Drawing back his dense comforter, Peter tried to get a fix on his surroundings. The entire room reeked of some sickly perfume, no doubt named after a flower. So far as he could smell, there was no one nearby. He propped himself up and instantly grew dizzy. Feeling his head, he discovered that it was heavily bandaged. Was he injured? How badly? The bandaging was no expert job. It seemed that someone—a child, most likely—had taken a giant ball of rags and clumsily tied them around his head. He pried back the dressing and found a deep, rather severe gash in his crown. The boy winced as his fingers probed the wound. The blood was several days old. He wondered how long he had been in this strange place.
“H-h-hello?” he said, falling back onto his great, fluffy pillow. There was no reply. “Can anyone hear me?” Still no reply. The last thing Peter could remember was being in the Just Deserts. What had happened? He faintly recalled something about ravens, and thieves, and—
“Sir Tode?” he called weakly. He could neither hear nor smell his friend nearby. They had been poised together over some great chasm. They had tried using the golden eyes to escape together, but now Peter was completely alone. The boy’s head began to throb, and he set out a hand to steady himself. He remembered some kind of battle at the Nest. There was chaos and screaming all around them. He faintly recalled the birds swooping to his defense and their leader, Captain Amos, trying to tell him something . . .
There were definitely some pieces missing to this puzzle.
Thinking of puzzles, Peter remembered the rhyme. He took a breath and concentrated on coaxing the words from his fuzzy mind:
Kings aplenty, princes few,
The ravens scattered and seas withdrew.
Only a stranger may bring relief,
But darkness will reign, unless he’s—
“Good grief!” a voice cried behind him. “You can’t be up—you’re ill!”
Peter yelped in surprise. He hadn’t realized someone was nearby. “Who are you?” he said, spinning around.
A sweet voice chuckled. “Oh ho, sir! I should think the more appropriate question is: Who are you?” Hearing her speak, Peter could tell she meant him no harm. But where did she come from? And why did she call him “sir”?
“Me?” he said, stammering. “My name’s . . . Justice. Um, Justice Trousers.” (You must remember that Peter, who was not a skilled fibber on the best of days, was suffering from an impressive head injury, which prevented him from coming up with anything more believable.)
“Justice?” The woman pondered this for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve heard that name before. What does it mean?”
“It’s just a name,” Peter fibbed again. The truth was, it was the last thing he remembered hearing before escaping from the Nest.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Trousers! My name is Mrs. Molasses. It’s an old word that means happiness and kindness.” Peter knew full well that “molasses” meant no such thing and was actually a word for a sort of sticky sweet stuff used in hourglasses and candy, but he thought it rude to contradict her. The woman continued. “Sir, you are more than welcome in my home, but I insist you lie back down. I simply can’t have you bleeding all over my nice clean floor.” With that, she grabbed his shoulders and forced him back onto the pillow. “You really did give me a fright,” she went on, puffing slightly. “What, with that icky blood everywhere, it’s a wonder I got it cleaned up before the stains could set!”
Peter felt the giant mess of rags wrapped around his crown and silently agreed with her. While Mrs. Molasses tucked him back into bed, the boy put his senses to work as best as his condition would allow. From her voice he could tell Mrs. Molasses was definitely a grown-up. She reeked of the same sickly perfume as the rest of the room. Her hands were plump and soft, and she betrayed a shortness of breath when pulling up Peter’s covers. By all indications, Mrs. Molasses seemed to be the sort of person usually referred to as “jolly.”
“What were those words you were saying when I walked in?” she asked, fluffing a pillow. “They sounded so pretty, so odd.”
“What were they?” The pain in his head was a dull throb now, and with each passing minute he was growing more and more obtuse. “Just a . . . nursery rhyme,” he said through a yawn.
“Nursery?” She considered this. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that word, but I do like rhymes a great deal. Why don’t you get some rest, and then we can nursery rhyme together in the morning?” And with that, Mrs. Molasses pulled the covers tight around Peter and left him alone to fall asleep, which he did almost immediately.
