Dear reader, you’re probably wondering at this point about the revenge thing, so let me give you some backstory. Come with me now, back, back, back through the shades of time. Back just a bit more, to when Mirabella and her twin sister Lillian were wee toddlers. Lillian, chubby and sweet, Mirabella, distant and (even at two years of age) gaunt, though their parents gave them both the same meals and snacks and such, so her gauntness made no sense. Both girls were early talkers, Lillian’s first word being “Mama” and Mirabella’s being “never”. Sentences were soon to follow, and with language came proof their parents feared that something was not right with the surly, withdrawn toddler. For, with speech came nothing but insults, precocious and snappy comebacks, and unsettling observations.

Their parents requested the assistance of the great wizard, Wendell, to do some magic and see if he could find a glimmer of a soul in the empty-eyed little bad seed. But, when he had finished waving his wand, muttering under his breath, and sprinkling all sorts of shimmery powders on her, his results proved inconclusive. However, considering that in all her life she had never said a kind word, and caused nothing but heartache, calamity, and trouble wherever she went, the general public decided that for all practical purposes Mirabella the Traitor was soulless.

Though at this point she was not yet a traitor. That came about when she was nineteen. She and her sister lived with their parents on a small asparagus farm in the South of Fritillary. Their asparagus crops were known far and wide as being the most crisp, and the most pure. Even if you boiled them too long they didn’t go all mushy, which, if you’ve ever over-boiled asparagus, you’ll have to agree is pretty neat. The reputation their asparagus had was a point of pride in a land where asparagus was as essential to the daily diet as grain products are to you and me.

Also, asparagus tips, when dried and powdered, were essential elements in the highest forms of magic. So perfect were Mirabella’s parents’ asparaguses that the majority of their crop went straight to the Magical Commerce Division at the Capital, where it was then numbered, cataloged, and distributed to wizards who were lucky enough to be able to afford such top-of-the-line goods.

The day that Mirabella earned her suffix “The Traitor” started out like any other day down on the farm. Lillian woke with the sunrise and hummed a contented tune as she prepared for the day, combing her long, black hair until it shone, which didn’t take much time because she was always brushing it. “Get up, Lazy Bones!” she laughed with a musical trill that had been likened by many to the merry tinkling of fine crystal wind chimes. “How can you lay there abed while there is such beauty in the world?”

She then flung open the window of their bedroom. “Oh dear, dear sunshine, blessing us with your warmth!” she said as she spun around in its rays. “Lovely, lovely little robins serenading us with your sweet songs!” she added as she spotted one representative of the species perched on a tree branch just outside their window.

It eyed her distrustfully and gave a chirp.

“Mirabella, look! Look and hear! This little dear is singing us a song!” She extended a gentle hand, crooning softly to it, her finger offered as a perch.

It flew off, alarmed. No matter how kind you are, a wild animal is not going to sit on you.

Lillian gave a pout, then flounced off to find her apron.

Mirabella abandoned her pretense of sleep, opened her eyes long enough to give her sister a cold stare, then rolled over and contemplated the blank white wall, her back to the sunshine.

“Oh, Mirabella,” Lillian sighed. “You silly dear. Well, if you don’t care to see this beautiful morning, and if you don’t want to go out and pick asparagus in the sweet sunshine, then it’s all the more for me!” With that, she giggled and skipped out the door.

As the door shut behind Lillian, Mirabella rolled onto her back and regarded the ceiling as she listened to her sister in the next room. “Good morning, Mama! Good morning, Papa! No time for breakfast now. That asparagus won’t pick itself!” They all shared a good chuckle.

In a few more minutes Mirabella could hear, through the open window, Lillian singing as she went (probably skipping or dancing) over to the asparagus field. Mirabella shuddered and decided she’d might as well get out of bed. If she didn’t, her mother would soon be knocking on the door insisting that if her industrious sister was already up and picking asparagus then Mirabella should jolly well be doing the same.

