Curse of the Dream Witch (5 page)

Olivia’s last meal in the castle was another kind of nightmare. Leo’s uncle had assumed responsibility for her safety. ‘No witch can best me or my men,’ he’d boasted. ‘At the evening meal, bring the girl to the dining hall. If the witch dares show her face, my men will send her to Hell!’

So Olivia sat at the great oak table between her mother and father, and opposite Prince Leo and his uncle. A hundred Pretonian soldiers lined the walls of the great hall, each with a counterfeit pysanka in a silver casing identical to Olivia’s chained to his chest. The second hundred commanded security throughout the castle, bossing her parents’ troops.

In honour of the castle’s guests and Olivia’s last supper at home, Queen Sophia had gone all out. Coronation banners embroidered with jewels hung from the rafters, while the walls were festooned with rivers of silk brocade. The table was anchored by silver candelabra representing fountains with dragons and mermaids, and by horns of plenty cascading with figs, dates, and pomegranates.

There were baskets of fine breads; a tureen of prawns in a sauce of creamed apricot and pear; a boar stuffed with sausages and walnuts; pheasants under glass; and a twenty-layer chocolate-and-butter-cream cake crammed with glazed cherries and plums.

Yet despite the festive flourishes, the freedom from her cell, and more company than she’d had in years, Olivia felt alone and desperate. To her left, her father sat motionless, his eyes full to bursting, his valet attempting to feed him without success. To her right, her mother’s smile kept trembling into tears, and her hands shook so badly she could barely hold her cutlery. Tucked in her pocket, Penelope tried to comfort by gently kneading Olivia’s leg with her little front paws.

Leo’s uncle was ignorant of their pain. He amused the table – if that was the word – with loud tales of his valour, roared at his own jokes, and quaffed ale and wine in equal measure, pounding his tankard on the table for exclamation.

‘So tomorrow’s your birthday,’ he bellowed at Olivia. ‘Thirteen. A woman. And leaving home. Your heart in Pretonia – or with the Dream Witch!’ The queen shuddered. The duke belched. ‘Never fear. I’ve drowned a hundred witches in my time, and burned a hundred more.’ So it continued.

Meanwhile, Prince Leo slouched opposite, his mouth hanging open. He lolled his tongue, dribbled food, and stared where he shouldn’t. Olivia covered her top with her napkin and wrapped her feet behind her chair legs to keep them away from his roving toes. Oh, how she wished she could leap over the table and pop his pimples with her fork.

She knew she couldn’t of course – couldn’t even speak up about how he’d taunted her in her cell and tried to grab her. If she talked, her parents would have to do something. And the moment they did, Leo might seize the castle. He had the power, and knew it, too.

So Olivia sat quietly staring at her food as the duke droned on and Leo tormented her with his eyes. She glared at him. He smirked. It was intolerable.

After the meal, which ended when the duke passed out, Olivia returned to her cell with her mother and a troop of Pretonian guards. A dozen of the men formed a triple rank outside her door, while twenty more took up positions on the spiral staircase.

Olivia settled Penelope on the pillow next to her own and changed into her nightie. Meanwhile, her mother checked the closets and armoire to make sure no one had got into the room while they were out. ‘You barely touched your meal,’ she said, looking under the bed.

‘I wasn’t hungry. You didn’t eat much either.’

‘True, but you have a long journey ahead. You’ll need your strength.’ From the courtyard, the hoots and hollers of carousing soldiers broke the night air. The queen dusted off her hands and went to the window. ‘I’ll have Cook pack extra snacks. The sort of treats you like. Ginger biscuits. Tarts and marmalade.’

‘It’s all right,’ Olivia said, dully. ‘The duke’s people eat well by the look of them.’

The queen looked into the starry night. ‘A full moon,’ she shivered, ‘as big as a cauldron. At least we can see whatever’s out there.’ The soldiers below broke into a drinking song. Olivia’s mother locked the shutters and turned to tuck her daughter in for the last time.

