Stolen Magic (20 page)

T
he morning after His Lordship and Masteress Meenore returned to the Oase, they left again, along with Elodie, Albin, Nesspa (who would protect his master from the Potluck Farm cat), Master Tuomo, Mistress Sirka, and Goodman Dror. Mistress Sirka was going to help her beloved set up as a peddler, and they were to be wed.

The afternoon before they left, Goodman Dror explained his change of heart to High Brunka Marya in the great hall. Elodie hovered nearby to listen, in case she might someday mansion an excitable character who never knew her own mind and was easily influenced.

“I thought you loved being a bee,” the high brunka said. “I'm sorry to lose you.”

“You are?”

Mistress Sirka, standing at his side, prompted, “You didn't like it that High Brunka Marya could stop you from helping farmers. Bees have to listen to brunkas.”

“That's right. Mistress Sirka says a peddler is his own master.”

Elodie hid her smile. The husband of a barber-surgeon who dispensed love potions would not be his own master.

“And you adore me,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

Perhaps it would go well.
She
adored
him
.

After this exchange, Master Robbie asked Elodie to help him shovel snow outside. Below the stairs, they began to clear a path from the stable to the cottage.

“Master Tuomo offered to be my guardian. He said a man can't have too many sons.”

Really!

“But I'm staying at the Oase.”

She was glad. He'd be safe, and he could give his affection freely to the bees he liked; he wouldn't be obliged to love any particular one.

“Whenever a barber-surgeon comes, I'll watch him or her. The high brunka says I'll have tasks, too. It will be like working at an inn, the way I used to help Grandmother.” He plunged on. “We can start an inn together someday if detecting and barbering disappoint us.”

Lambs and calves! What to say? Elodie threw snow to
the side to give herself time.

She didn't know if she'd ever see him again after they left the Oase. She liked him, too, but not enough to become an innkeeper.

What to say? She shoveled harder, her back to him.

She couldn't answer as herself or she'd stammer in confusion. Mansion a heroine who'd know what to do. Which one?

Penelope! A heroine who excelled at putting suitors off without discouraging them.

She stopped shoveling.

Now his back was to her.

“Master Robbie?”

He turned, his face red. “I didn't mean— You may not—”

“Hush.” As Penelope, she had dignity and assurance. “Detecting and mansioning will always please me, but someday I may be in need of an original mind. Will you come?”

“Wherever you are, I'll come, by fast horse or quick cog.”

“Thank you.” Then, imagining Master Robbie as Odysseus, the hero of Penelope's tale, she leaned toward him and kissed his rosy cheek.

Master Tuomo chafed at the oxen's slow pace and remained with Elodie's party for only an hour before setting forth alone.

“Farewell.” He bowed to all of them from his horse,
rode off, wheeled, and came back. “Before I go, Masteress, if you have charge of the girl, take my advice: Treat her as you would your steed. Rein her in, and do not let her have her head.” He left them.

IT
enh enh enh
ed for several minutes. “As if I could do without your head, Lodie.”

Goodman Dror and Mistress Sirka stayed with the oxcarts for three days, riding their donkeys as close as the beasts would go to ITs warmth. When they rounded the southern slope of Svye Mountain, however, they said their good-byes. The farm cottage of Mistress Sirka's parents, where the two would be wed, squatted in the valley below the road.

Two days later, the oxcarts reached the caves where the people of Zertrum had gone for safety, and where some still sheltered, planning to pass the winter before rebuilding their homes in the spring. Widow Fridda and her daughters were there, and each bestowed a hug on His Lordship. Other folks crowded around, patted his leg, tried to pump his hand. Elodie had never seen him look so happy—

—or Masteress Meenore so vexed. ITs smoke stayed a bright pink and ITs tail twitched the whole time, as people coughed, smiled, bowed, and waved. Luckily for them, ITs odor kept folks from coming close enough for conversation.

The remaining journey to Potluck Farm took a week, slower than it might have, because the road around
Zertrum was still obscured by haze and was blocked here and there by boulders that His Lordship and the oxen had to work together to remove.

