The Frog Princess Returns Read online

  The Frog Princess Returns

  I dedicate this book to all my loyal fans who have asked for more tales of the Frog Princess

  ALSO BY E. D. BAKER

  Tales of the Frog Princess:

  The Frog Princess

  Dragon’s Breath

  Once Upon a Curse

  No Place for Magic

  The Salamander Spell

  The Dragon Princess

  Dragon Kiss

  A Prince among Frogs

  Fairy Wings

  Fairy Lies

  Tales of the Wide-Awake Princess:

  The Wide-Awake Princess

  Unlocking the Spell

  The Bravest Princess

  Princess in Disguise

  Princess between Worlds

  The Princess and the Pearl

  A Question of Magic

  The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker:

  The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker

  The Perfect Match

  The Truest Heart

  The Frog Princess Returns

  E. D. BAKER

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  “With this gift comes greater power as well as greater responsibility, for the Green Witch must be the kingdom’s protector, using her magic to ensure the safety of its inhabitants, whether human- or fairy-kind.”

  —The Fairy Queen as she bestowed the title and ring on the first Green Witch

  One

  “Do we have to be sharks, Emma?” Eadric asked as I took his hand in mine.

  We were standing at the edge of the moat, preparing to go monster-hunting. My aunt Grassina had put countless monsters in the moat while under the family curse. For centuries, all the girls in our family had turned nasty if they touched a flower after their sixteenth birthday. With the possibility that I might fall prey to the curse, I had refused to marry Eadric unless we could end it. Eadric and I had gone back in time to try to keep an angry fairy from saying the curse. Although we hadn’t been successful, we had learned a great deal, including the original wording. It wasn’t until my grandfather kissed my grandmother that the curse was finally over. Suddenly nice again, Grassina was busy trying to get her life back in order while I tried to clean up the mess she’d made.

  “I sent away the smaller monsters,” I told Eadric. “Now all that’s left are the truly awful ones. I have to see them for my spell to work, so we need to go into the moat to find them. If we’re going to do this, we have to be even worse than the monsters. I told you about the time Grassina was floating on the moat in a bubble and how she fell in when the bubble popped. A really horrible monster went after her, so she turned herself into an enormous shark that frightened the monster. If being a shark worked for her, it should work for us, too. You don’t have to go if you’d rather stay here and watch.”

  “Oh, no! I’m going,” said Eadric. “There’s no way I’d let you hunt monsters without me. I just thought it might be more fun if we were monsters, too. But if you think we should be sharks, make me the biggest and nastiest shark ever!”

  “I’ll try,” I said, and started to recite the spell.

  Curved fin circling round and round,

  Cold eyes ever hunting,

  Moving close without a sound,

  Rows of sharp teeth glinting.

  Now we’ll each become a shark

  Much bigger than our prey.

  We’ll make the monsters flee the dark

  And want to go away.

  I had scarcely said the last few words when Eadric and I began to change. I dropped his hand as my fingers fused together and my arms became fins. My eyes moved to the top of my head, which became long and pointed. I could feel my teeth shift, and suddenly I had far too many in my mouth.

  Eadric flopped to the ground as his legs became fused. He fell into the water first. I joined him seconds later. We finished our transformations in the murky water of the moat, our gills fluttering as we took our first breaths as sharks.

  We had never turned into sharks before, so it took some time to learn how to swim this way. Eadric was bigger than me, and I had to get out of his way as he floundered around, wallowing from side to side. I mastered the knack of swimming before he did, but he soon caught on and shot past me under the drawbridge, where I could see a monster lurking in the shadows.

  The monster resembled a long snake with sharp ridges along its back and sides. Skinny arms with wicked-looking claws grew from its body at irregular intervals. I probably wouldn’t have seen the monster at all if worm-like lines that glowed in the dark hadn’t decorated its body. I suppose they might have attracted other monsters, but all it did for me was make the monster easier to spot. Eadric went for it as if he wanted to fight, but I had something else in mind. Looking straight at the monster, I said,

  Monster swimming in the moat,

  It’s time for you to go.

  Find a new home far away,

  A place no man can know.

  Eadric was grappling with the monster when my spell took effect. I held my breath, afraid that the monster might hurt my beloved, but I didn’t need to worry. One moment the monster was wrapped around Eadric, scraping at his tough hide with its claws, the next the monster was gone, leaving the biggest shark I had ever seen chomping at the water that had rushed in to fill the void.

  “That was fun!” Eadric said, giving me a very toothy grin.

  “We’re not here to fight them,” I told him. “I just want to find them so I can send them away.”

  “But I have to protect you until you say the whole spell,” he said. “And I have to keep them from swimming off so you can still see them, right?”

