The Runaway Princess (11 page)

Authors: Kate Coombs

BOOK: The Runaway Princess

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“Can't risk any of that dropping.”

Meg adjusted the straps and soldiered on. Really, it was a beautiful day. If she hadn't been so worried about Cam, she would have enjoyed the sunlight through the leaves, the flash of birds' wings, the red brush of a fox flickering through the undergrowth â¦ The fox had been trailing them for some time now, Meg realized. “That fox wants frog for lunch,” she observed.

Gorba turned around and locked eyes with the fox. She said something in yips and barks that sent him scrambling away through the forest without a backward glance.

Meg was thrilled. “Will you teach me to speak fox?” she asked the witch.

But Gorba insisted on turning the topic to romance. “First tell me how you feel when you gaze deep into the gardener's boy's eyes.”

Meg put her hands on her hips. “He's my friend. That's
all
!” she exclaimed.

The witch seemed to hear her this time. “Friend, is
it?” Gorba was silent for so long that the frogs started dropping again and had to be put back by the scarf. Meg noticed the surprise of several flies when the green menaces followed them into the air.

Meg was just beginning to believe Gorba had accepted her word about her friendship with Cam when the witch asked, too casually, “Do you happen to have half a ring on a chain about your neck?”

Meg groaned. “No!” She rushed to climb over a fallen tree, trying to get out of earshot of the persistent old woman. Instead she scraped her shin and the witch caught up with her, frogs and all.

“Your young âfriend' will have the other half, of course,” Gorba said. “He's just biding his time.”

“He's notâ”

“Then he'll drop it in your goblet at your wedding dinner, and just as you're about to marry the wrong prince, you'll remember everything.”

“I told you, I don't
have
half a ring!” Meg cried.

“Maybe,” Gorba said, her eyes bright, “you've forgotten that, too.”

The witch's scarf snickered. Meg scowled at it when Gorba wasn't looking. Then she shook her head. Who cared what the witch thought? The only thing that mattered was rescuing Cam. “Whatever he is,” Meg said, “I want him back.”

“That's right, dear,” Gorba said smugly. She whistled a well-known Greevian love ballad the rest of the way through the forest, with the frogs providing a backbeat.

IT WASN'T HARD TO FIND JANNA'S FARM IN the daylight. The only trouble was keeping other people from seeing the witch and her frogs along the way. Whenever Meg saw someone coming, she would shoo Gorba off the road. Once, when they came around a bend and saw a peddler nearly upon them, the witch said a sharp word to her scarf. All of the frogs shot up into the branches of the nearest tree, where they pretended to be leaves.

The peddler's face paled. “Did you see something just now? A sort of green cloud?”

Meg tried to look baffled.

“The gnats are bad,” Gorba said conversationally.

She and Meg bought some needles and thread from the man to distract him from dangerous topics. He seemed inclined to chat, but they managed to send him on his way, and Gorba retrieved her frogs.

When the little group finally reached Hookhorn
Farm, Meg asked Gorba to wait out of sight while she spoke to Cam's sister.

Meg found Janna chasing the dragon around the chicken yard with a broom. Laddy was gulping a string of sausages as fast as he could. He swallowed the last with a snap and flopped down, rolling over onto his back.

“You want me to scratch your belly after you stole my lunch?” Janna demanded.

“He seems well,” Meg said, unshouldering her heavy pack.

“If it isn't the royal pain,” Janna said wryly. “Come for your baby?”

“No,” Meg said. But she knelt and called to the creature. The dragon trotted to her side, laying his head against her knee. “Well, hello there. Who's my beautiful boy?” she asked, scratching him between the ears. For a moment she forgot why she had come.

“Where's Cam?” Janna asked, reminding her abruptly.

Meg opened her mouth, but Gorba spoke first, stepping around the corner of the farmhouse. “It isn't much of a resort.”

“Resort?” Janna said. “Who is this, Meg?”

“It's more of a refuge, a sanctuary,” Meg told the witch.

“Oh, really?” Janna asked, her mouth tightening. “What are you up to now?”

“This poor old womanâ”

“Witch,” Gorba corrected.

“Poor old witch Gorba has been hounded from her homeâ”

“Princed, more like,” Gorba said.