She slowly got into her clothes for the day, but unlike her sister who wore her hair down, Mirabella braided hers tightly and wrapped it into a knot on top of her head, making her appear even more severe than she naturally did. Stalking out into the main living area that was combination kitchen, dining room, and family room, she nodded slightly in response to her parents’ greetings, and went straight out the front door without touching the breakfast that her mother had set out for her like she did every morning -- no matter how often her daughter ignored it. Mirabella shut the door behind her and picked up her asparagus basket from its place on the porch, then walked out to the field, and started picking in a row so far from her sister that they wouldn’t be able to speak.

The morning progressed uneventfully for two hours or so, Lillian and Mirabella harvesting asparagus while their parents took the wagon to the market. Mirabella worked mechanically, never once pausing to look up and admire the beautiful countryside that stretched out below their hillside farm, or to appreciate the majestic mountain range looming behind them. Lillian, on the other hand, often took little breaks to enjoy the scene and breathe the crisp air. In spite of all this shillyshallying, Lillian still somehow always managed to pick more asparagus than Mirabella, who rarely even looked up from her task. It was a great source of frustration for Mirabella that Lillian so constantly outshone her at every task, since the fact so often meant unwelcome comparisons from their parents and neighbors. Why couldn’t people just leave her alone?

She stood up to stretch her back, and saw a regal procession making its stately way down the dirt road that led to the farm. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, she detected tan banners with puce dragons embroidered on them. She smiled a creepy smile (the only kind of smile she had). It was the Prince, coming to visit her sister. And that meant...

She searched the procession again now that they were close enough that she could make out the faces of the individuals in the party, and sure enough, at the prince’s right side was his personal wizard, Farland Phelps. Farland was, as usual, the very picture of dark and mysterious, with his black cape, and his black hood casting shadow over his face. At this point in our tale, Mirabella was still young and didn’t yet know herself too well, and Farland hadn’t yet lived long enough to get too pretentious; Mirabella knew that her dark heart was incapable of love, but if it had been, she would have pledged it to Farland Phelps. He was the second-greatest wizard in the whole Land of Fritillary (the first being, of course, Wendell), and he was intelligent, and (as was the talk of all the royal court) both available and quite a looker.

All around a prime slice of fella if you were a young lady of the court who was not quite so delusional as to hope to sink your talons into the prince himself, but still delusional enough to think you could sink one of his most powerful underlings.

But all these fine qualities of Farland’s aside, the true reason that Mirabella would have loved Farland if she could was that he was pure evil, and, if she was ever to pledge her affection to a man, he had to be evil. It was #1 on her list. A young lady should have a pre-set list of priorities when man-hunting so she can refer to it when her head gets clouded. Man-hunting is a most dangerous game, after all. You’re welcome for that advice, girls.

Yes, Farland was evil. Even as he pretended to be the Prince’s best friend, he was secretly planning to murder the whole royal family, saving the Prince for last. Phelps didn’t even want to take over as the king when the dust settled; he just wanted the Prince to suffer, consequences to the kingdom be darned!

The seed of his foul plan had been sown when he and the Prince had been mere lads -- it had been some youthful dispute on the croquet field -- something to do with the Prince picking the gardener’s son, Walter, for his team instead of picking Farland. But over the years the initial reason no longer mattered, morphing from revenge for the Croquet Episode to various different revenges for all kinds of accumulated little wrongs both real and imagined; then, eventually, when he was in his young twenties and fancied himself a revolutionary, to the takedown of the entire monarchy, because monarchy just isn’t the wave of the future, man.

