that fat royal wheezing while his kin was snuffling at their feed all just gave me a fuzzy head. Next I knew we was back on the ferry landing on the banks of the Misty. Blast if I know how I got there. But them new royals was keen on getting to their new castle, so I suppose she had sold it to them, more or less.
I had the horses and carriage all waiting for them and it took just a shake and then some to get the horses proper hitched for the triumphant return. All the village was turned out along the side of the road to welcome our new royals. The Lady Bru put on her best face and waved a hanky out the window, but there weren’t no spirit in it like our royals had always done. Nor did they give a speech from the castle steps and hand out trinkets for the kiddies like our royals use to do. Just went right in and started inspecting all the hard work put in by the ladies’ club from the church and the maids’ cleaning. The door closed in my face and I knew my place was back in the barn with the critters so that’s where I took myself off to.
My dreams was haunted that night. The bells wouldn’t leave me be. I dreamed about pigs, pigs in fancy dresses dancing at a ball where bells kept tolling and tolling. It were the screaming that woke me up. The missus up at the castle were hollering to wake the whole forest. Of course the chef, the gardener and myself ran to aid whoever was in such distress. More foolish me when I seen the article of her dismay was naught but an old family heirloom of a mirror. “Get rid of it!” She commanded. “It’s cursed.”
“Not a bit of it.” Said old lady Dankslice. “I cleaned it up pretty and its not the least cursed.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” The Lady Bru looked about to bust a button on her fancy blouse.
Willow came in then wearing what them muckety-mucks consider proper for riding horses. I never seen one fit like that before, but I supposed cloth is expensive and even muckety-mucks got to save their coin when buying fancy cloth. Still, my missus could have turned her out in something what covered all her squishy bits a little better. “Whip her, mother. She’ll learn her place.”
Old lady Dankslice stood up her whole height, near half a man’s, and glared at the royal daughter and just dared them to think about whipping her. “If you are in no need of my further service, I’ll be retiring then.”
“To your room?” The Lady Bru asked.
“To my daughter-in-laws.” Old lady Dankslice said, and turned right around without waiting to be excused.
“Such impertinence!” Willow remarked. But her next word was more like “Eeeeeeek!” except it had more squeal and a lot more of them exclamations in it.
“You see? Cursed.” The Lady Bru was fanning her daughter with the hem of her skirt, which certainly didn’t seem to be wanting in material. Maybe they saved their money for their dresses. She pointed to Tuck and me directly and ordered us to get rid of that mirror and any other cursed mirrors in the castle.
“How are we to know which is cursed?” Tuck asked. “Seeing as only royals can see what makes them eek, I mean.”
“Get rid of all of them, then. Looking in mirrors is vain anyway. Better there should be not one mirror in the place.”
So me and Tuck went mirror hunting. Truth be told, weren’t that many mirrors in the place. I mean our royals had never had much use for them, on account of the undead thing. But there were some of the typical magical ones that royals always keep on hand for spying on folks and such. Seemed a shame to waste them. I didn’t see no harm in Tuck taking one home for his missus and another for his mother, who everyone knew he favored over even his lady. And there was the little ones the maids wanted. No harm in that, so long as they kept them away from them. It was the oval one what always used to stand by the big fireplace, the one the Lady Bru had such conniptions over, me and Tuck had questions about. Our royals had always used it when hiring folks. They said it helped them to know who to trust and what. We was all partial to that one since we owed our positions to its good opinion of us. I never did figure out what our royals seen in it. It was just an ordinary looking mirror what showed ordinary folks in their backward reflection, which far as I could see, was the only magic it had. It was sentimental and all. Me and Tuck just couldn’t see chucking it out in the rubbish pile with the others.
“Mayhap we can keep it out in the outbuildings or something?” Tuck scratched his stubbly head. I told him to use the bug talc, but he said it was just for dogs and horses and he weren’t one of them critters.
“We keep it out there and that Willow will find it. She’s keen on riding, though she’s too fat for it, and she’s nosey, that one.”
“Aye. Put it in the basement?” Tuck asked.
