Razzmorten drew back the tall heavy curtain and tied it before stepping off the stool with a bound. Hubba Hubba winced at the sudden light. Razzmorten drug the screeching stool across the stone floor to the far side of the window before lunging onto it with one leg to grab for the other drape and tie it back. Hubba Hubba ruffled and shook off some of his stupor to glare resentfully at Razzmorten’s cheery endeavors. He vastly preferred his wonderful dream about Pebbles to this blinding sunlight. “Thank you, old fart,” he thought, settling his beak into his breast feathers with a shake of his head.
“What a beautiful day,” declared Razzmorten as he peered out the window and took a deep breath.
“Yea. It will be when you close the drapes again,” thought Hubba Hubba, as he wiggled his beak further into his breast feathers to close his eyes.
“What would you like for breakfast, fruit or vegetables?” said Razmorten. “Maybe some whole grain porridge?”
“I’m not hungry,” rattled Hubba Hubba from beneath his ruffled crown feathers.
“I see. Are you not feeling well? Perhaps if you tell me just how it is that you feel poorly, I could mix up something for you.”
By this time all the sparrows had come closer to listen. Hubba Hubba shook his feathers, flinging dander into the sunlight. Suddenly he sleeked down, pointing himself at them. “Now there are six nosey pests, rather than three. Do I need this? Well, I’ll tell ye: no, I do not. And if you want to know what I do want, I’d just like to be left alone for a change. Peace and quiet. Is that too much? Go build your nests. Beat it!”
“Wrong side of his perch this morning, wouldn’t you say?” said Razzmorten, sharing wide eyes with the sparrows. “I doubt that he’ll be very proud of his outburst after he’s had two shakes to consider things. Let’s just leave him to himself for a bit.” The sparrows flitted back to what they had been doing at their nests, while Razzmorten went to his bedroom to read, leaving Hubba Hubba to mumble by himself.
“Lot o’ ‘preciation he has,” he rattled from the very most guttural reaches of his crop. “Here I make my sacrifices, bringing messages about his grandchildren. And respect. I mean, what kind of respect is it to blind me with light and sadistic cheer, and six bouncy
goody-goody little slaves to rub it in? Six instead of three. I’m not getting twice as much
respect and service, here.” With a huff and an especially thorough shake of feathers, he
turned his back on the brilliant morning and closed his eyes in search of his dream about
Pebbles.
“This isn’t working,” he thought. “Why don’t those bean brained sparrows shut up? ‘Tweety, tweety, tweet…!’ Great boundless Joy! The local twitterpates are jabbering all over outside. This is not working.” He turned back to point himself at the window. “I’ll go tell them!” He paused, straightening up to shuffle from side to side. “Whoa! Too far to the sill.” But now he was making lunging thrusts at the window at each end of his perch, and he was starting to flap his wings. Now he was flapping furiously. At the fleeting thought of Razzmorten’s suggestion of exercise, he let go. Before he could quite appreciate that he was truly aloft, his feet were planting themselves upon the warm stone window sill. He’d made it, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. He forgot all about sleep. He looked to see if the sparrows had seen. They had. Six heads, each gawking broadside, had stopped in astonishment to take in his unexpected feat. They ducked out of sight into their nests at once.
“Hey! You ones!” he called out. “It’s all right! I’m not upset. In fact, I’m sorry about the things I said earlier. Really. Aw come on! Can’t a fellow have a bad mood once in a while?”
Head by head they reappeared in shocked wonder. “That’s the first time that you’ve ever apologized for your nasty tongue,” chirped Tweet.
“Yea? Maybe so. Think there’s some hope for me after all?”
“May be,” tweeted Squeak, “but you still have a huge way to go.”
“Maybe you’re right, but old habits die hard, don’t you know. Give me some slack. I’m working on it.”
“Hey, the master’s developing humility,” squeaked Chirp. “And by the way, nice flight.”
Hubba Hubba made an aloof about-face hop on the window sill, but he was beaming at the compliment. He fluffed up and preened here and there and then gave himself a thorough 
shake. When he smoothed down his plumage, he discovered that his black feathers had already gotten quite warm in the sun. He basked, letting his mind wander to pleasant images of Pebbles. After a good long spell in the mesmerizing warmth, he even fancied he saw her in a nearby apple tree. It was almost as though he heard her say: “I love you. C’mere.” It was so real that he found himself out the window, winging towards the apple tree. “My!” he said, coming to his wits. “I guess there’s nothing for it but to see if I can actually make it to that tree.” It was nearly a furlong away, but it was a downhill glide from Razzmorten’s tower, and he dutifully flapped his wings the whole distance. The next thing he knew, he was landing on a broad limb right beside the very love of his life. This was no daydream at all.