But don’t go thinking he’s some misguided progressive guy with the idea that the ends sometimes have to justify the means on the road to a greater society, because (1) Farland’s fancies ran more toward anarchy than democracy, and more importantly (2) killing people is pretty much never the best solution to a problem unless we’re talking Hitler or Pol Pot or some such. But in this case we are not; while the Royal Family was quite self-absorbed and entitled, one must admit that those qualities just go with the profession; there is almost no getting around that fact that royalty thinks more highly of themselves than they probably should. The meaner members of this particular royal family could be rather oppressive to their subjects and had unreasonable taxes and laws, but no more so (and often less so) than their cohorts in neighboring kingdoms. Even the dungeon they spirited some of the more unruly citizens off to was smaller than most, and stocked with fewer sadistic employees than might be expected.

So yes, the Royal Family of the Land of Fritillary was sort of bad, but not bad enough to justify all this hoopla on Farland’s part. Mirabella knew his plans and was helping him to make his dream come true. How did she know, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The reason she knew he was evil at all when the rest of the kingdom thought he was a pretty awesome guy was simply that he needed her help. If he wanted to murder the Royal Family he needed a VAST quantity of powdered asparagus tips. He couldn’t just buy it because the sale and purchase of asparagus powder was closely monitored by the Magical Commerce Division. So he needed an accomplice on the inside of Big Asparagus. An accomplice who knew the best asparagus and could make the powder for him. An accomplice, also, who was evil, otherwise there was a risk of him being turned in by a repentant softie.

In his Evil Fortress, Farland had gazed into his magical pool of raven blood and asked it to reveal to him the person who would assist him in his evil plan. The magical pool of raven blood was quite temperamental and rarely condescended to divulge any information to Farland, so he was surprised and pleased when, as he stared into its deep red depths, he saw a vision of Mirabella shimmer into sight; then the magical bowl of raven blood had heartily warned him against confusing Mirabella with her twin sister who was the essence of all things good.

So that’s how the wizard Farland Phelps found, and then secured the help of, Mirabella. On his very first visit to the farm, Prince Conroy came along on a whim in order to do some mingling with the commoners -- his PR guy had been hounding him about rubbing elbows with the peasants lately, saying mingling was a good way to keep public opinion of him high without having to actually mess with things like taxes or employment or whatever else goes into making a populace happy through competent governance -- Conroy had no clue since he’d totally zoned out when his private tutor had gotten into all that stuff. Boring!! So anyway, Conroy came along with Farland, and there Conroy met Lillian, and BAM! Love at first sight. Said love was deeply reciprocated, so the Prince kept visiting, handily supplying Farland with an excuse to come to the farm to collect powdered asparagus tips from Mirabella.

Fate can be quite convenient sometimes.

#

As Mirabella watched the procession draw nearer, she became suddenly aware of her sister beside her, hopping giddily from foot to foot and clapping her hands. “Oh, Mirabella! It’s Prince Conroy!” she squealed. “Oh, but Mama and Papa aren’t at home! I cannot see him without a chaperone!”

“What are you blithering about?” Mirabella spat in her cold voice of venom, never taking her eyes off the face of the ever-advancing Farland Phelps.

“People would talk if word got around that the Prince and I conversed without appropriate supervision!”

Mirabella doubted this. If that is what counted as gossip these days, then life in the royal court was dull indeed. But she didn’t bother wasting her breath trying to convince her sister of this. For one thing, there was no point telling Lillian to do anything if she had already deemed it improper. And for another thing, Lillian was already making a beeline toward the house, probably with the intention of barricading herself inside.

Mirabella strolled to the stables, and waited there for the procession. The Prince and the wizard were the first to reach her. They dismounted, and two pages who had been scampering along behind them scurried up to tend to their horses, who, in the presence of Mirabella, pawed nervously at the ground as if they were being circled by a predator.

Farland retreated to the shadows where he paced back and forth looking mighty out of place by a big bale of hay, waiting for the opportunity to speak to Mirabella.

The Prince strode toward her with confident, princely strides, head of shiny hair held high, broad shoulders thrown back, hand on the hilt of his fancy sword. His gleaming hair and sky-blue twinkly eyes made Mirabella squint, even in the shade of the stable. His black boots shone, and his purple cape fluttered in the almost-nonexistent breeze. A cookie cutter prince if ever there was one, but no less impressive for the fact.

