“They’re called the Odd Sisters, sir!” said Smee, making James laugh. Smee tottered off to get his suit ready.

“Now, where to find a cake?” said James, looking at the map Blackbeard had given him, and wondering what the rest of this day would bring.

Chapter VIII

It had been a long journey by horse-drawn carriage from Morningstar Kingdom to the Dead Woods, which the Odd Sisters called home, but as luck would have it James found a small bakery along the way, with the silliest of names. Tiddlebottom’s and Butterpants’s Bakery sat on the outskirts of a lovely little kingdom, surrounded by golden flowers that glowed in the dusky twilight. The names Tiddlebottom and Butterpants rang a bell in his memory, but he couldn’t then recall why; he was exhausted from his journey by sea, and now by carriage, and he was feeling a bit punchy, and all he could do was laugh at the names and the series of events that had befallen him since he’d dived into the ocean after his friend.

In the near distance, he spied a lonely and crumbling tower that grew out of the forest. As they passed through the kingdom, he remembered the stories Skylights had told him, that it used to be home—or prison, really—to the woman who was now queen of this hamlet when she was a young girl. Skylights told him the strangest stories about the many kings and queens of the various kingdoms in this land. This one, it seems, had magical hair, and she was held captive in that tower by a witch who wished to use the young girl’s hair to bring her sisters back to life. Sisters by the name of Primrose and Hazel. The way Skylights had described the events it was all rather macabre, the idea of wrapping a little girl’s hair around the dead bodies of her sisters, in hopes of raising them from the dead. As James traveled the length of the Many Kingdoms, the stories Skylights told him rang in his ears—evil curses, haunted mirrors, beauties who fell in love with beasts, trees that could walk and talk, and now, witches who dealt in necromancy, and not just witches but generations of them who ruled over the very place he was about to visit. But in that moment it was his task to procure for his hosts a cake, and it seemed the bakery with the laughable name was closed, and he didn’t know what he would do.

James could see through the window that this was no ordinary bakery; it had the most divine cakes he had ever seen, cases and cases of them in all manner of design and flavors. He hardly knew what he would choose. What sort of cake do identical witch sisters like? But it seemed he would be showing up empty-handed.