Crewel Lye Read online

  Well, almost. There was the little matter of getting in. She was standing outside the moat; there was no drawbridge, and the walls looked most forbidding.

  First she had to cross the moat. She looked around. Under a spreading tree she found several small stones. “Stepping stones!” she exclaimed, recognizing the type.

  She picked them up, but they were hard to hold all together, so she reached for a big green leaf to wrap them in. But lo, it was not a leaf; it was the wing of a giant luna moth. The creature was motionless, and just dangled when she picked it up; she realized reluctantly that it was dead. A tear squeezed from her eye; she hated to see pretty things die.

  She found some blanket moss, set the stones, moth, and mare shoe on it, and carefully drew up the corners of the blanket so she could carry it as a bundle. She saw herself as a fairly resourceful child, so of course she was. Then she walked to the moat, held the bundle in one arm, and used her free hand to cast the first stone.

  The stepping stone plopped onto the surface, bobbled, expanded somewhat, and settled firmly, the top of it just above the water. She tossed a second one a little farther out, and it settled similarly on the surface. When she had a somewhat irregular line of several—for stepping stones never settled regularly, no matter how accurately they were placed—she stepped carefully on the first. It gave slightly but supported her weight; that was, after all, its nature, enhanced by her talent. Incorrectly placed, a stepping stone could become a stumbling block, but she had set these down properly.

  She stepped on the second, and the third, then tossed out a couple more. This was nervous business, especially when she stepped across deep water, but she had enough stones and she made it all the way across with one to spare. That was excellent management, if she did say so herself.

  Now she was on a narrow bank between the moat and the castle wall. On one side, the bank narrowed until there was no space between the wall and the water, so she couldn’t go there. On the other side, it curved around the castle. She was sure there was a door somewhere, so she started walking.

  She passed an alcove that was absolutely dark; no light penetrated its depths at all. That was interesting, but not very; she moved on. Then she rounded a corner and encountered blinding brightness. She shaded her tender eyes, but the light squeezed through the crevices between her fingers and pierced her eyelids anyway. It was just too bright!

  She retreated around the corner, and the day returned to normal, with only a dull red spot that played tag with her peripheral vision. How could she pass that region? If the door she wanted was there, she would be unable to see it. She might even blunder into the moat and get her feet all wet; that would be awkward to explain to her mother! Irene might have no time for Ivy when Ivy wanted attention, but she would appear like magic the moment those little feet and shoes got wet; that was the way mothers were. Also, Ivy wasn’t sure just how fast her sight might recover, after too great an exposure to that light; how awful it would be to be blind! If she came home blind, they would feed her nothing but—screaming horrors!— carrots, because they had a magic yellow ingredient that was good for vision. There was no question about it: she had to find a different way.

  “Come on, Ivy,” she chided herself. “You’re smart enough to figure out how to get through a little light!” Whereupon she became smart enough; confidence was wonderful stuff, especially when abetted by magic.

  Ivy returned to the dark alcove and reached inside. Sure enough, there was a dark lantern. She brought it out, and its darkness spread all around her, converting day to night. Fortunately, she was able to see a little dim light ahead, around the corner, and she headed for that.

  As she rounded the corner, the effulgence surrounded her—and was met by the darkness radiating from the dark lamp. The two struggled and canceled out, and an approximation of normal daylight returned. A small globe of darkness remained about the lantern itself, into which her arm disappeared, while the bright lantern remained too bright to gaze upon. But in between were the shades ranging from night to day. If Ivy had been of a more philosophical bent, she might have realized that life itself was like that, with the impossible extremes of good and bad at either side and many gradients between, through which normal folk navigated with indifferent success. But she was as yet too young for such a thought, so she shoved it aside and proceeded through the shades of gray until she rounded another corner. Then the dark lamp became too dark, blotting out everything; she set it in an empty alcove and went on.

  But a new threat materialized. A small winged cat screeched and circled above her. When she tried to take a step, the cat circled lower, claws extended. This was too little to be a cat-bird; it was a kitty-hawk, and it would not let her pass.