Olivia steadied her breath.
I mustn’t let Mother know I’m afraid
, she thought.

Somehow her mother knew anyway; or knew that she herself was afraid. ‘Shall I spend the night with you?’

Olivia wanted to say ‘yes’ more than anything in the world. But if her mother stayed, she knew that sooner or later she’d blurt out the truth about Leo. Then what? A battle with the prince? Or would she even be believed? Might her mother think she was making it up to stay at home? Or exaggerating a schoolboy tease? It was all too horrible to imagine.

Olivia twined her mother’s fingers in her own. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but from now on I’m going to have to learn to take care of myself. What better way to start than to be alone tonight in my own room?’

‘That’s my brave girl,’ her mother said. ‘But if ever you want me, call the guards at once. I’ll be just below, and here in an instant.’ She kissed her gently and made her way to the cell door, eyes never leaving her daughter. ‘Good night, dear heart.’

‘Good night.’

Her mother blew her one last kiss and left, bolting the door behind her. 

The room was swallowed up by silence. Olivia fancied she could hear the shadows cast by her night lamp dancing on the walls.

She curled into a ball and turned to Penelope. ‘What am I to do? I
can’t
go with Leo. But I can’t
not
.’

The little mouse peered in her eyes with such devotion that, for a moment, Olivia imagined she understood.
You can run away.

‘What?’ Olivia sat up.

The little mouse scratched her muzzle with her front paws.
You can run away.

Olivia’s eyes bugged wide. ‘Penelope?’

The mouse scrunched its nose.

‘Don’t tease me Penelope. Can you really talk, or am I crazy?’

Before the mouse could answer, there was a sharp tapping from inside the armoire near her bed.

Olivia leapt out of bed. ‘Milo?’

‘Yes. May I come in?’

‘Just a minute.’ Olivia ran to the wall of wardrobes on the far side of the room and scrambled into a pair of leggings.

Penelope stood on her hind legs. ‘What are you doing?’ This time her squeak was loud and clear.

‘I
knew
you could talk,’ Olivia said. She threw on a smock. ‘If this isn’t a dream, I’m running away.’

‘Olivia, no!’

‘Why not? You suggested it yourself.’

 ‘Running away, yes. But not with him!’

‘Why not? I’ll be safer than on my own. I’ll have my pysanka, too.’ She whirled a dark hooded cloak around her shoulders.

‘He’ll try to break it.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She slipped on a pair of shoes.

‘Believe me, he will! He will!’

‘Fine.’ Olivia rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll keep the pysanka hidden in my cloak if it makes you feel better. But I’m leaving: Milo can’t be worse than Leo.’

‘You’ve no idea,’ Penelope wailed. She leapt from the bed and ran for the crack under the cell door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To tell the guards. To raise the alarm!’

‘Stop! To them you’re a mouse. They’ll stomp on you.’

Penelope froze. Olivia snatched her up and stared at her, nose to whiskers. ‘You can come with me, or I can shut you up in a stocking drawer. But you won’t stop me. Understood?’

‘What to do, what to do,’ the little mouse quivered.

Olivia slipped Penelope up her sleeve. Then she fetched the ribbon box from its lower shelf in her closets and retrieved the last pysanka safe in its silver shell. She put it in the lining pocket of her cloak and opened the armoire door.

Milo stayed in the cupboard’s shadows. Olivia saw bruises on his arm and cheek; one of his eyes was swollen.

‘Milo,’ she gasped. ‘What happened?’

Milo shrank from the lamplight. ‘I fell.’

Penelope poked her head out of Olivia’s sleeve: ‘That’s a lie. You’re part of a trap. Last night, she beat you when you came back empty-handed, didn’t she?’

‘No!’ Milo exclaimed and turned his head away.

‘Tell the princess the truth,’ Penelope pleaded.

‘I can’t.’

Olivia stepped back. ‘Who’s she? What’s so bad you can’t tell?’

‘No one. Nothing.’

Olivia frowned. ‘You appear out of thin air, beaten and bruised; you talk to a mouse. Most people would find that strange – not you. So let’s start there. If this isn’t a dream, what is it?’

‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

‘I do so. What I
don’t
know is what you’re hiding.’

Milo was torn by fear and shame. He rubbed his hands. ‘How can I say it?’

‘You have a good heart,’ Penelope said. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Say what it tells you.’

Milo looked from the mouse to Olivia and back again. Then he took a deep breath and dropped to his knees before the princess. ‘Forgive me.’

‘For what?’

 ‘For what I came to do. She said she’d kill me if I didn’t help her. She said my parents would never see me again. She said they’d die of grief.’

‘Who’s
she
?’

‘The Dream Witch. I’m her prisoner. She said if I brought you to her lair, she’d set me free. But that’s a lie. I’d never be free. I’d have nightmares as long as I lived.’

Olivia frowned. ‘How did the witch get you into the armoire? No, wait, don’t tell me,’ she exclaimed. ‘She put you inside the picture of the cottage with the picket fence.’

Milo nodded. ‘The witch sends people to the places she draws on parchments of bat wings; she calls them portals. Only she didn’t know how to draw the inside of your turret. That’s why she had her owl, Doomsday, fly me to your window in the picture of her cottage. That picture is the portal to travel back and forth to her lair.’

Olivia’s head swam. ‘I thought the picture of her cottage was a dream-drawing because the chimney smoke drifted off the parchment. But it was real.’

‘Yes,’ Milo said. ‘Only you weren’t paying attention. That was no picket fence.’ He picked up the parchment and held it to her face.

Olivia fell back, her hand over her mouth. As she’d remembered, the thatching of the cottage was like hair, and the windows like eyes. But the picket fence was made of thighbones each capped by a skull. The door was lined with teeth. And the smoke from the chimney smelled of burning flesh.

‘I was sent to bring you to her. But I won’t. I can’t.’ He threw the parchment back on the armoire floor and looked at Olivia in terror. ‘What will become of us now?’ 

Milo didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Without warning, the queen threw open the cell door. Guards stormed in followed by Leo and his bleary-eyed uncle. They dragged Milo out of the closet and threw him down in the centre of the room.

 ‘We caught you this time, Demon!’ the queen exclaimed. ‘You’re in thrall to the Dream Witch, aren’t you? What enchantment did you place on my daughter? Why is she in a hooded cape?’

‘That’s
my
doing, Mother,’ Olivia piped up. ‘His name is Milo. He’s a boy from the country. He doesn’t mean any harm.’

‘A peasant in the castle?’ Leo yelled. ‘I’ll have his head.’ He drew his sword.

The duke grabbed Leo’s arm. ‘All in good time. First, let’s learn what the knave knows. The lash and the thumbscrew will loosen his tongue.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Olivia blurted. ‘I asked him here to help me run away.’

‘Why?’ her mother asked, astonished. ‘You’re protected by our guests.’

‘I’m no more safe with Leo than with the witch. Ask him what he said to me when you left us alone. Ask him what he tried to do.’

Leo’s blotches bubbled red. ‘I never said or tried to do anything.’

‘Liar! You said I’d be forced into marriage and made to obey you.’

The duke blinked in fury. ‘Teach your girl some manners, Highness.’

Queen Sophia cupped Olivia’s head in her hands. She saw the pain and fear in her eyes. She turned to Leo and his uncle. ‘Excellencies, you are our honoured guests, but I rule this kingdom in my husband’s stead. I shall speak to the boy and render justice as I see fit. As for my daughter: If she enters your protection, it will be as a guest, not a prize.’

The duke’s eyelid twitched: ‘Wrong on both counts, Highness. The prisoner has challenged the honour of the Pretonian court: We will decide his fate. As for the princess, she may be free to refuse Prince Leo but only a madwoman or a witch would make such a choice. For those, we have the asylum and the stake.’

‘How dare you!’ the queen exclaimed. ‘You and your men will be gone by sunrise.’

‘No. The girl’s mine.’ Leo stomped his foot. ‘I want her and I’ll have her! Father said I could.’

