Description: Chapter 1 It was a marvelously dark and dour twilight at the castle. Clouds the color of bruises lay across the hills. Rooks and ravens flapped into the battlements and were met by bats leaving for the evening. True, there were only three ravens, but there were plenty of bats, so the overall impression was of a small cloud of winged smoke hanging over the highest tower. The castle guardian was pleased. Sadly, Castle Hangnail was not surrounded by jagged mountains, which would have been ideal, but you couldn''t have everything. The grassy hills around the castle were doing their best impression of a blasted moor. The guardian tried not to notice the dandelions growing on the hillside. They were much too cheerful. He would go and have a word with the gardener tomorrow. It was a good Evil castle, he thought fiercely. Anyone would be proud to have it! Even with the dandelions and the aging ravens and the unreliable plumbing. Castle Hangnail had history. Dark and terrible deeds had been done there. Probably. He shuffled an empty teacup out of the way. Someone had left it on an end table near the door, and he hid it behind a stuffed crocodile. The ravens had assured him that the new Master or Mistress of the castle would arrive tonight. He hung about the main door, waiting. Would it be an Evil Wizard? A Dark Sorceress? A Loathsome Hag? He hoped it wasn''t the Hag. A certain degree of dust and cobwebs were expected in an Evil castle, but a really dedicated Loathsome Hag would have slime dripping off the walls and dead mice at the dinner table. It got to the point where you were embarrassed to have people over. But an Evil Wizard, now . . . well, there was a lot to be said for an Evil Wizard. Or a Witch. A Wicked Witch would be just fine. Perhaps she''d even have a cat. The guardian was fond of cats. Really, though, he wasn''t picky. Any proper Master would do. Necromancer. Cursed Beastlord. Even an ordinary Mad Scientist. "It''s been so long . . ." he said out loud. "I was afraid no one would answer the letters." "You''re telling me," said Edward, clanking."And all those nasty letters from the Board! I was starting to worry that I''d have to go down to the crypt and see if I could find our old Master, the ancient Vampire Lord, but I wasn''t sure I''d be able to get back up again, with my joints." "I''ll get you some oil for them tomorrow," said the guardian absently. "Oil won''t help. I''ve rusted solid all through the knees." The magical suit of armor sighed. "Well, it wouldn''t have mattered. We''d need blood to bring him back, and I don''t think you''ve got much in you." "I''ve got plenty of blood," said the guardian, peering out the peephole. "I keep it down in the cellar, where it''s nice and cool. We gave away at least a dozen bottles of O negative during the blood drive last Christmas." A blood drive was not the sort of thing you could imagine an Evil Sorceress allowing, mind you, but you had to move with the times. That was one of the problems with raising the old Vampire Lord. He was very old-fashioned. He''d have been flitting around the town, biting people''s necks, before you could say "stake." It was easier just to leave him quietly dead. "Did the ravens say anything?" asked Edward. The guardian shrugged. "They''re ravens. They mostly see the tops of people''s heads. They said the Master-or-Mistress was walking." "Hmm." Edward thought about that. There was nothing inherently wrong with walking to your new castle, of course. The last Witch had walked. The Evil Sorceress before her had ridden in on the back of a Dark Phoenix, though, and the Wizards all had dragons. There was nothing like a dragon to really make an entrance. "Perhaps the new Master just wants to take in the scenery," said the guardian. "That''s probably it." He hoped the scenery would be satisfactory. By darkness it should be all right. By daylight, the land around Castle Hangnail insisted on being picturesque, and Miss Handlebram down the road had a white picket fence, but perhaps the new Master wouldn''t notice. And the castle had crypts! Proper crypts, not just a wine cellar with a coffin shoved in the back. Plus a moat. Well, a mini-moat. Surely that would make up for the picket fence. The guardian looked through the peephole again. "Getting on full dark soon," said Edward as he leaned back. "Perhaps they''ll come at moonrise," said the guardian. "Moonrise is perfectly respectable." It was actually a few minutes before moonrise when the someone lifted the door knocker and banged it down, hard. The guardian wanted to throw the door open. He wanted to cheer and throw