Thrice Upon a Marigold (6 page)

The others entered, looking around at the crude table and chairs, the single rumpled bed, the ashes in the fireplace.

“But somebody was,” Sebastian said. “And not too long ago, either. There are still a few embers in the hearth, and there are fresh footprints on the floor.”

“And look!” Phoebe bent to retrieve a tiny yellow bootee from under the bed. “Do you recognize this?”

Marigold grabbed it and pressed it to her heart. “It's Poppy's! I knit it for her myself. I recognize all the mistakes I made. I'm not a very good knitter, but I wanted her to have something her own mommy had made. Because I never did.”

“Neither did I,” Phoebe said quietly.

Chris looked grim and left the cabin. When he came back in, he was shaking his head. “It's too messed up and muddy out there for any good tracks to show. And besides, all of our own footprints have made it even messier.”

“We should have brought the dogs!” Marigold exclaimed. “Bub's an excellent tracker. At least he used to be.” She felt a wave of remorse at having neglected Bub so badly right up until the moment she needed him. She wouldn't blame him if he didn't even want to help her.

“I'm afraid soft royal living may have blunted his edge,” Chris said. “It's been a long time since he's had to track down anything that mattered. And he's older. He may not be as sharp as he once was.”

“We have to try!” Marigold exclaimed. “We have to go get him. And the other dogs, too. They're still part of the family, even though I've been so terribly inattentive and neglectful of them.” Perhaps it was foolish of Marigold to think that she could make amends to all of the dogs at once. But she also thought,
What could be the harm in trying to kill two birds with one stone?
Or two stones with one bird, as Ed would say.

Lucky for her, the dogs—being more generous and forgiving than people were—would almost certainly take whatever they were offered, be happy with it, and understand the impulse behind it.

They all mounted up and rode back to the castle in a frantic rush. When they got there, they were so covered with splattered mud, the guard at the drawbridge didn't recognize them and almost didn't let them back in. Only after ex-king Swithbert and Rollo had been summoned to identify them were they permitted entry—and the guard spent the rest of that day and the next waiting to be sent to the dungeons for not recognizing his own king and queen. Even though the dungeons were no longer used for their original purpose, those who had lived under the previous regime had not forgotten the punishments that unpredictable monarchs could decree.

Old fears die slowly.

 

At the same time that Chris, Marigold, Phoebe, and Sebastian were trying to get back into the castle, the Terrible Twos were reminiscing fondly about those good old unpredictable days. If only Olympia were still around, they wouldn't be camping out, crammed together in a leaky tent, with a goat for company. The goat was necessary, to provide milk for the baby, but her hygiene wasn't the finest, making her not the most fragrant tent-mate. Emlyn and Fogarty had tried to convince Boris and Vlad to stay in the hunter's cabin, which, though dilapidated, was at least dry and more spacious than the tent.

But the Terrible Twos had insisted that the cabin was only a temporary measure, a place to assemble and wait out the storm. As soon as the rain let up a little, they needed to get somewhere less obvious, less well-known, and less sneak-up-uponable.

“So now what?” Emlyn asked. “Your ransom note asked for a certain amount—a very
big
amount—but you didn't give any details. How are we supposed to get it?”

“Ah,” said Vlad, smoothing his mustache. “That's all part of the plan. The not-knowing builds up anxiety in the distraught parents. We want them ready to agree to any kind of terms, no matter how extravagant or outrageous. We want them in the palms of our hands.” As he said that, both he and Boris flexed their hands—his, long and elegant; Boris's square and meaty—as if remembering the good old times when those hands had been busier than they were at the moment.

Poppy lay in the laundry basket, her round brown eyes moving from one face to another.

“Put a blanket over that kid, won't you?” Fogarty said to Emlyn. “I don't like the way she looks at us. Like she's thinking.”

Emlyn said, “If she is, she's doing a lot better than you are. But even if she is thinking, what's she going to do about it? She can't walk, or talk, or handle tools. What are you worried about?”

