"Why don't you move away?" I asked.
"Why should I? They aren't bad folk. Aside from pelting me with rotten vegetables and setting their dogs on me and stealing my food and . . ."
"Burning your hovel?" Klorine said helpfully.
"Yeah, that, too," said Ratinki. "Aside from those things, they leave me alone and I leave them alone and that's the way it should be. Besides, if I moved away, who would I spy on when I got bored?"
Eadric's stomach rumbled, reminding me of why we were sitting there. The food we'd brought with us was bland and none too plentiful, so after casting a quick searching spell to make sure that no one else from Upper Montevista was around, I pointed at the center of the blanket and said,
Pies and cakes and hot eel stew,
Tarts and breads and berries new.
Bring us lots of tasty food.
We're in a hungry kind of mood.
"Wow!" said Klorine when the food appeared on the blanket. "You can do that? I wish I could! Then I'd never go hungry again!"
"I don't do it very often," I hurried to say when I saw Eadric's expression. He looked as if he'd just won the biggest prize in the biggest tournament. Actually, I'd never made food purely through magic before, so I was a littie apprehensive about how it would taste. I needn't have worried.
"This is good!" said Ratinki through a mouthful of fresh bread.
Sampling the eel stew, Klorine exclaimed, "This is better than good! This is the best food I've ever eaten."
"I'm glad you like it," I said, watching Eadric take an entire rhubarb pie.
I sat back, eating very little while enjoying the blissful looks on our guests' faces. I was curious, though—was Ratinki's treatment at the hands of the townspeople typical? When Klorine began to slow down, I asked her, "And how well do you get along with your neighbors?"
"Who, me?" she replied. "Just fine. My closest neighbor is a nymph who lives in the bottom of a lake in my cave. I don't see her very often, but when I do, she's always friendly."
"I meant your nonmagical neighbors."
Klorine shrugged. "None of them lives very close. The ones who come by don't know I'm there."
"You did have that one run-in, though," said Oculura.
"That was years ago. I was young and foolish then. I helped a girl find her soul mate, but he didn't like her when she found him. She was disappointed and told her whole village that I'd ruined her life. They came after me and I had to hide in the woods. That's when I found my cave, so it was a good thing after all. Any more of those tarts? I really like the ones with blueberries."
Even Eadric finished before Klorine and Ratinki, who ate until the very last crumb was gone. When it was time for them to leave, they had eaten so much that they had to struggle to get their brooms off the ground while Oculura and Dyspepsia circled impatiently above them.
I was climbing back into my carriage when Hortense came running over. "I didn't want to say anything in front of those women, but their manners are atrocious. And the stories they tell . . . I shudder to think about it. I hope you aren't going to let yourself be unduly influenced by them. Your mother would never approve if she knew you were keeping company with women like that."
I sighed and paused with my foot on the step. "I'm sure you're right. She doesn't approve of most of the things I do."
I'd started to pull myself into the carriage when Hortense placed her hand on my arm. "That's not all," she said. "I wanted to thank you for what you did back there. Thank you for stopping that horrid woman from . . . from . . ."
"Turning you into a slug?"
"Yes," she said, cringing. "Precisely."
"You're welcome," I said. "Although may I suggest that the next time you encounter someone you find disagreeable you not let it show on your face. I may not always be around to stop them."
Hortense nodded. "Yes," she said, her expression serious. "I'll have to work on that."
It wasn't until we stopped for the night that Eadric and I discussed what the witches had told us. Li'l had already left for her nightly excursion and wouldn't be back until morning. Everyone else except the guards and Hortense had gone to their tents. The senior lady-in-waiting was not about to shirk her duty, and I knew she wouldn't go to bed until I did. With our backs to the fire, Eadric and I shared a large rock while we watched the dancing shapes that the flames cast on the trees around us.
"I didn't know life was so awful for witches here," I said. "Poor Ratinki seems to think that living the way she does is normal."
"I had no idea," said Eadric.
I reached for his hand and squeezed it. "You have to do something. Make some sort of decree or law or something."
Eadric picked up a pebble and chucked it into the woods. "I can when I'm king, but there's not much I can do about it now. Even then I don't know if it would do much good. I can't make people like someone."
"Witches in Greater Greensward are treated with respect, but it's different here. I don't understand why these witches stay in Upper Montevista if they're so obviously hated."
Eadric shrugged. "It's where they've always lived. They don't know that it doesn't have to be this way. Besides, having a Green Witch is why witches are respected in Greater Greensward. You help keep it safe to live there. The witches here don't help at all."
"Why should they? People get angry with them when they try. You heard Klorine. When the girl she helped wasn't happy with the results, she turned on the witch who had helped her."
"Maybe that isn't the kind of help the people of Upper Montevista really need," he said, swatting at a mosquito tickling his cheek.
I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it with a snap. Maybe Eadric was right. Maybe they needed help, but only of a certain kind. I wished there was something I could do about it.
