Princess Before Dawn Read online

  Annie nodded. “I wondered about those statues. Those poor men!”

  “When did your ‘uninvited guests’ start arriving?” asked Liam.

  “Yesterday morning,” the queen told him. “It was just a few at first, but then one of them left and a few minutes later returned with a huge crowd. More have been coming ever since. We didn’t know they were magic users until that horrible woman pointed her finger at the captain and his men, turning them to stone.”

  “And then that other witch made the scullery girls start dancing,” added the king.

  “They’re still dancing,” said Liam. “We saw them just a bit ago.”

  “The newcomers all looked like strangers,” said Annie. “Am I right in saying that none of them came from around here?”

  “As far as we know,” said the queen. “No one in the castle recognized them. All these awful people in my castle! I don’t know what we’re going to do to make them leave.”

  “I do,” Annie said, and headed for the door. “Let me out and barricade the door again. The party is over and it’s time for those guests to go home.”

  “You’re not going out there by yourself !” said Liam.

  “Why not? They can’t hurt me with their magic,” Annie told him.

  “Not directly, but if they use their magic on something else, it could hurt you,” Liam replied. “Remember how Terobella sent the crows to hurt you and how she made the bridge collapse under your carriage? If you’re leaving this room, I’m going with you.”

  “And you say I’m stubborn!” said Annie. “All right, but you have to let me do the talking.”

  When Annie and Liam returned to the great hall, the witches and wizards seemed even rowdier than before. A witch had discovered an empty suit of armor and was making it walk around, banging into things. She had also made two antique swords come down from the wall to fight each other. Annie recognized them; one had belonged to her grandfather and one to her great-grandfather. For as long as she could remember, no one had been allowed to touch them, let alone use them in a fight.

  The wizard Annie and Liam had followed across the drawbridge had come inside and was holding court at the far end of the hall. His cape was thrown back and he was talking in a loud voice, telling those gathered around him that he was the personal friend of a dragon that had given him a scale to enhance his magic.

  “Is that so?” said another wizard. “Prove it, you old windbag!”

  The wizard dressed in blue looked down his nose at the other man and said in a haughty voice, “I don’t need to prove anything to you, but I will show my friends.” Reaching into a fold in his cape, he took out something no bigger than a goose egg and held it up for all to see. Annie knew some actual dragons. If this was a real dragon’s scale, it was so small and chipped that it must have been an old one that fell off an undersized dragon.

  The witch with the fiddle changed her tune just then, drawing Annie’s gaze to the dancers. They looked as if they were ready to collapse and she was sorry that she hadn’t done something to help them sooner.

  “May I have your attention, please!” Annie called out, but the noise in the hall was too loud and no one paid her any attention.

  Annie glanced around the room. The noisiest thing there was the fiddle. If she could silence it, she was sure to get the attention of some of the witches. “Stay here,” she told Liam, and started toward the witch with the instrument.

  The woman had her back turned when Annie reached out and snatched the fiddle from her. Three notes sounded, each one fainter than the last. When it finally went silent, everyone in the hall turned to look at her. Annie’s plan had worked better than she’d hoped.

  “What did you just do?” the witch screamed at Annie. “You broke my fiddle!”

  “I didn’t break it,” Annie told her. “I just took away its magic.”

  “You can’t do that! No one can!” the witch scoffed.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you? I’m Princess Annabelle. I’ve been away, but I’m home now. I have one magical gift, which is that magic doesn’t work around me. Let me show you,” Annie said, and placed her hand on the witch’s arm.

  “Get away from me!” the woman cried, and pointed her finger at Annie. “You’re just a flea!” When nothing happened, the witch studied her finger as if it were faulty. When she looked at Annie again, her eyes grew big and she backed away. “You took my magic!”

  “I did,” said Annie as she started walking around the hall. “And you’re only the beginning.”

  One after another, Annie touched the strangers. Wands flashed or sparked or shot bolts of light as some of the witches and wizards tried to stop her before she could reach them, but the magic rebounded and they fell prey to their own spells. Annie spotted a dust pan, a chicken, two frogs, and a pig where some of the magic users had been standing. When Annie touched the woman who’d been playing with the suit of armor, the armor and the two swords fell to the floor with a clatter. Whimpering, the woman reached into her pocket and drew out her magic postcard. A moment later she was gone.

  Turning to the witch who still had red teeth and gums, Annie touched her hand while grabbing the silver cup from her grasp. The witch was crying when she took hold of her magic postcard and disappeared.

  Witches and wizards began disappearing left and right, although a few ran from the hall to warn others. Soon only the wizard who had been bragging about his friendship with a dragon was left standing at the far end of the room. Holding the scale in one hand, he muttered something and waved his other hand at a mouse scurrying across the floor. The mouse grew and grew until it was the size of a lion. Liam jumped between Annie and the giant mouse, brandishing his sword. When the beast gnashed its teeth and lunged at Liam, Annie noticed that the man’s lips were still moving, and all his concentration was on the fight.

