The soldiers tramped up several more flights of stairs before they deposited Betty in something soft and scratchy. She lay there for a few moments while they locked her in the room. She opened her eyes when they left. The men left her on one of several large piles of straw. She vaguely wondered if she were back in Indiana and half-expected to hear the moo of a cow that needed milking. An old-fashioned spinning wheel stood off to her right. Suddenly a small, fat woman with tiny, chilly eyes entered the tower room. Her loose cotton gown and pendant were all black. She somewhat resembled someone that Betty had seen just a few hours before. Someone she hadn't liked all that much...
"Who are you, young Sorceress?" she asked in a voice calculated to intimdate Betty.
Betty wasn't easily intimidated. "My name is Betty Roberts, and I'm a radio scriptwriter from Pittsburgh. I was given this medallion a few hours ago. I have no idea how to activate it or how to use it if I could activate it."
"My name is Witch Brumpton. My master, the Warlock Abernathy, wants to know what became of the rest of people in your group. Our men spotted you with two women, a young man, and an eagle on the hill overlooking Wenn Castle. We're especially interested in the whearabouts of the eagle and the red-haired woman."
"I don't know where they went. I left them and came looking for someone to help me get home to Pittsburgh. I was instead carted up here by your men and dumped on the floor like I was yesterday's garbage."
Witch Brumpton pointed to a bright red timepiece on a table alongside of the spinning wheel. "We know that you came here with Sir Victor Comstock and the people he gathered to help him defeat my master. You're one of those people." She brushed past Betty and twisted the alarm mechanisim on the red clock. "The clock is set for exactly and hour from now. If you tell me where your friends are, we will spare your life and make sure that you are returned safely to Pittsburgh."
Betty hesitated. She wanted to go home more than anything, but she couldn't betray Sir Victor and the others. It just wasn't in her blood. "Even if I knew where they were, I would never tell you," she firmly stated.
"You just sealed your doom, Mistress Betty Roberts. You could have gone home to your Pittsburgh, but you refused my generous offer, so I give you your death sentence instead," hissed the wicked witch. She indicated the clock. "If you fail to make these piles of straw into 24 carat gold within the hour I set, you will die hideously and painfully." She left before Betty could protest.
The room was small, dim, and freezing cold. Betty gazed out the window at the sunset. It was all gold and blue and heliotrope, blazing over the rolling hills and forests and meadows and thatched roofs. The Kingdom of Wenn was very beautiful, but it wasn't Pittsburgh. Somewhere over the rainbow was Pittsburgh, and that bustiling minor city was home. The station was home, and the cast and crew her strange but loving family. Would she ever again witness one of Victor's schemes or referee an arguement between Jeff and Hilary or hear Scott exclaim "Oh, would you look at the time?" or "Very exciting"?
A sigh from the other end of the tower distracted her from her wistful thoughts. She hadn't noticed that the room was already occupied. She took the one lantern from the wall went to see who her cell mate was.
Her cell mate was snoring lightly on a little bed made of rich, dark wood. The bed had been hidden behind a wide pile of straw. He was very handsome, with long black eyelashes and plump, rosy cheeks. His black-silver hair was topped by a crown of gold, amethysts, and red garnets. A thick cotton coverlet obscured all of his body but his muscular arms and hands, which rested on the top of the coverlet. She was certain that this was Prince Scot, the King and Queen's cursed son. The enchanted prince seemed so peaceful and amiable in his sleep. He certainly didn't look like the conniving rogue that Carabelle described him to be.
She wasn't certain why she suddenly desired to kiss a man she knew very little about. It might have been some sort of magic that wanted to play matchmaker. Perhaps, if he were awake, he could help her escape the North Tower and maybe even return to Pittsburgh. Though she hesitated, she finally leaned over to kiss the sleeping prince. The bronze medallion glowed eerily. She heard a groan and a deep, slightly hoarse voice.
"Hey," said Prince Scot as he stirred and opened his wide chocolate-brown eyes, "who are you? You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Betty could feel herself blush bright red. "Thank you, your highness."
He frowned. "Don't be so formal! You can call me Scot." Something occured to him as he sat upright. "How do you know who I am? I've never seen you before. Well, except in my dreams." He smiled. "Have you been listening to the servants gossip? I swear, whatever they said I did, I didn't do it. Ok, I didn't do most of it."
"Sort of," Betty admitted. "My name is Betty Roberts. Queen Gerta's personal maid, Carabelle, told me a little bit about you."
"Hmmmm. Bettybettybetty," murmured the smitten prince, who stared dreamily at her.