Mirabella gave a grudging curtsy as the Prince halted before her. “Mirabella. Good morning,” he said in a deep, smooth, manly baritone that was every bit as princely as the rest of him. “A lovely day.”

She shrugged. “Eh.”

The Prince raised a royal eyebrow.

“Is your sister home?” Prince Conroy enquired, choosing to switch from small talk to the real reason for his visit. As much as he tried for Lillian’s sake to get along with Mirabella, he had to confess it was no cakewalk. He could find no common ground with her, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. Also, he just couldn’t bring himself to look into those empty eyes of hers without shivering. Eyes like that he had only ever seen on dead people, so it was, to say the least, disconcerting to see them in her head when she was quite obviously living.

“Yes, she’s home. Locked herself in the house and will not see you,” Mirabella said, trying all the while to meet his gaze. It amused her to watch him try to avoid her eyes. Most -- possibly all -- people she encountered were repelled by her gaze, but for all his manliness the Prince had an especially tough time of it. The big tough military captain couldn’t even meet her gaze without quaking in his shiny boots. She sneered.

“Ah, your parents are out then?” he asked the space over her left shoulder.

She nodded slightly. “You must have passed right by them on the way here.”

Conroy thought back and remembered that not far from the turnoff to the farm he had seen a wagon with two old people who were assessing some damage to a broken wheel – the wheel had sustained damage after being driven off the road and into the ditch by his procession; the moment they’d seen him, the couple had fallen to ground, groveling in the dirt like the peasants they were. Well, not dirt. Mud. He had smirked at them as he'd passed, thrown a few coins their way, and not bothered to stop to try to make out the words they’d been speaking into the mud (they were surely too afraid to look up at his Royal Glory to speak in his direction).

Now he wondered if those groveling peasants had been his future in-laws, and if they had been trying to tell him that Lillian and her sister were alone on the farm, and perhaps wondering whether they should abandon their cart and head back home. Hmm. Oh well. “Your sister is quite a proper young maiden,” he said, his eyes glittering with love or something. Twinkle, twinkle.

Mirabella winced.

“Indeed,” she said and pushed a bit at the dirt with the toe of her shoe. Her game had grown old. Small talk, small talk, small talk. When would she get the chance to give Farland the latest pouch of powdered asparagus tips she had prepared?

“Perhaps I’ll take a walk through your garden and wait for your parents to return,” the Prince said lamely, growing irritated with conversation with the soulless girl. Small talk, small talk, small talk. Surely he had spoken with her long enough to come across as sociable should Lillian be watching through a window. Yes, he was through, but it would be rude to leave Mirabella with no one to talk to, so he signaled to his friend, Farland. He was a wizard, after all, and thus probably knew about sticky issues like talking to soulless people with fathomless eyes.

As Farland glided toward Mirabella, arms folded and eyes glinting under the hood of his dark cape, Prince Conroy went off to pick some flowers for his love.

#

Farland’s black eyes met Mirabella’s empty ones, and they both grinned horrifying sorts of grins devoid of anything remotely related to normal smile-inducing things. Mirabella reached into the pocket of her gingham apron and drew out a small pouch, then, with a cautious glance around, she handed it to him, all overly-sneaky and covert like a teenage drug deal. He would only need a bit more powder now. The batch of asparagus that she currently had hanging to dry under her bed would be the last of it.

He took the pouch, inclined his head in the direction of the house, and began to glide toward it, obviously wanting to speak to her out of earshot of all the knights and pages and such who were milling about here and there waiting for the Prince’s date to be over so they could all go back home. Farland reached the porch and sat in one of the two matching rocking chairs, looking, again, amazingly out of place. He then proceeded to enhance the effect by actually rocking the rocking chair.

