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be the first to have a go at them the next time she makes us try. Then we’ll see who’s laughing when we pull the thorns out of your pudgy self.”
    “The old bat won’t make us try to go in there again. My bet is once she sees that the princess is trapped like everybody else, she’ll forget about this castle and build a new one somewhere else. That’s what I would do.”
    “Is that bacon almost ready? I likes it limp, not that burnt stuff you always make.”
    Annie crept away, careful not to make a sound while the men argued behind her. There wasn’t a minute to waste. She had to get Digby to come kiss Gwendolyn as soon as she could. The sooner her father woke up, the sooner he could chase away the interlopers before they could do any real damage. It sounded as if a woman had sent them, although she couldn’t imagine who. Voracia wouldn’t need men like that to do her work for her. But if it wasn’t the wicked fairy, then who could it be?
    Annie decided not to go to the town after all. If the woman didn’t know that Annie had left the castle, she might think she had a lot more time to do whatever it was she had planned and not be in a hurry to do it. Realizing that by not talking to the townspeople, Annie might be buying her father a little more time, she turned away from the road to the village and headed east to Shimshee, the kingdom where Digby’s family ruled.
    Because much of Annie’s childhood had been spent exploring the land around the castle, she knew this part of the forest, including the location of a little-traveled path that would take her in the general direction that she wanted to go. She walked for most of the morning and didn’t stop even when her stomach started to growl. Taking out the bread and cheese she had packed in the satchel, she continued to walk even as she tore off a hunk of each. Intent on putting the rest away, she didn’t notice the old woman standing in her path until she’d almost run into her.
    “You wouldn’t have any food to spare for a starving old woman, would you, dearie?” the old woman asked. “It’s been three days since I had my last bite to eat and I—”
    “Sure,” said Annie, who was more concerned with getting to Shimshee than she was in talking to strangers. “Here,” she said, handing her the food she’d already torn off. “I’m sorry I can’t stay to talk, but I’m in a hurry and—”
    “I ask for food and you give me this?” the old woman said, sniffing the cheese and looking at it with disdain. “I wouldn’t give this to my dog, if I had one.”
    Annie watched aghast as the old woman pitched the bread and cheese into the underbrush. “That was perfectly good food!” Annie exclaimed. “I was about to eat that myself.”
    “Liar!” said the old woman. “You probably have the good stuff hidden in your satchel. And for refusing to be kind to an old woman in need...”
    “I gave you my lunch!” said Annie.
    “You will have to pay!” the woman concluded as she raised her hand and pointed one gnarled finger.
    “You really don’t want to do that,” Annie told her. The old woman was already chanting something ominous about words and snakes when Annie brushed past her. “I don’t have time for this,” she said as she walked away. The sound of rattling bones reached her ears just before the magic hit her and bounced back to the old woman. There was an anguished cry and Annie glanced over her shoulder. Frogs, snakes, and lizards spilled from the old woman’s mouth as she tried to scream at Annie.
    “You can’t say that I didn’t warn you,” Annie said, and hurried on her way.



CHAPTER 4
    AN HOUR LATER, Annie reached unfamiliar ground. She stayed on the path she thought would take her to the branch of the Crystal River that led toward Shimshee, but by late afternoon she was no longer so certain. Although the path seemed to be going in the right direction, she had yet to see or hear running water. She began to wonder if she was