“I have to tell you I don’t understand this wish, Uncle Larry,” Chris said, as they sat watching the flames before them.  “And it’s taking so long.  How long does a wish take?”

Llywarch shrugged his shoulders.

Chris continued, “You say she did some kindness.  But she doesn’t know us.  And I don’t think she likes me!”

“I heard a bluebell.”

“Well, it doesn’t make sense!”

Llywarch said, “Our destinies are written in the stars.”

“You can read the stars?” Chris asked.

“No.  That’s the Italian wizards.  First there was Copernicus.  Now it’s some youngster named Galileo.  I meant it just as a saying.”

Rosa and Gretel came around from the other side of the bonfire and sat down.  “Larry,” Rosa asked, “tell us more about William.”

“He sounds interesting,” Gretel added.

They were close to Llywarch, for warmth against the mountain air.  Rosa drew her skirt in to keep it from touching Chris.  One of the benefits of Gretel’s wish to be “high and dry” was that all their clothing was laundered and pressed.

Chris sighed and flicked the stem of the flower he was picking at into the fire.

He doesn’t even appreciate flowers, Rosa thought.

Sometimes being a wizard is good, Llywarch thought, as he sniffed the scents of meadow flowers, mountain breezes, laundered clothing, and beautiful girls.

Captain Earl came looking for Chris.  The girls watched him with adoring eyes.  Gretel invited him to sit by her.

But he remained standing.  “By dead reckoning, I say we’re in the Pyrenees Mountains, somewhere between France and Spain.

“Dead reckoning?” Gretel asked, “Do you mean a dead person told you where we are?”

“No,” chuckled Chris.  “Dead reckoning is the way a sailor has for telling the position of a ship by using the night sky.  At sea there aren’t any landmarks, except the celestial ones.  In our case, the constellations around the North Star moved higher in the sky and a little to the left when we landed in this meadow.  I noticed that myself," he told Randolph.  “Plus, the moon moved westward by an hour.  So we know we traveled north and east.  The Pyrenees are the only mountains it could be.”

“It sounded better when Randolph said it,” Rosa informed him.  “And the captain didn’t laugh at us.”

Gretel nodded in agreement.

BANG!

The noise came from the other side of the fire, so they jumped up and run around to look.

The sailors had succeeded in forcing open the door to the cage and freeing the cook, after he promised not to cook, but leave it to Gretel.

But she wouldn’t cook that night.  It was too dark to forage.  And any spare food the sailors had had gone into Rosa’s stew.  As the fire died, they laid down in the meadow and tried to sleep.

Sailors learn to sleep whenever they get a chance.  Soon their snores could be heard all over the mountain, echoing against craggy peaks, and disappearing into deep canyons.  But Llywarch and Chevy were wide awake.

“It’s too noisy,” said Llywarch.

“Of course, it’s noisy,” answered Hombre, after they woke him.  “It is the snoring.  Pretend they’re pigs.  That’s what I do.”  He rolled back against Harley and returned to his slumber.

“It’s not the snoring,” Llywarch insisted.  “It’s something else.”

“Yes,” agreed Chevy, “a ringing sound.

“That’s right!”  Llywarch turned and pulled his hat over his ears.

“Ouch!” yelled the seaman next to him.  “I’ve been stabbed.”

“Sorry,” said Llywarch.  “I guess it is my toenails.  I don’t like to clip them; it hurts when I do!”  He rolled the other way.

“Blimey!  Those are secret weapons,” said the sailor, on the other side.

“Hear!  Hear!  We’re trying to sleep.  Keep it quiet over there,” came calls from all over the meadow.

“Oww!” said a third seaman, as Llywarch tried to move down and out of the way.  That sailor sat up holding his neck.  “What are you, a bloody vampire?”

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” the wizard told him.  “That’s a folk tale.”

“We are going to have to clip that blighter’s toenails, if we are going to get any sleep,” came a voice from out of the night.  And to a man, the sailors rushed him.

There was a brief struggle in the dark.  “Ouch!  I’ve got him,” yelled one sailor.

“That’s me dagger, you idiot,” came the reply.

“I’ve got his hands.  Grab his feet.”

“Blimey!  I think we’ve cut one of them clean off.”

“That’s me peg leg, fool.  Let go!”

They trimmed Llywarch’s toes in the dark with a dirk, while he continued to struggle.

“Ouch!  Oh!  Hee!  Hee!  That tickles!  Please stop!  I can’t take it!”

But at last they were done.  And they all lay back exhausted.

“I miss the ship,” said one sailor.

“Me too,” answered another.  “I can’t make this meadow quit moving up and down.  I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I wish me and all me mates were back on the ship,” said the sailor with the dirk.

WHOOSH!

There was a flash of lightning, a cloud of smoke, and the roar of thunder.  And Llywarch and the sailors disappeared from the meadow, leaving Rosa, Chevy, Hombre, Hansel, Gretel, Randolph, and Chris behind.

“I guess we aren’t considered mates,” said Chris, in a hurt tone.