‘Your father doesn’t own me,’ Olivia snapped. ‘Neither do you.’

The duke’s voice went dark as a dungeon: ‘We haven’t come this far to go home empty-handed. You made a pact. It shall be honoured.’ He raised his hand; his soldiers drew their weapons. The queen clutched Olivia tight.

 ‘Did you think the girl’s protection came free?’ the duke continued. ‘She’ll inherit this kingdom on your husband’s death. Her marriage will give Pretonia your fields for our granaries and your forests for our sport.’

‘And I shall call you “Mother”,’ Leo smirked at the queen.

Queen Sophia threw back her shoulders. ‘I’ll have no brat like you.’

The duke laughed and pressed his blade to Milo’s throat. ‘Now, boy. What’s that drawing on the floor beside you?’

‘A portal to the Dream Witch.’

The duke speared it with his sword and held it to the lamp light. The parchment shrieked and burst into flames. Outside, a greater shriek rent the night. A blast of wind rattled the shutters. The bolt popped free. The shutters crashed open against the stone walls. Through the window, Olivia saw a blaze shoot up from the middle of the forest.

The fiery parchment flapped its sides. It flew off the sword and around the room. Thunder rumbled beyond. Rain poured onto the fire in the forest. The flames fizzled, both in the woods and on the drawing. A plume of smoke rose into the night; the charred portal swooped away through the window bars.

Then, without warning, the Dream Witch flew up from the forest on her giant cleaver. She hurtled towards the castle, silhouetted against the moon. Slicing through the sky, cutting above the cornfields and town, it looked like she’d crash through the window bars.

Everyone dropped to the floor. But at the last second, the witch yanked the cleaver’s mighty handle, and sheared to a powerful parallel stop, rearing her trunk in anger.

‘You dare try to destroy me, Queen?’ she shrieked, hovering outside the turret. ‘You who came to me with a dream and a promise?’ Smoke shot from her nostrils.

‘Dream Witch, no. I’ve only tried to protect my daughter.’

‘Ha! You sought to burn me in my lair. Consider us at war. In the underworld beneath my cottage is a chamber of children, kidnapped because you wouldn’t pay your debt. Surrender the princess by dawn, or I’ll grind them to dust.’

The witch’s words echoed over the countryside. Wails pierced the night air. Howls of: ‘Why
our
children? Why not yours?’ ‘Why not one child instead of a hundred?’

‘Hear the cries of your people,’ the witch warned, ‘or their grief shall tear your castle apart.’

‘Silence witch,’ the duke commanded. ‘The girl belongs to us. With her, we hold the keys to this kingdom. If peasants attack this castle we’ll slaughter them.’ He hollered down to the courtyard: ‘Archers. Send the witch on her way.’

His men shot up a volley of arrows. The Dream Witch swung her trunk. The arrows turned in mid air and rained back at the soldiers.

‘As for you, Milo my boy,’ the witch cackled over the screams below, ‘your parents shall never see you again. And you, Princess, by dawn, I shall have your heart in my hand.’ She reared her cleaver and tore back through the sky to her lair.

The duke whirled on the queen. ‘You’re the author of this misfortune. You and your husband have ruled with a weak hand. Why else would a witch feel free to challenge you? Fear is the heart of power. Your meekness has bred licence.’

‘And your brutishness, hatred!’ Olivia spoke out.

The duke swatted her with the back of his hand. She fell to the floor. Her mother ran to her with a cry.

‘You’ll learn to hold your tongue, girl. You’ll teach her, won’t you, Nephew?’

‘With pleasure,’ Leo leered.

The duke ripped the key to the cell from the queen’s neck and gave it to the prince. He turned to his men. ‘Lock her Highness in her bedchamber and disarm her troops. Then throw this boy in the dungeon.’

The soldiers left on their mission.

‘Mother! Milo!’ Olivia called out as they were dragged away, ‘I’ll find a way to save you.’

Leo turned at the door. ‘You can’t even save yourself.’