The Salamander Spell (13 page)

“Then I’ll stop it,” Grassina said under her breath as she kicked the lightning-bug basket as hard as she could. The basket careened into the wall, splintering the brittle wicker and freeing all the bugs. Suddenly, they were everywhere—crawling, flying, skittering, hopping, and inching their way across the room. Although Grassina ducked away from the flying insects, they flew past her in a swarm that twinkled like stars, knocking over bottles, books, and anything else that stood between them and the queen.

Olivene screamed when the first wave hit, shocking her with their wings, their legs, their bodies. She started hopping around on one foot, then the other as the crawling bugs reached her. Grabbing her sister’s hand, Grassina pulled her out of the room and into the corridor where the girls threw their arms around each other, laughing.

Ten

I
’m not going back down there!” Chartreuse cried later that night. “It’s a horrible place. I don’t ever want to set foot in there again.”

Grassina patted her sister’s arm. “It’s all right. I’ll go by myself. I want to see if the door to Father’s room is still locked. We’ll have to arrange for his funeral tomorrow, but I wanted to see him first.”

Chartreuse glared at her sister. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it’s not going to work. I loved him, too, you know.”

“I’m not
trying
to do anything. Mother went out, so I came to see if you wanted to go with me. Since you don’t . . .” Grassina shrugged. She didn’t really want to go by herself, but she would if it was the only way.

Chartreuse sputtered. “You’re going down there? By yourself? At
night
? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

Grassina slipped off the edge of her sister’s bed and started for the door. “I’m sorry I woke you. I didn’t want to wait any longer to see him, and I thought you’d want to go, too. Go back to sleep and I’ll see you in the—”

Throwing back the covers, Chartreuse shot Grassina a nasty look. “Oh, stop being the martyr. You know I can’t let you go by yourself. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you, too. Just give me a few minutes to get dressed and we’ll go to the lousy dungeon. I must be crazy to do this,” she muttered, reaching for her tunic.

“That is the absolute last place I want to go at night.”

“I don’t understand why,” said Grassina. “There’s nothing down there that can hurt us.”

“Oh yes, there is,” said Chartreuse. “Mother!”

Although it was always dark in the dungeon, it seemed even darker at night. There were only a few small windows to let in a breath of air, and none where the girls were going, yet the dungeon
felt
different than it did during the day. A sense of silent waiting pervaded the air as if the dungeon knew that something was about to happen. As neither of the girls wanted to see what that something might be, they hurried down the corridor, slowing to a quiet tiptoe only when they passed the door to their mother’s workroom.

This time when they tried their father’s door, it wasn’t locked. The girls slowly pushed the door open, and Grassina held up the torch she’d carried with her. Except for broken furniture and torn bits of parchment littering the floor, the room was empty.

“Where’s Father?” said Grassina, peering into the corners.

“You think I keep dead bodies around here, cluttering up the place, just so people can come and gawk?” said their mother from the doorway.

Grassina turned slowly to face her. “I thought you’d gone out.”

Olivene chortled. “Obviously—or else you wouldn’t be here. Well, I’m here and he’s not. I had him buried hours ago.”

“Without letting us say good-bye?” cried Chartreuse.

“I said good-bye for you. And now I’m saying goodbye
to
you. Good-bye. Go away. I want my peace and quiet.”

The girls slunk out of the room under their mother’s gaze. They hadn’t gone far when they stepped into the fog. It had grown since Grassina had seen it last, and it smelled even worse than before.

“What is that stench?” asked Chartreuse, wrinkling her nose.

“I think it’s magic Mother released from the walls. At least I saw it coming out of the wall earlier, and I saw a spell for releasing magic in Mother’s workroom.”

“You saw a spell for releasing magic and didn’t tell me? Don’t you see, that might work on me!” In her excitement, Chartreuse turned around and was about to go back when Grassina stopped her.

“What are you going to do, ask Mother for the book?” said Grassina.

