“It really is, my dear! What possesses them?” She quickly caught herself and added, “Not that your beauty shouldn’t command such attention, my dear!”
Tulip sighed. “I wish I knew. It’s like a mania! Something has come over these men and taken hold of their senses! I’d feel sorry for them if it weren’t so…annoying!”
“I agree, my dear! I think we should call upon Circe!”
“Call her? How do you suppose we do that?”
“I have my ways, my dear! You just leave it to old Nanny and Miss Pflanze here.”
Pflanze gave Nanny a puzzled look and let out an inquisitive meow, wondering what the old woman had in mind.
“Pflanze? What do you want with her?” Tulip asked. “You get queerer every day, Nanny!” Nanny gave Tulip a kiss on the cheek as she scooped up Pflanze and took her off to their mysterious errand.
“Come on, my dear girl. I should like your company for a while.”
It wasn’t customary by any means for Nanny to be down in the kitchens, searching for this thing or that. And it was clear the chef was rather put out when Nanny suggested he take a nice afternoon walk.
“You’re looking a little peaky, dear. You really should spend more time in the sun. It will do you some good to get out and about. Perhaps a walk?”
The chef grumbled, leaving the little cakes he had lined up t
o decorate sitting on the marble counter, not wanting to argue with Nanny.
Nanny set out a saucer of heavy cream for Pflanze while she got a few things together. Pflanze knew at once what she was up to. Nanny intended to do a scrying spell. Pflanze had seen her witches do it many times in the years she’d spent with them. She heard Nanny in the pantry muttering to herself while gathering the herbs she needed.
“Everyone thinks Nanny is a silly old woman, but she knows a trick or two.” Pflanze watched Nanny break an egg into a wooden bowl. It floated on the surface of the water like a strange eye, but that’s what it was, wasn’t it—an eye? A way to see into the world. The sisters had already tried finding Circe that way, but perhaps Nanny’s magic would find her where the sisters’ could not. Pflanze was pleased that she was right about Nanny’s being a witch.
“That’s right, precious!” Nanny said to Pflanze, who was leisurely drinking her cream. “And I know who you belong to! But never mind that now. They don’t meddle with the likes of me. Not anymore. Not after our dealings with the Dark Fairy.” Pflanze wondered for the briefest of moments if Nanny could read her thoughts, but she decided the old woman was simply talking to herself as she often did, and as she continued to do then. “It’s time to find their little sister, Circe. We need to know what’s come over these men! Clearly they’re enchanted and it’s not by your witches. It’s someone else’s magic and I don’t like it one bit!”
Pflanze didn’t blink an eye at Nanny’s mention of knowing her mistresses. Other witches didn’t frighten her, especially sweet elderly witches who’d lost most of their powers. Hopefully Nanny would remember the proper incantation to call up Circe. Pflanze knew it, of course, but had no means of conveying it to Nanny—not any that she intended to use, anyway. Not unless Nanny really could read her thoughts. Pflanze’s magic was unlike the witches’. It took long stretches of time to recharge. It sometimes took Pflanze years to recover after using her magic, so she had to choose very carefully the precise time in which to employ it.
Nanny gave Pflanze a funny look, like she knew what she was thinking, and it made Pflanze wonder….“Oh, yes, precious kitty, I can hear you! Old Nanny isn’t as batty as everyone thinks! Give me the spell, girl! It won’t cost you anything to think!” Pflanze wondered if Nanny had been skillfully hiding her powers all that time, or if they’d recently been coming back to her.
“Ever since you arrived, dear, they’ve been coming back to me like the divine winds! I suppose I should thank you.”
You’re welcome, Pflanze thought. Then, because she had learned to conceal her thoughts from her witches long before, she thought to herself—quite secretly, mind you—that this was a very curious situation, one that needed some attention and investigation. Clearly Nanny had been growing more powerful by the moment, and somehow Pflanze was the cause, but even more important, Nanny remembered some dealings with the cat’s mistresses and the Dark Fairy, whom her witches seemed to fear—but she couldn’t think of that right then. She needed to focus on finding Circe, not only to make her witches happy but to see if she had any part in the spell that had overtaken all the young lads camped out on King Morningstar’s castle grounds. It did seem like Circe’s magic—that was the sort of thing she would do, try to bring about a match for Tulip—but it was getting out of hand; it wasn’t like Circe to let her magic run amuck, and that was what bothered Pflanze most. If Circe had cast the spell, she would know its outcome and she would come at once to mend things. Unless something was detaining her…
“Yes, my precious! My thoughts exactly! I’m worried Circe may be in trouble, as well!” The old woman and the cat’s conversation was interrupted by the clamor of a couple of castle guards running into the kitchen. The scene was rather ridiculous really, the men standing there wide-eyed, looking at Nanny and Pflanze, wondering what to make of an old woman chatting with a cat while clearly in the middle of some witchery. It was remarkable that one man was able to bark out their orders.
“Up…to the tower at once!” he stammered.
“Here now, young man, I won’t have you—or anyone—ordering me to towers, or to anywhere else, for that matter!”
“Excuse me, mum, but the queen commands it! The castle is under siege!”
The Dark Fairy’s crow was perched in the apple tree outside the witches’ gingerbread mansion. It looked at the odd sisters, who were whispering in their kitchen. From the expressions on their faces, the crow could see they didn’t find his mistress’s message at all pleasant.
“Do you think she knows?” hissed Ruby.
“She knows something! Why else send the warning?” Lucinda was incensed. “And who is she to warn us? She who meddles in the lives of children!”
Martha gasped. “We’re not to speak of the child, Lucinda, not ever! We made a promise!”
“And so we have, but I won’t have Maleficent interfering with our aims! We must find Circe!”
Ruby was ripping her dress, as she always did when anxious. Bits of red cloth littered the black-and-white kitchen floor like splotches of blood.
“Maybe we should ask her for help. Make an exchange. If we agree to sever our pact with Ursula, the Dark Fairy will have to help us find Circe!”