Betty started in shock. Scott Sherwood was the only person who ever called her that! Well, ok, Jeff Singer called her that once, too, but he did it to make Hilary jealous. This was different. She moved away from him to the window.
Scot looked around him. He absent-mindedly scratched his back and let out an enormous yawn. "I don't know how I got up in the North Tower, but I'm willing to bet cash that it was Abernathy's idea." He nodded at the straw. "According to my folks, the last person who came up here was a rather pesky little gnome who claimed that he could turn straw into gold. He could, but he wanted me in return for his services. I was just an infant then. He ran out on Mom and Dad when they wouldn't give him their only child. That was at least forty years ago. It's mostly used for storage now."
"We've got to get out of here," Betty stated. "I must get back home to Pittsburgh. I have to finish reading The Wizard of Oz on the air and I'm way behind on my scripts. Scott and Victor and the staff would be worried sick if I disappeared without a trace."
Scot was pulling at the door. "It's locked from the inside," he grumbled. "We'll have to go out the window."
Betty peeked out the half-circle. "Are you crazy? That's a drop of at least a hundred feet!" That was when she remembered what Brumpton demanded of her. Could she actually weave gold from straw? She had to! Her life depended on it. Lady Pavla's medallion did have magical properties, after all. She saw what it did to Sir Jeffrey Singer. Maybe they could make a rope of the gold and get out of the tower before her hour was over. They certainly didn't lack materials. The piles of straw reached the ceiling.
Scot frowned once more as she sat at the spinning wheel and tried to remember how to work the thing. "What are you doing?" he asked, puzzled. "This is no time to make yarn!"
"I'm planning our escape," she told him. The bronze medallion lit up the moment her fingers touched the wheel. "Bring me some straw. If I don't do this within..." she gave the clock a fast look, "...forty-five minutes, the witch and warlock will find some way to do me in. And if what the witch said is any indication, it won't be a pretty sight."
The puzzled prince obeyed her. The spinning wheel transformed the plain, musty tan straw into a dazziling string of pure gold before their very eyes. He continued to bring her straw until the very last bit had been magicaly twisted into bright metal yarn. Scot tied the threads of yarn together to form one long, shimmering rope. He shook his head in confusion. "How did you do that?" he asked her as he binded the gold rope to a hook embedded in the stone window. "You're not a pesky little gnome!"
"I think it's the medallion," Betty explained. "I turned the wheel, but it made the gold. Or, to be more specific, its magic made the gold. It's a good thing my great-grandmother taught me how to use a spinning wheel before she died."
The rope that Betty had made was so smooth that she mostly slid down. Scot followed her. They landed alongside the banks of the castle. Betty pulled the rope down from the window and hid it under a thick bramble bush, much to Scot's disappointment. The prince clutched a long, thin sword, not too unlike the ones that Mr. Foley had used during the "When in Rome" marathon broadcast, in his hand.
"I came here with Sir Victor Comstock, Mistress Carabelle, the Sorceress Hilaria, and her cavalier Sir Jeffrey. Abernathy transformed Sir Victor into a bald eagle, probably to keep him from telling the truth about his plans," Betty revealed. "Abernathy's spell must have been slightly off, because he didn't take away Sir Victor's voice. He and Mistress Carabelle fled the castle and recruited Hilaria, Sir Jeff, and me to rescue you and your parents."
Scot looked worried. "I overheard Abernathy and Witch Brumpton plotting right after I drank the drugged coffee. They were planning to bump off my folks and turn the Kingdom of Wenn over to their employer, the King of Wtm. He's been after our kingdom for years. Wenn is small and poor compared to his vast country," he whispered. "I tried to warn Sir Victor, but I guess I passed out before I could get the message to him."
The two snuck past several small knots of chatting guards who paid no attention to them. They walked as quietly as possible down the ornate hall until they reached a massive oak door. Betty opened it a crack and the two peeked in the room beyond.
Hilaria faced a small man with a gray mustache who sat in one of two huge gold thrones. He was dressed all in black, from his boots to his jet medallion. His hands covered his ears and he had an annoyed expression on his face. She was screeching unitellgible words at the top of her lungs. Sir Jeffrey was holding her back and telling her to cool off. The others watched in shock. The tunnel must lead into the throne room, Betty thought. Hilaria's confronting Abernathy with one of her spells.
"I don't know what you intend to do, Sorceress Hilaria, but I would suggest that you take your shouting elsewhere," ordered the man. "You're hurting my ears."
Hilaria stopped screaming and started trembiling. "My spell isn't working," she whispered in horror. "You haven't become a newt yet." Sir Jeffrey went to her side in concern.