Chartreuse shuddered. “You’re right. Never mind. It probably wouldn’t work on a person anyway. And if it did, it probably wouldn’t do me any good, not if it was one of Mother’s spells.” She stopped talking to peer into the darkness that seemed to move just beyond the light of the torch. “What is that? Is someone there?”

Grassina looked in the direction her sister was pointing. “It’s probably this fog. It makes things look different.”

“Maybe so, but it looks so real, almost as if—”

“I may not know a lot about courtly manners, but it seems to me that pointing is rude,” said a wavering voice. “Who do you think you are, chit, pointing at me that way?”

“Now Hubert,” said a younger and steadier voice, “I’m sure the girl didn’t mean any harm by it.”

“Who are
you
?” demanded Chartreuse, looking at the two approaching figures. “Are you blind that you can’t see to whom you’re speaking? I’m Princess Chartreuse and this is my sister, Princess Grassina. I expect, no, I demand an apology this . . .”

Chartreuse’s voice faded away as Hubert and his companion drew closer. It wasn’t so much the way the old, stooped figure in the tattered tunic and his younger, well-dressed companion walked that drew her eye as the way they weren’t walking at all. Both men appeared to be floating a few feet above the ground, which was convenient since neither one seemed to have any legs below their knees. The rest of their bodies began to materialize as she watched, open-mouthed, although they remained slightly transparent.

“Are you . . . Can you be . . . Is it possible . . . ,” stammered Chartreuse.

“They must be ghosts,” Grassina whispered in her sister’s ear.

“Ghosts?” Chartreuse said, the word ending in a squeak.

“Pardon me, Your Highness,” said the younger figure. “I’m Sir Jarvis, and this is my friend Hubert. At your service.” With a polished gesture, the ghost whipped off his pointed cap and bowed deeply. Chartreuse gasped when his head fell off and rolled across the floor.

The head came to a stop faceup, but its lips had collected dirt as it rolled. “Pleh! Pleh!” Sir Jarvis spit, then rubbed his lips together and said, “I’m so sorry, Your Highness. There are still times I forget that I’m not all one piece.”

Chartreuse’s voice reached a higher octave when the headless body began patting the ground with its right hand. She swayed when its right arm dropped off.

“Don’t lose your head, Jarvis,” said Hubert. The hand on Sir Jarvis’s unattached arm was still patting the ground when Hubert picked up the head and set it back on his friend’s neck.

“Ah, there we are,” Sir Jarvis said, reaching with his remaining arm for the one on the floor. “It’s been more than two hundred years since I was drawn and quartered, but one tends to forget such things.”

Chartreuse swayed once and collapsed, lying sprawled on the cold stone floor.

Sir Jarvis was still talking when he shoved his arm bone into the socket. “I apologize for . . . Oh dear, I believe the young lady has fainted.”

Grassina dropped to her knees. “Chartreuse! Are you all right?”

“I think we should go,” Sir Jarvis told Hubert. “There’s nothing we can do, and no one wants to be in such an embarrassing position around strangers.”

“She must be weak in the head,” said Hubert, “fainting that way and all.”

“Quite possibly,” said Sir Jarvis as the ghosts faded away. “Too much inbreeding in the royal lines, you know.”

“Chartreuse!” said Grassina, shaking her. “Wake up! You can’t stay here.” When her sister didn’t respond, she slapped her once on each cheek.

Chartreuse opened her eyes. “What are you doing? What happened?”

“You fainted. If you stand up, we’ll . . .”

“Don’t make up stories, Grassina.” Chartreuse pushed herself up with her elbows. “I’ve never fainted in my life. I’m not one of those weak-kneed Nellies who can’t . . . What is
that
?”

The fog had moved on, but something else was coming their way. A shape even darker than the deepest shadows was drifting toward them out of the gloom. About the size of a calf, it had glittering red eyes that glared malevolently at them. Chartreuse scrambled to her feet, clutching Grassina’s hand for support. “Let’s go, Grassina. Let’s get out of here.”

“I’d love to, except we have to go that way to get to the stairs,” Grassina replied, gesturing toward the corridor past the shadow beast.