Fogarty draped a blanket over the basket himself. “I just don't like it. It gives me the whim-whams.”

As he said that, the goat took a bite out of the back of his jacket. When he yelped and tore the fabric away, Emlyn laughed, and then said, “Looks like the goat is thinking, too.”

Meanwhile, Poppy was wondering why it had suddenly gotten so dark. She'd thought she was figuring out this daytime/nighttime business, but maybe she'd gotten something wrong.

B
UB WAS ELATED TO
go off to track the Terrible Twos. His feelings had certainly been hurt by the focus on the squalling bundle in the castle, but attention seemed to be on him now, which was good. He didn't want to muff his chance to remind them of what an excellent and irreplaceable dog he had always been. He was a bit put out that Cate, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy would also be coming along in nothing but a decorative capacity; they were all completely useless at tracking and would only be excess baggage. Still, he was used to having them around, so maybe it would work out all right, even if the expedition into the forest was beginning to look like a circus parade.

Bub trotted importantly along beside Chris's horse while Cate rode in the comfort of the king's saddlebag, and Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy rode in Marigold's. It was a long trip out to the hunter's cabin; by the time they got there, old Bub was wondering if he would have the stamina to get home again. But he had a job to do and a wish to prove how indispensable he was. Definitely more indispensable than the decorative extra baggage.

He ran around the cabin a few times, his nose a fraction above the mud (most of the time), sniffing like a blacksmith's bellows. Then he sat down and looked up at Chris, his brow furrowed, his ears drooping. Maybe he wasn't so indispensable after all.

“What is it, boy?” Chris asked, as if he expected Bub to answer.

Bub did his best. He shook his head so hard his ears flapped.

“No?” Chris asked. “You're telling me no? No what? No scents? No idea which way they went? No idea what's going on?”

Bub shook his head again and lay down in the mud, looking and feeling mournful. The rain had washed away every scent except that of mud. If it hadn't been so undignified he would have lifted his muzzle and howled in disappointment.

“I think he means he can't do it,” Marigold said. “I think this is a dead end.”

Suddenly Bub jumped to his feet and began lumbering around in a circle, stiff-legged and moving his head slowly from side to side. Perhaps he could still redeem his reputation and ensure Marigold's affection.

“What's he doing now?” Marigold asked.

“I don't know for sure,” Chris said. “You're going to think this is crazy, but it looks to me as if he's imitating Hannibal.”

“Hannibal? But why would he want to look like a big white elephant?”

Chris shrugged. “Maybe he thinks Hannibal can help with this somehow.”

Marigold just looked at Bub in disbelief, but then decided,
why not?
They were desperate and in a hurry, and why shouldn't Bub know something they didn't about elephants? He spent more time in the stables with Hannibal than she did, that was for sure.

“I wonder if he'll wear dark glasses,” Marigold said.

“Who? Hannibal?” Chris asked. “Why would he wear dark glasses?”

“It's an elephant joke,” Marigold said. “The answer is, so he won't be recognized.” She gave him a weary smile.

“Huh,” he said, not appreciating yet another of her jokes. “You don't know how many times I've wished the dogs could talk. I can see how hard he's trying to tell us something, and I can only guess at what it is. What if it's not about Hannibal at all?”

“But I think you're right,” Marigold said. “It looks just like him. And even if dogs could talk, most of the time they'd probably just be saying they were hungry.”

Chris thought dogs were more complex than that, but he figured this was not a good time to get into that conversation—especially since he thought that whatever dogs had to say, it would be better than an elephant joke.

Bub
woof
ed to get their attention again, then resumed his stiff, swaying walk.

“Yep,” Chris said. “That's Hannibal. I guess we have to get him out here with Bub and see what happens.”

So once again the group made their way back to the castle through the mud and the oncoming darkness. Halfway there, poor exhausted Bub had to be slung across Chris's saddle and hauled home like a sack of potatoes, while Cate, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy sat perkily in their saddlebags, enjoying the view.

