The Salamander Spell (5 page)

Unfortunately, Grassina had always had a vivid imagination. With each new sound, she pictured all sorts of creatures that could live in a thicket, any one of which might enjoy a nice rabbit meal. When nothing appeared, she began to worry about other things like whether her mother’s transformation was temporary or permanent and whether the queen would come looking for her. She thought about her father and how he must feel, then began to worry about what would become of her family if her mother didn’t change back. When nothing new happened, she worried that she was going to have to spend the rest of her life as a rabbit.

“Oh dear,” said a voice from somewhere close by. Grassina pricked up her ears, swiveling them in the direction of the sound. She froze again when she heard the whisper of something brushing against the leaves. “And I thought thingss couldn’t get any worsse,” moaned the voice. “What should I do now?”

Although it wasn’t Chartreuse’s voice, it had to be her. Who else could be in this thicket, talking in a way Grassina could understand? Their mother must have changed both of her daughters at the same time. And if it was Chartreuse, it sounded as if she’d been hurt, perhaps by the magic that had changed her.

Moving as quietly as she could, Grassina crept through the hedge, listening for her sister. There was a sound—over there. It was close, too. If it was Chartreuse, whatever she had been turned into should be visible by now. Grassina couldn’t see her, but she did smell an unfamiliar, musky scent. She was watching the play of dappled light on the shadowy green foliage when a long narrow head moved, two glistening black eyes looked her way, and the shape that had blended into the thicket so well suddenly became apparent.

“Chartreuse?” Grassina whispered to the snake. “Is that you?”

“Go away!” whispered the snake. “Don’t come near me. Ssomething bad will happen if you do!”

Grassina hopped closer. “Don’t be silly, Chartreuse. It’s me, Grassina. What’s wrong with your tail?”

The snake had twisted around itself until the last few inches of its tail rested on the top coil. Part of it looked flatter than the rest, and whole rows of bright green scales were missing. “You don’t want to know. It’ss a very long sstory.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Grassina said, stretching out on the cool soil to listen.

The little snake sighed. “If you inssisst, but I warned you! It’ss my bad luck, you ssee. I’ve been plagued with it ssince before I wass hatched. My mother abandoned me, sso I wass all alone in the world when I broke out of my shell. I wass crawling to another branch when I fell out of my tree. It took me an entire morning to climb back up. The next day a witch named Mudine ssnatched me from my jungle where I was nice and warm, dropped me in a bassket, and whisked me away to her cottage in thesse cold, cold woodss. She locked me in a cage and fed me inssectss that made my sstomach hurt.

“Then bad thingss began happening to her. A sstorm made her roof leak and ruined her magic bookss. A rat wandered in and ate her mosst important herbss. Her potion sscorched when she took a nap. That’ss when she told me it wass all my fault; she ssaid that her bad luck began the day she brought me home. She called me a jinx, and I knew she was right. Bad luck followss me wherever I go.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Grassina as she took a step backward. Apparently, this wasn’t Chartreuse after all.

“Yessterday a hairy monsster broke into the cottage and ssmashed everything. The witch wass out, you ssee, or she would have turned him into a mousse and fed him to me. When the monsster broke my cage, I thought I’d finally be free. I wass almosst out the door when he sstepped on my tail. I thought he wass going to kill me, but he changed hiss mind and I got away after all. I sstill have bad luck, though. I can’t go far with a tail like thiss. Ah, I ssee you undersstand. That’ss it, move away from me. Maybe my bad luck won’t hurt you if you leave now.”

Grassina kept backing away until she bumped into the thicket behind her. Despite what the creature said, it wasn’t its bad luck that she found frightening. “You’re a real snake!” she said, her eyes widening as she realized something else. “Then why can I understand everything you’re saying?”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to undersstand me, unlesss . . . Is there ssomething wrong with the way I talk?” the snake asked, becoming agitated. “Are my wordss getting sslurred? Iss my voice getting faint? I’m going to die now, aren’t I? The end iss near. I can feel it! It’ss my bad luck, I tell you. That monsster musst have hurt me more than I thought when it sstepped on my tail!”

“I doubt it. You sound fine. It’s just that I’m really a human girl, not a rabbit, and I shouldn’t be able to understand you . . . unless . . . Is it because I
am
a rabbit now?”

