We were in the throne room when a wizard stepped out of the air.

I blinked and Father sat up straight, frowning. He doesn't like surprises. "I beg your pardon, but who are you?" he asked in the voice of a polite ice cube.

The wizard's eyes were just as cold as Father's voice, but his face smiled. "Your Highness," he said, "I have here a copy of a sign. You posted it on every wall and fence and city hall, in every corner of your kingdom, eleven years ago." He snapped his fingers and the sign appeared in his hand. He cleared his throat and read aloud, "A reward is offered to anyone, be he lord or beggar, who can free the princess from her prison."

That's me, by the way. Princess Rosalie, thirteen years old now and no better off that I was when that sign was first posted. Father did that when I was two, when he finally admitted that he couldn't help me himself. When he came to understand that I truly was a prisoner.

Oh, none of that nonsense about stone towers guarded by monstrous dragons. My prison is much simpler than that. It's my own body. I can't walk. I can't talk. I can scarcely twitch an arm or turn my head. All I can do is swallow the food that ladled into my mouth, and watch the world go by. It's been like that ever since I was born.

Father sighed. "And you can help?"

Maybe he should have sounded more excited, but I knew how he felt. Ever since that sign was hung up, we have been deluged by wizards and doctors, philosophers and magicians and mountebanks. I've swallowed more nasty potions than any princess in the history of the world. I've had blue hair since a spell went wrong when I was seven, and I spent my ninth summer with tomatoes growing out of my ears, but I still can't walk or talk. I doubted this new wizard would be able to do any better.

"My name is Wilen," the wizard said, "and I have brought the princess—this!" He flourished a hand and something else popped into existance beside him.

"A chair?" Father said.

It wasn't even a nice-looking chair. Made of fraying and dirty wicker, its cushions looked as if a dog had been chewing on them. Instead of legs, it had wheels.

Father closed his eyes wearily. "As you can see," he said, "the princess already has a wheelchair." He gestured at my comfortable seat, complete with brakes and a headrest.

Wilen continued to smile. "Not like this one," he said.

Father opened his eyes. "You seem very sure."

The wizard turned and spoke directly to me. "This is no ordinary chair, Princess," he said. "By my magic, I have trapped a jinn, a spirit of flame and air, inside this chair. It can take you where you wish to go, speak the thoughts you wish to speak, give you a freedom you have never had before."

I stared into the wizard's cold eyes and almost believed him.

Father snorted. "That chair can speak?"

Before the wizard could answer, a new voice echoed through the throne room. It hummed like wheels across a floor and it said, "I speak as well as any king. Probably better than some!"

It might be a trick, I thought. I didn't quite dare hope that a chair—even an enchanted one—could take me anywhere I wished. I wished so many things, and none of them had come true before.

Father laughed in surprise. "I am answered!" he said.

If you would care to test it, Princess?" Wilen asked. I couldn't answer of course, but he scooped me up anyway and dumped me in the enchanted chair.

The cushions shifted to fit comfortably around me, but nothing else happened.

"Well?" The chair sounded annoyed. "Don't just sit there like a lump on a log! What do you want me to do?"

I wondered how I was supposed to tell the chair what to do when I could not speak.
"I can hear your thoughts," the chair hummed. "Get on with it!"

As simple as that? I was so used to sitting there like a lump on a log that giving an order, even with my thoughts, seemed pointless. However, I took a deep breath and thought words, words that I had always dreamed of saying and had never been able to. "Fly! I wish to fly!"

"Don't make it too easy, will you?" the chair muttered sarcastically, but it rose from the ground as it spoke.

My father jumped to his feet. "Rosalie--!"

It was too late, though. I was already high over his head, higher than I had ever been before. The chair shot through an open window, and I was truly flying at last.

It was true! The wizard had given me the freedom that he had promised! The wind pressed the breath out of me, but I didn't care. Green fields and gray cities, and all of Father's vast and kindly kingdom spread out below me like a dream. I have always dreamed of flying. I don't know why, except that it's no more impossible than walking or talking, for me. Now, I wondered. If this dream could come true, why not the others?