confetti. The Master--or Mistress--had arrived! But he had been a castle guardian for centuries, and he knew what was expected. He waited for five long seconds, then allowed the door to creak open. The hinges squealed like a dying rabbit. He looked out. He looked up. He looked left. He looked right. Finally he looked down. Ravens mostly see the tops of people''s heads. It does not occur to them that some people are shorter than others, because when you fly, everyone is shorter than you are. A small, determined face looked up at him. It belonged to a girl wearing black clothes, a black coat, and a silver necklace with a vulture on it. She looked to be about twelve years old. "My name is Molly," said the girl. "I''m here to be your Wicked Witch." Chapter 2 What the guardian saw was a plump girl with a round face, a stubborn chin, and frizzy brown hair. She was wearing black boots with metal caps on the end. They were very serious boots. Molly had laced them with purple shoelaces. They looked as if they could kick a hole in a stone wall and have fun doing it. What Molly saw was a very old man in layers of gray rags. Parts of him looked to have been dead for quite some time. He was not naturally a hunchback, but he was making up for it by walking bent over and keeping his shoulders drawn up around his ears. He had scars and sutures and one white, clouded eye. Because he was hunched over and she had on very tall boots, she only had to look up a little to see into his eyes. " You''re the Wicked Witch?" said the guardian. "Yes?" said Molly. She fingered her vulture necklace nervously. "Are . . . are you sure?" "Oh, quite sure." The last Sorceress had been nearly six feet tall, with hair the color of bleached bone and eyes like chips of flint. Molly had brown eyes, and the only way she would ever be six feet tall would be if she stood on a stepladder. "A Wicked Witch?" "Extremely Wicked," said Molly. "It would curl your hair, how Wicked I am." (This was purely academic, as the guardian had not had much hair for at least a century.) "A Wicked Witch, though," said the guardian. "Very Witchy." Molly tilted her head. "I''ve got loads of silver jewelry. And I like snakes. And toads. I had a pet toad back home." "A familiar?" asked the guardian hopefully. ". . . sure," said Molly. "A familiar. Definitely." "I don''t suppose he''s here now?" "Well, no," said Molly. "He had a family and a nice pond in the backyard and I didn''t want to make him unhappy. Mom promised to feed him mealworms every other day, though." "One moment," said the guardian, shutting the door. The guardian had a problem, and not just Edward hissing, "Is it a Sorceress? I want to see!" behind him. He''d never seen a Mistress this young before. If she was the real Mistress, he was definitely wrong to keep her waiting, and he really shouldn''t shut the door in her face, but if she wasn''t the Mistress--if she was an imposter, say--then when the real Mistress arrived, there was going to be a very unpleasant scene. It would probably involve screaming and fireballs and some of the torture devices in the spare bedroom. On the other hand, there were the boots. The boots had to count for something. "It''s not a Loathsome Hag, is it?" whispered Edward, who had been hiding behind the door. "No, no . . ." The guardian waved him into silence. "It''s a Wicked Witch. I think." "Yay, a Witch!" "Hush! There might be a problem!" The guardian poked his head out the door again. Molly was still standing there, gazing up at the tower with vague nearsighted interest. "You can do magic, right?" Magic was a requirement in a new Master, unless you were a Mad Scientist, and Molly didn''t look like the sort to hook lightning rods up to cadavers while wild theremins wailed in the background. "Absolutely," said Molly. "I''ve got a book of potions. And I can turn invisible if I hold my breath." The guardian rubbed the back of his neck. "You seem a little . . . young." "I''m smart for my age. I can read at a tenth-grade level." The guardian found his gaze drawn back down to the boots again. They were very Wicked boots, but were they Wicked enough? "Could you do something . . . I don''t know, unpleasant?" Molly shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. "If you don''t let me in and show me to the bathroom, I''ll do something very unpleasant right here on the doorstep." The guardian shuddered and opened the door all the way. The candles streamed in the sudden breeze. She stomped past him. She was probably merely walking, but the boots turned it into a stomp by the time they r

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