  She looked in her blanket bag, where there was one stone, the dead moth, and the mare shoe. She might throw the stone at the creature, but she doubted she could score; the throwing arm of a five-year-old girl wasn’t strong. So she left that stone unturned. She needed another way.

  As she pondered, the kitty-hawk circled lower. Ivy was right at the edge of its attack range and the creature hesitated. Probably it didn’t want to get too close to the brilliance around the corner, as that would blind the kitty-hawk as readily as it blinded her. So this was a safe place to pause.

  Ivy watched the creature, noting the separate components of its body. The hawk-wings were of the bird kingdom, with brown feathers, and there was a feathered tail to match; the head and legs were of the cat kingdom, with white teeth and claws. She wondered which kingdom was dominant. Did the creature lay eggs or give live birth? Animals had more direct and crude ways of reproducing themselves than people did; maybe cabbages didn’t grow for animals. She blushed to be thinking such naughty thoughts, but still, she was curious. She knew that some creatures birthed and others hatched, or maybe it was the other way around, and people arrived under cabbage leaves, and then there was the matter of the storks—Ivy frowned, because that reminded her of Baby Brother Dolph again. Too bad the stork hadn’t brought him, because then there would have been a chance of dropping the bundle into a nest of cockatrices, or maybe onto a bad-tempered needle-cactus. She could almost see the needles flying out, striking the little cockatrices, who naturally glared balefully about, turning everything around them to sludge. Or was it stone? Anyway, the little bird-brained lizards were getting stabbed by flying stone needles, and it served them right.

  Ivy caught a flicker of something just off the edge of her vision. It looked like a swishing horse’s tail. The day mare! Imbri had brought her the nice, violent day-dream, but now the mare had to gallop off to her next delivery.

  There was a yowl. Ivy looked up. The kitty-hawk had come quite close to her and was having some kind of problem. The parts of it had intensified, the cat-head and feet becoming more feline and the bird-wings and tail more avian. Now they were fighting for dominance. The head was reaching around to bite at the wings, and the wings were pounding on the head.

  Ivy watched closely, so of course the intensification of separate qualities continued. The fight got worse. Feathers and tufts of fur flew out. Finally the kitty-hawk spun out of control, crashed into the moat, and was gone. This was one experiment of nature that didn’t seem to have worked out. The sharpening of its facets, as it had approached Ivy and her violent day-dream, had caused the creature to fragment and destroy itself.

  Ivy walked on, glad to be past the kitty-hawk but sad how that had happened. She was still looking for the door into the castle. She came to a small plot that contained a single headstone. It was in the shape of the head of an old man, with sparse stone-gray hair and white whiskers. It looked almost alive, and became more so as she contemplated it; its stony gaze was fixed on her. Slowly one mineral eye closed in a wink.

  “You are alive!” she exclaimed, startled.

  “No, snippet, I’m just cold stone,” it said. “I take the form of the head of whoever is buried near me. That is my nature; I’m a headstone.”

  “You me
an you look like—” she began, glancing at the oblong of dirt in front of it.

  “Exactly, peanut. Like the loudmouthed old man who is buried here.” Actually, he sounded to Ivy like a loudmouthed golem, but maybe all loudmouths were similar.

  “That’s interesting,” Ivy said. This headstone didn’t seem like much of a threat.

  “Last year I was planted near a lovely, dead, young woman; you should have seen me then! My surface was like polished alabaster, and my shape was beautiful.”

  “That’s nice,” Ivy said, losing interest. “I’ve got to go now.”

  “Ah, but if you try to pass me, I’ll yell, and you’ll get the brush-off,” the headstone warned.

  “Oh, pooh!” she said. “You can’t do anything, rock-head!” She walked on defiantly.

  “Intruder alert!” the headstone yelled loudly. “Undisciplined child! Probably a real brat! Give her the brush-off!”