When Peter woke again, it was in a panic. “The eyes!” he cried out, jolting up from his pillow. His entire body was drenched in sweat, and his arms were empty. The last he could remember, the box had been tight against his chest. He faintly recalled a strange woman who had come and tucked him in (something no one had ever done before). And now the box was gone. It had all been a trick, and he had fallen for it. Peter scrambled to his feet and searched the room. He rifled through empty dressers and frisked the immaculate floor, but could find no sign of the eyes. “How could I be so stupid?” he said, slamming a drawer. “That woman’s probably miles away by now.”
“Yoo-hoo!” came a cheery voice directly behind him. Peter gave a start and stumbled forward. This was the second time the Molasses woman had been able to sneak up on him. He suspected it was due to the fact that she and the room were both doused in the same awful perfume—the stuff seemed to be working as a sort of camouflage, which, along with her surprisingly light step, made the woman difficult to track. “I was just off in my cleaning nook,” she said, taking the box from under one arm and returning it to Peter. “It was so dirty, I thought I’d just give it a teensy little spiffing-up. Good as new!”
He checked the lock for scratches. “You didn’t open it, did you?”
The woman chuckled, wagging a finger. “Oh ho! Very funny, sir. It has a lock on the front—no one can open those things! I honestly don’t see why you keep a box like that at all, seeing as how getting inside is quite impossible.”
Peter didn’t quite understand what she meant, but thought it best not to argue. “I’ve got a key,” he explained.
“Key?” She plucked some errant leaves from a fig tree planted in the corner. “Another one of your silly words? You certainly must come from a strange place, Mr. Justice Trousers.”
Talking with this woman made Peter’s head hurt, but he decided to persevere, hoping to learn something about his current predicament. “Where are we? What is this place?”
“Not place, my good sir, palace.” She sighed. “The most perfect palace in the world!”
“How long have I been here? In this palace?”
“Well, when I found you, you were lying in the middle of my courtyard, bleeding like a fountain,” she chirped. “I took you home with me, dressed your wounds, and set you to sleep right in this very bed. Three days later you woke up and introduced yourself. Do you recall that? After that, you slept another two days, and—ta-da!—here we are!”
“I’ve been here for five days?” he said, struggling to do the math.
“No, three days and then two days. Five is something else altogether . . . I think.”
“And you’re certain I was alone?” Peter was growing anxious to learn what had become of Sir Tode.
“Lone as a lemon drop,” she said.
The boy bowed his head. His friend had not made it across the chasm. For all he knew, Sir Tode was still fighting in that awful battle—and it was all his fault. The thought filled him with pain, the twin aches of loneliness and guilt. “Speaking of lemon drops,” Mrs. Molasses continued cheerily. “Are you hungry?”
While Peter felt too distraught to eat, his body disagreed. It responded to the question with a long, loud grumble. “Sounds like I am,” he said, embarrassed.
Mrs. Molasses clapped. “Oh, splendid! Then come along, Mr. Trousers. Do I have a treat for you!”
Peter and Mrs. Molasses bustled d
own long corridors and staircases, all of which smelled like fresh soap. Doors lined every hall, marking a separate home for each citizen. “Notice how perfectly clean these vestibules are!” she would say, extending arms to her left and right as they went. “The king himself sees that they are scrubbed each and every night!” Peter had since removed the rags from his head and was wearing his usual bandage around his empty sockets. If Mrs. Molasses noticed the change, she chose not to mention it. Peter darted from side to side as they walked, trying to take in every detail he could. There were lots of people about. They all smelled sweet and sounded happy. Every few feet, Mrs. Molasses would stop to introduce her guest to another neighbor. “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Bonnet! This is my new friend Mr. Trousers . . . I found him dying in my courtyard!”
“Pleased to meet you, sir!” the person would exclaim, shaking Peter’s hand vigorously. “We’re always happy to have visitors here in the palace!” There would follow an inevitable pause, and then: “Actually, we’ve never had any visitors before . . . but we’re certainly happy to have you!”
