Once Upon a Marigold, Page 2

  "Bub and Cate," Christian said.

  "What about 'em?" Ed asked.

  They're your hugs.

  "Hogwash," Ed said again, just as Bub and Cate came racing back from sniffing whatever they'd been sniffing and jumped up on Ed. Together, they knocked him over, walked on him, licked him, as if they hadn't seen him for ten years instead of ten minutes.

  "Get off me, you mangy mutts," Ed told them, struggling to get away, but not too hard.

  Well, they'd heard that before. They didn't pay any attention.

  When Ed had righted himself and picked the leaves out of his beard, he headed into the pink-crystal room, the one he used for his office, trailed by Christian and the dogs.

  "I don't have time for this nonsense," he said stiffly, hoping the whole problem would somehow go away if he didn't look at it. "I'm a very busy person, waging an important campaign, and my time is valuable."

  "What important campaign?" Christian asked.

  "I'm going to bust Mab's monopoly if it's the last thing I ever do."

  "You mean Queen Mab?" Christian asked. "The Tooth Fairy?"

  "Tooth Tyrant is more like it," Ed grumbled. "She's got more work than she can handle, even with that incompetent flock of flying assistants she's got, most of which couldn't read a map to save their lives—if she even has any decent maps, which I doubt."

  He warmed to his subject, which had begun as yet another troll tradition—the one that says the highest achievement a troll should aspire to is to take on a special task that will benefit the greatest number of people (even if they are children)—and had become a crusade. Most of the reason that it had was because Mab's inefficiency was so outrageous, it just plain gave him the whim-whams.

  Ed continued. "More than once I've seen them buzzing around in the forest, running into trees and dropping their little parcels of money. I'll bet there are plenty of kids who never get their lost teeth picked up. And there are plenty of others who get those printed messages about how her secretary's out sick so everything's backed up, or how bad weather caused flight delays, or whatever. The truth is, Mab's overwhelmed and she won't admit it. And she won't let go of any of the business, either. Monopoly's not good, you know. Makes an enterprise lazy and uncreative. I've got some good ideas. I could give her a run for her eyeteeth if I could just get a nose under the door. I'm very busy," he repeated.

  After a pause Christian said quietly, "I could help you. I could learn to do things. I could probably even invent something that would make whatever you're doing easier."

  "No way, José," Ed said. "Impossible. Out of the question. We're going to find your family. Trust me."

  3

  Well, they didn't. And all Chris could—or would—tell him was that his parents were named Mother and Father and that they lived in a big stone house, but he didn't know where it was. Ed had no clue about where to start looking. Travelers, wanderers, warriors, and creatures verging on extinction from all over the known world passed through these woods on their way from Hither to Yon, so Christian's family could be anybody from anywhere. And the hunting horns and bloodhounds never came back after that one day, so either they'd given up on finding Christian, or they'd moved their search to a more remote part of the forest. Ed had heard all about the dragons and ogres, monsters and witches who lived on the other side of the vast forest, as well as the sour-tempered and unreasonable King Beaufort, and he wasn't about to go over there and run into one of them.

  Actually, having Chris around turned out to be a better arrangement than Ed had imagined. For one thing, he was a sweeter-natured child than their initial acquaintance would suggest. True, he could be stubborn, but usually about something that turned out to be justified, so Ed eventually decided his reasons for not wanting to go back to his family must be good ones. Furthermore, he could already read and write, and he was eager to help Ed write his hundreds of letters to the other members of the LEFT (Leprechauns, Elves, Fairies, and Trolls) Association advocating a breakup of Queen Mab's tooth fairy monopoly. At the LEFT Conference each year, there was a vote on this issue, and while Ed hadn't managed a winning campaign yet, he wasn't giving up. He had hundreds of years to pursue his cause. Sooner or later he had to be successful. Then the ODD (Outstanding Distinguished Deed) Medal would be his.

