But in the midst of the hullabaloo, the old nurse, who had finished with the baby’s diaper, stood up and said: “Now, now, there’s no call for all that fuss. Mirella wanted to be a bird from when she was very small. She was always up on the roof staring up at them. She’ll be as happy as can be, so let’s have no more weeping, because she’s got exactly what she wants, and let’s get this baby off to the church.”
It took time for the queen to stop weeping, but Angeline now said: “It’s true, Mother. What Nurse says is true. Mirella never fitted in, you know that. Look at the fuss she made when she had to be a bridesmaid at my wedding.”
Prince Phillipe and Prince Tomas nodded. To tell the truth they were terribly relieved that there was no question of another expedition to rescue Mirella from the ogre.
But Umberto had had a good idea. Obviously he couldn’t marry Mirella now, but he still desperately needed the money that Mirella’s father had promised him if he married into the family.
He looked down at the crib where Sweetie Pie was lying, blowing bubbles and looking really rather nice.
“I suppose I couldn’t get engaged to her,” he said, pointing to the baby. “I don’t mind waiting.”
But Umberto was unlucky. Sidony let out a shriek of anger, Prince Phillipe snorted, and the king said, “Most certainly not.”
Sweetie Pie wasn’t going to be a difficult and strange girl like Mirella — they would find a far more suitable husband for her when the time came.
So Umberto went back to his homeland, where his tailor and his barber and his bookie and all the people he owed money to were waiting for him, and his father said, “Enough is enough,” and banished him to two dark rooms at the back of the palace where Umberto had to do all his own housework; he even had to wash his bed socks by himself.
But the people of Waterfield, and the schoolchildren in particular, could never hear enough about Mirella. They became keen birdwatchers and bird protectors: bird tables and bird feeders appeared everywhere in the town, and the king and queen had a special flag made showing a white bird with outstretched wings which flew over the palace.
And again and again the children would nag for stories of her.
“Tell us about the Princess Mirella,” they would beg their parents. “Please tell us about the Princess Who Flew Away.”
CHAPTER 26
Return of The Ghosts
The ghosts were back in their train, going around and around in an everlasting circle. They had been promised that if they frightened the ogre to death, their train would be rerouted: they would go on branch lines, through junctions, into different tunnels — but they had failed and now they were doomed once again to travel on the same wearying line.
The Ghost with the Umbrella had lost a leg. Ghosts don’t feel pain, but it was inconvenient and he had to use his umbrella as a crutch. The Honker’s seat was empty, and the dark place where the Inspector used to hover was gone.
Their failure weighed heavily upon the remaining ghosts. They were doomed to go around and around forever. There was nothing to be done.
But in their cave, the Norns now woke.
They didn’t wake very much; they were too far gone, but they woke as much as they could, and gradually they remembered what had happened.
They had sent the ghosts to frighten the ogre to death.
“Screen!” screeched the First Norn.
And, “Screen! Screen!” croaked the Second and Third Norns.
So the magic screen was brought and the Norns peered into it. They were so exhausted they could only just make out the pictures.
First the castle… then the castle courtyard and a strange sort of carriage waiting to cross the drawbridge. The carriage was closed and painted black with a white skull on the side, and the words: HERE LIES DENNIS OF OGLEFORT. REST IN PEACE.
“A hearse!” cried the First Norn.
“A funeral hearse,” said the Second Norn.
“Going to the graveyard,” said the Third.
They blinked excitedly at each other.
“Ogre dead!” said the First Norn.
“Ogre finished,” said the Second Norn.
“Being buried,” said the Third Norn.
They went on peering at the screen as the hearse lumbered away across the drawbridge, carrying the remains of the wicked monster to his grave.
“Princess free?” wondered the First Norn.
“Saved?” said the Second Norn.
“Back home?” wondered the Third.
They peered at the screen again and the picture changed… flickered… and then stopped in a walled garden with beautiful flowers and grass. The Princess Mirella was bending very carefully over a deep red rose, smelling the blossom just as a princess should. Her hair was combed and she looked very happy.
The Norns smiled. They didn’t often smile, and the effort cracked the sides of their mouths but it didn’t matter. The princess was safe, all was well, and they could sleep — not just for weeks or for months, but for years and years and years.
Their eyes were closing when they remembered the ghosts. They had not given them their reward for killing the ogre. With a great effort they got back on their knees and waved their withered arms.
And in the train, the specters sat up and gasped with amazement. The train had reached one of their usual stations on the dreary circle line, but it did not go on to the next station, and the next, around and around and around.
No, it took off on a completely different route. It went whizzing off on a branch line that they had never seen, and then a junction, before it changed direction once again. New stations, new junctions, new tunnels — even a viaduct — unfolded before the specters’ amazed eyes, as they were rewarded for something they had definitely not done.
“Perhaps we should become better ghosts?” suggested the Man with the Umbrella. “Less beastly and so on.”
But no one thought this was a good idea.
“We’re used to being horrible and vile,” said the Aunt Pusher. “Anything else would unsettle us.” And they went on staring at this new world that had unfolded before their evil eyes.
But the Norns by now were fast asleep, and as they slept the floor of the cave sank slowly down and down, ever deeper into the Underworld, and the nurses and the harpies sank down with them, because their work was done — and in Aldington Crescent underground station, all was silence and all was peace.
CHAPTER 27
Gladys Again
Good heavens,” said Mirella, looking out of the kitchen window. “Who on earth is that?”
A man in a gray business suit was coming slowly over the drawbridge, looking about him nervously.
Ivo stared. “I think it’s Mr. Prendergast,” he said, “the Hag’s lodger in London,” and ran out to meet him.
Ivo was right. Without a single magic bone in his body, and without the help of the Norns, Mr. Prendergast had managed to make his way to Oglefort because he had something he wanted to give the Hag. It was a wooden box, and when the Hag opened it, she found a very small urn filled with ashes.
“It’s Gladys,” said Mr. Prendergast simply. “She passed away peacefully in her sleep, so I had her cremated, and I thought she would like to come to you.”
Everyone was very touched, and the children suggested there should be a proper ceremony and a scattering of the ashes, perhaps near Germania’s mound, for company. But the Hag shook her head.
“We began together in a Dribble, Gladys and I,” she said, looking down at the little urn in her hand, “and she shall end in one.”
So that afternoon she went alone with her toad to her favorite place in the world, and sat on the stone in the middle of the marsh, and though she was sad, her sadness was mixed with relief — because she could now forgive Gladys completely for having said she was too tired to come to the meeting. Gladys must have been much nearer the end of her life than the Hag had realized, and had every right to be tired. And really nothing but good had come out of it all because they had found Ivo, and there couldn’t be anything better in the world than that.