The girl threw a dress in Gretsella’s general direction. Gretsella crawled into the garment and expanded herself into her usual human form to fit it, which created a very uncomfortable sensation, particularly in the area of the tail. Once she was sufficiently expanded, she gave the girl a nod. “Hello. What’s your name, who are you, and where are you going? I didn’t know that there were other witches in the palace.” Gretsellahatednot knowing things. This girl was certainly a witch, though, if perhaps one still in the larval stage. It wasn’t anything about how she looked, exactly. She was a very ordinary-looking girl, if a bit gawky, with limp brown hair and light-brown eyes and little brown freckles on her nose.
“I’m not a witch, and I don’t see how any of that’s any ofyourbusiness,” the girl said. Then she hastily added, “That is to say, I wouldn’t want to annoy you by going on and on about my silly problems, Grandmother.” She was smart enough to know how to properly address a witch, even if she was pretending that she wasn’t one herself. This was a fairly usual phase in the lives of some young witches, though Gretsella had always thought it a fairly embarrassing one. Refusing to embrace one’s own inherent witchliness was like going back to the shop and earnestly telling the cashier that he’d given you too much change.
“I would say that everything in the palace is my business,” Gretsella said. Then she added importantly, “My son, Bradley—the king—asked me to come and help him straighten things out around here.” Gretsella had never cared about all of the vast riches that might accompany Bradley’s new title, but in this moment, she realized she very much enjoyed being able to wield the power of the throne purely to satisfy her own unquenchable nosiness.
“Oh,” the girl-who-claimed-she-wasn’t-a-witch said. “Oh, well, I guess it doesn’t matter what I tell you. I was the court jester, but the new king fired me, so now I’m packing up and heading home to Northwind County to sing songs about merry accommodating maidens until I drop dead of ennui.” She shoved a fistful of underthings into her bag without stopping to fold them. “And my name’s Janet. Janet Findimatabar.” Then, in response to the look on Gretsella’s face, she added, “My father always told me that our surname came from my great-great-grandfather, whose exploits made him famous in all of the surrounding counties.”
“Hmm,” Gretsella said. “Sounds just like a man. And Northwind County, you say? That’s not far from Brigandale, is it?”
Janet blinked. “Brigandale? Yes. I grew up there, actually, but there aren’t enough taverns in the forest to make a living there as a wandering minstrel. Not that you can make much of a living at it in Northwind County either.”
Gretsella gave a satisfied nod. It made sense that the girl had been raised in Brigandale. Gretsella could easily recognizean essentially witchy disposition when she was wearing its dress. “There’s always apprenticing yourself to a witch, if you’re considering a change of careers,” she said. Sometimes a young witch simply needed a little nudge in the right direction to be saved from a life of unwitchly delinquency.
“I don’twantto be a witch,” Janet said. “All of those nasty potions and things, and having to live alone in the woods. Begging your pardon, Grandmother. I like living at court. I like all of the gossip and scheming. Or Ilikedit, until the king fired me.”
“Why on earth would Bradleyfireyou?” Gretsella asked, genuinely perplexed by the very idea. She was fairly sure that Bradley didn’t have the cold-bloodedness necessary to fire someone, especially if it seemed as if they might besadabout it or—horror of horrors—shed a tear or two.
“He thought that I jested too cruelly,” Janet said. “I don’t think that my jesting wascruel. It was just ordinary jesting.”
“Oh dear,” Gretsella said. “I think that I’m beginning to understand. Did you say something that might have made someone feel a little badly, in the course of your jesting?”
Janet stared at her as if she thought Gretsella might have recently been clobbered over the head. “That’s the wholepoint,” she said. “You’re supposed to ridicule the foibles of king and court. Whatelseis a jester supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Gretsella said. “Bradley’ssensitive. He must have been born that way. He didn’t get it fromme.” She pondered for a moment. “Was itBradleywhose foibles you ridiculed?”
“Oh, he never minded that,” Janet said. “It was when I made jokes about that awful, self-satisfied Sir Harold always chasing after the kitchen maids.”
“Ah,” Gretsella said. “Bradley was probably suffering from an acute attack of jawline-induced mental collapse. He has them every six months or so. As far as I can tell, the condition’s incurable.” She adjusted the sleeves of her newly borrowed dress. An ordinary adjustment didn’t quite suffice, so she moved a bit of very confused matter from the window curtains to make her sleeves half an inch longer. Then she said, “Come on. We’ll just have to tell him to hire you back.”
Janet trotted along after her agreeably enough as Gretsella headed out into the hall. “Are you sure that you’ll be able to convince him to do it, Grandmother?” she asked. “He seemed pretty determined about firing me, though he was very polite about it.”
“Of course,” Gretsella said. “Bradley is always polite. And he’s usually fairly reasonable once you’ve explained things to him clearly.”
“I see,” Janet said. “But won’t he worry about whether or not you’re thinking straight when you suddenly appear in front of him without any shoes or stockings on?”
Gretsella looked down at her bare toes and gave them a brief wiggle. Her cheeks went slightly warm. “We witchesneverwear shoes when we’re working our most powerful magics,” she declared in an authoritative tone that she hoped Janet would find convincing. “Now, where will we find Bradley?” Her sleeves, as she spoke, twitched. There was a draft comingthrough the window frame at the other end of the room, and the late curtains weren’t sure whether or not they ought to billow.
Janet led her through the palace to a room that Gretsella could only assume was the great hall, as it was very large and very long and very full of people who appeared to be courtiers doing something that could only be described asfeasting. Bradley was sitting at the very head of the table, looking deeply glum.
When he saw Gretsella, he beamed and leapt to his feet. “Mother! You really came!”
“Of course I did,” Gretsella said as she withstood the onslaught of embraces that Bradley shortly began to rain upon her. “I’m awitch.” She didn’t add that a witch’s word was her bond (except when she was lying). She thought that went without saying. “You look terrible.”
“Oh, I’ve just been feeling a little low,” Bradley said. “But I’m much better now that you’re here. I’ll tell the servants to throw you a feast of welcome!” Then he glanced to the side and noticed Janet. “Miss Janet! What are you doing here? I beg your pardon, but I am positive that I fired you just a few hours ago. Is something the matter?”
Janet briefly attained the somewhat flustered glow that Bradley often incited in young ladies when he was beaming attentive politeness at them out of his bewilderingly handsome face. Then she gathered herself and cleared her throat. “Oh, yes, uh…your mother wanted to speak to you. About that.”
“We’ll go somewhere private,” Gretsella declared, and marched them both smartly out of the room.
“Oh dear, Mother,” Bradley said. “What happened to your shoes?”
“Never mind, Bradley,” Gretsella said. “We have more important things to discuss. I need you to hire Janet back.”
Bradley frowned. “It’s a little delicate, Mother,” he said. “I did feel awful for firing her, but she was beingrudeto my guests.” He said the last bit of that sentence in a hushed whisper, as if he were describing having caught the court jester engaged in unwholesome communion with a jam jar.
“It’s not rudeness if it’s in the course ofjesting, Bradley,” Gretsella said.
Bradley’s expression took on the vague, abstracted quality it always took on when someone tried to explain to him why, say, a pound of feathers weighed the same as a pound of lead. Then he brightened. “Oh,” he said. “Like how if it’sart, it’s notnaked.”
