The dwarf scratching a rash on his neck scowled when he said, “You punched him in the nose and broke it!”
“I was a baby!” said Cragery. “That’s what babies do!”
A dwarf with slicked-down hair snorted, while another brother said, “Not usually!”
Cragery sneered at his brothers. “I’ve always been special, and you know it!”
“Is that what you call it?” asked Hummfree. “Were you being special when you ran off to work at the castle when we needed your help in the mines? Were you being special when you stole that trinket from the queen and disappeared for years? And what about when I went to fetch you home and you were rude and nasty to everyone we met? Were you being special then, too?”
“It wasn’t just a trinket that he stole from the queen,” said Beldegard from the edge of the forest. Everyone turned; more than one dwarf reached for the ax on his belt as the bear prince emerged from the trees. “The witch had given it magical properties that he learned about when he worked in the castle.”
“Stand back!” shouted an imperious voice as Prince Maitland and his men trotted down the road toward the cottage. “That’s the dangerous beast I’ve been hunting. Go into your home now so that I might kill it and no one else will get hurt.”
“No!” Gwendolyn cried as she ran from the cottage door to throw her arms around Beldegard. “He is not dangerous and he’s not a beast. He’s my beloved Beldegard and your own brother, who was enchanted by that evil dwarf.”
Snow White nudged Annie and leaned toward her to whisper, “I knew it would be interesting when the dwarves came home, but I never imagined it would be like this! Who is that incredibly handsome man?” she asked, gazing at Prince Maitland, her eyes filled with longing.
“That’s Beldegard’s brother. Beldegard is the bear prince.”
“The bear is a prince? Then that means his brother is one, too! Tell me, is anyone else coming?”
“I don’t think so,” Annie whispered back. “Unless… Yes, there he is. Yardley is here as well. It looks as if Maitland captured him.”
Snow White peered past the mounted prince to where a wolf was cowering at the end of a long, knotted rope. “Is the wolf enchanted?”
Annie nodded. “Just like Beldegard.”
“This is so exciting!” Snow White breathed.
While they were talking, Maitland dismounted and approached Gwendolyn and Beldegard on foot with his sword drawn. “Stand aside, beautiful lady,” Maitland said. “That beast has lied to you. My brother is dead.”
“No, he’s not!” Annie called as she hurried to her sister’s side, but Liam was already there with his sword unsheathed, facing Maitland.
“He is our friend and a true prince,” Liam announced in a loud voice so everyone could hear. “Anyone who harms him will answer to me.”
“Please, kind sir,” Snow White cried, hurrying to Maitland’s side. “These people are my friends and would not lie!”
When Maitland glanced down at her, his gaze softened and he lowered his arm.
Annie turned toward where she had last seen Cragery, but he was no longer there. “Stop him!” she cried when she spotted him sneaking into the forest. “Gwendolyn told the truth! That dwarf changed Beldegard into a bear. We’ve traveled a long way to make him turn the bear prince back into a man!”
The dwarves turned toward Cragery, but not one of them made a move to go after him when he began to run. It was Liam who followed the dwarf and grabbed him by the back of his tunic. Hefting Cragery onto his shoulder, Liam carried the kicking, swearing dwarf back to the clearing.
Bright splotches of pink stained Snow White’s cheeks when she turned to the seven dwarves saying, “He’s been a horrible person and you’re just going to let him get away with it? Don’t you understand how much he’s hurt people?”
“Are these accusations true, Brother?” Hummfree asked. “Have you harmed others with a magic object?”
“No, of course not!” said Cragery. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to such blatant lies! Let me go. I knew I shouldn’t come back here!”
“It is true!” shouted Yardley. The wolf had come as close as he could on the end of the rope and was straining to get closer. “He turned me into a wolf for no reason at all!”
“You were cheating at cards,” said Cragery, his face turning red when he realized what he’d said.
