Twice Upon a Marigold Read online

  41

  Magnus wept with relief at finally being back in his own beautiful house. He took a long, hot bubble bath, and dressed at last in clean clothes. Then, remembering how it felt to think he was close to extinction, he vowed not to waste a single moment of every precious day he had. He had to see Sephronia. Right now. In his fanciest coach with his pranciest horses. He was going to convince her that she had to marry him, the sooner the better. And he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

  Sometimes, he was beginning to understand, you had to give what you wanted a pretty big push so it would fall into your lap.

  ***

  SEPHRONIA SAT at her harp plinking on the strings while tears ran down her cheeks. She was overjoyed that Magnus hadn't been executed, but she missed him so much it hurt in her stomach and in her head. She couldn't even remember exactly what had made her so sure he wasn't interested in her anymore. She hadn't been able to explain it to her puzzled parents the very night it happened, either.

  As she plinked and wept, through the French windows of the music room she could see a fancy carriage coming up the curving drive, pulled by a pair of prancing horses. She stood up to get a closer look. Could that be Magnus driving?

  She ran to the door and was waiting when Magnus stopped the coach and jumped down from the driver's seat.

  "Sephronia!" he called, waving a letter he had written to her in the dungeon. "I love you!" His declaration came out somewhat more suddenly than he'd planned, but it had the desired effect. Sephronia ran across the drive into his arms.

  There are times when a personal visit is ever so much more effective than even the best letter or p-mail.

  42

  Susan, Mr. Lucasa, and Angie sat in Olympia's sitting room discussing plans for the new business.

  "I'll have to sell my cottage," Mr. Lucasa was saying, "and the workshop will take some time to build, but while that's happening, we can hire the workers—Ed can help with that, I'm sure—and finalize all the details."

  "We're going to need a lot of space and seclusion," Susan said, "so I think we should go somewhere far away."

  "I have a place in mind," Mr. Lucasa said, "on the top of the world. Doesn't that sound like the perfect place from which to oversee everything we're planning?"

  "I'll do my best to be a great project manager," Angie said. "Apparently as Olympia I didn't do much that was helpful, but in Granolah I learned a lot about managing. I lived with the mayor, after all."

  "If you're willing to work, you can learn to do about anything," Susan said. "And those are words I never expected to hear coming out of my own mouth." She laughed. "Now, the last thing we have to do is find a name for our business. Since it's all Mr. Lucasa's idea, I think it should be named for him. I've been fiddling around making anagrams out of his name, and I think I've come up with something. It just needs a little tinkering."

  She put a piece of paper in front of them. Written across the top was STAN LUCASA, and underneath were all the combinations of letters she'd been able to think of, none of which made any sense at all, including:

  ASA CALNUTS

  SAL NATSUCA

  SALSA CATUN

  LASSA TUNAC

  LUTS SAANAC

  At the very bottom of the page was a name with a circle around it. "This is the one I think we should use," Susan said. "I can't explain why—it just seems right. What do you think?"

  "Santa Claus," Mr. Lucasa said slowly, trying it out. "Santa Claus. I like it. I like it a lot. It reminds me a little of the Zambian word for laughing without reason. Or the Indonesian one for the nine basic commodities needed for everyday life. In case you're interested, they're rice, flour, eggs, salt, sugar, cooking oil, kerosene, dried fish, and textiles. I think toys should be the tenth. It's also similar to the Malay word for the span between the tips of the outstretched thumb and little finger, for what that's worth. Thank you, Susan. It's perfect."

  She beamed, and that smile of pure pleasure from a job well done made her look every bit as beautiful as her half sister—a fact that was not for one second wasted on Mr. Santa Claus, who was thinking that one more thing his new business needed was a Mrs. Santa Claus.

  "I'm so happy to have you both as my companions in this endeavor," he said. "We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but I think this enterprise will bring joy to many children. At the same time we'll be privileged to have jobs that feed our senses and our souls, which the best jobs do. What could be better? Now, before we get started on all we have to do, I want to make sure that I've made enough of those blue squeaky toys to leave behind so that the dogs never have to fight over one again."