  Still watching the wizard, Annie walked to the wall and crept the length of the room until she was behind him. He was shouting encouragement to his giant mouse when Annie reached out and touched the man. The mouse shrank with a small pop and scurried away. Liam completed his last lunge, tripping when there was nothing in front of him.

  “How dare you?” the wizard shouted at Annie.

  Strangers wouldn’t know that her ability to negate magic worked only when she was touching them; Annie didn’t want them to stick around long enough to find out.

  “This is my castle,” said Annie. “Magic like yours isn’t welcome here and neither are you. Leave and don’t ever come back or you’ll lose your magic for good!”

  Panicked, the wizard touched his magic postcard and disappeared.

  “Thank you!” said a voice as Annie turned to find Captain Sterling at her side, no longer a statue yet still covered with splotches of paint.

  “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  Captain Sterling nodded. “I’m fine, thanks to you. But it looks as if those nasty people used real paint on me, and not something they conjured up with magic. I hope it comes off with soap and water.”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” said Annie. “It might not have happened if I had come sooner.”

  The captain shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said. “After all, I’d much rather deal with a little paint than be a statue any day.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Annie and Liam searched the hallways to make sure that none of the witches and wizards had stayed behind. Most of them were gone, but the few that Annie found hiding out disappeared in a hurry once they saw what would happen if she touched them. The uninvited guests had made a huge mess in the great hall and the courtyard. When the people who lived in the castle emerged, they were dismayed at what they saw, but it didn’t take long for them to start cleaning.

  While servants bustled around her, Annie searched for any remnants of magic in the great hall. She found a silver slipper that turned into a smelly old shoe when she touched it, a sparkling hair comb that turned to wood, and half a dozen salamanders hiding in the rushes. The salamand
ers stained her fingers red when they turned back into bean pulp. Squidge helped by catching and eating a salamander that was too quick for Annie.

  “What happened to you?” the queen asked when she came down to survey the damage to the castle. “Are you bleeding?”

  Annie glanced at her hands. “No, it was the salamanders,” she said. “I hope this washes off.”

  The queen looked confused, but all she said was, “I worry about you. How have you been?”

  “Great,” Annie replied. “Liam and I have been getting ready for his coronation.”

  “It’s your coronation as well,” her mother reminded her. “You’ll be queen of Dorinocco. I’m glad you won’t have to deal with that awful Lenore or Liam’s terrible brother, Clarence.”

  Liam’s mother and brother had sent a tiny spinning wheel to the castle so that Annie’s sister, Gwendolyn, would touch it, making an evil fairy’s curse come true. Annie had been the only one in the castle who hadn’t fallen asleep, so it had been up to her to break the spell. The queen of Dorinocco and her awful son hadn’t given up trying to take over Treecrest until Annie and Liam took them far away to live in exile.

  Annie laughed. “So am I. We’ve already visited Liam’s mother on the witch’s island to take the bacon we’d promised. She seems to have made friends with some of the witches. I think she’s happy there, although I’m sure she’d never admit it. I have no idea how Clarence is doing, but he can’t do too much damage in the jungle. As long as he stays far away, Liam and I will be happy.”

  “I know you’re busy in your new home, but it would be nice if you could stay a few days,” said the queen. “Your father and I miss you.”

  Annie glanced at Liam, who was helping put the antique swords back on the wall. “We’ll stay until tomorrow at least. There’s still a lot to do here.”

  “Good!” said the queen. “Your father will be so pleased. He likes company, just not the uninvited kind.”

  Everyone was so busy putting the castle back in order that hours passed before Annie had the chance to talk to Liam again. They waved at each other in passing, but Annie could tell that he enjoyed being useful and she was determined to find every bit of wayward magic.

  Annie was checking the last corner of the great hall when she found a long, golden staff. The moment she touched it, the staff turned into an ordinary cornstalk. She was carrying it outside when she stopped, stunned, as two centaurs trotted across the drawbridge. The centaur with flowing black hair and the body of a dun stallion whinnied. When an answering whinny came from the stable, both centaurs headed that way. Annie noticed that the chestnut-colored centaur had a postcard in his hand.

  “I don’t think I should handle that one,” Annie said, and called to a girl sweeping the steps. “Please tell Captain Sterling that two centaurs just arrived and are visiting the stable.”

  The girl nodded. “I’ll tell him, but he’s trying to get some water nymphs out of the moat.”

  That made Annie curious. “Never mind. I’ll tell him myself,” she said.

  Hurrying down the steps, Annie detoured to a refuse pile to toss the cornstalk before heading across the drawbridge. A half dozen guards were watching two nymphs paddling in the moat. Captain Sterling looked unhappy and frustrated.

  “But you can’t stay here, ladies,” he told the nymphs as Annie walked up.

  “Every body of water needs a nymph to take care of it,” the nymph with deep blue hair told him.

  “Every natural body of water, perhaps,” said Annie. “But this moat was dug many years ago. If you want a natural river, swim to the back of the castle, where the moat flows into the Crystal River.”

  “A river!” the nymphs squealed. Turning as one, they dove into the water and disappeared.

