“Yes,” Gretsella said. “Surprising, exactly as it wouldn’t be if I’d already known about it.”
“If you’d been, for instance, crouching drunkenly in a nearby hedge as I proposed?”
“Exactly,” Gretsella said. “I’m surprised and delighted by this news, because I didn’t spend any time yesterday trying to back out of a particularly thorny hedge.” Then, in an entirelyuncharacteristic fit of goodwill: “And if Ihaddrunkenly gotten stuck in a hedge and turned a small tree into a very confused moose last night in the middle of your romantic evening, I’m sure that it would have been a rare misstep on my part that I would take care never to repeat. If I had done such a thing, that is, which Icertainlydidn’t.”
Sir George stared at her for a long, appraising moment. Then he smiled and shook his head. “And if I had seen you drunkenly cursing things from the hedges last night, I’m sure that I would accept your apology.”
Gretsella straightened up in bed, affronted. “Who apologized? Witchesneverapologize!”
“My apologies,” said Sir George, whom she now suspected oftwinklingat her.
Gretsella generally couldn’t abide a twinkle, but she couldn’t help but appreciate the conspiratorial air of this one. She suppressed a smile. Then she said, severely, “And I suppose you’ll be coming back to Brigandale with us, then?” Her tone said that he most certainly would be if he knew what was good for him. Gretsella hadn’t spent all that time bringing down the national government just for Bradley to end up living hours away from her in some overpriced downtown apartment. She’d destroy the economy for a second time if she had to.
“Mother,” Bradley said, breaking back into the conversation and looking suddenly nervous, “George and I were thinking, ah, that we would get a house in the village, when we go home. So I’ll be able to walk over to see you whenever Ilike. Won’t that be nice?” He was anxious, obviously, about telling her that he wouldn’t be moving back into the cottage with her.
“Good,” she said loudly. “Then I’ll only have to see you wheneverIlike. Who wants amanaround the house all day and night anyway? High time you were out in a place of your own!”
Bradley looked relieved. Gretsella glared at him, then turned her head just enough to slip her clever new son-in-law-to-be a very quick wink. Before they both left, she sat up in bed. “Bradley,” she said, “wait a moment. I’d like to speak to you alone.”
He waited, as polite as ever, his kind, open face gone a little creased with concern. “What is it, Mother? I hope you’re not upset about—”
“Don’t be silly, Bradley,” she said. “George is wonderful. I just wanted to—”
She struggled with herself for a moment before clambering out of bed. She was in just her nightgown. Her exposed ankles struck her as pathetic. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she launched herself toward him to give him a squeeze.
“I’m very happy for you,” she said. “And—proud.” Her voice wobbled. “You were amuchbetter king than you needed to be. You tried so hard, and you were kind and just and true, and when you realized you were in over your head, you asked for help, and when that was too much too, you stepped back to let someone else have a try. You were a very good king, even whenyou were a bad one. I love you very much, Bradley. And I’m very, very proud to be your mother.”
Bradley, the soft, silly thing, cried. Gretsella, for her part, had not been soft and silly for many, many years. She’d made herself tough. She’d made herself clever.
She let herself cry that morning. She held her son and let him hold her back.
Later that afternoon, when they were prepared to depart, Gretsella held them up only slightly, having one last job left to do. The faded old dress that Janet had lent Gretsella when she first arrived in the capital was still hanging in Gretsella’s wardrobe. Gretsella used a pair of nail scissors to carefully snip out the nameCarrotsfrom where it had been neatly embroidered, presumably by Janet’s mother many years earlier. Witches have their ways, and one of their ways is to make sure that everyone assumes their ways are much more impressive than they actually are. Then she wrote a note, folded it up inside the dress, and left the little bundle outside the king’s bedchamber. The note read as follows:
Dear Carrots,
Once you were a little girl who thought that the world was unfair to her. Too bad. Children shouldn’t be taken so seriously, especially when they have already grown up. The world doesn’t need to be taught a lesson about your true inner worth. You are a WITCH. When you are a witch, it doesn’t matter who you used to be or who you wish you were. You arejust as you are, and your worth is exactly what it is. Don’t try to argue with me. I know that I’m right, because you are just like me when I was young, and because I am always right. When you are sick of trying to prove that you aren’t the sort of person who was ever called Carrots, come into the woods and ask for me. You’ll be given directions.
Wickedly,
Gretsella, the Witch of Brigandale with the Reasonable Prices
PS: When you come, please bring some of that nice white soap that smells like gardenias and some good chocolates, which are difficult to buy in the forest.
This errand done, Gretsella and the two young gentlemen piled into a very nice carriage—courtesy of King Janet, who was trying to butter Gretsella up in the hopes that she would undo the Curse of Honesty (Gretsella knew this was what Janet was doing because Janet had very honestly told her so when she asked)—and got on the highway toward Brigandale. They’d hardly gone fifteen minutes before they heard the sound of a horse galloping behind them.
“What new nonsense isthis?” Gretsella asked, and stuck her head out the window to look.
The new nonsense was Herman, who reined in his horse as he drew close and immediately looked sheepish. “Uh,” he said, “I was thinking, ma’am. I was thinking that I’m getting sick of living in the capital. All of those buildings everywhere—itmakes the horses nervous. And I saw that Lord Brigandale was looking for a new stablemaster. I thought I could use a bit of a change of scene, ma’am.”
Gretsella eyed him. He looked back at her unblushingly, until he blushed.
“Well,” Gretsella said, “if we’re going to be neighbors, you might as well call me Gretsella.”
An Epilogue, to Be Located at the Very End of the Narrative
So that’s how it was, and that’s how it went. Bradley and George found a lovely little cottage near the center of town. The village’s master hairdresser decided to retire, so Bradley took over the shop, and people came from miles around to have their hair cut by the former king. As it turned out, peacefully abdicating the throne before you’d had the chance to really make a mess of the kingdom was an excellent way to ensure that The People remembered you as kind and noble, just and true, rather than as an incompetent twit who couldn’t govern his way out of a bag of hair clippings.
The locals immediately took a shine to George, who they all agreed was Just Regular Folk despite suffering from a severe and incurable case of Not from Around Here. Most happily of all, because no one important ever came to the village, George’s clothing abided unstained, and everyone alwaysnoticed him and waved hello. To keep himself occupied, he began advertising his services as a freelance monster hunter. In the first few years that he lived in Brigandale, he relieved three households of boggarts, removed some squirrels from chimneys after the homeowners mistook them for boggarts, and also had several genuine adventures, the details of which are outside the scope of this story.