“That’s the burden of authority,” replied Randolph.  “No matter how long you sail with a crew, you’re never one of their mates.”

With Llywarch gone, Rosa and Gretel couldn’t understand what he was saying, but each patted his hand, and looked sympathetic.

It was daybreak before Llywarch returned.  He was wet, mad, and talking like a sailor.

“Blimey, those blithering idiots.  It was a good thing the sloop was floating upside down on the surface or those sailors would be in Davy Jones’s locker.  Doesn’t anybody know how to make a proper wish?”  He glared at Rosa.

“Er…Your feet look nice.”  Rosa said.

Wide-eyed, Gretel nodded in agreement.

“You didn’t leave those men clinging to the hull, did you?” Chris asked.

“No!  No!  I waited until they were picked up by a Dutch merchant ship headed for the Far East.  They were excited to make the voyage and they wished you success on your adventure.  But,” he stopped and glared at everyone in the meadow, “no one had earned that wish!”

“How did they explain you to the ship,” asked Hansel, “when you didn’t climb on board?”

Llywarch grew purple in the face, his fists clenched, his eyes flashed, and his beard twitched.  He replied, “They said I was a mermaid.”

Everyone laughed.

“Mermaid indeed!”  Llywarch looked around the meadow full of blue flowers.  “That’s what kept me awake all night.  We were sleeping in a patch of bluebells.”

Randolph looked puzzled.

“Uncle Larry can hear bluebells.”

“I hear them, too,” insisted Chevy.

 “I’ve got a surprise for you,” Gretel said.  “I got up early and collected these.”

She spread out her apron, which was folded over, and revealed it was filled with blackberries and lined with leaves to keep it from staining.  “It’s not much, but these should take the edge off our hunger.”

To quench their thirst, they drank cold water from the stream that ran through the meadow.

“Pure water that’s light blue like this comes from the glaciers high in the mountains,” Hansel informed them.  “The Danube River that flows past my princedom is blue also, but much darker.”  He sighed and Gretel knew he was homesick.

Randolph and Chris walked away, to talk in private.  When they passed Llywarch’s fifty feet range, they stopped.  Away from his translating influence, they wouldn’t be understood.

Meanwhile, Chevy used some of his blackberries to paint racing stripes on his oxcart, while Rosa and Gretel had saved a few of theirs to stain Llywarch’s trimmed nails.  “Now that’s a proper pedicure,” Rosa told him, as he stared at the purple tips.

“They match your robe,” Gretel added.

Llywarch realized how happy he was that lifetime wishes only came once.  He was putting his sandals on when Randolph and Chris returned.

“We’ve been talking,” Randolph said.  “And the thing is this.  We’ve to get this report about the Spanish fleet to England as fast as possible.  Otherwise, England will be taken by surprise.  We think the fastest way is to head straight north.”

“You can’t go north,” said Hansel.  “It’s blocked by glacier covered mountains.  We couldn’t cross them alive.  We don’t have the proper equipment and we’re not dressed for it.  We’d freeze to death.”

“There’re giants up there also, “ Llywarch informed them.

“Giants!  Did you put them there?” Chris asked.

“No,” said Llywarch.  “I’m not that old.  It was in the time of Charlemagne, King of the Franks.  It happened almost a thousand years ago.  After he defeated the giants, they fled to the Pyrenees.  My grandfather - that would be your great-grandfather - helped.  We have a little French blood in us,” he admitted.

“I don’t believe my wish had anything to do with giants,” Rosa insisted.  “Are they dangerous?”

Gretel clung to her brother, but Randolph looked like he wanted to be the one to comfort her.

“They’re cousins of the giant that ran afoul of Jack.  And they’re just as mean.”

“I’ve an idea,” said Hansel.  “My country’s due east of here.  I think it would be easier to journey through the south of France and into the Black Forest, than to climb glaciers and risk giants.  From there, you can take the Rhine River right to the North Sea.  The Dutch are friends and it should be easy get passage to England.”

“That’s sound reasoning,” Chris admitted.

“I guess so,” said Randolph.  He liked going straight at a problem and wasn’t afraid of glaciers or giants.

“Rosa and I…and Chevy…are Spanish.  Are you asking us fight against our own country?” asked Hombre.

“I don’t want to fight Spain,” Randolph insisted.  “All I’m trying to do is keep England from being invaded.  Can you help with that, can’t you?  I wish our counties would live in peace.  Yes!  Yes!  I know, Larry.  I haven’t earned a wish.”

“We all want peace,” agreed Hansel.

“I’m mostly Welsh,” Llywarch informed them, for no apparent reason.

Rosa, Hombre, and Chevy went away to talk it over.  When they returned, Hombre spoke, “We’ll help you get to England.  But that’s all.  And Rosa wants to be sure no harm comes to her father.”

“Now how am I supposed to do that?” Randolph complained.

But Chris, seeing the distressed look on Rosa’s face, interrupted.  “Agreed, Rosa,” he said.  “Somehow we will see to your father’s safety.”