She joined him on the porch, but wouldn’t sully her creepy image by occupying the other chair. “My sister is in the house,” she muttered. “We can’t talk here.”

“Nonsense,” he muttered back. “This is the only shady spot on your whole cursed farm except the stables. You see this cape I’m wearing? I’m not going back out in that sun until I have to. Besides, listen.” He cocked his head in the direction of the house. Mirabella crept to the door and listened. At the opposite side of the house, Mirabella could hear Lillian and the Prince talking -- they must be conversing through the (probably closed) window on the opposite side of the room.

“They won’t be leaving that spot any time soon,” Farland said derisively, as though Conroy and Lillian were hopelessly pathetic for being in love.

Satisfied that they would not be overheard, Mirabella said, “One more pouch of powder should be more than enough.”

“Excellent,” Farland breathed. “Excellent. Just a week or two more and my revenge against the Prince will be complete.”

As Mirabella and Farland talked murder without, Lillian and Prince Conroy talked love within. Though really Lillian was the only one within. The Prince was, indeed, standing on the outer side of the shuttered and locked window, his ear pressed to the rough wood the better to make out the sweet voice of his most darling, adored dream. At that moment, he was exercising every ounce of his considerable princely charm, trying to coax her into opening the window just a crack so he could catch a glimpse of her dear, dear face.

“Of course not!” she gasped, scandalized.

“Please, my dear Lillian,” he pleaded, having at this point abandoned eloquent reasoning, and lapsed into whining. “Please, won’t you open the window? Just a tad?”

“No!” she reiterated, then, feeling quite flustered, took flight across the room to distance herself from the source of the temptation that was beginning to stir within her, battling with her desire to maintain her spotless maidenly honor. She would not give in, and that was that! No princely wiles and snares would tempt her! Why buy the cow when you could catch an unchaperoned glimpse of it through a window? Or whatever the saying was.

Over the thudding of her goody-goody heart, she heard her sister’s voice through the front door she was now standing by. Then, she heard Farland answer. Farland was her dear Prince’s best friend, and had been ever since they were kids. Was there some romance blooming between Farland and her sister? Why, that would be perfect! Lillian fought a hard inner battle against eavesdropping, and of course the side that deemed eavesdropping wrong won out, so she was about to retreat to yet another part of the room when she heard something that caught her interest and nearly stopped her heart.

“--my revenge against the Prince will be complete,” the wizard said. Like lightning, Lillian darted to the door and listened intently.

“You have no idea,” Mirabella responded, “how... happy... it makes me to be the one to supply you with the powdered asparagus tips that will kill the Royal Family. I’ll be especially happy to know Conroy is dead. Those twinkling eyes are enough to make me scream, and that’s even without having to listen to his inane babbling.”

Lillian gasped quietly and fluttered on wobbly legs back to the window where Conroy was. She might even have opened the kitchen window (such was the gravity of the situation), but her shaking fingers didn’t allow it. One listen showed her that the prince hadn’t even noticed her absence. “--please, it would make my day! No, my week! No, my-”

“Prince Conroy!” she broke in.

“Yes, my only?”

“Sneak quietly around to the front of the house and see if you can hear what the wizard and my sister are talking about! Be cautious! For I fear they are plotting against you!”

#

Overhear their conversation Conroy did, and the long and short of what he learned from it can be summed up in one handy list:

(1) Mirabella and Farland meant to kill Conroy and his nearest and dearest.

(2) Farland was not his best friend in all the world.

(3) Lillian had saved his life and the lives of the rest of his family, cementing more than ever in his mind the fact that this was the lady he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

(4) Mirabella was a traitor and must be banished to the Forest of Looming Death.

(5) He would have to return the friendship ring he had received from Farland in their youth.

#

Farland and Mirabella stood before Prince Conroy as he paced to and fro, agitated, confused, and yes, a little brokenhearted for friendship dead and gone. Mirabella’s hands were tied behind her back, and she was held in place by a burly soldier about four times her size. Farland was unshackled only because it would have been pointless to try, he being a wizard and all. The only reason Farland was still there was because he chose to be, and everyone knew it.

