Henry had been acting strange lately. Ever since Catherine had transformed herself into a young girl, Grace had noticed that Henry seemed to be spending more and more time gazing at her (much to Grace’s annoyance, as well as to the annoyance of Alicia and Amanda).
But lately, it had gone beyond simply eyeing Catherine. Henry was now following her everywhere, and he had even begun fetching things for Catherine, or doing simple errands for her. Many of them, completely unbidden. He just did things for Catherine because it seemed that he wanted to.
Henry never did have any sense when it came to girls, but Grace recognized that something different was going on here. She mentioned it to Robert.
“I know what he’s like,” Grace said. “You know what he’s like. We all know he can be a bit foolish sometimes, but this utter subservience to Catherine, this doesn’t seem like him at all.”
“You know him better than I do,” Robert said. “But I agree, it does seem strange. I’ll ask my dad.”
Midor, as it happened, had also noticed something was up, and he told Grace and Robert what he thought. “I think Catherine’s got him ensnared with a love spell,” he said. “She must have seen there was an opportunity, and taken it.”
“An opportunity?” asked Robert.
“Well, love spells don’t work on everyone. You can’t create love where none exist, no matter how powerful a sorcerer you are. But if you notice that there is something there, you can work the magic on it. It doesn’t even have to be true love--infatuation will work just fine as far as the spell is concerned. I’d noticed that as Catherine made herself younger and more beautiful, Henry started to pay her more attention.”
Grace snorted. “Everybody noticed that.”
“Yes, including Catherine evidently. Well, she must have worked her spells, and now she’s got Henry trapped in a love spell. He’s her devoted slave.”
“What can we do?” asked Robert.
“How do we get him out of that spell?” asked Grace.
Midor sat down and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, unfortunately, magic’s never really been my area of expertise. I was a forest ranger, not a magician. I could tell you all about which family of badgers lives in which den, but unfortunately I’m not much good when it comes to combating magic. For decades, whenever there was a problem with magic, the people in this castle just asked Talon, but…”
“He probably wouldn’t have helped us anyway,” said Grace.
“Who knows,” said Midor. “He served this family well for a long time before he didn’t. But, anyway, he’s gone now. No one around understands magic except Catherine…”
“...and mother,” said Robert, finishing off what his father couldn’t bring himself to say.
“Catherine is teaching her how to use the magic,” said Midor. “I’m not sure Vivian has a deep understanding of how it works though. I doubt she would know how to counter a spell unless Catherine taught her.”
“So what does that leave us?” asked Grace.
“Well, we would need another sorcerer,” said Midor. “Or possibly we could find something in the library.”
“Great!” Grace rolled her eyes. “Where’s John where we need him?”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on him,” said Midor. “The last I heard, John was safe in the mushroom kingdom, learning all about mushroom culture and history.”
“The mushroom kingdom is real?” asked Robert. “I’d heard rumours about it, but…”
“Yes, I know, I never really showed you much of Fairy Land when you were growing up, did I?” said Midor. “It’s just as well. Too much of that magic stuff at a young age will only confuse you.”
Grace, who was always a bit quick to pick up what wasn’t being said, leaped on this. “You’re worried Robert inherited some of the magic,” she said.
“It’s never been passed down to the males,” said Midor. “It's possible that Robert’s future daughter or grand-daughter could have the gift of magic, but not Robert.”
“But then why were you worried about keeping him away from the Fairy Land?” asked Grace.
Midor sighed. “Because I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure the magic wouldn’t show up some day. As far as we know it’s never shown in males, but, there’s a first time for everything.”
*******************************************************************
And so, Midor, Grace, and Robert searched through the library, looking to find anything about love spells. John would have loved looking through all these old books, Grace thought. It gave her a headache, however.
Midor had actually studied hard in his younger days, but he had long lost the regular habit of reading. And as for Robert, he had grown up in the woods, and had never even seen a library before he had arrived at the castle--although Midor had taught him how to read, and had even brought him some books when he was younger.
Eventually, however, it was Grace who found something buried in an old book about spells. “I think this is what we were talking about,” she said.
Midor came over to check. “Yes, this is it,” he confirmed. “This is the spell Catherine’s got him under, all right. Now, what does it say about how to break the spell?”
“It says one option is to kill the person who put him under the spell.”
“I don’t like Catherine,” said Robert, “but I don’t want to murder her either.”
“Agreed,” said Midor. “Not that it would ever be an option anyway. She is always on her guard against any sort of treachery these days. That’s why she’d enslaved Henry in the first place--more security. She’d never let us anywhere near her in an unguarded moment. We’d better keep reading and see what our other options are.”
“It also says that if he’s kissed by true love, that can also break the spell,” said Grace. Grace frowned. “I know he was dating both Alicia and Amanda before, but I don’t think either of those were true love.”
“Yes, from what little I saw of it,” said Midor, “I got the impression it was just young flirtations. But you never know. Sometimes it’s very difficult to decide what is true love and what is not, especially from the outside. Still, we’d better explore our other options, just in case. What else is there.”
“Hmmm,” Grace’s eyes narrowed as she followed the page. “It’s all a bit difficult to make out,” she said. “But I can see something here about the golden apple. If you possess the golden apple, you can break the spell. What’s the golden apple?”
“I thought that was just a myth,” said Robert.
“It’s old forest lore,” Midor explained to Grace. Most likely a myth of some sort, and yet, maybe it’s out there somewhere.”
“This sounds like a heroic quest,” said Robert.
“That’s the last thing we need right now,” said Midor. “I hear from my sources in the river that King Carlyle is on his own quest right now. We don’t need to duplicate that. Besides, it would be no easy thing to find the golden apple, if it even exists. We’d be lost in the dark parts of the forest for weeks. Do we have any other options?”
“There’s one more option,” said Grace. “If he sees the one who he is enslaved to kiss someone else, it will break his heart, and cause the love enchantment to vanish.”
“So we need to get Catherine to kiss someone else,” said Robert. “And we need to make sure Henry sees it.”
“That doesn’t sound like something that would be easy to manufacture,” said Midor. “What are our other options?”
“That’s it,” said Grace. “That looks like our last option.”
“Let me see that book,” said Midor, reaching across.
Grace pushed it across the table, and Midor analyzed it carefully. “You’re right,” he said at last. “This does seem to be the last option. Well, maybe the Golden Apple option isn’t so bad after all. It could be a fun little quest.”
“I think we could do it,” Robert said. “The kissing plan, I mean. Catherine has been trying to make General Graten fall in love with her. She would probably let him kiss her, if we got him in on the plan.”
“Does General Graten actually need to be in love with her for it to work?” asked Grace. “Or is just going through the motions of kissing her enough?”
“I think just going through the motions is fine,” said Midor. “If we can convince him to play his part, it would be enough to break the spell. Of course at first glance it seems like an unchivalrous thing to do to deceive a woman in love, but in this case, I doubt Catherine’s interest in General Graten is sincere. The only reason she’s been trying to seduce him is because she wants to put him under the same enchantment to ensure her loyalty.”
“We could ask him,” said Grace. “We have somewhat of a complicated history with General Graten. I’m not entirely sure he’ll be willing to help us. He can be difficult at times.”
“He can be,” said Midor. “Why don’t you let me talk to him. I’ll try to frame it in a way that would appeal to him.”
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