Bub hoped Chris and Marigold had gotten the message that maybe Hannibal, with his huge trunk, would be able to sniff out any lingering, telltale scents that Bub, with only his black, dog-size nose, could not. It was a long shot, he knew, but he was desperate.

 

Trying to explain to Wendell what they thought Bub wanted wasn't as hard as they thought it would be. Maybe it was because he was a wizard and was used to unusual happenings. Or maybe he knew how eager Hannibal would be to get out of the stables where he had been parked next to the jittery unicorns. Or maybe it was because he was as anxious to find Princess Poppy as anybody was.

“When do you want him?” was all Wendell said.

As much as Christian and Marigold wanted to go back into the forest immediately, they recognized the futility of trying to find anything in the falling darkness, even if they took torches.

“As soon as it's light,” Chris said.

And they all went off to spend the night tossing, turning, worrying, and waking suddenly from dreams so awful that they never mentioned them to anyone.

 

In the morning, they set off again, still without any of the guards but with Hannibal and Wendell. Sebastian was wondering if it was such a hot idea to go out without guards this time, but maybe the king knew best. Maybe all those guards, with their armor and their weapons jangling, would make it too hard to sneak up on the Terrible Twos. Or maybe the king feared the guards would be more interested in attacking than sneaking. Or maybe he feared Poppy could get hurt in a general melee. Still, an expedition that included a great white elephant wasn't the most inconspicuous kind.

“Were you surprised they believed us? When we said we knew it was the Terrible Twos?” Phoebe asked him.

“Sure,” Sebastian said. “Weren't you?”

She nodded. “Especially once they knew who we were. But the ransom note confirmed it, so I guess that gave us some credibility. Do you think we'll find the baby?”

“I hope so. Children should be with their mothers.”

“Yes,” she said wistfully. “What was your mother like?”

“I wish I could remember. One day, when I was three, she went out to gather berries and never returned.”

“Really?” Phoebe asked, astonished. “
My
mother disappeared, too. When I was not quite one.”

“Maybe it's not so surprising,” Sebastian said, “considering who they were married to. Wouldn't
you
want to walk away from them?”

“But our mothers walked away from us, too. Why didn't they take us with them?”

“I've thought about that a lot. And asked my father, too, but he only said he was glad she was gone because she treated me too nicely. So I don't know the answer. There could be lots of reasons. Maybe . . . maybe they didn't go voluntarily. Maybe something befell them. I just don't know.”

“What I think about is maybe they didn't want us,” Phoebe said in a small voice.

“That could be,” Sebastian said. “But I don't want to believe it.” For some reason, he felt like comforting her.

“Still. It might be true.”

“Here's what I say—when you don't know or can't know the answer to a question, why not believe the answer that you like best? It's as valid as any of the others—and it might be right.”

She thought for a moment and then said, “That's brilliant.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you know that the eye of a duck has three eyelids?”

Every time she told him one of her odd facts, he felt as if she had given him a little present. The only gift he had to give her was his appreciation of the meaning of words. “I did not. You have enlightened me. My interest is always piqued by your pedagogy.”

“Really?” she asked, pretty sure she knew what he meant.

“Assuredly.”

She flushed with pleasure. “The average cat has twenty-five to thirty whiskers,” she murmured.

“That is very good to know,” he said.

 

Wendell joggled along on top of his elephant. He didn't know what Bub thought Hannibal could do, but he didn't question that animals understood each other in ways that people did not, and he trusted Bub's instincts.

He'd been trying to convince Mrs. Clover to take a ride with him on Hannibal, but so far she'd declined the invitation. Come to think of it, he considered, adjusting his awkward seating, it probably wasn't the most comfortable ride in the world. But Hannibal was an advantage he had over Swithbert in the pursuit of Mrs. Clover and he wanted to use all the tricks he had. How else could a washed-up wizard compete with an ex-king?

As they neared the hunter's cabin, Hannibal led them away from it, farther into the forest.