Chapter 3 In Which Gretsella Is Proven Right, As Usual
In Which Gretsella Is Proven Right, as Usual
By later that afternoon, all Gretsella could do was watch, helpless, as her darling, dunderheaded son packed all of his earthly possessions into a small satchel.
The army that was forming in her garden began to present a rapidly increasing danger to her delphiniums. At one point, Bradley picked up the scissors she’d given him for his birthday, then sighed and lovingly set them back in their rightful place.
“I suppose that I won’t need these once I’m king,” he said.
“You don’t have to be king,” she said, but it was as if she hadn’t said it at all.
He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. “I promise to write every week.”
At this point, to her great shame, Gretsella panicked.
She wrenched herself out of Bradley’s arms and darted into the back garden, where she snatched two toads out of her toad hole.
What she was about to do would normally require a very involved bit of spellcasting, but today there was no time to waste.
She threw both toads into a cold cauldron, did a bit of chanting at them, and then yanked them out again, hoping for the best.
“Here,” she said, and thrust a toad toward Bradley. “It’s for you.”
Bradley received it very carefully and cradled it gently against his chest. “A toad,” he said. “Thank you, Mother.”
“It’s a toadaphone,” Gretsella said.
Bradley blinked at her. “Pardon?”
“A toadaphone,” she repeated. “You can use it to speak with me as often as you want. Like this.” She gave her toadaphone a firm pat on the head, then told it, “I’d like to speak to Bradley.
” After a brief pause, she said, “Hello, Bradley.” A moment later, the toad that Bradley was holding said the same words in Gretsella’s voice.
Bradley, to his great credit, didn’t drop his toadaphone. Instead, he held it at arm’s length, as if he thought it were about to spit venom in his eye, and said, “So I have to…slap the toad and then speak to it? And your toad will speak to you?”
“Toadaphone,” Gretsella corrected. Her traitorous eyes were stinging. She resolutely refused to blink. “Don’t go, Bradley. This is stupid.”
“I have to go,” Bradley said, and then gave his toadaphone a gentle little pat before tucking it into his pocket. “I’m going to name him Peepers.”
“Witches never name their—” Gretsella started, then gave up.
“Peepers is a very nice name. And I hope that the toadaphone will be useful. Sometimes they also give advice.” She felt something absolutely horrible bubbling up within her, like a tentacled creature rising from the ocean floor to eat a cargo ship.
That dreadful thing was the phrase I love you. She swallowed it back.
“I…tolerate you, Bradley,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Oh, Mother,” Bradley said, and gave her another big squeeze, along with a small sigh. “I love you too.” Then he climbed onto a white horse and rode off to reclaim a throne that he hadn’t even thought to be interested in a few days earlier.