By the next day, Gretsella regretted having spent so much time fretting over the animals at all. Bradley seemed to have forgotten the tidings of the singing mice by suppertime, and having delivered their message, the animals seemed to have given up on making proclamations. Gretsella enjoyed another day without encountering a single wild creature emitting human speech, and Bradley came home chattering away about nothing but his customers and the latest village gossip. Life in Gretsella’s cottage had returned to its natural rhythms, and it remained that way for a delightfully peaceful week, until Bradley came walking into the garden flanked by twenty armored men.
“Bradley!” Gretsella said. “Tell your friends to back upthis instant—they’re about to trample all over my rhododendrons.”
To Gretsella’s enormous satisfaction, several of the menbegan to back up of their own accord. Bradley gave the men who remained a very sheepish little smile. “Would you mind awfully, fellows? My mother’s very particular about the rhododendrons. She won a prize for them at the county fair last year.”
This stern warning sent the rest of them back out to the lane, which gave Gretsella a chance to try to wrangle Bradley back into behaving exactly as she thought he should. “What on earth is going on, Bradley?” she asked, as if she didn’t already suspect.
“These men are all knights from families still loyal to my father,” Bradley said. He seemed to be in something of a daze. “They say that my father was the old king, which makes me the king now too. They want to accompany me to reclaim my throne.”
“But you don’thavea throne, Bradley,” Gretsella said. “You’re ahairdresser. What do you know about being a king?”
“They say that it’s my destiny,” Bradley said, though he was starting to look uncertain about it. “They say that the kingdom needs me in order for everything to return to balance and peace.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever—” Gretsella started, then reined herself in. “What if you told them that you’d like to have the evening to think it over, hmm?”
“All right,” Bradley said, and called out to the men. “I want to spend the evening alone to gather my thoughts. I’ll speak to you all in the morning.”
Gretsella had to admit that hesoundedvery kingly. Themen appeared to agree. There was a chorus of “Yes, Your Majesty,” and the men withdrew. As soon as they were out of earshot, Bradley started to beam. “Did you hear, Mother? They call meYour Majesty!”
Gretsella suggested that he go to his room to spend the hours before dinner in earnest contemplation of the serious decision that lay before him. Then, once he was out of her way, she called an emergency convocation of her coven.
At any convocation held on such short notice, there was, inevitably, at least one member who sent her sincere regrets. This time it was Yarrow, which was unsurprising of the lazy old witch. Hyssop arrived early and nearly crash-landed in the rhododendrons: She wasn’t used to flying her broom without her business partner serving as ballast near the bristles. Barb arrived pink-cheeked and sweaty, having just participated in something called aZumba class. Upon further questioning, this was revealed to be a group of female villagers who joined Barb in rhythmic dancing beyond the reach of the oafish gazes of their husbands, which struck Gretsella as an almostsuspiciouslyoccultly correct sort of activity for Barb to partake in.
A few minutes later, Magnetia appeared, her face frozen in the hideous contortion of a woman about to sneeze. She had insisted on attending remotely, via magic mirror, despite the fact that Gretsella had explainedmultipletimes that magic mirrors didn’t work properly in her cottage. This had been the case ever since the mirror attached to Gretsella’s bedroom vanity had provided Gretsella with its entirely unsolicited opinion on her physical attractiveness relative to that of afourteen-year-old girl who lived in the village. Gretsella had informed the girl’s father of the mirror’s remarks, and he had taken Gretsella’s old vanity down to the woodshed. He’d also built her a lovely new vanity with special compartments for all her unguents, so everything had, as usual, worked out perfectly for Gretsella. The sullen refusal of all other magic mirrors to thereafter operate reliably within Gretsella’s home never would have been an issue if it weren’t for Magnetia’sinsistenceon beingmodern.
Gretsella, Hyssop, and Barb went ahead with their convocation as Magnetia’s mirrored face jerked its way through a variety of rigid death masks. Gretsella poured tea. Barb opened a box of chocolate chip cookies that she freely admitted to having “just picked up on my way over.” They were, as desserts, barely tolerable. Gretsella ate three of them as she explained the situation.
“This was all inevitable,” declared Hyssop, who had a modest side business as a seer. She mostly predicted things that had already happened or were currently in the process of happening, but she did it with such verve that people paid her for it and recommended her to their friends.
“I—kind of thing—traditional,” Magnetia said from the mirror before freezing again with her mouth partially open.
“I think it’s fun!” Barb said. “What a nice opportunity for Bradley, since he decided against college.”
“Witches’ sons who live in cottages in the ancient forest don’t go tocollege,Barb,” Gretsella said. “And they don’t become king either.”
“Why not?” Barb asked. “Sometimes, all a kid needs is a little challenge to push them out of the nest. Melissa was a little adrift too, before she got certified to teach English abroad.”
“Bradley,” Gretsella said firmly, “is a simple, unspoiled boy who knows nothing of the world of men. He wouldn’t enjoy a life in politics. Also, he’d be terrible at it. Possibly the worst king that Evermore has ever seen, even.”
“Do you really think so?” Barb asked with a definite note of skepticism. “Worse than Horace the Disemboweler?”
“Worse—Edgar—the Handsy?” inquired the mirror-hobbled Magnetia.
“I understand completely,” Hyssop said. “He lacks theruthlessnessneeded for the position. Bradley’s great-uncle Horack’s not a man who’s easily pushed around. Evermore would certainly be annexed by a neighbor almost immediately with Bradley at the helm. He would be too polite to vanquish the invaders.”
“Exactly,” Gretsella said. “Some warlord would very politely ask Bradley if he could stay at the palace for a week or two, and the next thing you know, we’d all be married to burly foreign horsemen.”
“Oh,” Magnetia said from her mirror. “Would—really—so bad?”
“You are awitch, young lady,” Gretsella said, severely. It struck her that Magnetia and Bradley had a great deal in common when it came to burly horsemen. Baffling. Gretsella ate another cookie. Then she said, “I didn’t call for this convocationso that you all could tell me what I ought to do. I called you so that you could assist me in pursuing what I’ve already determined is the correct course of action.”
“As is traditional,” Hyssop said. “How can we be of assistance?”
“I need ideas for how to convince a young man that he should be content to live at home with his mother,” Gretsella said.
Hyssop shifted uncomfortably. Magnetia, for her part, was either frozen again or refraining from expressing an opinion.
All eyes turned toward Barb.
