tie a hastily made cardboard cone around Baz’s head while the old lady hissed and tried to pull away from her.
“It’s for your own good,” chuckled Belle. “If you keep scratching at it the cut will never heal.” The sight of Baz sulking in her cone cheered Belle up considerably.
Willa dropped wearily onto the couch. “Those cats, or whatever they were, were looking for something. What could they want?” No one had an answer.
“All right, we’ve got to get ready for whatever’s coming next. We need to marshal our forces.” Willa looked around the room. “Aren’t all of you magic in some way? What kind of spells can you do?”
“We’re retired, dearie,” explained Belle, as the others exchanged embarrassed looks. “Have been for a long … LONG time. It was a rule of this place not to go exercising magic willy-nilly all over the place. You can’t expect us to remember anything useful now.” To Willa’s dismay this seemed to be the general consensus.
“Oh, come on now! You’re always bragging about charms and spells and things ... all of you. There must be some kind of magic you can do here,” she appealed.
Tengu was scratching his head. “Hand-to-hand, mortal combat is more my thing. EeYAWWW!” He struck a pose, fists cocked. From behind Belle whacked him in the head with a sofa cushion and he retreated in a sulk.
Willa peeked into the cone. “Baz? Please. Anything at all.”
“I know a million spells,” exclaimed Baz, her face lighting up. “Let me see now ... curdling milk, straightening curls, opening locked doors, clouding clear waters, removing stains, curing bunions, turning wine into water ...”
“What?!” exclaimed Robert, aghast. “Reprehensible!”
Baz went on. “I know how to make someone’s hair fall out. I can give someone the hiccups. I can make toast fall with the buttered side up.”
“You know a million useless spells,” Robert snorted. Baz fixed an angry eye on him.
“Okay, Robert. What about you then?” Willa turned hopefully to the centaur.
“I don’t deal in silly little spells — hic!” Robert frowned. “My charms and incantations are more serious in natur — HIC!” He stomped a hoof. “HIC! Baz! HIC! Undo this. HIC! ImmediateHIC!”
Tengu giggled wildly. Baz rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. Robert breathed easily again.
“You were saying,” Willa prompted.
“I was saying that my particular skills involve bigger things ... forces of nature and whatnot.”
“For example?”
Here Robert looked a little less certain. “Err ... lights at night, the nocturnal proclivities of woodland animals, rainbows, bird migration, phases of the moon ...”
“You can control the phases of the moon?”
“Control? No. Not as such.” Robert frowned. “But knots in a rope can change the weather.”
“Only rope braided from unicorn hair,” corrected Baz. Robert nodded sadly.
“A nail in the pocket guards against pixies,” offered Tengu. “But I suppose that doesn’t help us much.”
“Not really.” Willa turned to Belle, who was being unusually quiet. “What about you, Belle? What can you do?”
But the mermaid just stared at the floor, she wouldn’t meet Willa’s gaze. “Nothing specific. Curses. But I don’t do them anymore.”
Willa shook her head. This was getting them nowhere. “Come on,” she sighed. “Let’s try to block up the holes in the office.”
They got to work moving the desk and bookshelves against the wall full of holes. As they worked, Willa peered out the window. She saw no sign of the butcher birds, but the fog was so thick she couldn’t be sure they were gone. Once the wall was adequately barricaded they couldn’t think of anything else to do, so everyone headed up for bed.
Willa took the first shift keeping watch. She wandered nervously around the house. She listened at the library door to Horace mumbling and pacing. For a long while she stared in at Mab, who seemed to be resting all right.
Willa stood on the back steps and breathed in the night air. The yard was dark and silent, no sign of butcher birds. It was so still it was hard to believe what had just happened in the house. She tiptoed through the misty yard toward Dinah, feeling guilty about forgetting her in all the excitement.
Dinah was awake, which was pretty unusual. Willa foraged around for greenery to feed her but she didn’t seem interested in food, which was also pretty unusual. Dinah seemed anxious, snuffling at Willa and trying to put her head under her hands. Willa finally stopped and gently stroked her neck. The dinosaur blinked at her questioningly, so Willa told her what had happened.
“They come out of the walls, and we’re not sure when they’ll come again. I think we’ll be all right, but I’m not totally sure.”
Dinah hung her head so heavily, it nearly knocked Willa over. Willa looked her straight in one big eye.
“Would you like to help us fight them?”
Slowly, the great head moved up and down slightly. Willa held her breath. She’d never before felt that Dinah could understand her words.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Dinah slowly swung her head away. Shuffling her feet awkwardly, she lay down again with a heavy thump and a wheeze. Willa turned away, thinking sadly that the dinosaur would probably not be able to put up much of a fight, no matter how willing she was.
Of course that goes for all of us, she thought glumly.
On the way back to the house Willa suddenly remembered the tree nymphs. They too were aware that something was amiss. As Willa tiptoed through the foggy trees, they gathered around her, their voices chittering softly.
As she began speaking they fell silent. Again she explained what had happened. To her surprise they just stared blankly at her, heads cocked as if to say “so?” She tried again, her anxiety rising.
“The Dark Forces will come back! They’ll take over the house! And ... the world, and everything! Don’t you even care?”
The fairies blinked and exchanged looks. “No” seemed to be the consensus. Willa could not believe what she was seeing. She glared at them angrily.
“Fine. They’ll probably cut your trees down for kindling. Then we’ll see if you care or not!”
Furious, she stomped away, but there was a sudden uproar behind her, a buzzing like an upended wasp’s nest. She turned back to see the reaction she was hoping for. The fairies were hopping up and down, raising their tiny fists and ready for a fight.
Willa wandered aimlessly about the silent house for hours. At three o’clock it was time to wake Robert for the next shift. Before going upstairs, however, she decided to take a last look at the office.
Doorstop in hand, she tiptoed into the room and peeked behind the desk. Thankfully, the holes in the wall didn’t seem to have grown any larger, but something glinted in the darkness. Heart pounding, she inched closer, crouching to peer through one of the larger openings. In the dense black beyond the wall something shifted. Something large, glistening, and black. A grey eye twitched open, and Willa stumbled back and fled from the room.
Chapter Twelve
Time runs out
Willa woke again and again through the night, her mind cloudy and confused. It was a familiar feeling. Since Mab was out of commission, they’d be getting no dreams again, and everyone would be tired and irritable.