“You’re crazy,” said the snake. “That explainss a lot. Only a crazy rabbit would want to hear my sstory. Monkeyss are crazy, and if you’re like them . . .”

“I’m not crazy. I’m a human girl who . . .”

“You’re no human; you’re a rabbit. Jusst look at that little twitchy nosse and fluffy puff of a tail! I think that . . . Shh! What wass that?”

A leaf rustled. Fur brushed a twig. A padded paw scraped an exposed root. Grassina raised her head to sniff the air. There was a new scent, like her own rabbity smell, yet completely different. This scent set her whiskers quivering and made the fur along her spine bristle. Whatever the creature was, she already didn’t like it.

Turning her head ever so slowly, Grassina glimpsed a flash of russet fur and the tip of a pointed ear. It was a fox, and it was only a few feet away inside the tangled thicket.

“Thiss iss the end,” whispered the snake. “Now ssomeone iss going to die becausse of my bad luck. I can’t sslither fasst with my tail like thiss, and you’re crazier than a butterfly that thinkss it can sswim. We don’t sstand a chance!”

Caught between the instinct to run and her desire to help a creature in need, Grassina paused for only a second before saying, “I’m not crazy, and I’m not leaving you here to die. There must be something we can do.” Her eyes fell on a broken twig. When she tried to pick it up, she had to use both paws to hold it, being careful not to prick herself on the wicked-looking thorns.

The twig wobbled as Grassina raised it between her paws and turned to face the fox. Smiling, the fox skirted a prickly branch while its eyes flicked from her to the snake. “What have we here?” it said, licking its lips.

“You don’t want to fool with me,” Grassina said.

The fox smirked. “And why is that?”

“Because I have this!” she said. Raising the twig over her head, she hopped once and brought it down on the fox’s skull as hard as she could. The fox jerked its head away, but Grassina followed, raining blows on it with the thorny twig.

“What are you doing?” the fox barked. “You’re a rabbit. You’re supposed to be afraid! Stop that! Ow! Ow!”

The fox dodged, trying to evade her blows. Grassina was still walloping the animal when her skin began to tingle, her paws to prickle, and her ears to ache. She paused and took a deep breath, but her vision blurred, making it hard to see when the fox turned to face her, its lips curled back in a snarl. Shaking her head to clear it made her feel woozy, so she almost didn’t notice the fox tensing its muscles to pounce. When she did, she swung at the fox one last time even though she was feeling so light-headed that she was afraid she might faint. She was halfway through her swing when her paws lost their grip on the twig; the tingling had grown until she could feel nothing else.

Grassina’s entire body shimmered, but she had her eyes closed, so she didn’t see it. Nor did she see the horrified look on the fox’s face when she began to change.

The fox turned tail and ran when Grassina’s body began to push the thorns aside, breaking some and bending others as she grew. The thorns scratched and bit into her flesh as she returned to her normal size and shape, leaving trickles of blood on her face, hands, and clothes. When the tingling stopped, she felt the thorn-inflicted pain in a rush of sensation that made her cry out. Her eyes fluttered open and she flinched; the thorns were so thick around her that she was afraid to move. Biting her lip at the pain of each new prick and scrape, she pushed the twigs aside as she forced her way through the thicket.

“Well, I’ll be . . . ,” whispered the little green snake at her feet.

Grassina looked down. “I can still understand you!” she said. “Now do you believe me? I told you I was a human.” Something rustled in the thicket only a few yards away. After glancing in that direction, Grassina turned back to the snake. “I don’t want to leave you here to get eaten. Come with me and I’ll . . .”

The snake drew back, rearranging its coils deeper under the protective thorns. “Pleasse don’t try to hurt me! Issn’t it bad enough that my tail iss ssquashed?”

Grassina was aghast. “I don’t want to hurt you! I have to go home now and see my family, but I don’t want to leave you here. If you go with me, I can keep you safe while your tail heals. You won’t bite me or anything if I pick you up?”

“Well, you did protect me from that fox,” said the snake. “I ssupposse I can trusst you. But I have to warn you that if you take me with you, my bad luck will come, too.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Grassina. “I don’t believe in bad luck.” Gritting her teeth, she touched the snake, expecting it to feel cold and slimy. Instead it felt nice, not cool, but not exactly warm either. Its scales were smooth, and it tickled when it slid across her palm and wrapped itself around her wrist.

