Page 32 of Disenchanted

“Of course it’s not.” Casimir thumbed his brow exasperatedly. “You know, I really miss when our bad news just revolved around a leak in the roof of this place. Go on, Specs.”

“Well, I…” She trailed off with a sniff, doing her best to appear calm and unaffected. “While I was monitoring the beanstalk’s behaviour, noting the leaf patterns, observing the wildlife attracted to it, I thought…I thought I heard something…coming from the top.”

Casimir nodded, straight-faced, brows high. “A flock of overzealous pigeons?”

“A giant.” Sage swallowed. “Possibly. Maybe. Actually, almost certainly. I saw some kind of enormous laced-up boot take an uncertain step down and then change its mind when Maggie screamed blue murder.”

Casimir sighed. “Naturally. Well, that might be a conversation for you and him to have together in private. I believe they’re widely known to smell the blood of an Englishman from a mile off, which doesn’t bode well for me.” He grimaced. “There’s more, by the way. Did you notice the signposts by the fountain had changed this morning?”

“Changed?” Sage asked. “How?”

“They looked a little…old-worldly.” Casimir replied. “The arrow pointing here, to the museum, read, ‘Once upon a Time.’ The arrow for the dell was swapped for ‘Fairy Glen.’ And the sign pointing back towards the village and your place said, ‘Gingerbread Cottage.’ It’s another part of the spell, no doubt about it. Another one pointing towards yours was ‘Land of Giants,’ which…Well, yes, that tracks now.”

“You’re kidding. What else? ‘Never-Never Land’?”

“At least it wasn’t ‘Grandma’s House.’ You’d have taken that personally.”

Sage did not laugh.

“Second down that post was ‘The Shoemaker’ and then ‘Faraway Kingdom,’ ” Casimir finished, announcing the last one with particular flourish. “Regardless, did you have any thoughts on our next steps? Or are we on a similar page to the first few chapters, in that we have less than nothing to go on?”

“Chapters?”

He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Thought it was a rather neat term for our recording of these incidents.”

Sage twitched a smile but still couldn’t bring herself to form it fully. “Currently, I’m just hoping that said giant is not a keen abseiler.”

Casimir folded sideways across the sofa and flopped over her lap. “This is actually unbelievable.”

“I am sorry for the inconvenience caused, Casimir,” Sage said defensively. “It’s not like I intended to ruin my own life, you know.” Then his shoulders started to shake, and she could only blow a ringlet out of her face and shove her glasses up her nose in indignation. “How can you be laughing at a time like this?”

But Casimir had erupted into full-on hysterics. She had always liked how his laugh was completely unapologetic, big and booming and hearty. By itself, it was always enough to split her usual frown into a very reluctant giggle. She determinedly bit down on her bottom lip to fight it.

“Oh, come on. You have to admit it’s rather funny,” he said as he sat up. “You, of all people, surrounded by the silliest sorts of magic I’ve ever known. You’ve ended up with a house that you’d be given on a saucer with a posh haircut. There are probably some poor parents wondering why their children suddenly want to read the dictionary for fun. And now a bloody beanstalk…Oh god, it’s too good.” He wiped a tear from his eye.

Sage let out an unbridled, reluctant sort-of snort. Before she knew it, she was laughing too. It felt good, leaving her a fraction lighter.

His lopsided grin had kicked in. “It’s good to see you smiling, Specs.”

A flush bloomed across her cheeks, but she was distracted by a sudden knock on the museum window. The sound made Sage jump out of her skin. Her nerves were frayed.

It didn’t do much to help when she saw her brother’s face framed by his hands peering through the window, followed by her sister’s, who pressed her nose up against the glass to make a pig face.

“What on earth are you both doing here?” she said as they pushed open the front door and strolled into the museum. “Has something happened?”

“Cas called me, said it was important,” Robin replied, shrugging off his coat onto the stand and wandering straight through into the staff room to flick the kettle on. “The girls were on a sleepover anyway. I called Laurel and we came straight over.”

“I thought perhaps this required reinforcements,” Casimir said sheepishly when Sage turned to him, snarling. “Who else was I supposed to ask?”

“Oh, Sage, look at this place!” Laurel gasped, already distracted by the cabinet that held a pair of particularly glittering glass slippers. “It looks brilliant! I can’t wait to have a proper look around. Although there’s not many people I’d get out of bed for this early. I hope you appreciate the effort,” Laurel said into Sage’s hair as she threw her arms around her. “But I knew something was really the matter the other night. You were even more of an old goat than usual. Are you finally going to tell us what’s happening?”

Sage threw another scowl over Laurel’s shoulder at Casimir, who only shrugged innocently and mouthed, “We need help!”

“How can we be of service?” Robin said, leaning his forearms on the welcome desk to look out at them.

“You can’t,” Sage said crossly.

“I didn’t come all this way for nothing. There had better be at least a little bit of drama to make it worth my while,” Laurel said.