“Then it is true!” said Hummfree. “It’s one thing when you are unkind to your family. We put up with it for years because you are our brother. But we cannot condone mistreating others! We will see that he is punished for what he has done,” he said, turning to Liam and Beldegard.
“There’s more to it than that,” said Annie. “He has to turn Beldegard and Yardley back into humans. There are others as well—three brothers he turned into pigs and a family that now lives as bears. And those are only the ones we’ve happened to meet.”
Hummfree nodded. “Show me this magical object, Cragery,” he ordered his brother.
Cragery shrugged the other dwarves’ hands off his arms and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a large brooch made of intricately wrought gold surrounding a dragon’s head made of sapphires. When Hummfree reached for it, Cragery held it close to his chest, saying, “It’s mine! No one can touch it but me.”
“No one wants the stupid thing,” Annie told him. “Just use it to turn everyone back!”
“What will I get if I do?” Cragery asked, rubbing his thumb over the dragon’s face.
Liam took a step closer, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “You’ll get to stay alive.”
“You can’t do anything to me!” shouted Cragery, raising the brooch to eye level. “Not if I turn you into a woodchuck!”
A flash of blue light shot from the brooch, slamming Liam in the chest. The light knocked him back so that he staggered as the blue light spread up his neck and across his face, down his torso to his legs and feet. He stood there for a moment, looking stunned. Suddenly there was a loud pop! and Liam disappeared, leaving behind a plump, bright-eyed woodchuck.
Annie jerked as if she had been hit as well. “No!” she screamed. “You can’t do that! Not to Liam!”
“Annie?” said the woodchuck. “What just happened?” He looked confused, as did everyone else in the clearing. The seven dwarves stared at Cragery as if he had two heads.
Annie rushed toward the dwarf, ready to throttle him if necessary, shouting, “You turn him back, right this instant!”
“Get away from me!” he yelled, holding up the brooch again.
The light hit Annie with a crackling sound, bounced off and slammed into Cragery, knocking him to the ground. He lay there, whimpering as the light spread, covering him until he was completely blue. There was a loud pop and the dwarf was gone. A gray squirrel lay on its back, its legs scrabbling in the air. Three more pops followed a moment later. The wolf, the bear, and the woodchuck were gone. Instead, a handsome young man crouched beside Gwendolyn and another, more ordinary man, squatted on all fours with a rope around his neck. Liam stood, still holding his sword, looking bemused.
While Hummfree grabbed the squirrel, Annie threw herself into Liam’s arms. Liam dropped the sword in time to catch her and swing her off her feet. Her first kiss landed on his nose, but the rest landed on his lips. If he wouldn’t kiss her, there wasn’t any reason that she couldn’t kiss him. Except… She pulled back for a moment, wondering if he might not want her to kiss him. After all… And then he was dragging her closer to kiss her again. Annie lost track of time as Liam kissed her most thoroughly.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you,” she murmured when she could speak again. She reached up to brush aside a lock of hair that had fallen over his eyes, and smiled when he turned his head to kiss her hand. “I wouldn’t have jumped on you like that, but when you turned back into a human, I just had to kiss you. To be honest, I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me.”
“I’ve never thought people shoul
d show their affection in public, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t care who sees me kiss you now. I’ve missed out on too many kissing opportunities with you already.”
“Annie, Liam, I’d like you to meet my intended, Prince Beldegard,” Gwendolyn interrupted. When they turned around, she was holding the prince’s hand and gazing at him with such love that tears prickled the backs of Annie’s eyelids.
Annie’d had a fairly good idea of what Beldegard looked like when he wasn’t a bear, but he’d never looked completely human the way he did now. He was a big man, standing well over six feet tall. His hair was the same rich brown shade that his fur had been when he was a bear. Annie found his brown eyes flecked with gold appealing and liked the way his mouth quirked to one side when he smiled.
“I must admit, you made a great bear, but an even better prince,” Annie told him.
