to her need to compare notes with Oliver, to see what he had found out, and perhaps lay new plans. "Yes? What is it?"

  Baylen entered. She still thought his droopy mustache gave him a romantic, melancholy air, but she had long since come to the conclusion that all of Castle Belesse's inhabitants were at least a little loopy. He said, "Father said to stop by when it was time to eat so you don't get lost getting to the Hall again."

  "Thank you." Mr. Tact. "Did you find anything?"

  "Find," he said, "anything?"

  It was difficult for her to keep from shouting. "My quest."

  "Oh," he said. "That. We didn't get started yet."

  This time she didn't even try to keep her voice level. "What do you mean, you didn't get started yet? You've been gone all afternoon."

  "Yes, but Father wanted to test Oliver out first See how good he is with a sword, that sort of thing. Why? Is there some rush with this quest thing?"

  "Yes, of course there's a rush—what do you mean your father wanted to test how good he is with a sword?" she shouted all in one breath. She had a sudden awful thought. "You don't mean your father challenged him to a sword fight?"

  Baylen nodded.

  "Is he all right?" Deanna's heart pounded hard enough to hurt.

  "Your Oliver? Sure. It was a friendly match. No training, but he's got good fighter's instincts—always lands on his feet."

  Idiot, she thought, now that she knew Oliver was safe. And just what did Baylen mean by Your Oliver?

  Baylen glanced out into the corridor. "Here he comes. Father set me to watch over him once he got sick."

  "Who got sick?" Deanna asked, hoping, though it wasn't nice, that Baylen meant Sir Henri. But one look at Oliver answered her. For someone who was pale to begin with, he had no color at all, and his hair was damp around the edges as though he'd just rinsed his face.

  "Him," Baylen said. "Been sicker than a dog most of the afternoon." He didn't see the look Oliver shot behind his back at that. "Maybe something you ate," he suggested.

  That didn't bear thinking about at all. "Are you all right?" Deanna asked. Oliver didn't look too steady on his feet.

  He nodded, his eyes looking overly large in his white and pinched face.

  Baylen clapped him heartily on the shoulder. "Well, ready for supper, then?"

  It wouldn't take much, Deanna thought, for Oliver to either throw up or go for Baylen's throat. "You know," she said, "maybe it'd be a good idea to skip supper this once. Oliver needs time for his stomach to settle, and I had a bigger lunch than usual so I'm not hungry at all. Why don't you thank your family for us, but tell them we'd rather not eat?"

  "I don't know." Baylen scratched his belly reflectively. "Aunt Marguerite's not going to be too well pleased."

  Deanna could imagine. She smiled and stayed where she was.

  Baylen shrugged. "Right, then."

  She waited for him to leave, then turned to Oliver. "Why didn't you look for the watch?" she demanded.

  "You said to go with them and do what they said," he pointed out.

  It was true, and he looked so sick and weak she relented. "I think you better lie down. Come on, let's get you back to your room." She put her arm around him, afraid that he might faint or collapse on the way, but found that he was steadier than he appeared. He jumped, startled at her touch, and after that it seemed somehow impolite to withdraw her arm. She escorted him to his chamber halfway down the corridor, embarrassed to death and hoping he couldn't tell.

  "There you go," she said cheerfully as he got onto the bed. He didn't go under the covers but just curled up on top, looking miserable. "Anything I can get you?"

  "Like what?"

  "1 don't know. Water? A blanket?" Take two aspirin and call me in the morning, she thought wryly. They didn't even have aspirin here. What if he was really sick?

  He shook his head. "Why aren't you going to supper?"

  "I thought it'd be a good chance to take a look in the wizard's room, while everybody's in the Hall. Explore."

  Oliver sat up. "Not alone."

  She couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement. "Yes, alone. You're in no shape to come along."

  Oliver paused to reflect on her wording. "I'm well enough." He stood gingerly. He swayed a bit, blinked those big green eyes, then started for the door.

  "Oliver, stay."

  It had never worked when he was a cat, and it didn't work now. He held the door, waiting. "Darn you," she said. But time was running out. Tomorrow would be too late.

  The wizard had said he lived in the tower, and that was easy to find: all they had to do to keep track was stick their heads out the windows—to the end of the corridor, up a flight of stairs, down another, around a couple of corners, through a columned gallery, around one corner, up a long curved stairway inside the tower itself, and they were there.

  There was no handle or latch or lock on the door. Apparently you just pushed the door and walked in. That wasn't what she had expected. She didn't know what she had expected, but this wasn't it. Deanna straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and put her hand to the door.

  "We're assuming he's in the Hall with the rest of the family?" Oliver asked.

  Good point. Deanna put her ear to the heavy oak door. Nothing. She knocked once, softly. Then again, louder. She took another breath. She pushed the door open fast lest she think better of it.

