“No,” he smiled, shaking his bald head. “Who took the box down?”

“We were playing. That’s all, just playing. I was putting it back for the Princess. She’s very good to me, so very good, I wanted to help her. She’s a wonderful person. I love her, she’s so kind to me…”

He put a long finger over her lips, to gently silence her. “I get the point, child. So, you are the Princess’s playmate then?”

She nodded in earnest. “Rachel.”

His grin got bigger. “That’s a pretty name. Glad to meet you, Rachel. I’m sorry I frightened you. I. was only coming to check on the Queen’s box.”

No one had ever told her that her name was pretty. But he had shut the big door. “You’re not going to strike me dead? Or change me into something horrid?”

“Oh, dear, no,” he laughed. He turned his head, peering at her with one eye. “Why are there red marks on your cheeks?”

She didn’t answer, too scared to say. Slowly, carefully, he reached out, his fingers touching one cheek, then the other. Her eyes opened wide. The sting was gone.

“Better?”

She nodded. His eyes seemed so big, the way they looked at her up close like this. They made her feel like telling him, so she did. “The Princess hits me,” she admitted, ashamed.

“So? She is not so kind to you, then?”

She shook her head, casting her eyes downward. Then the wizard did something that absolutely stunned her. He reached around and gave her a gentle hug. She stood stiffly for a moment, then put her arms around his neck, hugging him back. His long white whiskers tickled the side of her face and neck, but she still liked it.

He looked at her with sad eyes. “I’m sorry, dear child. The Princess and the Queen can be quite cruel.”

His voice sounded so nice, she thought, like Brophy’s. A big grin spread beneath his hook nose.

“Tell you what, I have something here that might help.” A thin hand reached into his robes, and he looked up into the air while his hand felt around. Then his hand found what it was looking for. Her eyes went wide as he pulled out a doll with short hair the same yellow color as hers. He patted the doll’s tummy. “This is a trouble doll.”

“Trouble doll?” she whispered.

“Yes.” He nodded. There were deep wrinkles at the ends of his smile. “When you have troubles, you tell them to the doll, and she takes them away for you. She has magic. Here. Try it out.” Rachel could hardly take a breath as she reached out with both hands, her fingers carefully clutching the doll. She pulled it to her chest cautiously and hugged it. Then, tentatively, slowly, she held it out, looking at its face. Her eyes got all watery.

“Princess Violet says I’m ugly,” she confided in the doll.

The face on the doll smiled. Rachel’s mouth dropped open.

“I love you, Rachel,” it said in a tiny little voice.

Rachel gasped in surprise, she giggled in glee, she hugged the doll to her as tight as she could. She laughed and laughed, swinging her body back and forth as she hugged the doll to her chest.

Then, she remembered. She pushed the doll back at the wizard, turning her face away.

“I’m not allowed to have a doll. The Princess said so. She would throw it in the fire, that’s what she said. If I had a doll, she would throw it in the fire.” She could hardly speak, because of the lump in her throat.

“Well, let me think,” the wizard said, rubbing his chin. “Where do you sleep?”

“Most of the time, I sleep in the Princess’s bedroom. She locks me in the box at night. I think that’s mean. Sometimes, when she says I’ve been bad, she makes me leave the castle for the night, so I have to sleep outside. She thinks that’s even meaner, but I really like it, because I have a secret place, in a wayward pine, where I sleep.

“Wayward pines don’t have locks on them, you know. I can go potty whenever I have to. It’s pretty cold sometimes, but I got a pile of straw, and I climb under it to keep warm. I have to come back in the morning, before she sends the guards to look for me, so they won’t find my secret place. I don’t want them to find it. They would tell the Princess and she wouldn’t send me out anymore.”

The wizard tenderly cupped his hands around her face. It made her feel special. “Dear child,” he whispered, “that I could have been a party to this.” His eyes were wet. Rachel didn’t know wizards could get tears. Then his big grin came back, and he held up a finger. “I have an idea. You know the gardens, the formal gardens?”

Rachel nodded. “I go through them to go to my secret place, when I’m put out at night. The Princess makes me go through the outer wall at the garden gate. She doesn’t want me to go out the front, past the shops and people. She’s afraid someone might take me in for the night. She told me I mustn’t go to the town or the farmland. I must go to the woods, as punishment.”

“Well, as you walk down the central path of the garden, there are short urns, on both sides, with yellow flowers in them.” Rachel nodded. She knew where they were. “I will hide your doll in the third urn on the right. I will put a wizard’s web over it—that’s magic—so no one but you will find it.” He took the doll and carefully tucked it away back in his robes as her eyes followed it. “The next time you are put out for the night, you go there and you will find your doll. Then you can keep it at your place, your wayward pine, where no one will find it, or take it from you.

“And I will also leave you a magic fire stick. Just build a little stack of sticks, not too big now, with stones around it, and then hold the magic fire stick to it and say ‘Light for me,’ and it will burn, so you can keep warm.”

Rachel threw her arms around him, hugging and hugging him as he patted her back. “Thank you, wizard Giller.”

“You may call me Giller when we are alone, child, just Giller, that is what all my good friends call me.”

“Thank you so much for my doll, Giller. No one ever gave me anything so nice before. I’ll take the bestest care of her. I have to go now. I’m to scold the cooks for the Princess. Then I have to sit and watch her eat.” She grinned. “Then I have to think of something bad to do so the Princess will put me out tonight.”

The wizard laughed a deep laugh as his eyes sparkled. He mussed her hair with his big hand. Giller helped her with the heavy door and locked it for her, then handed the key back to her.

“I so hope we can talk again sometime,” she said, looking up at him.

He smiled at her. “We will, Rachel, we will. I’m sure of it.”

Waving back at him, she ran off down the long, empty hall, happier than she had been since she first came to live at the castle. It was a long way, through the castle, down to the kitchen, down stone stairs and halls with rugs on the floors and paintings on the walls, through big rooms with tall windows hung with gold and red drapery, and chairs of red velvet with gold legs, long carpets with pictures on them of men fighting on horseback, past guards who stood still as stone at some of the big fancy doors or marched in twos, and by servants who rushed everywhere carrying linens, trays, or brooms and rags and buckets of soapy water.

None of the guards or servants gave her a second look, even though she was running. They knew she was Princess Violet’s playmate, and had seen her running through the castle many times before on errands for the Princess.

She was winded when she finally reached the kitchens, which were steamy and smoky and filled with noise. Helpers were scurrying around carrying heavy sacks, big pots, or hot trays, all trying not to bump into one another. People chopped things she couldn’t see on the high tables and huge chopping blocks. Pans clanged, cooks yelled orders, helpers took pans and metal bowls off hooks overhead and put others back. There was a constant rapping of spoons mixing and whipping food, the sharp hiss of oil and garlic and butter and onions and spices in hot pans, and everyone seemed to be yelling at the same time. This chaotic place smelled so good it made her head spin.