“And needs a place to stay. Just for a little while,” Meg finished hastily, before Gorba could interrupt again.

Janna folded her arms. “This is not an inn, young lady. You can take your dragon and your witchâbegging your pardon, ma'amâand find a proper place to put them!”

“She said she'd help us get Cam back,” Meg said quietly. “He's gone.”

Janna looked from the somber old face to the somber young one. Her own face fell. “Come inside,” she told them.

Nearby, a bullfrog croaked.

Janna turned around. Dozens of golden eyes were peering out from beneath the lowest rung of the fence.

“I brought a few friends,” Gorba said.

After Janna had heard Meg's story, she agreed to let Gorba stay. There was no more talk of Laddy's leaving. Meg suspected Janna was growing attached to the little dragon. He hadn't eaten the cats; in fact, the cats now napped around him as if he were a spare hearth.

But Janna refused to let the frogs in the house. “Frogs in the frog pond,” she said, and Gorba was forced to send her companions out to the end of the pasture.

“They'll mix with common frogs,” Gorba muttered, but Janna's mind was made up.

Over a cup of tea, Meg and Gorba and Janna sat at the kitchen table discussing how to rescue Cam. Even though the witch was nervous about leaving the frogs on the farm, she offered to come with Meg to find the wizard. “What would you say to him?” Meg asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

“I know how to address wizards,” Gorba said loftily. She grimaced, frightening the cats. “Cut-rate wannabe witches.”

“There's something else that would help me more,” Meg said. She had been thinking during the long whistling walk through the forest. “I need a way to stay out of the tower.”

“But you are out.”

“She wants to keep it that way,” Janna remarked, sitting down in the rocker and putting her feet up on Laddy's warm back.

The three of them considered the possibilities. “What about a spell to make Arbel forget he's seen me?” Meg asked.

“He'd forget his own name, his wife and children, everything,” Gorba said. So that wouldn't do.

“You could take the floating frog spell,” Gorba said. She tossed her scarf onto the table, where it stared at Janna till she blinked.

“The tower is very high,” Meg said pointedly.

“Use it to fly the rope up and down,” the witch suggested.

“Can it tie a knot?”

“Why don't you try hiding the rope?” Janna asked. “Paint it a special color or something.”

Meg sat up. “Make it invisible!”

Gorba brightened. “That I can do.”

Within moments, the witch had taken over Janna's kitchen and was telling Meg to open the pack the princess had carried through the forest. “It's all labeled,” Gorba said, grabbing a small saucepan. “I'll need cockroach toes, mouse's blink, and pickled fog, to begin with.”

Janna opened her mouth, then closed it and opened a book instead, apparently determined not to let these proceedings ruffle her.

Meg rummaged through the pack.

“Careful!” Gorba snapped. She poured a little water from the teakettle into the saucepan.

Meg pulled out the first bottle and handed it to the witch.

When Meg had found everything, Gorba surveyed the row of ingredients critically. “We're missing frog's tears and the farthest tail-hair of a cat.”

Janna looked up from her book. “You leave my cats alone.”

Gorba ignored her. “Get the cat's hair, Princess.” Gorba took Howie out of her pocket to tell him a terribly
sad story about a frog whose tongue got tangled up in a fishing line.

“Sorry,” Meg said to Janna, and began stalking the cats.

In the end, Meg left with a packet of sweet rolls from Janna and an invisibility spell from Gorba. She had only had three more arguments with the witch before Gorba finally agreed to stay behind. Now Gorba was fussing about the spell again.

“One drop should do it,” she advised. “It's quite strong. Maybe even half a drop. Or two-thirds of a drop.”

“All right,” Meg said, wondering how anyone could pour two-thirds of a drop.

The witch followed Meg out to the gate, with Janna and the dragon close behind. “How are you going to pay the wizard?” Janna asked suddenly.

Meg patted her pocket. “Dragon gold. Remember?”

“Is that why the creature is sniffing your ankle?” Gorba asked.

Meg reached down to Laddy. “Goodbye, silly.”

When she stood up again, Gorba shoved the blue scarf at her. “Take it,” she said. “I've given it strict orders to obey you.”

Meg looked dubious.

“It'll be better than nothing in a pinch,” the witch argued.