  The room was empty. Not only no wizard, but none of the wizardly apparatus Deanna had anticipated. No furniture, for that matter. Totally bare. Nothing. The walls were pure white, the stone floor was white, the ceiling—high as all the castle ceilings were high, but not so high as to be in shadow—the ceiling was white. There was no other door, no staircase leading away. They could see the orange blaze of the setting sun through the window, the only glassed-in window she had seen in the castle, whose other casements were protected against the weather by wooden shutters.

  "This must be the wrong room," Deanna mused, though there was only one tower, and they were in it, and all the long spiraling flight up, there had been no other doors.

  When Oliver didn't answer, she glanced at him. He had taken a step away, so that his back was against the wall opposite the landing from the door. He had his teeth bared.

  "Oliver?" she said, remembering what had happened the last time she had ignored his instincts. He looked at her. Scared, she realized. "What's the matter?"

  "Don't you feel it? The same as by the well. The same as in the courtyard when you acted so strangely with the wizard."

  Magic
. That was what he was saying. He felt magic in the air. She glanced at the room but there was nothing there. Just an empty room. A clean, well-lighted, empty room.

  In a slightly dingy, dark, crowded castle.

  And where was all that light coming from, with the sun setting and no candles?

  That thought set cold fingers dancing on her back and arms.

  But she had come here for a purpose: to retrieve her watch. She had been expecting something wizardly. Just because it manifested itself in the form of an empty white room was no reason to get all goosebumpy.

  She stepped inside. Was it cooler this side of the doorway, or was that just her imagination? She took another step. Something brushed her leg. She jumped with a startled squeak. Nothing there. She yanked her gown up to her knees and brushed at her right calf, where she had felt the spidery touch. She shook the skirt in case anything had gotten up in there.

  Oliver hadn't moved away from the far wall. But he had his head tipped as though listening, and he was sniffing the air.

  Deanna paused to listen and heard nothing. She sniffed, too. Incense, maybe. A slight mustiness. She took another step toward the window, and her foot came down on something she couldn't see.

  Something that jerked out from under her with a shrill cry like a peacock's.

  She jumped backward, hitting her hip. Glass crashed as though she had upset a table. The unseen creature she had stepped on cried out again while some bodiless thing in the corner gibbered and hooted and screeched. Perhaps she was safe from that one, for there was a rattling sound also, as though whatever it was shook the bars of a cage.

  Cold fingers, or at least they felt like cold fingers, wrapped themselves around her ankle. Deanna screamed. She tried to pull away, kicking with her other foot at whatever it was that held her. The room was still white and well lit and empty, but great flapping wings swooped near her face, tangling in her hair just long enough to make her lose her balance. She fell, still kicking at the thing which gurgled and licked at her ankle.

  Her flailing hands knocked over more glass. A smell like chlorine bleach tickled her nostrils. Spilled liquid dripped audibly near her head, sizzling ominously, though there was no visible damage to the white floor. She swung her leg around toward that sound, and whatever had hold of her ankle hissed and let go.

  Hands grabbed her wrists. She tensed to break away, then realized it was Oliver. He dragged her to her feet.

  Her hands came close to something hot, but she ignored that, as she ignored the invisible glass crunching underfoot while Oliver pulled her toward the door.

  Suddenly he pitched forward, letting go of her so as not to yank her down with him. He fell to one knee, brushing away at something which—judging from his expression—must be disgustingly sticky.

  This time she pulled him to his feet She got him through the doorway and pulled the door closed behind them.

  They both dropped to their knees in exhaustion on the landing. They had their arms around each other and this time she wasn't embarrassed at all.

  "Do you think he'll notice someone's been in there?" she asked once she caught her breath.

  Oliver gave her a look which indicated cats— even former cats—didn't recognize sarcasm when they heard it.

  She thought of how scared he had looked, refusing to come into the room, and how despite that he had come in when she had been in danger. She gave him a little hug, then stood, brushing herself off. "Never mind. We won't go back in there again in a hurry."

  "Good," he said.

  When they returned to the corridor where their rooms were, they almost stepped into a linen-covered tray which someone had left outside Oliver's door. Farther down the hall, Deanna spotted a similar offering by her door.

  So, someone had brought them dinner. No telling who it had been. No telling, either, whether that someone had knocked on their doors and realized that they weren't in.

  "Hungry?" she asked Oliver.

  He shook his head. His face still had no color in it. She brought his tray into his room anyway, then fetched hers. She plunked herself down on his bed, her legs crossed under her long full skirt, with her tray on her lap.

  "Let's see. Pigeon..." Her Aunt Emilienne had prepared that when Deanna and her mother had first arrived, so she recognized it. "...stuffed with ... pork, I think ... mushrooms ... fresh bread ... some sort of apple compote..." She patted the bed next to her. "You've got to eat, Oliver."