Prince Conroy halted before them and said, “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own two ears. Especially you, Farland!” His voice rang out with anger and disillusionment. “You were my best friend! Remember when we became blood brothers?” he added, hoping at least to illicit a bit of guilt from Farland.

The wizard smiled a reminiscent smile as he thought back to the day he had talked the Prince into becoming his ‘blood brother’ (a practice that, in case you are not familiar with it since you have been raised in a modern age with heightened awareness of diseases and cleanliness, involves both parties cutting themselves and then holding the cuts together, the idea being that one party would then have the other’s blood flowing through their veins and visa versa. Never do that. It is disgusting). “Blood brothers, phooey! I only did that so I could have easy access to your blood when I needed to cast a spell against you!” he explained. He saw Mirabella raise an impressed eyebrow at him, and he felt a glow of pride at his cleverness.

Prince Conroy’s jaw actually dropped as this was revealed. “Really?”

“Of course!” laughed Farland. He found that, now he’d been discovered, he wanted to get it all out in the open. He was disappointed that his lovely plans had been foiled in the eleventh hour by that irritating little harpy Lillian, and he wanted the Prince to know a thing or two before he (Farland) disappeared in a column of smoke. “As if a wizard of my caliber could pass up the chance to have your blood in my veins and thus hold power over you and your offspring for the rest of my life!”

“I—I--” the Prince stuttered. “You can do that?”

Farland nodded.

“But -- we were seven years old when we became blood brothers!” he spluttered. “Were we ever friends?”

A noncommittal shrug and an “Eh,” were all the answer he got.

Prince Conroy looked at his ex-friend searchingly, then sighed, and said, “Enough of this. Down to business.” He nodded his head sharply as if in response to some inner pep talk, then went on in a more commanding tone, “Mirabella, traitor, as of today you are banished to the Forest of Looming Death. Set foot beyond its shades again and you shall die!” This he proclaimed and pointed a finger right at her face.

She blinked. Nothing more. No reaction in those empty eyes.

“And you!” Conroy continued to Farland, “You!” He then took the ring that Farland had given them when they were teenagers (engraved on it was the phrase “Friends 4 E-V-R") and tried to pull it off his finger.

It didn’t budge.

Farland sniggered as he watched the Prince struggle with the ring, then laughed aloud. “You dolt. Friendship ring, my eye! That ring is cursed, and will never leave your finger!”

“Cursed? Cursed... how?” asked poor Conroy, shocked. What a horrible twist of fate. His best friend in all the world was turning out to be maybe his biggest enemy. He had access to Conroy’s blood whenever he needed it for a spell, and now there was a cursed ring too? Geez. Talk about overkill.

“Cursed how, you ask? Well,” and here Farland would have polished his nails nonchalantly on his cloak and surveyed them as he leaned casually up against something -- if he weren't standing in the middle of a field, “--Let me tell you. I was feeling quite creative the day I dreamed this’un up.” He gave Mirabella a sidelong look -- he knew she’d get a kick out of this this. Then he looked back to Conroy. “I’m sure you’d appreciate the cleverness if it weren’t your life being mucked up. Yes, I was feeling creative. And vindictive. A nice combination of fuel to get the wheels of revenge turning in the engine of--” The engine of what? He shouldn’t use a metaphor like that if he hadn’t rehearsed it ahead of time. “Whatever. Here’s the curse: as long as you wear that ring, your first born child will never be able to let sunlight touch his or her skin. Not a single ray of sunshine. If your first child so much as walks past a curtain that isn’t entirely drawn, death shall be the grand result!” Farland studied the Prince’s reaction, frankly a bit disappointed that the royal visage was not a mask of horror.