“Maybe now we can go home?” Gwendolyn said, sounding hopeful. “We want to get married as soon as possible.”
Annie glanced at Snow White, who had followed the dwarves to the door of the cottage. None of the dwarves seemed upset that their brother had just been turned into a squirrel. “We’ll go soon, but not quite yet,” Annie told her sister. “There’s something we have to take care of before we leave.”
“Ahem,” said Maitland at Beldegard’s shoulder. “I’m glad to see you’re back. Mother and Father will be overjoyed.”
“Are you sorry you’re not going to be King of Montrose someday?” asked Beldegard.
“Not at all!” said Maitland, then gave a little laugh. “Well, maybe a bit. When everyone thought you were dead, I got used to the idea that I might actually be king. Then when we heard a rumor that you had been turned into a bear, my friends convinced me to make sure you didn’t come back and take away my inheritance. Although it wasn’t really my inheritance, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t. And if it really was your friends’ idea, you might want to get new friends,” Beldegard told Maitland, eyeing the men who had stayed by the horses.
Maitland laughed again. “I think you’re right.”
“But you might not have to give up your aspirations for being a king,” said Beldegard. “That lovely young lady who seems so enamored of you is Snow White, the daughter of the king of Helmswood.”
“Really?” said Maitland, turning toward the doorway where Snow White was still talking to the dwarves.
Annie glanced at Beldegard, who shrugged and said, “We’re in Helmswood, so that’s the closest castle. The witch was the queen of Helmswood and Snow White’s stepmother.”
Annie nodded. “You’re right. And she told us that she’s an only child.”
“Really?” said Maitland.
“So whoever marries her—”
“Yes, yes, I got that part. I do think she’s lovely. All that long, black hair…”
“Just be forewarned,” said Annie. “Snow White has lots of people who care about her and would be angry if you broke her heart.”
“And an angry witch stepmother!” added Liam.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Maitland said as he started toward Snow White.
“As for you,” Beldegard said, turning to Gwendolyn, “we have a lot to talk about.”
“Really?” she said, smiling up at him.
“Really!” said Beldegard, and he led her around the corner to the back of the cottage.
“We have a lot to talk about, too,” Liam told Annie. “But first I’d like to get cleaned up. Beldegard may be used to smelling like a bear, but I don’t like smelling like a woodchuck.”
Annie laughed and tilted her head to gaze into his eyes. “I don’t mind.”
“But I do,” Liam told her. “When we have the conversation that I want to have, I want everything to be perfect.”
Annie was watching him go toward the well when she heard the sound of horses’ hooves on packed dirt. She glanced back to see that Maitland’s men were leading the horses to a shed on the other side of the cottage. Only Yardley was left, gingerly touching his neck where the rope had scraped him. When he looked up and saw Annie, he smiled, waved good-bye, and sauntered toward the road, whistling a merry tune.
She was about to go inside when she noticed something sparkling in the grass. Taking a step closer, she realized that it was the dragon-head brooch. Although Annie wasn’t sure what she should do with it, she picked it up and stuck it in her pocket with the necklace. At least when she had the brooch, it wasn’t likely to hurt anyone.
“Annie!” called Dog from the woods on the other side of the road. “I have to tell you what happened!”
“Don’t come any closer,” Annie reminded Dog when he was a few yards away. “You won’t be able to talk if you do.”
Dog sat down, her tongue lolling to the side. “I was with the other dogs in the castle this morning when I saw the queen put something in the king’s drink. The other dogs told me that she did it every morning. He talked like a person before he drank his drink, but afterward he didn’t talk much at all. She did all the talking then.”
“She must be drugging him,” said Annie. “Good job, Dog! Now we know what we have to do. I don’t know where Cat is, but Rooster is still in the garden. I want the two of you to go to the castle. Be in the hall where the king and queen eat before breakfast tomorrow morning. Do whatever you have to do to make sure that the queen doesn’t put anything in the king’s drink. I’ll be there as early as I can to deal with her.”
