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“James James said to his Mother,
‘Mother,’ he said, said he;
‘You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.’”
From “Disobedience” by A. A. Milne

“Tim, I’m heading out to Twice-Told Tales to pick up a book they ordered for me. I’ll be back in a little while. Behave for your sister.”

Tim jumped up from the LEGO castle he was building on the playroom floor. He couldn’t let her go to the scary used-book shop alone. “Wait, Mom, take me with you.”

“No need. I told you, I’ll be right back.”

“Then take my lucky coin so you’ll be safe.” He knew the silver, quarter-size disk Uncle Edwin had given him, with a picture of a curvy, five-pointed star, wasn’t exactly a coin, but Tim didn’t know what else to call it.

His mother frowned. “Don’t start that again. There’s nothing dangerous in the store.”

“But the black hole—”

She cut him off. “That’s enough. I’ll see you soon.” After a quick kiss on the cheek, she marched briskly into the front hall and out the door, with Tim scurrying after her.

Knowing it would only make her mad if he chased her outside, he didn’t follow when she shut the front door in his face. Instead, he trudged upstairs to Cyndy’s room and lingered in the doorway.

His teenage sister glanced up from the game she was playing on her tablet. “What do you want?”

“Mom went to the scary book place by herself.” He struggled to keep from whimpering.

“That again?” She heaved a loud sigh. “Twice-Told Tales? So what?”

“There’s a black hole in the back of the store, in the middle of the shelf with the weird, old books. Grown-ups can’t see, but there’s something dangerous in it.”

“You’re seven. Aren’t you too old for that crap? Something, like what?”

He squirmed, groping for words. “I don’t know. Something shiny, but creepy shiny.” He couldn’t describe the colors swirling in the blackness, with tentacles like an octopus and eyes that glowed and kept disappearing. “She wouldn’t even take the lucky piece Uncle Edwin gave me.”

“That antique coin or medallion or whatever doesn’t mean anything. Uncle Edwin is a flake.”

“Is not!” Tim yelled. “He knows lots of stuff. He says the picture on it is an Elder Sign. It chases bad stuff away.” Whenever Mom took him along to the shop and they walked past that shelf, Tim clutched the Elder Sign coin in his pocket, made special motions with the fingers of his other hand, and whispered secret words. She didn’t know the magic gestures or words. What could stop the things on the other side of the hole from sucking her in and eating her?

“No bad stuff is going to happen in a store full of dusty old books. Go play and quit bugging me.”

It was no use. Cyndy was almost an adult. She wouldn’t believe him any more than Mom did. He stomped downstairs, wondering whether he could follow his mother to the shop. He could run after her, protect her in the store the way he always did—-

Tim shook his head, telling himself that was a dumb idea. Even if he knew the exact path to Twice-Told Tales, she would get there in the car long before he could walk all that way. He plopped down on the floor to add more blocks to his castle.

He kept on building while Cyndy came into the room later, worrying about why Mom hadn’t come back yet. He stayed there when his father got home from work and asked where she was. Later still, Tim switched on the TV to drown out the noises of clattering footsteps and frantic phone calls.

He didn’t bother trying to explain what had happened to his mother. Nobody would listen.

“James James
Morrison’s mother
Hasn’t been heard of since. . . .
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?”

Flanked by a pair of sword-bearing guards, Larissa folded her arms, as far as the shackles on her wrists allowed, and glared up at Sapphiris, who lounged on the throne formerly occupied by Larissa’s father. “You’ve wiped out the rest of our family. I can’t help wondering why you haven’t killed my son and me yet. What do you want?”

“Something only a sorceress with your power can do.”

True, Sapphiris commanded only limited magic compared to Larissa. The false queen specialized mainly in potions, not spells, and had slain her cousin the king, Larissa’s father, by poison. “Why should I do anything you ask?”

“To preserve your boy’s life, of course.”

No surprise there, for only the threat hanging over him had kept Larissa from breaking out of her comfortable cell and striking down the usurper. “And why would I trust you not to have both of us murdered after I’ve done your bidding?”

“I’ll sign a magically binding contract guaranteeing your freedom and safety and his – after you fulfill my request.” She snapped her fingers, and a scribe holding a document case stepped forward.

“Not after, before. I’ll do nothing until I have your signature on that inviolable pledge.”

“And why would I be so reckless as to make that pledge before getting what I want?”

“Because you know I’ll keep my word. I don’t know any such thing about you.”

Sapphiris’s cold smile confirmed she’d been only toying with her prisoner. “Quite so. Then let it be done, if you can cast the spell I need.”

“Which is?”

“What’s the point of winning power if one can’t be sure of living long and well enough to appreciate it?” With a purr in her voice, Sapphiris scanned the lofty windows and marble walls and floor of the throne room. “I want to remain perpetually beautiful and never sicken, suffer, or die. Can you accomplish that?”

“Of course. If that’s the price of our lives, I can and will.” Larissa allowed a tinge of disdain to creep into her voice. “Not that I anticipate much joy in life under your rule.”

Sapphiris reached for the enchanted parchment and pen. After writing out her request and the terms of the promise she offered in return, she handed over the document, inscribed in glowing letters of golden ink.

Larissa carefully read the compact twice over in search of loopholes. When satisfied that she and her son would have their freedom and permanent immunity from harm inflicted by the false queen or her minions or in any way at their instigation, she nodded. “Very well, you will be perpetually beautiful and never sicken, suffer, or die. But I’ll need these removed.” She held up her shackled hands.

Sapphiris gestured to one of the guards, who unlocked the chains. She then stood before the sorceress at arm’s distance.

Larissa tucked the document into a pocket of her robe, wove the magical sigils in the air, and chanted the necessary invocation. An explosion of blue light momentarily blinded her.

When her vision cleared, she beheld the successful outcome of her spell — a marble statue of the usurper, flawlessly beautiful and immune to sickness, suffering, and death.

With the enchanted compact safely in her possession, she strode from the throne room to free her son.

-end-

Spending the Christmas season at her aunt and uncle’s country manor for the first time since her father’s death, Lucy both yearns for and dreads reuniting with Walter, to whom she’d almost become engaged. In her present financial straits, Lucy feels she’s no longer a proper match for a wealthy gentleman’s heir. How can she let Walter down gently without destroying the friendship she still treasures? On the night before Christmas Eve, Walter tells a tale of a long-ago daughter of the household who eloped with her forbidden lover, a simple farmer. After his violent death in the mansion’s topiary garden, his spirit supposedly lingered. When Lucy’s little brother claims to glimpse the ghost among the animal-shaped bushes, she joins Walter in investigating the apparition—forcing them to face their shared past and the challenges of the future.

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