  Annie told the captain about the centaurs in the stable and was about to go back inside the castle when she happened to see two short men approaching. One was tucking a postcard into the pocket of his brightly colored vest. The other was looking directly at her. “Captain,” Annie said in a quiet voice. “I think we have more visitors.”

  Captain Sterling stood by her side as the men approached. When they drew closer, Annie realized that they weren’t men at all, at least not the kind she was used to seeing. Neither one was over three feet tall, but that wasn’t what made up her mind. Their heads and faces were too lumpy, their hands and feet too large, and they had identical bowed legs and humps in their backs. “What are they?” she whispered to the captain.

  “Gnomes, maybe,” he whispered in reply. “But I’ve only seen pictures, so I can’t be sure.”

  “Hello!” said the older of the two. “We’re strangers to these parts, and we were wondering if you could point the way to the nearest mountains.”

  “Go due north,” said Annie, gesturing.

  “Very good!” declared the other gnome. “Thank you, young lady.”

  Annie and the captain watched as the two figures headed up the road. “I wonder how many postcard holders have come by and not stopped at the castle,” said Annie.

  The captain shook his head. “There’s no way to tell, but the only ones that concern me are the ones who come inside uninvited. Speaking of which, I need to go see about those centaurs. They must have gotten past the guards when those nymphs were here.”

  “And I have to finish checking the great hall,” said Annie. “Although I think I’m almost finished.”

  When Annie returned to the hall, the servants had finished cleaning it. However, Cook and all her helpers were scouring everything in the kitchen, so there was no midday meal. Instead the royal family ate an early supper a few hours later, although it was a simple feast of cured ham, beets, and turnips.

  “I should be grateful that the witches just took food and didn’t get into the treasury or the armory,” said King Halbert. “We would have been in real trouble then. As it is, the steward assures me that Cook will be serving normal meals by tomorrow.”

  “Good!” Squidge said from under the table, where he was playing with the hounds. “I’ll starve without my yummy stuff !”

  “I just wish those witches didn’t still have their postcards,” Annie told them. “I don’t like the idea that they could come back.”

  “I don’t think they will as long as they think you’re here,” Liam replied. “They looked terrified when they left. I think they’re more protective of their magic than even the vainest princess is of her beauty.”

  “From what I saw, some of the witches were terrifying, although a few were very funny,” said the queen. “I saw one who was dressed all in feathers; her gown and shoes were made of feathers, and she had some stuck in her hair. She even had live birds sitting on her shoulders!”

  “Were they crows?” asked Liam.

  The queen shook her head. “No, I think they were goldfinches. She chirped to them and they chirped back.”

  “I saw a water witch,” said the king. “At least that’s what I would have called her. She was dressed all in blue and she squelched when she walked as if her shoes were wet. When she aimed her wand, water shot out of it. She could write with the water and make pictures in the air. I thought she was entertaining until she shot water at one of my hounds and chased him from the hall.” The king glanced at the hounds under the table and shook his head. “Dash still isn’t with the others. I wonder where he is.”

  “I’ll go look,” Squidge cried, and scurried out from under the table.

  “I’m surprised you brought that sprite with you after all the trouble he caused,” the queen said to Annie.

  Annie shrugged. “I believe in second chances. And he did apologize a hundred gajillion times and promise to be helpful.”

  “Hmm,” said the king. “We’ll see.”

  “You never did tell me how your hands got red, Annie,” said the queen.

  Annie told her about the witch chewing beans and using the pulp to make salamanders. When the servants came in to light the torches on the walls, the family was still talking
about the other odd things they’d seen. Annie glanced at the windows set high in the wall and saw that it was getting dark out. “I didn’t realize that we’d been sitting here so long.”

  “Neither did I,” her mother said. “I believe an early night is in order, considering the day we’ve had.” When she stood, everyone else did, too. “Good night, my dears. Thank you for coming so quickly and helping us with those people.”

  “That’s what family does,” Annie replied.

  Only a short time later, Annie and Liam were walking down the corridor when they heard a dog barking and Squidge shouting, “Whoa, boy!”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Liam said, and they started to run. They found the sprite seated on Dash’s back while the hound barked and threw himself at the door to the cellar. Squidge clung to the collar, yanking it as if he was trying to rein in a horse.

  “What is Dash barking at?” Annie asked the sprite.

  “I don’t know,” Squidge replied. “I was riding him to the great hall when he smelled something and went crazy.”

  “Maybe he smells rats,” Annie said to Liam. “Remember how many ran up the stairs when the cellar flooded?”

  “It’s not rats,” shouted the sprite as the barking grew louder. “I can smell it, too.”

  “Then what is it?” Liam said as guards arrived to see what all the commotion was about.

  Two guards took up positions on either side of Liam while a third pulled the hound away from the door. Everyone else stood back as Liam jerked the door open. At first, there was nothing to see in the darkness of the stairwell, but after a few moments, shadows began to shift and gather at the bottom of the stairs. There was a whisper of sound and one of the shadows detached itself from the others and started up the steps. Liam and the guards backed away as a tall, thin man dressed all in black entered the light of the torches.