Chapter 21
Annie would have been happy to go to the castle with just Liam and Snow White, but Gwendolyn, Beldegard, and Maitland insisted on going with them. Arriving at the castle in the half-light of early dawn, they found the drawbridge already down and the courtyard bustling. Four guards met them at the gate. Three guards were surly and demanded to know who they were and why they were there, but the fourth guard looked past the three princes to Snow White and his face lit up in a huge smile. “Your Highness,” he said. “It’s you!”
Snow White stepped to the front of the line. “I wasn’t sure anyone would recognize me. It’s been so long.”
“I wasn’t likely to forget our little princess!” said the guard. “Don’t mind these fools, they’ve been here only a few years, but I remember the old days when you were always underfoot and folks in the castle were lighthearted. Those were dark days indeed when we thought you had wandered off in the woods and a wild animal had… Well, that’s neither here nor there, now that you’re back! Your father will be overjoyed to see you. I’d be honored to take you to him myself.”
“I’d like that,” Snow White said. “My friends will be coming with me.” She looked pleased when Maitland took her arm, then glanced back as the rest of her companions hurried to enter the castle behind them.
It was a large castle, although not as impressive as some. The corridors were not as clean as the castle in Treecrest, nor as lavishly furnished as the castle in Floradale. When they entered the great hall, the rushes on the floor were in need of changing, and the wall-hangings were dingy with accumulated grime.
Annie wasn’t surprised that Dog had blended in so well with the other dogs of the castle. She counted fourteen, and saw more snuffling through the rushes under the tables and asleep in inconvenient places where people had to step over them. Annie looked for the king in the great hall, but the guard led them through one door and out the other side, then down a broad corridor to a more private chamber. Even before the guard opened the door, Annie knew that there were dogs there as well from the racket they were making inside the room.
The guard frowned as he flung the door open and rushed inside as if he expected trouble. At first there was so much confusion that Annie couldn’t tell what was going on. Snow White shouted, “Father!” and ran toward the man trying to chase Rooster away from the tall, dark-haired woman near the table at the far end. Dog was one of five hounds barking at the woman, although they could just as well have been barking at the bird that was flying at her face and trying to peck her h
ands.
“Dog, Rooster, that’s enough!” Annie called as she hurried toward them.
Rooster flew to a rafter, out of reach of the humans below. After a few less-frenzied barks, the dogs quieted down as well.
The king had turned at the sound of Snow White’s voice. Seeing her running toward him, his haggard eyes lit up and he sent a bench crashing to the floor in his rush to meet her. “My little girl,” he murmured as he enfolded her in his arms.
“Distract the queen while Snow White and I talk to her father,” Annie whispered to Liam, who had followed her across the room.
Snow White and the king were still talking in quiet voices when Annie herded them to the far corner, away from where the queen was already talking to Liam. “I have so much to tell you, Father,” Snow White told him. “And none of it is good. It’s about Marissa, your queen.”
At the mention of the queen’s name, Snow White’s father frowned. “What about her? I know you never got along with her.”
Snow White sighed. “It’s much more than just not getting along. She’s a witch, Father. I tried to tell you years ago, but you wouldn’t listen. She was probably drugging you even then.”
“Drugging me? What are you talking about?” said the king.
“The queen has been slipping something into your drink every morning,” said Annie. “We have witnesses who can tell you what they saw.”
“I didn’t get lost in the woods, Father, or at least not intentionally,” Snow White said. “The queen had the huntsman take me there to kill me, but he let me go and I ran off. Some good people took me in, but the queen found me and tried to kill me again.”
Annie nodded. “She brought Snow White a necklace to choke the life out of her.”
“Who are you?” asked the king. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m Princess Annabelle of Treecrest. I was on a quest with my sister and our friends when I met Snow White. I was able to take the necklace from around her throat.”
“If she hadn’t, I would have died!” cried Snow White.