While Eadric and I shared a long and pleasant kiss, Hortense cleared her throat and muttered to herself, letting us know that she disapproved. She was still watching us when we said good night and retired to our tents. I was almost asleep when the werewolves started to howl. They sounded awfully close, certainly close enough to make everyone nervous. I heard the guards talking and the jangle of metal as the men who were supposed to be off duty joined them. Voices from the other tents told me that nearly everyone else was awake as well, although I thought I heard Eadric snoring.
Back home I would have chased away the werewolves long before this, but I'd been so conscious of not upsetting the Upper Montevistans that I'd done nothing, hoping that the creatures would leave us alone. But lying there in the dark, listening to the worried voices of the people around me, I knew that I'd have to take some sort of action or spend the night waiting for the first step of a stealthy paw, the first ragged scream cut short. Slipping out of my tent, I told the closest guard to let the others know that I would take care of it and that they needn't worry. Jumpy people shoot at anything that moves, and a stray arrow in my back was the last thing I needed.
I made my way only a short distance into the woods, then took on the most effective form I knew, the one that had become second nature to me over the last few months—a dragon.
The change was fast now—so fast that it happened between one breath and the next, but with great speed came great pain. When I could breathe again, I was iridescent peridot green with dark emerald claws and pale green translucent wings, more than fifteen feet long and able to breathe fire. Like Ralf's mother, I had acquired a taste for gunga beans and flami-peppers.
Raising my wings above my head, I brought them down in a mighty sweep that brushed the boughs on either side and lifted me above the tops of the trees. I'd been facing the direction of the werewolves' voices, but they'd moved and I moved with them. Dragons can see perfectly well in the dark, and can switch from normal vision to the kind that sees the heat that warm bodies give off. I used both, noting the doe and her twin fawns asleep side by side, the squirrels curled up in their nests, and the paler warmth of the turtle losing the heat it had absorbed during the day.
/> Wolves were easy to find, but I was hunting werewolves, who were smarter than their nonmagical counterparts and far more malicious. The first time I'd encountered them, I'd hoped that I could talk them into leaving my kingdom, but werewolves are devious and won't listen to logic. I'd had to singe their tails with flame to drive them out then and every time after that. I already knew that I'd have to do the same now.
Following their trail, I circled around toward our camp. I was in no mood for conversation, certainly not with hairy ruffians who liked ripping throats out and would be more than happy to lap the blood of my entourage. With a roar that shook the pine trees until needles rained from the boughs, I swept down on them, breathing a long pinpoint of flame that stopped just short of their furry backs, herding them ahead of me.
I was congratulating myself on a job well done when the pack split in two, leaving me to choose which faction to follow. Picking the smaller group, I tried to herd them back to their fellows, but found that I had to chase each werewolf when they went their separate ways. Because I had no desire to start a fire that could engulf a dry pine forest and knew that flaming too often might do just that, I decided to use a talent other than fire. Twisting and turning between the trees, I flew just above werewolf height, following the biggest beast. Dragons can fly faster than the swiftest horse can gallop, so I had no problem catching up with the werewolf and snatching its tail with my claws. The werewolf writhed in my grasp, snapping and snarling, but it weighed too much to turn back on its own tail and reach me.
Hauling the werewolf into the air, I carried it to the top of the tallest tree and deposited it on one of the sturdier branches. A regular wolf might have squirmed and fallen to its death, but a werewolf possessed human cunning as well as the animal kind. Crying pitifully, the werewolf held on to the swaying branch while I collected its pack-mates one at a time. When I'd gathered the entire pack, I grasped a tail in each of my clawed feet and carried them out of the woods and up the side of a mountain, depositing them on the shores of an isolated island surrounded by near-freezing water before flying back down the mountain for more. If it had been my kingdom, I would have carried them even farther. Since it wasn't, I just wanted them to stay away until we had left their territory.
When I'd moved the last of them, I turned and headed toward our camp. Before landing, however, I checked to make sure that everyone was all right, then flew on, not wanting to stop being a dragon just yet.
There were only two drawbacks to being a dragon. First, it made me feel fearless, and sometimes a little fear was a very good thing. I took risks when I was a dragon that I never would have considered as a human. Second, being a dragon was so much fun, so exciting, so enticing, that it was tempting to stay that way a little bit longer each time. My greatest fear, however, was that if I did, I might want to stay that way forever.
Turning back into my human self was particularly difficult that night. Chasing down the werewolves had taken most of the night, making me remain in my dragon form longer than I ever had before. Being a dragon felt so right, so perfect for me that I began to wonder if I really had to go back. Physically I felt wonderful; my blood coursed hotter, my muscles were stronger, I could fill my lungs with one deep breath and hold it for minutes at a time. My reflexes were faster, too, and my mind seemed sharper. And there were so many things that a dragon could do that a human could scarcely imagine. I could fly, swooping low or soaring high, pivoting on a wing tip or gliding for endless miles. I could bathe in lava or burrow through mountains of ice, and all the while feel as comfortable as a human on a warm spring day. A whole world waited to be explored in a way only dragons could manage. If I remained a dragon, I could see sights no human had ever seen, go places no human had ever gone. I'd never have to put up with people like Frazzela or my mother or . . .