  Chris was also a great companion for the dogs. He spent hours playing with them and teaching them tricks, something Ed didn't always have time or inclination for. The boy was good at entertaining himself, too: exploring, bringing back unusual plants—sometimes edible and other times only beautiful—reading the assortment of dropped books found in the forest, studying the stars through the collapsible telescope, and inventing things. He hadn't been kidding about being an inventor. Or about making a big mess when he was working on something. He built one peculiar contraption after another out of forest-found items—contraptions that looked as if they might have a purpose, just not one that Ed (or Christian) could identify.

  ED NOTICED that Chris was spending more and more time on the promontory outside the cave, looking through the collapsible telescope at King Swithbert's castle on the bluffs across the wide, rushing river. The royal family spent a great deal of time on the broad, walled stone terrace at the bluff's edge, and Chris seemed to enjoy watching King Swithbert and Queen Olympia, their four little daughters, and their courtiers going about their business.

  Without being sure he wanted to hear the answer, Ed said one day, "I notice you watch the royal family a lot. Do you miss your own family?"

  Christian gave him a serious brown-eyed look. "I can hardly remember those people, and I'm sure I don't miss them. I like my new family. It's a lot more interesting."

  "Yeah?" Ed asked, trying not to let his chest puff up. "You think so?"

  "Yep," Chris said, raising the telescope to his eye again. "And more fun, too."

  Ed bounced on his toes a few times and then cleared his throat. "Well. I guess I'd better go ... do ... uh ... something interesting."

  "Okay," Christian said absently. "See you later."

  Christian had told Ed he couldn't remember his family, and he meant it. He'd tried hard to forget them. But little pictures appeared in his mind from time to time. Two babies in blue baskets. A woman's long white hands holding a deck of cards. A man's voice, strong and scary, telling him that it was difficult to believe his fairy birth-gift had been good luck when he was in trouble so much of the time. A fair-haired little girl running up a long flight of stone steps, chasing a fat puppy.

  When Christian had these memories, he felt no deficiency or regret—only a distant curiosity followed by a rush of gratitude for Ed, Bub, Cate, the cave, and the forest. He never doubted that his escape had been sensible, though he suspected that it wouldn't be the last escape he ever made. All his life he'd had the feeling that he was headed toward something—something that felt big—but he didn't know what it was. Somehow, though, he knew that being with Ed and the dogs, wandering through the forest, working on his inventions, and watching the world across the river, was preparing him for it in a way that his previous life had not.

  ONE NIGHT, after Christian had been with Ed for a year or so, while Ed was supervising Chris's bedtime routine, a realization came upon the troll with the impact and terror of a lightning strike: He was a parent!

  "What's wrong?" Chris asked when Ed paused, thunderstruck, holding Christian's nightshirt out to him.

  "Plenty," Ed said, handing over the nightshirt.

  "Did I do something?" Chris asked, his brown eyes troubled.

  "Not that I know about ... yet," Ed said, not recognizing that he sounded like most of the parents in the world, saying words designed to nudge their kids onto the right side of disorderly conduct. "It's something I need to think about."

  "Can I help you?" Chris asked, buttoning the shirt and rolling up the sleeves.

  Ed's heart did a little pixie jig inside his chest. The sensation was strong enough to cause him to put his hand over the sensitive spot. This kid that
he hadn't wanted in his life had just about taken it over. The old troll had lived a long time without anybody around to help him. He'd gotten used to that—so used to it that he'd never even noticed the absence. But now that the vacant spot had been filled, he couldn't think how he'd managed without this handsome little boy with his crazy inventions and his tricks for the dogs—how many people had dogs who could clear the dinner table and sing in harmony?—and his willingness, even eagerness, to participate in whatever Ed was doing.

  "You always tell me not to use my shirttail to blow my nose," Christian said, watching Ed. "So how come you can do it?"

  Ed dropped his shirttail and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He had to be a role model, for pete's sake. "It was a sudden attack of hay fever," he said gruffly. "I won't be doing it again. After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the eager beaver. You got that?"

  "I don't know." Christian almost never understood Ed's sayings but somehow got the drift of them anyway. "Does it mean don't blow my nose on my shirttail?"