  He looked like someone who's remembering the taste of vomiting.

  "Oliver, apparently this new body of yours can't handle—" She fought off a wave of nausea of her own. "—what you're used to eating. But you can't just stop eating all the while we're here." She peered into the pitcher. "Milk!" She sniffed. "Or cream." Definitely not two percent.

  At least that got his attention.

  She motioned again for him to sit and this time he warily lowered himself next to her. She poured the milk into each of their goblets.

  "Cheers," she said, which sophisticated people on TV said, and tapped his goblet with hers.

  He watched her drink, then raised his cup, two-handed, to his mouth. For a moment he came close to choking, but then he managed nicely.

  She patted his leg encouragingly. "How about some meat?" She cut a piece and held it out on the end of the knife. One thing she had seen at lunch in the Great Hall was that she didn't have to worry about teaching Oliver fastidious table manners—these medieval people used knives, but no forks. The only spoons she had seen had been the ones on Lady Marguerite's nightstand.

  Oliver nibbled on the pigeon.

  "How is it?"

  He nodded and took another bite.

  And so it went. He hated carrots, but ate two or three mushrooms. Once she dunked the bread in milk, and he liked that. The apple he admitted was interesting, but he only took one bite. He spat out the wine, which she asked him not to do again, no matter what, and by then he was leaning against her shoulder, his eyes drooping heavily.

  "I'll put the tray here, and if you get hungry later on, the stuff should be just as good cold." But by the time she set the tray by the window and turned back to him, he was curled up, asleep already.

  She was used to people taking care of her. How had she ended up being responsible for somebody else? There was some sort of fur skin folded at the foot of the bed—wolf? she wondered—which she took to be the medieval equivalent of a comforter. She tucked it up around Oliver, then carried her tray back to her room.

  TEN

  Octavia

  Deanna took one step into her room, then stopped with a sigh.

  She looked down. She sighed yet again.

  She had put her right foot down into a huge bowl of blueberries someone—someone? Leonard, who else?—had left for her. Crushed blueberries oozed over the top of her castle slipper. Thick purple juice soaked through the fabric along the length of her foot, sticking her toes together.

  Deanna lifted her leg. The foot came clear of the bowl with a rude, sucking noise. She watched as pieces of fruit slid off the slipper and plopped back into the bowl. "Thank you, Leonard," she muttered to herself. "You shouldn't have." She took off the slipper and hopped across the room to the table with the water pitcher, dripping a purple trail.

  She cleaned her foot, and the slipper, as best she could, then set the slipper on the windowsill to dry.

  It was beginning to get dark out there, the day almost gone, and she'd accomplished nothing. She stared across the way at the wall that surrounded the castle, protecting its inhabitants. Protecting her, for this one more night. Tomorrow ... tomorrow was a different matter.

  Deanna was angry. Angry with herself for being unable to think what to do, angry with Oliver—who'd been sent to help her and was too busy flirting with Lady Marguerite and learning swordsmanship and getting sick to even be here with her, angry with Leonard and his gifts, angry with the elves, angry with the castle wall, angry with the words the ivy formed on the wall, angry with—

&nbs
p; Deanna stopped in the middle of turning from the window.

  Angry with the words the ivy formed on the wall?

  She took a step away from the window, but only one. Behind her, the setting sun cast an orange glow across the treetops. Slowly she turned back to the window. The vines had formed a pattern on the wall, and they were words.

  What the ivy said was: Talk to the pigman, dumb twit of a human girl

  Oh no, she thought. If the fair folk had known all along, why hadn't they told her to begin with? With a groan of exasperation she put the cold, wet slipper back on and tore out of the room. And almost collided with the wizard.

  "Good evening, Lady Deanna," he said, fingering her watch, which hung by a chain around his neck. "Looking for this?"

  Deanna took a quick step back. "No," she said, remembering to avoid Algernon's eyes. He seemed to have no power over her if she just remembered to avoid his eyes. And, anyway, her gaze was stuck on her watch, dangling by its buckle on the wizard's chest. "Not at all. What is it?"

  He leaned close. Close enough that she could see Mickey Mouse's red shorts. Close enough that Algernon's breath lifted a stray wisp of hair from her cheek. "Something very exciting," he purred. "Something more exciting than anything in my tower room."

  Startled to find her intrusion had been discov ered so quickly, Deanna looked up. She backed away, and saw the gleam of triumph on Algernon's face.

  "Are you and your inhuman companion willing to bargain, Lady Deanna? Are you willing to talk about it?"

  Bargain? She turned and ran. Her heart beat so loudly she couldn't hear if footsteps followed. "Oliver!" she cried, bursting into his room. She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it.

  Oliver had jumped up from the bed, instantly awake and alert "What's wrong?"