"I'm immune to your child's play, Sorceress," snapped the warlock. "Witch Brumpton," he said to the woman who threatened Betty in the tower, "call my guards and tell them to remove this rabble. Sir Victor can be skinned and used as pillow stuffing. The Sorceress and her cavalier would make wonderful slaves for the King of Wtm, and the red-haired maid can be tossed in the dungeon with the rest of the degenerates."
"Hey," squawked Carabelle, "I'm not the one who's stealing the Kingdom of Wenn from King Thomas and Queen Gerta!"
Brumpton moved to round their soldiers up, but Hilaria turned her into a large, round black rock. Sir Victor grabbed at Abernathy's jet medallion with his beak and tallons. He scratched and clawed, but Abernathy merely flung him against the wall. Carabelle screamed and knelt by the wounded eagle, cradling him in her arms.
Abernathy faced a tall, flame-haired older woman and an aged, bespecticaled gentleman who must have been Wenn's monarachs. They were awake and were chained to each other and to the left wall. Queen Gerta was trying to open the handcuff with one of her long nails.
"I want you to march your black magic and your decapitated coffee right out of my castle. Or should you march the castle out of the coffee," King Thomas mused.
"What did you do to and with our son?" demanded Queen Gerta. "If you've harmed one hair on Scot's precious head..."
Betty sighed. This is absurd. Scot must have been thinking the same thing because he suddenly burst into the throne room, his face livid with anger. He raced in front of Abernathy and pointed his sword straight at him.
"I'll give you five minutes to go back to the Kingdom of Des Moines where you belong and tell the King of Wtm that he'll never get this country or I'll tear you limb from limb," Prince Scot growled.
"Scot, my boy, where the hell have you been?" questioned his father.
His mother sighed with relief. "Thank goodness you're all right!"
The Prince's sword, however, was flung aside as easily as Sir Victor's tallons had been. "I thought you were dreaming of the love of your life in the North Tower," Abernathy snarled.
"Well, Abernathy," said Scot, "my dream came true." He indicated Betty, who picked up his sword and joined him by his side. "You hid me in the North Tower to make sure that the curse on me was never lifted by anyone, much less my dream girl!"
Queen Gerta narrowed her eyes. "I understand now. With Scot in an eternal sleep and Tom and I out of the way, you would be free to sell the Kingdom of Wenn to the King of Wtn."
"That, er, lady," exclaimed King Thomas, pointing at the stone that had once been Witch Brumpton, "told me that she was making a special kind of coffee."
"Yeah," added his wife sarcastically, "A special kind of coffee...packaged in the Kingdom of Des Moines!"
"That's Des Mwon," corrected Abernathy.
Prince Scot, Sir Jeff, Foley, and Betty desperately attacked the wicked warlock. He kept pushing the men off of him, but Betty knew what to look for. The chain that held the medallion was very thin and brittle. It wouldn't take long to slice it and get Abernathy's pendant away from him. Betty was careful not to cut Abernathy's neck. She wanted to end his power, not his life. Hilaria used her own magic to free Wenn's rulers from their fetters.
The chain suddenly gave and the black medallion went flying. It smashed against the stone wall with a rebounding CRACK!, twice. Black dust and bits of jet landed on the floor. Abernathy let out a shriek of terror and leaped away from the group.
"Young lady, what have you done?" Abernathy wailed. He almost looked as if he were declining before their very eyes. His form was growing more and more shadowy. "You killed me! You broke all of my spells! I'm fading away to nothing! What a cruel world this is!"
"I...I didn't mean to kill you," stammered Betty, who was shocked at Abernathy's rapidly vaporizing form. "I've never hurt anyone before. I just didn't want you to use your magic to harm innocent people." He let out a moan before fading completely from view.
The bird in Carabelle's arms metamorphosed into a handsome, slender, elegant man. He hunkered in the corner alongside the beaming maid, who created a sling for left arm out of her apron. What hair he had on his head was light brown and his eyes were that of the eagle, piercing and yet sad and gentle. He wore trousers and slim gray chain mail. The two were locked in a rather passionate embrace for a sick woman and a man with an injured limb.
The queen was conversing with her husband on the bias...er, dais where the thrones stood. Scot shook his head in confusion. "How could Abernathy just disappear like that?" he asked Hilaria.
"We magic-users aren't much good without our magic. We wither and die if it's destroyed. It's what keeps us ticking," she explained. Sir Jeffrey playfuly elbowed her. "Well, it's part of what keeps us ticking," she added with a grin.
The queen and king ascended their thrones and turned to adress their subjects, their son, and Betty, who knew exactly what she wanted to request of them. Everyone bowed respectfuly.