Conroy was by no means happy, but clearly he had been bracing himself for worse. Farland hadn’t taken into account the fact that, to most men, their children only become real to them on a true emotional level when they are actually holding them in their arms for the first time.

“It may not seem like a big deal now,” Farland pointed out, “since you’re not even married and the prospect of offspring is a bit down the road, but I assure you once your kid is born you will wish you’d never crossed me! You’ll have to remodel the whole castle to accommodate the child! And no riding, no hunting, not even taking a walk! Family trips will be a logistical nightmare!”

Conroy mulled it over, and the more he thought the worse it really did seem. But then something occurred to him and he brightened. “This only applies if the ring is on my finger?”

“Yes. But, the ring will never leave your finger. It’s stuck on. With magic.”

Prince Conroy pulled a dagger out of his boot with a fancy flourish and held it, not to the wizard's throat as the slack jawed onlookers had expected, but to his own ringed finger. “And if I cut off my finger--”

“You will die.”

“Oh...” Conroy’s hands fell to his sides. Defeated. But not defingered. “Drat...”

Farland looked at Mirabella and raised his eyebrows with a look that clearly said, “Impressive, huh?”

She chuckled a soulless chuckle and nodded her approval.

Farland felt a cozy glow of pride. Even if the murder wasn’t panning out, this was at least a nice consolation prize. A bit of recognition from the lady he fancied.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Conroy asked, almost pleadingly. He wasn’t even looking at his enemy anymore, but at the house where his future wife was now peeking out into the yard through a gap in the shutters. He met her one visible eye and read there a horrified look that showed she had heard all. This was her future child they were discussing.

“There’s no way of proving it short of testing it,” Farland said. “Cut off your finger. See if you live. Or open a window during the day when you are in a room with your child.” He grinned. “Then you’ll know whether there’s a curse. Maybe that ring is just stuck on your finger because you’ve put on weight living in the lap of luxury.”

“I have not put on--” Conroy started defensively, then snapped his mouth shut, not wanting to sound petty when Lillian was listening. “Is there anything that can break the curse?” he asked desolately. “There’s always something that can be done to break a curse.” This is, indeed, true. For every evil curse that is created, there has to be an opposite and equal good that can cancel it out. A scientist said so and everything, sort of. The problem is that the creator of the curse is the one who also gets to choose the counter-curse.

Farland said reluctantly, “True... part of the procedure of concocting a curse requires a counter-curse. The key to that, however, is to make it really, really hard. Something so outrageous that it is almost impossible. Almost being the key word there, my friend. For if it were it utterly impossible it wouldn’t--”

“I get it. Go on, already,” Conroy growled.

“Fine. In order to break the curse, your son or daughter must fall in love with a person who has spent his or her whole life at sea, whose parents were once part of a traveling theater troupe, who plays banjo and accordion and harpsichord, and who is allergic to asparagus. And, of course, the love must be reciprocated--”

“Surely no such person can exist!” cried Conroy.

“But it sure will be amusing to watch you searching for this ‘impossible’ individual. Because search you will. No matter how impossible you think the task. And besides, the world is large, my friend, and full of people with all sorts of backgrounds, interests, and allergies. It is not impossible for such a person to exist. Only improbable. But rest assured, if I ever do catch wind of someone who fits the description I’ll kill ‘em. That won’t negate the curse, either, because there could always be another individual who fits the bill somewhere out there on the high seas.”

Prince Conroy’s shoulders sagged. What had he ever done to deserve this?

“You’ve annoyed me ever since we first met,” Farland answered. “All the annoyances over the years just started stacking up.”

“You can read minds?” Conroy exclaimed, thinking frantically back to what must have been thousands of things he’d thought in the presence of the wizard that were better left unshared. If he could read minds then, Conroy had to admit, Farland really did have reason to think ill of him -- Conroy tried to come off as a good guy, but there was a lot of stuff went on in the ol’ gray matter that was not so pretty. Also, some of the things Farland had doubtless found out by reading his mind were of a very personal nature. Conroy turned an un-princely shade of red.

