Wisdom's Kiss (100 page)

"Just be careful," Dizzy warns Trudy and Tips about the Wizard Tower, "it's not human." Like the mountain
Ancienne
, the Wizard Tower has its own intelligence and
mysteries
. Below is Ben's description of her first encounter with the wizard room, from her memoir
Princess Ben.

Mounting the last steps, I could now make out a tiny chamber, as neatly designed as a cut gem, tucked beneath the conical roof of the tower. Strong moonlight poured through four diminutive dormer windows, as though the round panes of glass had magnified the faint beams tenfold. Just as a lighthouse via mirrors and lenses transforms the flame of a single candle into a powerful beam, so, too, apparently, did these windows work with moonlight: a lighthouse turned in upon itself.

In this enchanted light I perceived a space such as I had never known. Odd cabinets with peculiar locks lined the walls. A cobwebbed mirror hung above a workbench blanketed in a jumble of unidentifiable objects. A lectern displaying an open book, an unlit candelabra to one side, stood in the
room's center. Every item — I cannot emphasize this strongly enough
—was shrouded in dust more than a finger width deep, accented by bird
droppings powdery with age; bird nests crumbled in the turret's peak. Mice had left an otherworldly maze of trails on the floor, which was so thick with dust that it felt as soft as carpet.

Excerpted from pages 55–57 of
Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company © 2008. Reprinted with permission.

Chateau de Montagne's
Solstice Terrace

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Front and Center

Catherine Murdock grew up on a small farm in Connecticut, where she wisely avoided all sports involving hand-eye coordination. She now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband, two brilliant unicycling children, several cats, and a one-acre yard that she is slowly transforming into a wee but flourishing ecosystem.

To learn more about the author and her work, visit her
www.catherinemurdock.com
>website