Chapter Text
Once upon a time, in a far-off kingdom, there lived a young maiden. Her name was Daphne Blake. Her mother had died years earlier, and her father had taken for his new wife a woman with four daughters of her own. Nan, her stepmother, had always hated Daphne, and Daisy, Dorothy, Dawn, and Delilah were always favored over their younger stepsister. Daphne was forced to spend her days cooking, cleaning, mending garments, and doing other chores for her stepmother and stepsisters. Still, Daphne kept her hopes high. When she heard the king was throwing a festival in honor of his eldest son, Prince Baylor, she wished for nothing more than to attend. It had been years since she’d been to a proper party, and she wanted to dance the night away. Alas, when she told her stepmother and stepsisters she wished to go with them, they laughed at her. As Daphne cleaned the kitchen floor the morning the festival was to begin, her stepmother approached her.
“I have a surprise for you!” Nan said, “I have emptied a pot of lentils into the ashes of the fireplace, and if you have picked them out in two hours time, you shall go to the ball with us!”
Daphne excitedly rushed to the fireplace. She sang to get the attention of the birds she’d become friends with following her mother’s death. With their help, she’d have no problem collecting the lentils, and she'd be able to go to the festival!
Meanwhile, across the kingdom, another young lady wasn’t so hopeful. Velma Dinkley had wished for nothing more for her entire life than to be the royal archivist. Centuries ago, King Oswald had built a massive royal library, known as the Burlington Library, on the palace grounds. The royal archivist got to spend their days reading, learning, and recording events as they happened. They even got to live in special quarters within the library! Alas, the royal family had always required the archivist to be a man. Velma wasn’t good enough at disguising herself as a man to trick the king into making her the archivist, but she’d discovered that in a suit of armor, nobody could tell she was a woman. So she pretended to be a man and went through knight training, knowing that knights were sometimes permitted to enter the royal library when they weren’t working. It wasn’t what she wished, but she supposed it was close enough. She put on her helmet and prepared for her first official day of knightly duties- riding around the king’s festival.
Not too far from the palace, just outside the woods, there was a cottage where a boy named Fred lived with his father and their cow, Nova. Fred’s mother had left when he was a baby. Fred was trying his best to milk Nova, but she’d been dry for a week. He heard a crash from outside the door. He opened it to find his father hanging upside down. “Hey, my trap worked!”
“Yodeling yogurt eaters, Fred! Get me out of this thing!” Fred’s father said, “You know how I feel about all your ridiculous traps! You’re old enough now that you need to start taking life more seriously!”
Fred got his father down. Fred Sr. entered the cottage and groaned. “Whittling cat whisperers! What in heaven's name are you doing with a cow inside the house?!”
“A warm environment might be just what Nova needs to produce his milk!”
“It’s a she, Fred! How many times do I have to tell you only shes can give milk?!”
“Right. Sorry, Dad,” Fred said.
Fred Sr. sighs. “Look, Fred, I’ve been trying to avoid this, but we have no choice. I need you to take Nova to market today.”
“Dad, no! He’s the best cow!” Fred protests.
“Was! She’s been dry for a week! If we don’t sell her while she can still command a price, we’ll starve!”
“But Nova’s my best friend!”
“Wandering wildebeasts, Fred! No one keeps a cow for a friend!”
In contrast to seemingly everyone else in the kingdom, Shaggy Rogers had nothing to wish for. His Grammy had made him a green cloak to protect him from all of the terrifying creatures that lurked in the nearby forest, so he had nothing to fear. He got to spend all day, every day with his best friend and pet, a talking dog named Scooby Doo. Best of all, the boy and his dog were lucky enough to live right down the road from the best bakery in the kingdom, so they were always a short walk away from fresh sweets.
Shaggy tied Scooby to the post outside the bakery and ran inside, where Ricky, the baker, and Cassidy, his wife, greeted him.
“Good morning, Shaggy! Would you and Scooby like your usual?” Cassidy asked cheerfully.
“Oh, boy, would we! But, like, not today. It’s not for me and Scoob today. It’s for my Grammy in the woods. She’s been, like, sick, so I’ll, like, just have a loaf of bread, please.”
Cassidy wrapped the loaf of bread in paper and handed it to the boy. He licked his lips. “And, like, maybe a sticky bun… or four. Ooh! And a few of those pies,” he said, prompting an eyeroll from the baker. Shaggy continued to look around the bakery. “And, like, a pretzel. Please. And some cookies, a cake…” Shaggy looked at the pile on the counter and grinned sheepishly at the baker and his wife. “I, like, sort of hate to ask, but do you have a basket?” Ricky groaned, and Cassidy got the boy a basket. Shaggy stuffed a cookie in his mouth and looked up at the clock on the wall. “Like, zoinks! I really have to go! Grammy will be expecting me soon! Scoob and I better leave!”
“Are you certain of your way?” Cassidy asked, knowing the woods could be dangerous.
Shaggy laughed. “Like, of course I am! The path is straight!”
“Okay, as long as you’re safe,” Cassidy said, “You need to be careful and stay on the path. Remember, there are gator people in the woods.”
“Like, don’t worry about me! My Grammy said this cape she made me will protect me from anything!” Shaggy assured her.
“Now, don’t stray and be late!” Ricky said.
“Yes, and save some of those treats for Grammy!” Cassidy added.
Shaggy waved goodbye to them, shoving a muffin into his mouth. After he left, Ricky scoffed. “We spend hours baking every morning from before sunup, and he always nearly cleans us out in a matter of minutes.”
Having lost his mother and father in a “baking accident” when he was very young (at least, that’s what he believed), Ricky Owens was eager to have a family of his own, but all efforts to achieve this had failed. It had been hard on both him and Cassidy, as they both desperately wanted a baby. The more time passed without them successfully conceiving a child, the more bitter and cynical Ricky became.
