Good Curses Evil by Stephanie S. Sanders

Author:Stephanie S. Sanders
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

On the Road Again

Are there always this many patrols?” Jez asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

We’d slept most of the day in a grove of trees about thirty yards from the road, waking in a late, cloudy afternoon. From the shadows of our hiding spot, we watched as yet another patrol of soldiers went by. The roads were crawling with them. We were forced to keep to the trees and fields, so we wouldn’t be questioned. Jez and I might have been able to explain why we were traveling with a baby and no guardians, but there was no way we could explain Cappy.

“I wish we had some means of knowing what was going on,” Jez said.

“Oh, duh!” I answered. “We do!” I reached into my pack and found my dad’s crystal ball.

I rubbed my hands over the smooth, glassy surface until the ball started to glow. In it I saw a city. Kaloya was in turmoil over a recent uprising at the palace. Soldiers were being dispatched to patrol all major roads leading in and out of the capital.

“We are so going to overthrow this kingdom,” I said.

“I don’t know, Rune. There are a lot of soldiers around. This might be harder than you think.”

“C’mon, Jez. Our luck is improving. The crystal ball is working for us. And we’ve got our henchman and our baby, don’t we?”

We glanced at Cappy, who was happily tickling our stolen baby.

“What about the princess? Why don’t you see if the crystal can show us where to find one?”

“Good idea.”

I ran my hand across the crystal’s surface once more, but it remained dark. For ten minutes I shook it and squeezed it until finally giving up.

“What were you saying about our luck improving?” Jez asked.

“I don’t need it to tell me anyway,” I said. “Princesses are always in castles.”

“Right,” Jez said. “And when they don’t just let you in the front door, they always have mile-long blond hair, which they toss out the window for you to climb. Have you given any serious thought as to how you’ll kidnap a princess?”

“Well,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully, “first I’ll feed her a poison apple, then I’ll stab her with a spinning wheel spindle, and if those don’t work I’ll bop her over the head with a glass slipper.”

This earned me another eye roll from Jez.

As the afternoon faded, we traveled on, darting between groves of trees, always keeping in sight of the road but out of sight of would-be travelers. Several times we saw soldiers marching or riding horseback. I worried the baby’s constant crying would give us away, but Cappy always seemed to know what the baby needed. Not only could he rock it and feed it, he also changed its diaper—swapping it out with a piece of cloth torn from one of our blankets. Then, whenever we came upon a stream or pond, he would wash out the old diaper and dry it, ready to swap it out again.

“Some evil henchman I

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