And then I thought about my dear, sweet Eadric, who never failed to hold my hand when he thought I might be frightened, who always tried to come between me and danger even when I didn't need him to, and who cared how I felt about nearly everything. Eadric was kind and strong and brave and honorable—the kind of knight that other knights only claimed to be. He was also the love of my life, no matter what form I happened to take.
Although staying a dragon meant that I'd be free to do whatever I wanted to for the rest of my life, I already had something even better waiting for me in a tent, snoring so loudly that I could almost believe I heard him from far away. I could be a dragon now and then, but I knew that I could never leave Eadric for long.
Dipping one wing, I turned around again, heading back to camp and the far more ordinary life of a human witch.
Six
As a dragon I'd seen that we had almost reached the edge of the forest, so I wasn't surprised when the trees thinned out, giving way to a rocky slope. Eadric assured me that his parents' castle was only half a day's ride away. I'd been hoping it would be much closer.
The road we were on wound around the mountainside. Although it afforded us fantastic views, the steep incline tired the horses and made our travel slower. We hadn't gone far beyond the tree line when the ground began to shake and pebbles shifted under the horses' hooves, making them skittish and hard to control.
"Are earthquakes common here?" I asked Eadric.
"Not at all," he said. "I don't think this is an earthquake. Notice how rhythmic it is? I think it's probably a . . ."
"Giant!" shouted Lucy, pointing wildly as she hung out of the carriage window. The curve of the mountainside prevented us from seeing more than the giant's head and shoulders, although it was enough to tell that he wasn't in very good shape. His coarse brown hair stuck out from his head like straw, and his tunic was rumpled and dirty, unlike most of the giants I'd seen who kept themselves very well groomed. From the way he was moving he looked as if he were staggering, his head lolling with every step.
"This is bad," said Eadric. "There's a village just a few miles farther in that direction."
"I can't imagine why a giant would want to go so close to a village unless he wants to make trouble," I said. "He has to know how much damage he can do just by walking down the street." A giant this big could do even more damage than most. His head was higher than my father's tallest tower and broader than that of any giant I'd seen before.
"He's either sick or drunk," said Eadric. "Look at the way he's walking. I'll go see which it is. You stay here with the carriages, Emma. It's safer here. There's no telling what he'll do when he sees me."
"Then you shouldn't go by yourself," I said, turning Gwynnie to join him. "I can use my magic to stop him if he's really out of control."
Eadric looked exasperated when he shook his head and said, "If you won't stay here because I ask you to, consider how many people there are in the village who could see your magic. Do you really want to risk it?"
"But. . . ," I began, then realized that he was right. Unlike Greater Greensward, where my father's subjects expected me to confront trouble, the people of Upper Montevista would be horrified to see a princess facing a giant and even more so when they realized that I was a witch.
I watched helplessly from Gwynnie's back as Eadric and my knights picked their way across the rocky ground. "I can't just sit here," I muttered to myself. After what had happened with the sea monster, I wasn't about to let Eadric face the giant without me. Biting my lip, I tried to decide what to do. Without any trees or shrubs to hide behind, I couldn't very well change without anyone seeing me, unless . . .
I was all fumble fingers as I tied Gwynnie behind my carriage, although the mare was the only one to notice. Li'l was asleep, hanging upside down from the carriage roof. Shelton, however, was wide awake, clutching the window frame and waving his eyestalks with excitement as he watched the giant's progress.
"Is that a real person?" he asked as I swung the door open and climbed in. "He's ever so much bigger than you."
"He's a giant," I said. "They're all bigger than me. He isn't acting right, so I'm going to go see why."
&n
bsp; "But I heard Eadric," said Shelton. "He said you should stay here. I admit he's a bossy know-it-all, but I think he's right this time. If that giant is real, no one should go near him, least of all you. What would happen to me if something happened to you? Eadric would probably cook me or feed me to some wild beast."
"Thanks for being so caring," I said. "I'll be fine and so will you. Now stand back."
It took only a moment for me to turn into a hawk. Not only was the bird fast, but it had marvelous eyesight, and right now that was what I needed most. I didn't dare get too close since I didn't want to be seen, so I'd have to watch from a distance. Springing from the carriage window, I took to the air, spiraling upward until I had almost reached the high, puffy clouds. I glanced down and saw Eadric and the knights approaching the giant, who was only a few strides from the outermost building in the village. He looked drunk to me, and I was certain of it when I heard him start to sing.
Oh, give me an ale, a stout-hearted ale
In a bottomless, endless mug.
I'll do my best to drain it dry.
You know I' 11 give it a good try.
And if I can't, I'll be coming back
To try it again tomorrow.
The giant ended his song with a hiccup that shook the village and crumbled chimneys. Looking as if his eyes couldn't quite focus, he was about to set his foot on a wagon loaded with firewood when Eadric and his knights arrived. "Ho there, Giant!" Eadric called. The giant turned, staggering. Closing one eye, he peered down at Eadric and Bright Country.
"Look!" the giant said with a foolish grin on his face. "A puppy!" Reaching for Eadric, he tripped over his own feet and landed on his knees, shaking the ground so that the carriages rattled. "Ouch!" he said. "That wasn't very nice. Bad puppy!"