  From around the castle flew the most awesomely terrible object Ivy could imagine: a huge hairbrush. She scooted back the way she had come, covering her behind. That headstone hadn’t been bluffing!

  Ivy backed up against the wall so that her tender posterior wouldn’t be exposed. What was she to do now? She couldn’t face that—or turn her back on it, either.

  The brush hovered a moment. Then, spying no naughty posterior, it flew back the way it had come. Ivy relaxed; she had escaped this time.

  But she knew with sick certainty that the moment she passed the headstone again, it would cry another warning and that horrendous brush would return. She was stuck. She was a fairly self-assured little girl, but that brush—! She had to figure out a way to be rid of it!

  Then she had another notion, for her mind was filled with notions, some of them almost as cute as she was. Suppose she nullified the headstone instead? If she could just stop that loudmouth from blabbing, somehow silencing it—

  She looked in her bag again. Maybe she could get creative. Stone, mare shoe, dead moth. Nothing here to—

  Then a creative bulb lit up, for an instant flashing as brightly as the brightside effulgence she had so recently negotiated with the dark lamp. Yes, there was a way, maybe!

  She marched up to the headstone. “Hi, rockbrain!” she said boldly.

  The stone eye eyed her stonily. “You again, twerp? If you try to pass this point, I’ll see that you get the brush-off for sure. You won’t be able to sit down without blistering the chair!”

  “I’ve got something for you,” she said, taking out the dead luna moth. “Let me just scrape out some dirt beside you here—” She dug a little hole.

  “That doesn’t look like much,” the headstone said. “If you dig too deep, you may encounter something you don’t like, sweetie-pie.”

  “I just want to bury this closer to you than that,” ivy said and dropped the dead moth in the hole. Then she swept the dirt over and patted it firm.

  She stood and watched. If what the headstone had told her was true—

  It was. The headstone began to change. The human features weathered into anonymity and assumed a greenish cast. Then a new form took shape. It was the head of a luna moth, with furry antennae and lovely color.

  “That’s very pretty,” Ivy said and walked on by. The stone-moth’s antennae waved frantically, but there was no sound, for moths did not make sounds in the human range. The giant brush was not roused, and Ivy passed the dread region without hindrance. She had navigated the final hurdle, thanks to her creativity. She had used a dead moth in a way no one had thought of before.

  She walked around to the castle door and pushed it open. A young and pretty woman came to meet her. “Why, hello, Ivy—you surprised me. Why didn’t you use the carpet to fly in, as you usually do?”

  Ivy didn’t care to explain about being grounded; Zora was very nice, but no adult could be completely trusted in a matter like that. “This is business, Zora”, she explained. “I have to see Good Magician Humfrey.”

  Zora shrugged. She was a zombie, but it was almost impossible to tell, for no flesh fell from her. She had been baby-sitting the Good Magician for two years because it was her talent to make people age faster. She was married, but when she turned on her talent, other people became nervous, fearing they were aging, too. Ivy didn’t understand why anyone should object to getting older; maybe they had all forgotten what it was like to be a child. But it seemed they did fear age, and the older they were, the more they feared it. So Zora’s husband Xavier tended to absent himself when Zora turned on.

  Ivy understood the practical aspects of all this, if not the emotional ones, and wasn’t worried. She often visited the Good Magician herself, enhancing Zora’s talent with her own, so that Humfrey aged at several times the normal rate. It would not be long, as such things went, before he was an adult again; meanwhile, he seemed to be enjoying his second childhood.

  Zora escorted her to Humfrey’s playroom. The Good Magician was now about Ivy’s size, which meant he had averaged about three years for one, for he was small for his age. “Hi, Ivy!” he said. “Come to put some more years on me?”

  “No, this is a business call,” Ivy repeated. Humfrey she had to trust, even if she didn’t want to. He knew everything anyway, or seemed to, that being his talent. Physically, he was now a child, so perhaps would not be inclined to betray her to the grown-ups. “I’m grounded for no reason and had to sneak out.”