“What basement? They turned it into a wine cellar, remember? The new royals’ll be wanting their vino too. Royals all like to drink their wine. Beer and ale is all good for the likes of us. But royals got pallets. They need the wine for their pallets.” I was showing off all the learning I’d got at the castle, but Tuck didn’t mind.
“Butler mostly gets the wine, don’t he?”
“Oh yeah.” Said I. “But royals is always inviting their friends down to the cellars to appreciate the wine. They’re real appreciative, muckety-mucks. They’re always appreciating art and music and wine.”
Tuck grumbled they didn’t look too appreciative yesterday when they seen all the work the church ladies did on the castle. Then he suggested we put it in the attic. I never saw royals up in the attic save when they was resting. These new royals probably didn’t rest hanging from the rafters, so that should do nicely.
Within the week they was calling for the biggest pig in the yard to be slaughtered for a feast they was putting on for the neighboring muckety-mucks. Now that weren’t my job, for I was the groom and that’s to do with horses, not pig slaughtering. But they had gone and fired more than half the help. We was all a bit shy of losing our own positions, whether our great granddaddies had been grooms and farmers or not. So I swallowed a good bit of my pride, and my whole gorge, and slit the throat of one fat pig.
Night come and all the muckety-mucks was arriving by coach and carriage and each one wanting his horses treated just so. I’m always busy on such occasions. I hadn’t time enough to be concerned about the diversions of rich folks and royalty. You can imagine my surprise when the maid comes a gasping and crying that the missus done found one of them hand mirrors we was supposed to have got rid of and now she was for firing every lass in the castle. How could it be, I put to her. She said them crazy muckety-mucks had gone for a new game where the point was to find odd things in odder locations and gone scurrying about the castle finding thimbles and crayons and all sorts of bric-a-brac. That’s when it hits me. Tuck and I would be in for it sorely if the Lady was to find out about that heirloom up in the attic. I worried that problem all of the live long day until the chef come along to give me just the excuse I was needing.
“Another pig!” Our cook was just a country lad, like the rest of us. But he had spent years cooking for them and learned a thing or two about fine dining. So chef he was and here he was telling me the royals was wanting more of the same. “They eat nothing else since their first night in the castle. Pig for breakfast and pig for lunch. Pig at tea and pig for brunch and dinner and snack. Shan’t hear of bit of chicken or some nice light fish. Oh no, they wants what they resemble. So pig it is. And now she wants more! She’ll be blowing up right out of those fine dresses at this rate. How that daughter of hers is succeeding at that diet she keeps saying she’s on is beyond me. She claims to be losing weight but she eats more than her brother.”
“Why don’t you go back to the kitchen and I’ll bring you the pig in two shakes?” I suggested. I was hoping old Tuck would be around in a minute to get the latest gossip and we’d nip in and pinch that mirror before somebody else found it.
Me and Tuck put a ladder to the second story maids’ room window. Little Cara Edgewood smiled at Tuck and waved him up. The maids didn’t like the new royals any more than me and Tuck and we knew she wouldn’t tell. Then I went round to the kitch
en with the slaughtered pig over my shoulders. Soon as I had dropped that load off, I joined Tuck upstairs in the maids’ room. We had to tiptoe down the hall to the ladder leading up to the attic. The royals was still up to their silly game. Some of them was in one of the bedrooms with light spilling out into the hall. It would have been hard to explain what the gardener and the groom was doing wandering around upstairs in the castle. Just as we made it past the last door and pulled down the ladder, a ball of fur and fury fell on Tuck’s face. I grabbed Mrs. Peabody’s fat cat off him and threw it down the hall. It stood there looking back at us, all fuzzed up and wide eyed like it was diseased.
“It must of seen a ghost!” Tuck said.
“It seen you pulling down the ladder, doofus.” I can’t abide superstition.
“Lookit how puffed up it is.”
I grabbed his shoulders and turned him right around with an extra little push for the stairs. “He fell out a hole in the ceiling. How do you expect him to look?”
We found the mirror easy enough and was set to turn back around when that fat cat jumps out at us again. “Shoo, you. Git!” Tuck and me tried to get rid of him. Tootles has been around for a minute, even if Mrs. Peabody does still call him a kitten. He aint