  "Yeah. Now get in bed."

  After Christian and the dogs were in bed, Ed plucked a book on etiquette from the green-crystal library. Heading back to the parlor, he could hear Bub and Cate softly yowling a harmonized lullaby in Chris's bedroom.

  He settled himself in his easy chair by the fire and began to read. It was up to him to make sure that Christian grew up minding his p's and q's and r's and s's. And all the rest of the letters, too. And he'd better get up to speed on them himself, since he hadn't even known that burping at the table was punishable by being dragged off to your room by your ear.

  Part Two

  1

  Eleven Years Later

  Edric had just finished an excellent meal, prepared by Christian, of gopher goulash, artichoke hearts, spinach salad, and cherries jubilee. He burped contentedly. "Who do you suppose ever figured out that artichokes are edible?" he asked. "They look lethal."

  "Me, probably," Christian answered as Bub and Cate removed the plates from the table that Christian had not only built but had equipped with a crank that lowered it to the dogs' level for easier clearing. "I've never heard of anybody eating them before us." Of course, how would he know? The world was a big place, and more and more, he was realizing how little of it he knew.

  Ed shouldn't have been surprised that Chris had discovered artichokes were edible. The boy had always had a sense of adventure—and not until recently had it begun to concern Ed. Oh, it was fine as long as it only extended to the odd plants that only occasionally made them sick when they ate them. And Ed didn't mind Chris's strange inventions, some of which, unlike the ones from his childhood, actually worked. Like the elevator that brought water up the bluff to the cave from the river. Or the boomerang arrows that came back to him if he missed his target.

  But lately Christian's explorations kept him gone longer than usual, his inventions were noisier and more complicated than ever, and his culinary concoctions had approached the seriously bizarre. (Even Bub and Cate had rejected the rutabaga parfaits.) And he was restless in a way that Ed unhappily suspected was normal for a young person bearing down hard on manhood. Which forced him to think about Christian's nonexistent social life.

  The boy needed some friends besides an old troll and a bunch of animals. Oh, once in a while he had a conversation with Hayes Centaur or Claypool Sasquatch, the gamekeepers, or with a leprechaun or picnicker or elf, or one of Mab's cohorts passing through the forest, but that didn't amount to a hill of figs.

  Ed wondered if it wasn't time to start trying again to find Christian's family. He knew it would be the right thing to do, even though Christian had made it clear he wasn't interested. But more and more he had to wonder if he'd postponed it too long. And if he couldn't locate Chris's family, maybe it was time to think about releasing him to find his own way in the world. Ed had to admit that the very thought of doing that gave him a lacerating pain right in the center of his heart.

  He sighed and considered whether he should add a postscript to his letters. After he got through detailing all of Mab's failings, of course. He could kill one bird with two stones by also asking if the recipient of the letter knew anything about a little boy who had gone missing in the forest about twelve years before. Walter and Carrie, the carrier pigeons Chris had trained to deliver Ed's correspondence more efficiently than passing pilgrims, crusaders, gnomes, and gryphons could, wouldn't be happy about longer letters. But the etiquette book had stressed the importance of doing what you knew was right, even when it was inconvenient—even when you didn't want to do it at all.

  CHRIS'S FAVORITE invention, for quite a while, had been a bigger, better telescope with which he could keep a closer eye on King Swithbert's court across the river.

  He'd watched the four princesses—the beautiful blond triplets and the smaller, darker younger one—grow up. He'd been an unseen guest at the masked balls, and the summer picnics on the terrace, and the triplets' triple wedding. He'd watched old King Swithbert get even older, and Queen Olympia get that cross little line between her eyebrows and that dissatisfied pout to her mouth. And while he watched them, he felt that now-familiar odd stirring, that sensation of something coming—something bigger, something other. And increasingly, the sense that he no longer fit so well where he was.

  "I THINK I'LL go outside for a while," Christian said one evening, after he'd tidied up the kitchen. "Before the sun sets. I love these long twilights."