“Ssay,” said the snake. “You’re not a witch, are you? You’re not going to sstick me in a kettle with toe of bat and ear of rat or ssome other dissgussting combination?”

Grassina laughed and shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t have a lick of magic. I told you, I just want to keep you safe.” Pushing aside the last branch, she stepped out of the thicket and stopped to tug her gown free of the thorns. She looked around, afraid of what she might see. The farmer’s field was empty except for a flock of scavenging crows; there was no sign of either her sister or her mother. She would have to go home to find out what had happened to her family.

Over the years, she had learned enough about magic to realize that because her mother had cast the spell that changed her, Olivene had to be the one to change her back. She had reverted to her human form, so perhaps her mother’s own transformation had been only temporary and she was her normal self again. But if she wasn’t . . . Grassina began to hurry, taking long ground-eating strides as she thought about her father’s disappearance. And then there was Chartreuse. Who knew what their mother might have done to her?

Grassina would have to tend to the snake first, of course. “Hold on tight. I don’t want to drop you.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It would jusst be my bad luck again. But I should be fine. I
wass
hatched in a tree, after all. You know, you’re the firsst human I’ve ever talked to. Mudine talked
at
me, but she never tried to talk
to
me.”

“And you’re the first snake I’ve ever wanted to talk to,” Grassina said, still amazed that she could converse with an animal.

Five

W
hat are you doing?” demanded Grassina, ducking out of her sister’s way.

Chartreuse waved the broom handle, swatting at a web and ripping it down the center. A spider dangled from one of the broken threads. “Vandals! Thieves!” it shouted in a voice no louder than a whisper.

“That should be obvious,” said Chartreuse. “Mother told us to collect spiders’ webs. Do you know of a better way?”

Grassina put her hand on the broom so that her sister couldn’t swing it again. “You don’t have to be so rough. We could try asking for them.”

“Ask who?” Chartreuse glanced at the stable boy mucking out a nearby stall. “I’m not asking him, if that’s what you mean.”

Grassina shook her head. “Ask the spiders, of course. The webs belong to them.”

“You want to talk to spiders?” Chartreuse sounded incredulous.

“You could do it if you’d like. I think talking to animals is fun.”

“You would,” said Chartreuse. “But I don’t. It’s beneath a royal princess to talk to animals. We have a responsibility to our subjects to maintain some decorum. If you’d paid attention to Lady Sophronia, you’d know that we are supposed to set examples for our less fortunate subjects.”

“Something awful happened to you when Mother turned you into a chicken, didn’t it? You never did tell me what it was like.”

Chartreuse gave her such a venomous look that it could have wilted plants. “I told you never to mention it again! It was a nightmare, and I don’t want to talk about it!”

Soon after returning home, Grassina had discovered that she hadn’t been the only one to have a transformation spell cast on her. Holding up her hands in surrender, she said, “All right, I’m sorry! But if you won’t talk to spiders, at least let me try.”

“Even you can’t think that—”

“We shouldn’t use a stick anyway. Did you see how it tore the web? We have to be gentle with them. Mother wants us to keep the webs intact.”

Chartreuse sighed. “Then go ahead and do it your way. I want to get this over with so I can go to bed. I have plans for the morning and need to get up early.”

“I just bet you do,” muttered Grassina. Spotting another web near the ceiling, she waved her hand at it, calling, “Yoo hoo! Over here.”

The spider crouching in the center of the web glared down at them. When it spoke, its voice was scarcely louder than the breathing of the horses in the closest stalls. Grassina wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been trying her hardest. “Stay away from me, you monsters,” said the spider. “I saw what you did to Inez’s web.”

“I’m sorry,” said Grassina. “That was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“You bet it was a mistake,” the spider said, waving a leg in the air for emphasis. “That was a beautiful web! Inez is known throughout the stable for her craftsmanship.”

“I’m sure she is. I’ve never seen such lovely webs as the ones I’ve found here. That’s why my mother sent us to get them. She said they were the best in all the land, and she needs them for a very special project.”