Farland smiled, looking off into the distance in a reminiscent sort of way.

“If you weren’t a wizard who could vanish in a puff of smoke whenever you chose, I’d have you banished too! No, I’d have you executed!” Conroy cried, totally losing his cool.

Farland merely laughed a final evil laugh, gave Mirabella a courteous nod, and chose to disappear in a puff of smoke. All assembled coughed, stumbled about, and staggered out of the smoke to get some fresh air.

The Prince recovered quickly since he’d anticipated Farland’s exit in enough time to take a deep breath. When he whirled in a fit of regal rage on Mirabella, she was still coughing, and he enjoyed the feeling (rare when talking to her) that he was the one in control of the conversation. “You, traitor, have five minutes to collect your belongings and say your goodbyes. Then, you will be escorted to The Forest of Looming Death where you will live the rest of your blighted days in darkness and solitude. Solitude except for the other banished criminals, anyway," he said vindictively, "but they’re mostly murderers, so I can’t imagine they make the best company.”

He then turned his back on her coughing form, hoping never to set eyes on her again, and strode over to the house, hoping Lillian hadn’t taken this whole affair too badly. One look into the eye he could see through the gap in the shutters showed that she had been crying.

“Dearest!” cried he. “Poor thing, I have deprived you of your only sister! But surely--”

“Oh I’m not crying about that!” she blubbered. “I’m crying because -- how could she! How could she -- conspire to kill the man I love?” At this last word, she gasped sharply and covered her mouth (not that he could see that).

Conroy staggered back a few paces.

“You -- you -- love me?” he stammered, all his troubles momentarily forgotten. “Oh Lillian! Such joy! Such happiness! You have transformed this day from --” he thought “-- from the worst day of my life to the best day of my life!” Not as flowery language as he would have liked, but this situation had snuck up on him. Had he known words of love were going to be exchanged, he would have had the court poet whip up a little something for him, but as it was he had to wing it, which was not his forte. (If you are wondering what his forte was, it was croquet. He was really good croquet).

What he could see of her tearstained face broke into a grin of delight. “Conroy! Oh, Conroy!”

“Oh, Lillian!”

She opened the shutters a bit more, enough to stretch her hand through. He took her hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze as he smiled at her, forgetting the guards and knights and pages and Mirabella all fidgeting around behind him, watching. “Lillian, will you tell your father to come to see me at the castle tonight? That I have something particular to tell him?” He wiggled his eyebrows significantly.

Mirabella cut in from behind him, “That you wish to apologize for banishing his one daughter without giving him a chance to say goodbye? And also taking his other daughter away to marry, thus leaving him and his wife on this farm in their declining years to tend the asparagus on their own?” Though in truth, she didn’t mind at all that she’d never again see the parents who had cared for her all these years against the constant advice of friends and family to ship her off to an asylum.

A guard shook her roughly by the shoulder and whispered, “Quiet!” He was staring with rapt attention at Conroy and Lillian, a single sentimental tear trembling on his lashes.

Lillian didn’t even spare her sister a glance. Mirabella would not ruin her happy moment with mention of the reality of the hardship their parents were now facing. Besides, Conroy would surely provide for them if this conversation was really going the direction it seemed to be. (He wouldn’t really provide for them). “Of course I’ll tell him, my only!”

Jubilation, cheers, happiness from all assembled (except, of course, for Mirabella).

With one last look that spoke volumes, the Prince turned and told two of his most trusted knights to see to Mirabella’s banishment, then he mounted his steed and trotted back home to the castle with the rest of his retinue following in his wake. He was happy as clam, which I guess is pretty happy if we are to put our trust in the people who make up such expressions, though what a lonely little bottom-feeder scraping along the floor of the sea eating fish excrement and decomposed plants and animals has to be all that thrilled about is beyond me.