Elodie spent the last day worrying. Would her father be able to conquer his fear of her friends? Would her mother try to wrench her away from them?

Albin and His Lordship shared her fear. His Lordship even offered to shape-shift into his monkey, although Elodie asked him not to. In midafternoon they reached the track that wound up the mountain to Potluck Farm, and Albin went ahead to prepare the way.

After an anxious two hours, as the sun was setting, he returned with Goodwife Bettel and Goodman Han, Elodie's mother and father, the faces of both bathed in joy. They'd heard reports of the good ogre and the good dragon, but even if they hadn't, they'd have welcomed any creatures who brought their daughter home. Albin made the introductions. Elodie's father bowed so deeply, his nose touched his knees.

His Lordship almost equaled the courtesy. In his opinion, Elodie's parents ranked with royalty. Nesspa performed a dog version of a bow, chest on the ground, rump in the air.

Masteress Meenore performed ITs elaborate bow and curtsy. “You are to be congratulated for producing a mansioning and detecting prodigy.”

Lambs and calves!

Despite her happiness, Goodwife Bettel merely crossed her arms. “If you value my daughter so highly, why did you leave her in danger at the Oase?”

Hastily, Albin—who had already told the story of the theft and of Elodie's connection with her masteress—suggested they continue talking at the Potluck cottage. The party began to ascend.

Elodie noticed ITs smoke rising in white spirals as they climbed.

Her father came to her side. “Is IT”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“a
he
or a
she
?”

Enh enh enh
. IT had heard.

“IT doesn't say.”

The cottage could accommodate only an ogre's arm or a dragon's leg, so the humans brought a meal outside, and IT kept everyone warm. His Lordship sat on a tree stump with Nesspa at his feet while the humans perched on stools.

As she ladled pottage into bowls and a butter tub for His Lordship, Elodie's mother returned to her accusation. “Neither of you took good care of Lodie.”

“Lodie?”
Masteress Meenore's nasal voice rose in pitch. “You call her
Lodie
, too?”

Goodwife Bettel gaped at IT.

Elodie smiled.

IT collected ITself. “Life is risk, Madam, for children as
well as for adults. By being in danger, Lodie became more of what she can be. Why did you send her to Two Castles town?”

“To apprentice as a weaver.”

“A weaver? Mmm.”

Elodie hadn't confessed this to IT, since weaving had never been in her plan.

“You let her go because she showed no ability as a gooseherd. You let her go, although cogs have sunk in the strait and she had no one waiting for her and no preparation for the thieves of Two Castles, and she was, in fact, robbed on her first day.”

Elodie's mother paled. Her father gasped. Albin sent Elodie a worried look. His Lordship grinned.

IT pressed on. “You sent her away because she wanted a different sort of life than she could have on a farm, because existence here has its own perils: blizzards, rockslides even without a volcano, drops over cliffs, floods, fires. You sent her away because you love her. And I took her in because—” IT broke off, perhaps surprised at where ITs rhetoric was leading. “Come, Madam, we both regard your daughter as precious. Let us be friends in this.”

The contest ended. Goodwife Bettel busied herself with cutting bread for everyone. Elodie had never before seen her mother lose an argument.

“Elodie,” IT said, “your parents have heard the broad
outline but not the particulars of discovering the thieves and the Replica.”

This was an invitation to mansion. By firelight the two mansioners enacted events at the Oase and on Zertrum, Albin taking the male roles and Elodie the female. They did well and the applause was enthusiastic.

Elodie sat back down between her parents.

Goodman Han sighed. “It's a happy ending, but . . .”

“But it's very sad,” her mother finished. “Master Uwald . . . Johan-bee . . . I don't want to feel sorry for them, but I do.”

“Masteress?” Elodie said. “When there's a crime and you detect, when it's finished, is the ending ever truly happy?”

“Rarely.”

Silence fell until IT said, “I do not relish a life lived out of doors. Your Lordship, when we reach Tair—”

“I'm not going to Tair.”

“You're not?” Elodie cried.

“Nesspa and I will be bees on Zertrum for a while.”