They worked their way to a vaulted path that Peter thought might be a bridge. Sir Tode would have told him exactly what he was seeing, but he was gone now. The boy realized with shame how much he had taken his friend for granted in the desert. Sir Tode had tried to warn him against trusting the thieves, but Peter wouldn’t listen. He had treated the knight as little more than a hindrance—stuffing him away in the bottom of his bag. Despite everything, Sir Tode sacrificed himself so that Peter could complete their quest. The boy swore to himself that he would do just that. “No matter the cost,” he whispered.
His first step would be to verify that this was, in fact, the Vanished Kingdom. From what he could tell, the palace resembled Professor Cake’s description. There was a vine-covered wall lining the outside. Balconies, bridges, and stairways ran in all different directions. Every inch of the place was carved from solid rock and furnished with lovely gardens. “It must have taken a long time to build this palace,” he said to Mrs. Molasses.
“Oh, years and years!” she replied. “Our king made the entire thing with his bare hands. Imagine that, Mr. Trousers!”
“Why do you call me mister?” Peter said. This particular question had been bothering him for some time.
“Because you, Mr. Trousers, are a man,” she explained. “Granted, a rather short one. But still, in our kingdom, we call all men ‘mister’ so-and-so, and all women ‘missus’ so-and-so. Now, I don’t know how it works where you’re from—” She gasped, touching his arm. “Heavens! I do hope it’s not the other way around. That would be most embarrassing!”
“No. It’s like that where I’m from, too. Everyone calls me mister.” Peter didn’t want to pursue the point further. Still, it was strange for this woman to be talking to him like he was a grown-up. “Mrs. Molasses, how old are you?” he asked, not understanding that such questions were never to be asked of jolly women.
“Old?” she asked.
“When was your birthday?”
“Birthday? I’m not sure I understand you. That word sounds sort of familiar, though . . . birthday . . . birthday . . .”
“Forget it,” Peter said. He wasn’t sure he knew how to explain what a birthday was to someone who didn’t already know.
“Oh!” Mrs. Molasses snapped her fingers. “I bet you meant to say bathroom! You wanted to know where our bathroom was. Is that correct?”
“Er, yes . . . I never forget to wash my hands before eating,” the boy said, offering his least convincing lie to date.
Mrs. Molasses led Peter to a bathroom along one corridor. Even the toilets, he noted, smelled clean and fresh. He washed his right palm, which had been cut rather badly during the fight at the Nest. The pain took him back to those final, terrifying moments on the balcony. Perched above the yawning chasm. Talons clawing at his clothes. He remembered Sir Tode’s voice in his ear. The weight of his friend’s hooves as the knight jumped from his shoulders. “Put the eyes in now!” he had cried as the plank snapped beneath them . . .
“Yoo-hoo, Mr. Trousers!” Mrs. Molasses’s voice rang from the outside corridor. “We shouldn’t want to miss our supper!”
Peter forced himself back to the present. He stepped outside, drying his hands on the tail of his shirt (as little boys do), and followed Mrs. Molasses into the Eating Hall.
The Eating Hall was a great open courtyard surrounded by stone pillars. Peter could hear water pouring down from spigots high above. The water flowed into a shallow stream that ran under footbridges and planters around the perimeter. The center floor was occupied by an enormous table, big enough for hundreds. Unlike everything else in the palace, this table was made of wood. Cut into its surface was a shallow moat filled with water. Large serving platters drifted along the surface, piled high with every type of food imaginable. People laughed and chatted, taking their seats around the table.
Peter could hear a dozen birds singing from their pedestals. These birds were not singing in the whistle-way that he was accustomed to—instead, they were actually singing. Their little voices rang out in perfect harmony:
A perfect end to a perfect day.
We love our king—hip-hip hooray!
Peter listened as they took a short breath and sang the rhyme again. And again. And again. He noticed that they seemed to mumble the line about the king every time. These birds know about rhyming, he thought to himself. Maybe they could help me figure out how my riddle ends? Each warbling voice was accompanied by a faint jingling sound that the master thief’s ears couldn’t quite identify. He decided to investigate the sound after dinner. In the meantime, he could smell the feast floating before him, and his stomach was demanding its due.