King Thomas spoke first. "Gerta and I can't thank you all enough for saving our kingdom from that no-good Abernathy. We'd especially like to thank the young lady in the funny outfit."
Betty blushed for the second time that day. "It was nothing, your majesties," she whispered modestly.
Scot put his arms around Betty. "She's being too humble. If it wasn't for her, I'd still be snoring in the North Tower." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Dad, Mom, there's somewhere she must go. A place where she's badly needed by people who care about her." He had a hard time getting the last part to come out of his mouth.
"I was told that you might be able to get me home to Pittsburgh," Betty admitted.
Queen Gerta frowned. "Why don't you stay here, dear? You could live the castle as part of our royal counsel. We would give you anything you wanted. You could come to appreciate and admire our fair land."
Betty shook her head no. "Thank you, your majesty. Your offer is very sweet, and Wenn and its citizens are lovely, but I have friends at home who will worry if I don't get back soon. The place where I work needs me."
Hilaria laughed. "Why didn't you remind me sooner? Lady Pablum's bronze medallion should be able to return you to Pittsburgh in no time. It's not as powerful as mine, but it should suffice."
Betty gasped. "You mean I had the way home around my neck since we left Gingerside Manor, and I never knew it?"
"I told you that there was a charm connected to it," admitted Hilaria. "It only activates if one learns a very simple lesson. You've known it all along, dear. It's the one about finding your heart's desire in your own backyard."
Betty Roberts gazed around her, suddenly a bit reluctant to leave. She made many friends here. Hilaria and Sir Jeff, Queen Gerta and King Thomas, and Foley were all hugged in turn. She waved good-bye to Sir Victor and Carabelle, but they were far too lost in each other's eyes notice her. She turned at last to Prince Scot and threw her arms around him. The medallion glowed again. "I'm going to miss you most of all, Scot. You'll make some lucky princess a good husband and Wenn a good king."
Scot lifted her chin to his smiling face. "You'll always be a princess to me, Bettybettybetty." He kissed her softly on the lips. His kiss was extremly familiar to Betty. She almost asked him if he'd ever kissed her before. No, that was impossible. She hadn't met him before today, had she? "I would have married you if you'd changed your mind," he told her huskily. "I wish you would, but I heard you talking in the tower and I know that you're eager to get home to your Scott and Victor." Betty detected more than a hint of jealousy in his deep, gentle voice. "I feel as if I've known you for a long time. Months, maybe years. Strange, isn't it? I never believed in love at first sight until I saw you by my bed."
Hilaria tapped Betty on the shoulder. "All you need to do is hold the medallion and say these words over and over again -- 'There's no place like Pittsburgh.' Good luck, dear!"
Betty nodded and did as she was told. The last thing she saw before her world went black was the heartbroken expression on the dimpled face of Prince Scot.
"Bettybettybetty!"
"Is she ok?"
"She had too much of that decaffinated coffee."
"No, I think I had too much of that decaffinated coffee."
"Hilary, we are not discussing you here!"
Betty Roberts came to in the strong arms of a bleary-eyed Scott Sherwood. They were on the floor of Studio B, and the rest of the cast were gathered around them, looking worse for the wear. Jeff and Scott both donned their suit jackets again, and Hilary made some attempt to straighten her hair. Betty stared at the group as if she hadn't seen them in a long time.
"Where am I? Am I in Pittsburgh?" she wondered, dazed, as Scott helped her to her feet. The others exchanged looks that were mixtures of amusement and worry.
Hilary frowned. "Of course you are. Where else would you be?"
"I had the craziest dream," Betty explained. "And you, and you, and you," she pointed to Scott and Jeff and Hilary in turn, "and everyone at the station was there. Mr. Abernathy and Nurse Brumpton were there, too. I was in a strange world, and I kept telling everyone that I wanted to go home, but I had the way home on my person the entire time and I didn't know it."
Jeff narrowed his eyes in concern. "Are you certain that you're all right?"
"I'll be fine after a decent night's rest in a real bed," Betty assured him.
"You're in luck, Betty," squealed Eugenia. "Victor told us to take the entire day off. He said that he'd just play recordings of 'Amazon Andy' and 'Valiant Journey' until sign-off time."
Betty followed the others out of WENN. Scott insisted on walking her to the trolley, and she was too tired to argue with him. He put a hand on something around her neck as they walked out the door together.
"Hey," he said, fingering a bronze medallion on a stout chain, "I don't remember seeing this before. Where did you get it?"
Betty was too exausted to even be shocked. She just smiled. "It's a gift from a good friend, Scotty." She was never quite sure, but the medallion seemed to glow brightly as they left the station arm in arm.
The End
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