Dismayed, Elodie wondered if her masteress would stay on Lahnt, too. Would she have to herd geese again?

ITs smoke turned green—a confused dragon. “You will rusticate here, Your Lordship?”

“Wonderful!” Elodie's father put his arm around Elodie's shoulder.

Elodie flashed a look of appeal at her masteress.

Goodman Han continued happily. “Folks will need help, Your Lordship, and you can stay with us when you're not—”

“Nesspa and I will live better than most bees.”

Meaning His Lordship didn't intend to live in the open outside a cottage. Elodie blushed for her friend's rudeness, which she knew he hadn't meant.

IT scratched ITs snout. “In the spring Elodie and I will continue on to Tair.”

Phew! Elodie thought.

“Why?” Goodwife Bettel sounded ready to start another argument.

“I am a creature of town and city, of lair and hoard.” ITs smoke spiraled. “I prefer the rub and chafe of people, fools though most of you be.”

“Mother?” Elodie's father said, clearly hoping she would forbid their daughter to go.

But Goodwife Bettel accepted ITs decision. “Masteress, do you usually allow my daughter to be awake so late into the night?”

A
week after Elodie and her companions left the Oase, the earl of Lahnt arrived. High Brunka Marya pleaded for leniency for Johan-bee, taking on herself some of the blame for his part in the theft.

The earl, whose orchards on Zertrum had been ruined, condemned Master Uwald to spend the rest of his life in prison. Johan's sentence was ten years, and he was no longer a bee.

Master Tuomo visited his former master occasionally, perhaps out of gratitude for saving his sons. At first he gave Master Uwald a few coins so he might wager with the prison guards, but generosity became unnecessary, because Master Uwald had regained his luck, and he amassed considerable wealth in his confinement, which he put aside as
an inheritance for Master Robbie.

Nockess Farm had taken the worst of the volcano: buildings collapsed, soil stony, flocks and herds scattered. Master Tuomo soon grew disgusted with the character of the new owner, Master Erick, and quit to purchase his own farm with his sons.

Master Robbie never visited Master Uwald. He finished out his childhood at the Oase. Deeter-bee taught him to read, and he devoured every book on healing. Even before he was fully grown, the high brunka ceased sending for a barber-surgeon when a bee was ill or afflicted with toothache. He wrote often to Elodie. She answered, and a correspondence flourished between them.

The Replica on its pedestal had pride of place in the center of the Oase's great hall. When guests came, Deeter-bee stood next to it, recounting the tale of its latest theft.

In the spring, Masteress Meenore and Elodie left Lahnt, after a tearful farewell that was made less sad by ITs promise to return regularly on the wing with Elodie, who was sure she had been granted the best of everything: frequent visits with her parents and Albin and the fascinating life of a detecting dragon's assistant.

In the northern harbor village of Dew they boarded the cog for Tair, where they planned to see the sights and where Elodie would proclaim, as she'd been hired to do:
“Today, in the kingdom of Tair and only in the kingdom of Tair, the Great, the Unfathomable, the Brilliant Meenore is available to solve riddles, find lost objects and lost people, and answer the unanswerable. Speak to IT with respect.”

Photo by David Levine

GAIL CARSON LEVINE
's first book for children,
Ella Enchanted
, was a Newbery Honor Book. Levine's other books include
Ever
, a
New York Times
bestseller;
Fairest
, a Best Book of the Year for
Publishers Weekly
and
School Library Journal
, and a
New York Times
bestseller;
Dave at Night
, an ALA Notable Book and Best Book for Young Adults;
The Wish
;
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
;
A Tale of Two Castles
; and the six Princess Tales books. She is also the author of the nonfiction books
Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly
and
Writer to Writer: From Think to Ink
, as well as the picture books
Betsy Who Cried Wolf
and
Betsy Red Hoodie
. Gail Carson Levine and her husband, David, live in a two-centuries-old farmhouse in the Hudson Valley of New York State. You can visit her online at
www.gailcarsonlevinebooks.com
and at
www.gailcarsonlevine.blogspot.com
.

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