Daphne finished picking the lentils out of the fire with plenty of time to spare. She sent her bird friends away and called in her stepmother. “I got all the lentils back into the pot like you asked!” she said, “Now can I go to the festival?”
Nan laughs. “The festival?! Look at your shoes! Look at your clothes! Look at your hair! You’re filthy and ragged! You’d make us the fools of the festival and mortify the prince!”
“Now, Fred,” Fred Sr. said, “Take Nova through the woods to the market and fetch no less than five pounds.” Fred Sr. noticed that his son was tinkering with one of his traps. “Fred, are you listening to me?”
“What?” Fred said, “Oh, right! Totally!”
“How much are you supposed to get for Nova?”
“No more than five pounds!”
“Less! No less than five!”
“Right! No less than five!”
Fred Sr. started to shoo his son out the door. “Now go!”
Ricky and Cassidy suddenly heard a noise outside the door to the bakery. “Who could that be?” Ricky asked.
“We’ve sold our last loaf of bread,” Cassidy pointed out. Cassidy peeked out the window and gasped. “It’s that nutso parrot from next door!”
When Ricky was a young child and his family first moved to the cottage he and Cassidy now resided in, there was already a warlock living next door. In the beginning, he had been kind. He had a fondness for Ricky, always letting him play in his garden. However, one day, out of the blue, Ricky’s father told him that he had turned himself into a parrot, and Ricky was never to go over there again.
The parrot entered. “We have no bread,” Cassidy said, shakily.
“Natürlich nicht! It’s four in the afternoon!” the bird replied matter-of-factly, “I’m not here for bread.”
“Then what do you wish?” Ricky asked.
“It’s not about what I wish,” Professor Pericles said, “It’s about what you wish.” He perched on a chair and gestured towards Cassidy. “Nothing cooking in there, now is there?”
Ricky inhaled sharply, and Cassidy grabbed his hand nervously. “How could you possibly know that?!” Ricky snapped.
“Because, my dear, sweet Ricky… I placed a spell on your house,” Pericles replied.
“What?”
“When you were a child, your father brought your mother and you to this cottage. You were a beautiful family, but terrible neighbors. I tried to overlook it because you were such a sweet, wonderful boy, but I could only put up with so much. You see, your mother was with child, and she had developed some unusual cravings. She took one look at my beautiful garden and decided that all she wanted more than anything in the world was Gemüse- parsley, peppers, arugula, carrots, rampion… all of it. But instead of asking me if she could have any vegetables I could spare, one autumn night, your father broke into my garden and stole from me! He was robbing me and completely tearing apart my poor plants! I should’ve cursed him then and there… turned him into a dog, or a chair, or worse… but I had plenty of vegetables to spare. However, I did ask for one small thing in return. You see, you were such a wonderful child. Always a delight to have around. I figured any sibling of yours would be the same, so I asked for the baby,” Pericles said, “and we called it square.”
“I had a brother?” Ricky asked.
“No, but you have a sister,” Pericles replied. But the parrot refused to tell him any more of this sister, including that her name was Marcie. “I thought that I had been more than reasonable and that we all might walk away happy,” the bird continued, “But I didn’t realize your father had also taken my Bohnen.”
“Your what?” Cassidy asked.
“When I first inherited the garden, my Mutter had warned I’d be punished if I ever were to lose any of her special Bohnen- her beans. The second your father was back over the fence, I heard a bang and a crash, and next thing I knew… well, that’s another story. Anyway, when your sister was finally born, I took her away, against your parents' protests. Your mother died, and your father ran off, but I still wasn’t satisfied. So I decided to lay a little spell on them… and you.”
“What spell?” Ricky asked.
“Just an itty bitty little curse to make sure your family tree would always be… a barren one.”
Cassidy held back tears. “So we can never have a child?”
“Not unless I lift the curse. Luckily for you, I happen to need a certain potion for my own purposes, and I need help obtaining the ingredients. If you can bring me back a cow as white as milk, a cape as green as jade, hair as brown as dog, and a slipper as brilliant as amethyst by midnight in three days time, I will lift the curse and you shall have a child as perfect as child can be.”
“Hair as brown as dog?” Cassidy asked, “What does that even mean? Dogs come in all kinds of colors.”
“My hair is brown,” Ricky pointed out, “Will mine work for the potion?”
“No, you Dummkopf! I touched your hair when you were a child! I can’t have touched the ingredients! That’s why I need you to get them! Now go! You’re wasting time with all of this multicolored dog nonsense!” With that, the bird flew from the bakery back to his house.
“I’m still not sure how we’re going to figure out whether or not hair counts as ‘as brown as dog’,” Cassidy said.
“We? No, you are not coming. The spell is on my house, so I will lift the spell alone. End of story.”
“The spell is on our house, and you are terrified of the woods at night. I’m coming with you, end of story.”
Ricky and Cassidy continued to argue as they prepared to venture into the forest. Ricky found six beans in his father’s old jacket, and Cassidy pointed out that they probably belonged to Professor Pericles. “We should take them with us!”
“Cassidy, I already told you you’re not coming!”
Daphne was stuck doing her sisters’ hair and mending their gowns for a party she wasn’t able to attend. As their carriage left, Daphne got an idea. She ran to the forest to visit her mother’s grave. After her mother had died, Daphne planted a branch at her mother’s grave, and her tears had watered it so much it had grown into a mighty tree with magical powers. She told the tree her wish, and the tree gave her a beautiful purple ball gown and amethyst slippers to match. Overjoyed by the tree’s gift, Daphne hurried to the ball.