Pebbles however, was not charmed by his arrival. She fluffed up as huge as possible and shrank her pupils to pinholes, making her eyes fiery red. “Bad boy! Bad boy!” she called out, madly wheeling and strutting back and forth. “Minuet! Minuet! Please get rid of this bad boy!”
“Hubba Hubba!” cried Minuet, as she looked up from her chair in the shade. “You can fly again. Wonderful! Come down here and see me. Pay no mind to Pebbles. She’s just being a brat.”
Just then, he looked beyond Minuet into the courtyard and saw a personage who made him go apoplectically faint. She was sitting calmly with two strangers and King Hebraun. “What are you doing here, Ugleeuh?” he croaked, as his heart pounded in his chest. By now everyone was looking right at him, and he shrank back into the leaves.
“Is this filthy bird yours?” cried Ugleeuh, spitting with scorn as she sprang to her feet. “And how dare he call me ugly! You should have him destroyed this minute.” The two strangers rushed to her at once, attempting to soothe her.
This was too much for Hubba Hubba. “Help! Help! Help!” he cawed as he leaped into the air, flapping madly for Razzmorten’s tower. He had no problem making straight for the window, but loft was a poser. He thought his heart and lungs were both going to burst before he got far enough up to fly in. He banged his keel painfully on the sill, sending him inside in a tumble of feathers to smack into his perch, knocking it over with a crash before skittering to a sliding halt on the tabletop. Razzmorten burst into the room, quite wide eyed.
“Sorry for the mess, Wiz,” croaked Hubba Hubba, as he heaved and gasped for wind. “But Ugleeuh’s down there in the garden with the king and queen and a couple of strangers. There’s no telling what she came here for, but you know it ain’t good. And now
that she’s seen me, she wants me destroyed. That’s what chased me back in through the
window. Man! My keel bone hurts. Can’t you get her with some kind of wizard fire from
the window here ‘fore she does something terrible?”
Razzmorten scratched his head thoughtfully, then ambled over to the window and gazed out for long enough to exasperate Hubba Hubba. When he turned around, he was smiling. Hubba Hubba felt a scald of fear rush through this chest, convinced for the moment that Razzmorten had been smitten with a bewitchment by his evil daughter. As the urge seized him to fly back out the window and escape into the countryside, a meaty thump from Fifi’s tail on the floor beside the table completely shattered his resolve. He looked from dog to window and back again, utterly befuddled. At the sight of Razzmorten mildly taking a seat at the table to patiently wait for the arrival of his composure, he opened up his feathers completely, hesitated, then shook himself resolutely and sleeked down. “All right, all right, Wiz!” he said. “I’m ready. End my confusion. Hey! This is real anxiety I’m suffering from, don’t you know.”
“The young woman out there does indeed look like the very picture of Ugleeuh, years ago,” said Razzmorten, not smiling at Hubba Hubba’s consternation. “She looks enough like Ugleeuh to be her twin, removed in time. Even her behavior, they act alike. In fact, I was so taken by this that I went to great pains to determine if she wasn’t under some divination, some spell to condemn her to a life as Ugleeuh’s echo, but I found no such spell. She truly seems to be one of those once in a millennium coincidences. She’s Princess Spitemorta of Goll. She’s come here with her parents in hopes of making an alliance marriage with Lukus to unite Niarg and their realm. You’ve no reason to fear anything.”
“Maybe we have another coincidence here, Wiz. This girl said she wanted me destroyed, remember? Why would some total stranger do that? Hey, I’m a bird! Threats to my life leave a lasting impression, and her impression feels just like Ugleeuh. That’s my reason.”
“You don’t deserve to be so upset. Why don’t I just go down there and see what’s going on? Would that ease your mind?”
Hubba Hubba looked very doubtful, but Razzmorten was already on his way out the door. “Wiz!” he cawed out. “Be careful! And hey, take Miss Toothyface, here, why don’t you?”
“I’m sure I can handle it myself,” said Razzmorten, tossing back a wide-eyed smile as the door went closed.
Ch. 23, The Collector Witch
Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps
pausing to give his feathers a shake before strutting on. “I said I would, I said I would. I did, I did. But now that it comes to it, I don’t know what I think about being a crow again. And what if something goes wrong? What if Razzmorten is so weak that he can’t handle the spell and turns me into a roach or a maggot? What if his spell gives out just as I fly in to spy on Spitemorta and Demonica? They’ll kill me, is what. Pull out my feathers and wring my neck.”
“Hubba Hubba!” she cried, stopping amidst her next swing. “I didn’t see you!”
the love of the Fates, daughter, it’s the very thing that got him killed.”
“And what are you doing down there?” said Pebbles as she and the chicks alighted on the back of the chair.
days, anyway?”