  Humfrey smiled in a too-knowing way. “No reason, as you define it, being the leading of your grandfather in a merry chase through tangler, jungle, and gourd, all because you didn’t stay on course or heed his warnings, and causing the Night Stallion to shoot fire from his nostrils when he saw the damage to his haunted house set?”

  “That’s what I said,” Ivy agreed uncomfortably. “No reason at all. So let’s make this quick, before I get in trouble for even less reason if they discover I’m gone. I need an Answer.”

  “That will be one year’s service,” he informed her. “In advance.”

  “Well, I’ve already added more than that to your life by enhancing Zora when she ages you, so we’re even. And if I do it much more, you’ll owe me another Answer.”

  Humfrey stared at her belligerently. “What kind of logic is that, woman?”

  “Female logic, of course,” she informed him. “Want to make something of it?” Ivy already had a fair notion how to handle men, even those who could not readily be charmed.

  “Um, no,” Humfrey said. “Some distant day you’re going to be King of Xanth, may the Demon have mercy on that day.”

  “I already know that, dummy, so watch your step.” She had learned about firmness from her mother, just as she had learned about pedestals from her father. It would never do to let any man get the upper hand. As Irene had muttered ominously, there was no telling where he might put it.

  “Okay, okay, where’s your Question?” Humfrey asked grumpily.

  “I need something to clean up the magic tapestry so Jordan the Ghost can remember.”

  Another person might have had difficulty grasping this, but Humfrey, young as he was, was the Magician of Information. He had had over a century of experience before being accidentally youthened back to babyhood, along with Stanley Steamer; now his power was returning, as was his irascible nature.

  Humfrey pondered a moment, then brightened. “The Big Book should have it,” he exclaimed. Ivy knew that some people claimed there was no such thing as a Big Book of Answers for all Questions, but those people had never seen Humfrey’s study. The Good Magician went over to a table where a huge tome rested, and he scrambled up on the high stool to reach it. He turned the ancient pages. “Good thing I’ve learned to read again,” he grumped as he pored over the fine print. “Tables … tadpoles … tailspins … talismen … tangle trees … tapestry! Nature of, History of, Present Location of, Abuse of—aha! Cleaning of!”

  “That’s it!” Ivy exclaimed.

  “Quiet, woman, while I’m researching,” he snapped.

  Ivy opened her
mouth to retort suitably, but decided to restrain herself until Humfrey produced the Answer. Timing was important when dealing with men, as her mother had said. Anyway, it was no insult to be called “woman.” She was glad he hadn’t paused to read the entry under “Abuse of” because that very well might mention the wiping-off or laying-on of hands on its surface, which would be awkward to explain.

  “Use crewel lye,” he read. “Recipe as follows: half a tumbler of—”

  “Wait, I can’t remember a whole recipe!” Ivy protested. “I have trouble remembering the recipe for hard-boiling an egg! I need a written copy—and no big words.” Ivy was learning to read, but preferred words like “Fun” and “Joy” to ones like “Delinquent” or “Punishment.”

  Humfrey blew air through his cheeks, exactly as he would when a century or so older. “Then fetch me that copy-cat.”

  Ivy looked where he pointed. In a corner sat a creature like a contracted caterpillar, with only four legs, one tail, and several long whiskers. It looked rounded, furry, and soft, but evinced an attitude of independence and aloofness.

  She went and tried to pick up the creature, but it sort of slid through her hands and remained on its soft pillar. She tried to haul it up by the tail, but its eyes glowed in yellow slits, claws sprang out from its paws, and it yowled, so she desisted. It certainly was a strange animal!

  Then Ivy tried another system. She walked in front of it. “Here, copy, copy, copy, copy!” she called. And the copy-cat came, walking exactly the way Ivy was walking.

  When they reached the table, she pointed to its surface. “Jump, copy!” She jumped herself, to show how it was done, and the copy-cat jumped. But it jumped just the way she did, up and down on the floor.

  So Ivy scrambled up on the table herself, to the Good Magician’s annoyance. “Up!” she called, and the copycat scrambled up beside her.