Meg tucked the scarf into her pocket, pulling her hand out fast at the feel of tiny eyelashes brushing her fingers. “Thank you,” she told Gorba. She hugged the old woman impulsively.

Then she hugged Janna. “I'll bring him home,” she promised.

“Please,” Janna said.

Meg set off down the road. She had only taken a dozen paces when she turned back. “You know, half a ring would fall right off the chain,” she called.

Gorba and Janna waved as Meg went on her way.

“Young love,” Gorba murmured affectionately.

It was nearly sunset when Meg reached the tower.

“Hurry,” Nort said.

“I'm not going up there,” said Meg.

“Well, neither am I!”

“All right. Watch this,” Meg said mysteriously, taking a tiny vial from her pocket. She tipped a drop of dark liquid onto the end of the rope. The drop sparked and began running upward. As it went, the rope disappeared from sight. And thenâthe entire tower disappeared.

Meg and Nort goggled. Meg grabbed Nort's hand abruptly, pulling him after her. “We've got to hide!” They rushed into the woods.

“I'm not supposed to leave my post!” Nort argued, tugging free and moving toward the tower, wildeyed.

Meg jumped in front of him. “Your post has left
you,
” she said. “Do you want to tell Hanak what happened?”

Nort's shoulders sagged. “They'll blame me. I'll be sent homeâor thrown in the dungeons.”

Meg was still trying to comfort him when Dilly crashed through the bushes, calling Nort's name.

“Here we are,” Meg said.

Dilly made her way through the trees to stand in front of them, panting like a bellows. The instant she caught her breath, she cried, “What have you done? Hanak was just going to tell the king when I left!”

As if to confirm her words, people began pouring across the meadow from the castle toward the space where Meg's prison should have been. One of Hanak's men ran ahead of the others and right into the invisible tower, falling hard to the ground. Meg and Nort laughed nervously.

“It's not funny!” Dilly hissed.

“He'll be all right,” Meg told her. The guard staggered to his feet. “See?”

“They're going to see
you
in another minute,” Dilly said.

The three friends hid themselves more carefully where they could watch the goings-on in the meadow. King Stromgard stormed over to the tower and touched it. Then he started shouting at everyone. Hanak felt about the tower wall. He must have discovered the rope: he called one of the pages over, pointing upward.

The page took hold of the invisible rope and climbed into the sky. It was a wonderful sight, especially when the page disappeared through Meg's invisible window. After a few minutes, his head popped out into the air and said something to the waiting crowd.

“I'm not there,” Meg explained.

Dilly snorted.

The page came slowly down as the king gave more orders. Finally, the king turned to go back to the castle. The queen stood staring at the woods for a moment before she followed him.

“Almost as if she sees us,” Nort whispered.

Hanak stayed behind long enough to post a guard on the unseen tower. The other castle folk who had come out to see what the excitement was about must have decided nothing else was going to happen. They trickled away toward the castle.

“Definitely the dungeons,” Nort said woefully.

“They'll think you were attacked when Meg was,” Dilly observed.

“Attacked by who?” he asked.

“The witch,” Meg said, standing up and brushing the leaves from her skirt. “That's who they'll blame.”

“Aren't you going to tell me what happened?” Dilly asked.

“And me!” said Nort.

“I've lost Cam,” Meg told them.

“In the woods?” Dilly said.

“In Prince Bain's pocket.”

Meg ignored the clamor of questions that followed this pronouncement, leading her friends farther into the woods. Soon the princess found a small clearing. “Sit, please,” she said. Nort and Dilly plopped down on a fallen tree.

Meg perched on a stump and told them everything that had happened. “We've got to get Cam back. And we've got to find the wizard who made the spell,” she concluded.

“I saw Prince Bain at the castle just before the alarm was raised,” Dilly said.

“Cam's in a silver box?” Nort said. “How big is it?”

“It would fit in my hand.”

“Everyone will be after the witch now,” Dilly pointed out.

“They won't find her unless they speak fox,” said Meg. “We met a peddlerâbut I don't think he'll realize it was us he saw.”

“Maybe Prince Bain left the box in his room,” Dilly said. “I could take some linens up and search for it.”

“Maybe.” Meg looked at Dilly's hopeful face. “It's worth a try.”

“I could challenge him to noble combat,” Nort offered.

“You're coming with me into Crown to find that wizard.”