Rosa favored Chris with what was for him a rare smile.  He was shocked to feel his heart flip-flop.  Hiding his confusion he turned, “Uncle Larry, can you open your bag and tell us what you see?”

Llywarch pulled the bag from his robe, and tipped it over in his hand.  A stream of seawater flowed out followed by some soggy sunflower seeds.

One fell to the ground.  Hombre picked it up, and tasted it.  “Say, these are good salted.”

Llywarch squinted at the seeds in his hand.  “They look wet.  I think that means it’s going to rain.”

Everyone looked up at the sky, which was clear blue, without a cloud in sight.

“Should we take shelter over there?” asked Gretel.  She pointed to a grove of pine trees near the edge of the meadow.

“Are you sure it’s going to rain, or is it just that the seeds are wet?” Randolph asked.

Llywarch dropped the seeds back in the bag and huffed.  “If you don’t want to know, then don’t ask.  Have I led you wrong, yet?”

Everyone found somewhere else to look.

“Humph!”

“Let’s risk it,” suggested Chris, after a moment of awkwardness.

So they started up a narrow trail with Randolph and Chris in the lead.  They were followed by Hansel, then the oxcart carrying Rosa, Gretel, and Llywarch, with Hombre riding Harley bringing up the rear.

Just as the meadow and the sheltering pines receded from view, a storm hit.  First there was lightning and thunder.  Then a torrent of rain began to fall.

“Let’s risk it,” Rosa mimicked Chris, as the rain drenched her hair and washed all the freshness out of her clothing.  She decided this was his fault.

“Oh dear,” said Gretel.

Even though it was daytime, it grew gloomy, except for brief lightning flashes.  Puddles began forming in the path, and the cart hit every one of them.  Everyone was soaked to the skin, and Rosa was sure she would break her teeth every time a jolt knocked them together.

One particular flash lit up the side of the mountain revealing a large crack just as the cart was passing it.  Looking inside, Hombre saw that it was a dry ravine with walls so high and narrow that the rain did not penetrate.

He called ahead, “Wait up!  I think I’ve found shelter.”

Randolph, Chris, and Hansel squeezed past the others, and came back to see.

“Can the oxcart fit in here?” Hansel asked.

Randolph and Chris looked at the opening with their seamen’s eyes and said, “It’s tight.  But yes, it’ll fit.”

It was like entering a strange new world.  The ravine was dim, yet light enough to reveal mossy granite walls rising hundreds of feet in the air.  At times, they were so close that the oxcart scraped its sides.  Randolph, who was the tallest, could reach out and touch both walls at once - when he spread his arms wide - which he enjoyed doing.

The storm could be seen and heard raging outside.  But within it was quiet, eerily so.  Another odd thing about the ravine was a line of tree stumps cut so low to the ground that they didn’t trouble the axle of the cart, when it rolled over them.  As they traveled farther, they heard chopping up ahead.

“Stay here, while I investigate,” said Chris, pulling out his cutlass.

In a few minutes he was back.  “There’s no danger.”  He put his weapon back in his belt.  “Come and see,” he said.  He turned and led them forward.

It was a little old woman.  In front of her was a row pine trees.  And she was holding an axe twice as big as she was.  On her feet were enormous hip boots.  Her skirt was tucked into them.  Behind her was a pile of fallen trees, tied with cord.

She took a swing at the tree in front of her, but the axe was so heavy that it hit the ground before it skipped forward to take a bite out of the trunk.  The chip bounced against a wall and settled before them.

They all gaped, except Hombre, who stepped forward and took the axe from the old woman.  “Dear Mother,” he called her in respect.  “You rest, while I finish this.”

Hombre took a mighty swing and felled the tree with a single blow.  He trimmed it in a few stokes and placed it on the pile behind him.  Then he went on to the next tree.

In a very short time, he downed every tree in the ravine.  After he added them to the pile and tied them with the cord, he asked the woman, “Where are you taking these?  Let me carry them for you.”

“No,” she replied, “Thank you for your kindness.  But I’ve the means to carry these that will make them easy on my back.  You can’t come with me.  I work for the giants of the North and they would be angry if I brought strangers home with me.  ‘Fe!  Fi!  Fo! Fum!’ they’d holler.  Then they’d rant and rave about some bloody Englishman.”

“But I’m Spanish,” said Hombre, “Besides I’m not afraid of giants.  When you’re a dwarf, you learn that being big is about heart, not height.”

“Yes!  And I can tell you’re big in here.”  She tapped him on his chest.  “Help me put this bundle on my back.  And I’ll tell you and your friends,” she pointed to the others, “how to get out of the mountains.”

Hombre did as she asked, handing her the axe to use as a staff.

The old woman was hidden under the wood, but her voice was clear.  “Find the water that does not lie.  It will show you the way.”

With that she thrust the handle of the axe out in front of her and took a single step and vanished, leaving behind a few falling twigs to reassure them that she’d been there.

“What did she mean?” they asked Hombre.

“I’m not sure,” he said.  “But when we find this water, I’m sure it’ll help.  She seemed like a nice person.”