Grassina could feel her sister’s hand tremble as they backed away. She suddenly had the urge to protect her, a feeling so unfamiliar that she surprised herself, but Chartreuse was her last living relative, or at least the last one who felt like family. As Chartreuse took another step back, the red eyes swung in her direction.

“Don’t move, Chartreuse,” said Grassina, but it was too late. The shadow beast was charging straight at her older sister.

“Oh no, you don’t,” shouted Grassina. Pulling back her fist, she stepped in front of Chartreuse and punched the shadow squarely between its glowing red eyes. With an anguished howl, the shadow beast stopped in its tracks, turned tail, and ran the other way.

“Thank goodness,” said Chartreuse, her voice sounding as unsteady as she looked. Tidying her hair with one hand, she took the torch from Grassina and started for the stairs, going faster when she heard the tap of her own footsteps. Grassina was right behind her when she reached the top. As the dungeon door closed behind them, Grassina started to say good night, but Chartreuse didn’t give her the chance.

“Don’t you dare say a word. For once I want you to listen to what I have to say. I told you I didn’t want to go down there, but you insisted. We had to go see Father, who wasn’t even there. And you said that Mother was gone, except she wasn’t! And then you stood there like a stick when . . . when something tried to frighten me to death, and then there was that
monster
! Were you trying to get me killed? That was it, wasn’t it? You’ve always been jealous of me. You spoiled my lessons so my magic wouldn’t start and laughed at me when I tried to learn in spite of you. You hate me so much that you want to see me dead. I think you want to see all of us dead. I bet you were happy that Father died. I bet those tears were all a pretense. You’re just as bad as Mother. You don’t even need a curse to turn you into a horrible person. You were born that way. Do us both a favor and stay away from me. I don’t ever want to hear you or any of your ideas again. I wish you weren’t my sister. I wish you’d never been born!”

Grassina was stunned. She knew that encountering the ghosts and the shadow beast had rattled Chartreuse, but even that wouldn’t account for all the horrible things she’d said. Grassina watched, gasping for air as Chartreuse whirled around and strode down the hall.

Eleven

G
rassina didn’t sleep at all that night, although she tried for the first few hours. After that, she wrapped herself in her blanket and curled up on the window ledge to gaze at the night sky. She didn’t know what to do. The life she’d always known was over; nothing would ever be the same again now that her father was gone. Chartreuse would probably become queen soon since she wanted it so much and their mother obviously didn’t care. Because Chartreuse seemed to blame Grassina for everything bad that had ever happened, Grassina was sure that one of Chartreuse’s first acts as queen of Greater Greensward would be to banish her younger sister. And if she didn’t banish Grassina, she’d probably see her married off to one of the least desirable suitors. Perhaps it would be the one who hadn’t bathed since the day he was born. Then again, if Chartreuse didn’t marry her off, she might keep her at the castle as some sort of slave to appease Olivene, making Grassina do all the nasty chores for their mother. As far as Grassina could see, her future at the castle would be awful no matter what Chartreuse decided.

As the first rays of sunlight turned the night sky from black to gray, Grassina collected a change of clothes and all of her throwing stones, wrapping them in a blanket. Loaded down with this bundle, she was the first person to cross the drawbridge that morning.

Grassina went as far as the edge of the practice field before glancing back at the castle one last time. The sight of the mist-shrouded moat, the pennants floating from the tops of the turrets, and the silvery stone of the castle fortifications almost made her want to cry. “No more of that,” Grassina muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. She’d cried enough over the last few days to last her a lifetime and was afraid that if she got started again, she might not be able to stop.

Hurrying past the practice field, she tried not to think about the last time she’d seen her father there, talking and laughing with his men. She ducked her head, refusing to look at the tree house. After bringing Marniekins and Hector back to the castle, she’d left them in a special hiding place in the buttery. She knew it was foolish, but she regretted that she hadn’t taken the time to say good-bye. It almost felt as if she’d deserted old friends. And then there was Pippa, a new friend who must think she’d been abandoned, too.