  "Okay by me," Ed said, turning to his relentless correspondence. The annual LEFT Conference was coming up soon, and once again he was vigorously trying to drum up support for getting Mab to let go of some of the tooth fairy business. Everybody knew she was past her prime by a good hundred years but still hanging on like grim death to a business she hadn't managed well for as long as anyone could remember. Why, he bet she didn't collect a quarter of the teeth on the first night they were placed under the pillow. Some, he knew, she didn't get to until the third or fourth night. And then she was inconsistent in what she paid for them—sometimes a lot, sometimes a pittance. She said she used the little teeth to make crowns for her fairies, but that was a can of baloney if Ed had ever heard any. What she did was toss them into storerooms, where they gradually lost their pearly luster and crumbled into chalky dust by the bushel. Anybody with an ounce of sense knew that teeth, like people, had to be kept in use to maintain their zip.

  If Ed had his way, he'd build a palace from them. Imagine the radiance of it, all those little burnished white bricks softly glowing. He'd keep his palace polished with toothpaste so it always gleamed, and he'd stud it with the colored crystals that made up his cave and were so common in this part of the forest that they could sometimes be found lying on the ground like ordinary rocks.

  He went to the mouth of the cave and looked out at the dwindling colors of the summer day. He was a lucky troll, and he knew it. None of his brothers had found as splendid a cave as he had, or had it as good as he did, or was on as promising a track toward the ODD Medal. He would soon be at the LEFT Conference listening to them complain about their lots. Ed sighed and went back to his letter writing.

  CHRISTIAN SAT on a rock by the top of a waterfall that ricocheted, in sparkling segments, off the boulders and into the river below. Directly opposite, far across the river, was the castle he never tired of watching. He'd seen how the beautiful golden-haired triplets had spent most of their time together in an extravaganza of pastel femininity while their little sister spent most of her time in solitary pursuits: reading, cultivating pots of flowering plants, playing with her three small dogs. It took him years to realize it, but he finally saw that, shortly after he'd come to live with Ed, people had quit touching the dark-haired sister—they even seemed to go out of their way to avoid it. Old King Swithbert was the only one who ever did touch her, patting her absentmindedly in passing, holding her arm for support as he took his slow constitutional back and forth across the terrace. If Christian had ever seen anybody in need of six hug
s a day—or even one—that dark-haired princess was the one.

  He extended the telescope and focused it on the terrace. The princess sat alone in a plain wooden chair, reading. He tried to focus on the title, but she kept tilting the book to catch the failing light, so he couldn't see the cover. Her thick shining curls were caught untidily back in a silver cord, but she wore no jewelry. Her second-best everyday crown—he knew them all by now—hung on the back of the chair where she could grab it and clap it on her head if her mother, who seemed excessively concerned with her own and everyone else's wardrobes, appeared. He'd seen her do it dozens of times, and it always made him smile, the way she slung that emerald-studded thing around as if it were Ed's old woolen cap.

  Littered around her chair were dog toys, a cup and saucer, several books, a shawl, and a watering can. That homey mess made her seem like a regular person, and not a princess at all.

  The most royal he'd ever seen her was three years back, at her sisters' outdoor wedding. In her full regal regalia, she'd looked pretty spectacular to him—sparkling with diamonds, aflutter with lace and ribbons, squirming and scratching at her unaccustomed finery. He knew what that was like. He'd never forgotten that hot, irritating blue velvet suit. He was much more comfortable in the mismatched forest-found clothing that he wore now.

  Struck by a sudden thought, he rushed back to the cave, grabbed a piece of Ed's stationery, scrawled a few words on it, and woke Walter up from his perch. Walter squawked grouchily.

  "Hey," Ed said, "what's that all about? Walter needs his rest. He's got a lot of mail to deliver tomorrow." The metal cylinders that attached to the pigeons' legs were big enough for only a small slip of paper with three lines of writing, so Walter and Carrie had to make many trips to deliver all of Ed's missives, even if he wrote his tiniest.