A Well-Timed Enchantment Read Online Free PDF

continued on the path the elves had indicated. Now that she looked, she could see a tower over the trees.
    She hesitated, and he said, "It's the only castle within several days' journey. Most people keep clear of the woods here. Said to be enchanted, don't you know?"
    "Really?" she asked weakly.
    "So why don't you and..." He looked at Oliver.
    "This is Oliver." Because she'd had such bad luck introducing him as her friend, she decided that young ladies of this time must not wander around unchaperoned in the company of young male friends. She added: "My squire."
    "Squire!" Sir Henri sputtered.
    Even Oliver gave her a startled look.
    But the old man got distracted by the knights' duel. "Good!" he bellowed. "Ransom, did you get that?" He turned back to Deanna. "Well, but you're Breton. I was forgetting."
    "No—" Deanna started.
    "So you just run ahead and introduce yourselves to my sister, Lady Marguerite. We'll be along shortly. Did you see that parry? Did everyone see that parry?"
    Deanna whirled around and started walking.
    In an instant Oliver had caught up. She waited for him to say "I told you so," but he said nothing. Almost to the castle, she finally couldn't take it anymore. "Well?" she demanded. "Go ahead, say it."
    But what he said was "Why squire?"
    It took her a moment to recover. "Why not squire?"
    "Because squires attend knights, not ladies."
    "I didn't know that," Deanna admitted.
    "But that's what the word means."
    Wonderful. She needed help to go on existing, and the fair folk gave her a walking dictionary. Deanna stopped and turned on him. They stood nose-to-nose because he was a small youth, as he had been a small cat. Which meant he wasn't as perfect as he thought. "I didn't know that," she repeated. "Who attends ladies?"
    "Pages," he suggested.
    "Thank you." She turned around and resumed walking. "Stop laughing at me," she said.
    "I'm not laughing."
    She looked at him and realized she couldn't be sure, one way or the other.

FIVE
Castle Belesse
    The castle was not what Deanna had anticipated. She had assumed something along the lines of Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland, where she had gone with her parents last summer, but Sir Henri's family home was small as castles go and built of rough gray stone. No graceful spires and arches, only one stocky tower with a narrow little window high up off the ground. There was a moat, but it certainly wasn't deep enough for a moat monster, which was a major disappointment for her. She seemed to have been directed here. Was this where her watch had landed when she'd dropped it through the magic well? Or would she find someone here more helpful than Oliver—a champion who would rescue her and save the world as she knew it?
    As soon as Deanna and Oliver crossed the drawbridge, they had to make room for a dusty man who appeared to be taking a group of pigs for a stroll around the unpaved courtyard.
    "Keep up, Squeakers. Mind yer business, Patch. Keep clear of the lady, all." He doffed his gray woolen cap, and Deanna curtsied, which may or may not have been the appropriate response to a pigman, and held her breath until they had passed, which certainly was appropriate.
    "Nice place, huh?" she said, brushing dust off her gown.
    "Hard to say." Oliver glanced around. "Looks like they might have mice."
    Deanna wasn't sure what to make of that. But by then another man had come around the corner. He had a shaven head, dark bushy eyebrows, and a velvet gown of midnight blue, sprinkled with embroidered gold stars. He carried a staff with a fist-sized crystal ball. "Looks like your traditional wizard," she muttered to Oliver.
    "The one with the frog?" he asked.
    It took her a moment to remember. "Would you forget the frog?"
    "You're the one—"
    "Shh."
    The man, headed for the entrance to the castle proper, had seen them. He did a double take, staring at Deanna. This was not, she sensed, someone who would put her mistakes in language down to being Breton.
    "Greetings," he said,