“Pflanze, why are you here? Why did you send for us?” “Yes, Pflanze, why? Why did you leave when Ursula told us her story?” “We were worried about you! Slinking off like a nasty little creature, making us worry when we have so many other things on our minds!” “It’s not like you! Not at all. Please explain yourself!”
Pflanze was silent.
“What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she speak? Have you done something to our Pflanze?”
The sisters rose from the bloodred divan, ready to pounce on Nanny.
“Sit down! Pflanze is fine! We have something important to show you.”
“So, the One of Legends has something to show us? She has much to say? When we already have so many important things to do on this day?”
Ruby’s eyes widened with glee. “Oh! We’re finally rhyming again? How charmingly delightful!” She was clapping with utter joy. She had been waiting for Lucinda to break the strange means of communication she’d been using since Circe’s departure.
Martha jumped up from her seat and started stamping her boots, making a terrible clicking noise. “The sisters are free to rhyme at last! Our mundane ways are a thing of the past!” Ruby gave her sister a disappointed look. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of practice!” But Ruby joined her sister anyway, and they sung and stomped their feet in a cacophonous choir of bedlam that echoed throughout the castle. They were having the most fun they’d had since Circe left, and they were enjoying themselves thoroughly—until Tulip burst into the room.
“What is going on here, ladies?” The sisters looked at the angelic bunny-faced girl like she was an insect, an alien species, which she was when you thought of it—at least to the sisters. After all, everyone within the room was magical except for Tulip, who, by the look on her face, didn’t know what to make of the scene, with these strange, deranged women, whoever they might be, jumping up and down like madwomen. Or better, frenzied marionettes who had taken on lives of their own.
Nanny tried to divert Tulip’s attention.
“My dear, have you left Popinjay to his own devices alone in the morning room?”
“No, Nanny, of course not. He’s left,” she said rather offhandedly, distracted by these strange sisters who were stomping and singing the castle down.
“Ladies, please. Stop this at once. You’re going to step on my cat!” snapped Tulip.
The odd sisters froze, their faces stern and filled with contempt. They resembled baleful dolls, staring at Tulip with their bulging eyes. “Your cat?” asked Lucinda, giving Tulip a deadly look.
“Yes, my cat! Now kindly step away from her before you stomp on her with your pointy boots!”
“Lucinda, you will not touch her. She was almost killed by your wicked meddling with the Beast prince. I won’t have you hurting my precious girl again!” Tulip had never heard Nanny speak so seriously in all the years she’d known her, not even when she’d confronted Ursula.
“What has she to do with the Beast?” asked Tulip, looking from the sisters to her nanny, confounded. “Who are these women?”
Nanny placed her hand on Tulip’s arm to calm her.
“They are Circe’s sisters, dear. They’re here to help us find her.”
Circe’s sisters? Can that be true? Tulip looked at the odd sisters, for surely they were sisters. They had to be; they looked exactly like each other in every respect. There was something sinister about them, something foul. She didn’t like the look of them now that she had a chance to take in the entire scene. Their hair was black as a bucket of tar, their skin was white as a cuttlefish bone, and their overly large eyes were lined with black, making them look rather more deep-set than they ought to have been. They were painfully thin, these sisters, with long skeletal hands adorned with rings that hung loose on their bony fingers.
It looked as though a necromancer had summoned them from the grave for the Samhain ball. There was no way the frightful hags were related to Circe.
No way at all.
“Be careful, dear, or we might take the bell in your soul,” said Lucinda, laughing.
“Blight her, Lucinda! She’s stolen our cat!” “We can boil her in oil and give her bones to the Romanian witch as an offering!”
“Calm yourselves, Sisters,” said Lucinda, laughing. “She’s stolen nothing. Remember, our Pflanze lived in the Beast prince’s castle when he was engaged to Tulip. She didn’t know she belonged to us. How could she?”
Nanny was surprised that Lucinda was being so sensible. Still, Ruby and Martha were seized by little twitches, trying to contain their anger. They had been so reserved the past several months, so quiet, so unlike themselves. It took all their willpower to keep themselves from opening a door to Hades right there and then and shoving the little brat within so they’d never have to see her stupid angelic face again.
“Watch your thoughts, good sisters,” warned Nanny.
“So the One of Legends has remembered she’s a telepathist.”
Tulip felt she might be losing her mind.
“Who is this One of Legends they speak of?” she asked.