  43

  Ed encountered Swithbert and Wendell in the corridor on the way to the game room.

  "Come with us, Ed," Swithbert said. "We can play some three-handed snipsnapsnorum and get even more in debt to each other. Wendell cheats, too, but he swears he won't use any magic. And then we're going to figure out how to set up some tournaments so we can get to know other players. We'll have to think up a catchy name for the tournaments. In my mind I've just been calling them the X-Games. And I think Finbar has just the persuasive qualities we need to promote them."

  "You two start without me," Ed said. "I've decided I've got to cut to the cheese with Wendolyn, even if I do it like a bowl in a china shop. I'm not wasting any more time. If Olympia had had her way, I could be iced now, and never gotten another chance to ask Wendolyn to marry me. And whether or not she says yes, I'm getting Magnus to design me a new house that looks like my old crystal cave. I really do want Marigold and Chris to keep the original one, especially now that they've done all that remodeling, but I want one of my own, too. I can run Tooth Troll Limited just as well from there as from here. Once I get all that taken care of, we can go at this tournament business hammer and thongs. Wish me luck. Next time you see me, I'll either be in eighth heaven, or feeling like I've got ham and eggs on my face."

  "Good luck, Ed," Swithbert said, watching him go. To Wendell, he said, "Have you ever been married?"

  "No. Hannibal has been my sole companion these many years. I've moved around too much to put down any roots."

  "Well, now that you'll be staying here, perhaps you'll find a suitable match. I have no objection to romance in spite of my own experience. Not at all. My daughters, as well as many others, have been quite fortunate in that area. And some, such as I—not so lucky. Come to think of it, Mrs. Clover has been a widow for a good long time. Perhaps one or the other of us should give her a closer look."

  "Maybe the winner of our first hand should be the one to have the first chance," Wendell said, as Swithbert drew him into the game room.

  They both were thinking about how to use their most extravagant cheating techniques.

  44

  "We should go home," Marigold said, leaning on the parapet of the terrace, looking across the river to Zandelphia. "We need to check up on how things are going since we've been so preoccupied with Beaurivage."

  "All right," Chris replied. "But first I have a knock-knock joke for you."

  "Really?" Marigold exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I'm so glad you find them as interesting and as much fun as I do. Go ahead. I'm ready."

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?"

  "Dewey."

  "Dewey who?"

  "Dewey have to keep telling knock-knock jokes?"

  "Dewey have to—," she repeated, and then got it. "You mean you don't like them after all?"

  "I'm afraid that's what I do mean." Chris took her hands. "But I know how you love them, and I don't want to deprive you of the pleasure of them. So, how about you tell them to anyone you like. Except me. You can establish a Knock-Knock Joke Society and give a prize for the best one, or an Academy for the Promotion of Knock-Knock Jokes, or whatever you like. I'd just prefer never to hear another one as long as I live."

  Marigold frowned. She wanted him to like those jokes as much as she did. She wanted him to like everything exactly as much as s
he did. She wanted to share every thought in her head with him. But he was Christian, not Marigold. He had his own thoughts and preferences. The fact that he wasn't exactly like her was what made him interesting. And annoying, and exasperating, and vexing—and adorable.

  The silence was going on a little too long for Christian, and he was starting to think he should have kept his mouth shut and just put up with the knock-knock jokes, no matter how irksome they were. Maybe he'd started trouble when he shouldn't have, and they would begin to pick at each other again. It would be handy to have the excuse of Olympia's lingering bad energy for any such behavior, but Marigold had convinced him that such things were just what happened when two people were close, and wanted to be.

  He was about to tell her to forget he'd said anything at all, when she said, "Could you stand to hear just one more?"

  Relieved, he said, "Sure. Lay it on me."

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?"

  "Olive."

  "Olive who?"

  "Olive you."

  "Olive ... ooh. I love you, too," he said, figuring it out. "You can tell me that one any time you like." He folded her into his arms.

  AND THEY lived happily (aside from a few normal disagreements, misunderstandings, pouts, silent treatments, and unexpected calamities) ever after.