Peter took his seat and started to fill his plate with food. But before he was able to take a bite, Mrs. Molasses and a woman named Mrs. Sunshine each seized one of his hands. The entire table raised their arms, saying “Long live the king!” in unison. The birds joined them with somewhat less enthusiasm.
Long live the king. Peter mulled the words over in his mind. There was something familiar about that phrase. Wasn’t that the rallying cry of the ravens in the Just Deserts? But somehow it sounded different the way Mrs. Molasses and her friends said it.
The food smelled just as Mrs. Molasses had described it: absolutely perfect. The honey crepes were thick and tender. The oak loin was ripe and juicy. For drinking, everyone had goblets of whole cream. It was a feast beyond Peter’s wildest imaginings. But every time he took a bite, his taste buds caught a faint, earthy bitterness beneath the surface. And no matter how much he drank, he could never completely wash down the bad flavor. Still, it was food, and his stomach appreciated the attention.
Peter helped himself to plate after plate, all the while eavesdropping on the conversations around him. From what he could tell, the whole palace gathered for a feast like this every night. “Without a feast to cap it off, the day simply wouldn’t be perfect, now, would it?” Mrs. Molasses said, dabbing her lips with a serviette.
Peter was starting to agree with her about this place being perfect. Everyone was polite, happy, and well fed. He was even getting used to being called sir. He thought how much nicer his life would have been if someone like Mrs. Molasses had adopted him instead of nasty Mr. Seamus. This entire palace seemed as though it had been plucked straight from his own dreams . . . only, not quite. Like the food, there was something behind the clean floors and cheery voices that made him uneasy.
Just then, the air was split by a deafening sound—Clanggg! It echoed across the courtyard, shaking the foundation. “Bedtime! Bedtime!” the people screamed, throwing goblets and forks from their hands and instantly leaping to their feet. Every one of their voices was tinged with the unmistakable sound of terror.
Clanggg! The noise came again; this time Peter recognized it as the bell of a giant clock—but much larger than the one he grew up with. He thought it strange that he hadn’t heard the hands moving during supper. The clock chim
ed again and again, shaking the plates and cutlery. “What’s happening?” he said as Mrs. Molasses dragged him from his seat at the table. “What about the mess? What about dessert?”
“No time for questions!” She was pushing him through the crowd. “We must get home for tuck-in!”
Despite her size, the woman was surprisingly fast, and it was all Peter could do to keep up. He tried to get her to slow down, but it was no use. With each chime of the clock, she and the others grew more and more terrified. As they frantically raced up bridges and stairways, the perfect palace was transformed into sheer pandemonium.
Mrs. Molasses rounded a corner and thrust Peter into her home. “Safe!” She dove in after him and slammed the door, still panting, still trembling. “One mustn’t ever drag his heels at tuck-in, or else . . .” and here her words trailed off as some unspeakable fear caught her throat.
“Or else what?” he asked gently.
Mrs. Molasses swallowed, pushing the fear back down. “Or else you won’t get enough sleep, Mr. Trousers!” She smoothed her apron and re-pinned her hair. “Off to bed now!”
Peter knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Like all adults, Mrs. Molasses made the mistake of thinking that people simply believed what they were told. But Peter, even more than most, had a knack for picking out false notes—and in this moment, Mrs. Molasses’s cheery tone sounded nothing if not false.
He followed his host into the spare bedroom. The great bell was still chiming. “Gosh,” he said in his most innocent voice, “that giant clock sure is fancy.”
“Clock?” she said, confused. “Oh! You mean the Bedtime Bell. Never you mind that. It’s just a bit of the king’s magic to help tuck us in.” The boy was confused by her explanation—he had never heard anyone refer to a clock as “magic” before. The woman helped him into bed, changing the subject. “I am stuffed! Wasn’t that a simply perfect supper?”