“I’d say so,” he said. “Why do you ask? Is there something I should know about the Odd Sisters and their creature?”

Mrs. Tiddlebottom smiled.

“There are a great many things you need to know about the Odd Sisters and their minions; however we don’t have time to discuss them now. Might I suggest our largest six-layer cake, sir? The sisters’ love of cakes is legendary. Though I didn’t know they were now in the position to order them, let alone eat them.” James had the feeling this woman had a long history with the Odd Sisters, and there was some aspect about them requesting a cake that bothered her deeply. And then he realized why her name seemed so familiar to him when he first saw it on the bakery window. This young woman must have been the granddaughter of Mrs. Tiddlebottom, the renowned baker who was once nanny to the queen in this kingdom. The very woman who was terrorized by the Old Witch—with the help of the Odd Sisters—who was desperately trying to bring her sisters, Primrose and Hazel, back to life with the princess’s magical hair, the poor girl they had locked away in a tower, the princess who had grown up to be queen of these lands.

“I don’t wish to be impertinent, dear woman, but may I ask if you’re related to the queen’s nanny? You share the same name, and it doesn’t seem like a common one to me.”

Mrs. Tiddlebottom gave him a curious look. “So you’ve been reading the Book of Fairy Tales? I imagine the ladies of the Dead Woods are very keen to have it back. I suppose that is why you are here. And to answer your question, I am the very same Mrs. Tiddlebottom you recall from that terrifying and tangled story. But that is all I will say on the subject with a stranger. To be sure I will be making a visit to the ladies of the Dead Woods to see how it is that the Odd Sisters are in a position to order cakes, let alone eat them.”

James found this woman very puzzling. She was clearly much younger than the woman in the story Skylights had told him. He wondered if everyone in the Many Kingdoms was so. “You seem much too young to be the same woman,” he said, not able to help himself.