  I sighed. “I suppose so,” I said. “But …”

  Eadric was off looking for another monster before I could say any more. He was surprisingly good at finding monsters, even those half buried in the mud. We searched the entire moat, going full circle around the castle, discovering more monsters than I had expected. Some tried to attack us as we drew close, while others fled at the sight of two big sharks. We saw one armored in a turtle-like shell with snapping heads at every opening. Another was shaped like a ball with powerful tentacles attached to it every few inches. The most frightening looked innocent enough at first. It was shaped like an ordinary fish except for the spiky frill around its neck. I wasn’t even sure it was a monster until it came upon a small fish and the frill contracted, shooting a poisoned spine into its victim. When the poor fish thrashed as if in terrible pain, I hurried to recite the spell without going any closer.

  We thought we had found all our quarry, until we came across a nest of baby monsters. Seeing us, the little blobs of eyeball-filled jelly sped away, making high-pitched shrieking sounds like air escaping from an inflated balloon. I remembered seeing the adult version of this monster months ago. It had been much bigger and a lot slower. When I chased the babies, they were too squishy to hold on to and even harder for sharks to corral. I was wondering if we should try to chase down all the babies and send them away at once, or try to take care of them individually, when a rock hit me on the nose. Startled, I glanced at the rock as it fell to the bottom of the moat. The words I need to talk to you. Please come up! were written in glowing letters.

  Spinning around, I looked toward the bank and
saw a full-sized fairy looking down at me. Her orange, yellow, and red hair was vibrant and beautiful, but it was her worried expression that drew me to her.

  “Eadric, we need to get out now,” I told him as three baby monsters streaked past. “Someone wants to talk to me. We’ll have to come back to catch the babies, but I won’t be able to do it without a new spell and a very big net.”

  Eadric peered up at the fairy. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, swimming toward the edge of the moat, “but it must be important enough for her to throw a rock at me. If it isn’t, I’m not going to be happy.”

  Reaching the bank, we realized that we couldn’t get out of the water while we were sharks. This meant that I had to change us back while we were still in the moat. The spell took only seconds. Eadric soon heaved himself onto dry land, but my gown weighed me down, making it that much harder. I was struggling to climb out when Eadric reached for my hand and pulled me up as if I didn’t weigh anything at all.

  “Sorry about that,” the fairy said, looking contrite. “I didn’t mean to hit you with the rock. I just wanted to get your attention. You see, the leaves on my trees are wilting and nothing I do is making them better. I didn’t know where to turn until I heard that you’re supposed to help fairies in need. You are the Green Witch, aren’t you?”

  I nodded and wiped the water from my eyes. “And your name is …?”

  “Oh, sorry! I’m Maple, and my trees are maples, of course. Mine aren’t the only trees that are sick. I’ve heard that there are others in the enchanted forest that are also doing poorly.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about trees,” I told her. “Perhaps you should talk to my aunt Grassina. She knows a lot about plants. Maybe she can help you. This morning she said she was going into the swamp with her fiancé, Haywood. You might be able to find her there.”

  “I’ll go see her right now. Thank you!” said Maple. A moment later, she had made herself small and was flying in the direction of the swamp.

  Although we couldn’t see the drawbridge from where we stood, we could hear the thunder of hooves crossing it and a carriage rattling behind. “Who do you think that is?” Eadric asked. “It has the same creak as my parents’ carriage.”

  “We weren’t expecting anyone today,” I said as we both started walking.

  We reached the point where we could see the drawbridge just as the carriage disappeared beyond the gate. “That looked like my parents’ carriage,” said Eadric. “I wonder why they came back so soon. Do you suppose there’s something wrong? I hope nothing terrible has happened in Upper Montevista. Maybe Bradston has done something dumb and gotten hurt.”

  I was afraid that it was something else entirely. King Bodamin, Queen Frazzela, and their younger son, Bradston, had left only two weeks before, after a very short visit. They had come for my birthday tournament and left when they learned that most of the women in my family were witches, myself included. The queen hated witches, and the fact that her older son had fallen in love with one was more than she could handle. Both the king and queen had been upset that Eadric had refused to go with them when they left. I was afraid that they had decided to try to force him to come home.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” I said, not wanting to tell him what was worrying me. “We’ll have to get cleaned up before we see them. Perhaps we should wait until we’re sure they’ve gone inside.”

  Eadric shook his head. “It might be urgent. The sooner I see them, the sooner I’ll know that everything is all right.”

  “Then at least let me dry us off,” I said. The spell I used was short but effective. Although it dried our clothes and hair, it left everything as dirty as before. I would have used a cleaning spell next, but Eadric was already hurrying across the drawbridge.

  I sighed as I followed him. Eadric was probably right. It was better to find out what was really going on than to make ourselves sick worrying.

  I was still hoping that everyone had gone inside and that I could change my clothes before I saw them when my mother’s voice rang out. “There they are! Emma, Eadric, come meet Princess Adara. Apparently she’s a long-lost cousin that we didn’t even know we had. Isn’t that delightful?”

  I looked up and saw my mother standing on the castle steps with a stranger beside her. The princess was a beautiful girl about my own age. She had long blond hair that was so pale it was almost white and vivid blue eyes that tilted at the corners. After sparing me only the briefest of glances, she turned to Eadric and smiled, making her even lovelier. Standing there with dirty hands and face and soiled clothes that smelled like the moat, I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

  When I glanced at Eadric and saw the expression on his face, I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t snap at him. He was wearing the same look he’d worn when he saw the mermaids in Coral’s castle. It was the same look he’d had when he’d met Hazel, the first Green Witch. I’d hated that look and had hoped I’d never see it again.

  “Adara, this is my daughter, Emma,” my mother said as Eadric and I approached the steps. “And this is Prince Eadric.”

  “Hello, Emma,” Adara said without looking my way. Her tone was much warmer when she smiled at Eadric and said, “Hello, Eadric! I really like your name. It makes me think of someone who’s strong, yet sensitive; someone I’d really like to get to know better.”

  I made a strangled sound, not wanting to be ill in front of everyone, but Eadric seemed to like her. “You’re very perceptive,” he said and smiled.

  “Emma and Eadric plan to get married as soon as possible,” my mother announced in an overly loud voice.

  I glanced at my mother. She knew that Eadric and I had yet to set a date, but when she looked at me and our eyes met, I understood right away. Princess Adara was far prettier than me and therefore a threat in my mother’s eyes. When I turned to Eadric and saw that that look was still on his face, I wondered if she was right.

  “How nice,” Adara said, her gaze never leaving Eadric.

  “Adara was visiting Eadric’s parents when she mentioned that she was related to us, but had never actually visited Greater Greensward,” my mother continued. “Queen Frazzela thought we might like to meet our cousin and offered the use of her carriage. Wasn’t that nice of her?”

  I noticed the edge in my mother’s voice, but I doubted either Adara or Eadric did. Eadric was still looking dazed, while Adara looked like a hungry cat that had just spotted a bowl of fresh cream. It was a look I really didn’t like.

  Two

  “I think I should introduce you to my husband, King Limelyn,” said my mother, linking her arm with Adara’s.

  “Are you going, too?” Adara asked Eadric.

  “I suppose so,” he replied.

  “Then I’d love to meet the king!” said Adara, and let my mother lead her into the castle. Eadric fell into step right behind her, following like a puppy on a leash.

  “I guess we’re all going,” I said through gritted teeth as I walked beside him, silently fuming.

  My father and a group of his knights were talking in the far corner of the Hall. Mother headed straight for him, taking Adara with her. The princess kept glancing back at Eadric, which was enough to make him follow. Although I had many other things to attend to, keeping an eye on Adara felt like the most important.

  When two of the knights excused themselves and walked away, my father was left with Sir Ranulf, Sir Nerigen, and Sir Geoffrey. Sir Ranulf was the youngest and handsomest knight in the castle. All the ladies-in-waiting professed to be in love with him, and more than one serving girl had fainted when he looked her way. Even so, Adara scarcely spared him a glance. My darling Eadric was handsome in my eyes, but even I knew that most people considered him almost plain. Adara, however, couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him.

  “Limelyn,” my mother said, “I want you to meet Princess Adara. She’s from … What is the name of your kingdom again, dear?”

  “I’m from Lower Muckswort
hy,” said the princess. “It’s just north of Soggy Molvinia, Your Majesty.”

  “I’m familiar with the kingdom,” said the king. “Welcome to Greater Greensward, Adara.”

  “The princess claims to be a relative of ours,” the queen continued. “Although I’m not quite sure of the connection. Perhaps you can explain it to me again, Adara. You said you were a cousin, but I’m still not sure how we’re related.”

  Adara smiled sweetly at my mother. “I’m a cousin a number of times removed, but I really can’t say how many. I’m terrible at figuring out that kind of thing.”

  Mother’s look wasn’t exactly warm. “It sounds as if you’re a distant relative—if that,” she added under her breath.

  “How long will you be staying with us?” asked my father.

  “As long as you’ll have me,” said Adara. “I’m in no hurry to get home. I have six brothers and four sisters. I love my family, but it’s nice to get away for a while. What about you, Eadric? Do you want a big family someday?”

  “Uh …,” Eadric said, looking confused.

  “Hello, everyone!” my grandmother called out as she entered the Great Hall. “It’s so nice to find you all together.”

  My grandmother Olivene lived at the Old Witches’ Retirement Community, but she often came to the castle to visit. Although her husband had died years before, his ghost still claimed a room in the dungeon. They missed each other terribly when they were apart.

  “Good day, Mother,” said the queen. “Come meet our guest. Mother, this is Princess Adara from …”

  “Lower Mucksworthy,” said the princess after a quick glance at my mother.

  I could tell that my mother didn’t like the girl and was pretending to forget the name of her kingdom on purpose. I was wondering if Adara could tell, too.

  “Adara, this is dowager Queen Olivene,” my mother said. “Mother, Princess Adara claims to be a relative of ours.”

  My grandmother raised one eyebrow. “Oh? How marvelous! Would you mind explaining this familial connection? I find such things fascinating!”