"Chair!" I shouted as loudly as I could with no voice. "Can you make me walk?"

I could barely hear the chair's hummed reply over the wind. "No."

I sighed. Of course not! It had been silly to even imagine such a thing.

"Because I'm kidnapping you," the chair added, skimming snow off of a mountain peak with one spinning wheel.

My ears were starting to turn numb with the cold. I probably hadn't heard right. "What do you mean?"

"Enchanted objects have to do as they are ordered." The chair sounded depressed about it. "And the wizard ordered me to steal you from your father."

I looked down. These mountains were the border of the kingdom, and we had just crossed them. A great pit of fear opened in my stomach as I saw the stone tower ahead. There was a dragon coiled around its base and a wizard in the window. I thought I recognized the wizard.

Sure enough, it was Wilen. As the chair soared through the window and skidded to a stop in the bare tower room, he bowed to me mockingly. "Welcome to your new home, Princess! You will remain here until your father hands over his crown to me as your ransom. Enjoy your stay!" Laughing, he disappeared into thin air.

There was nothing I could do. I couldn't even yell all the words that I wanted to say. Words like: "Treacherous chair! How could you do this? I never did a thing to you, and you hauled me straight to your evil wizard friend. I always dreamed of flying, and see where it's gotten me!"

"I can hear your thoughts," the chair reminded me. "And I'm sorry. Don't think I haven't got feelings just because I'm trapped in the shape of a piece of furniture! But I am enchanted, and I have to do as I am told."

I was so surprised that my hand even twitched a bit. I was used to being—-well, like a lump on a log—voiceless and helpless. The chair could hear me though, even though it was as much a prisoner as I was. Still, we could at least try to help each other to escape.

I formed my thoughts very carefully in my head. "You have to do as you are told, so I will tell you what to do. Take me home!"

The chair rocked on its wheels as if it was trying to move but it seemed to be held by invisible brakes. "Good try," it hummed finally, sounding glummer that ever, "but I can only obey the wizard who enchanted me. He told me not to let you escape."

It had been dumb to think that I could escape, anyway. I was as helpless as ever.

"You could try to disenchant me," the chair said hopefully. "If I was free of the wizard's spells, I could take any shape and carry you anywhere you wished to go."

I would have sat up straight if my body had let me. "How?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you that. It's part of the enchantment."

I thought wistfully of strangling the chair but that did no good as I couldn't move, and it didn't have a neck anyway.

That was probably the worst day of my life, stuck in a bare tower room with only a depressed wheelchair for company. Mostly, it was boring. I had never realised how lucky I was to have Father, who talked to me even though I couldn't answer, and a palace full of people who read books to me every day. I tried to guess how to disenchant the chair, because there was nothing else to do.

"Abracadabra?" I thought. "Bippity-boppity-boo?"

The chair squeaked scornfully. "Pathetic! Even wizards have better imaginations than that!"

"Couldn't you give me a hint?" I begged. "Just one word would do!"

"I would like to," the chair murmured, "but I can't."
It had to be something simple, I thought. Something a wizard could remember easily, but would not do or say by accident.

I remembered all the stories I had heard in my life. Lots of them had been about enchantments, and the breaking of them. It could be something powerful, like a kiss, or difficult, like saying exactly the right words at exactly the right time backwards while wiggling your ears. Or it could be something as simple as a single word, or twitching your little finger in a certain way. Something that even I could manage. But how was I to learn it?

The wizard showed up that evening with a bowl of cold oatmeal and a nasty smirk. "Your father is on his way, Princess," he said triumphantly. "Apparently, he thinks that you are more important than his kingdom. Sweet of him." He shoveled oatmeal down my throat so fast that I almost choked. When the last of it was gone, he added, "Of course, your father isn't very smart. When he gets here, I shall lock him up in this tower with you and leave you to enjoy each other's company." He chortled and vanished.

"This is a desperate situation!" I thought furiously. "I have to escape before Father lets Wilen become king!"

"If you would only disenchant me," the chair said angrily, "I would be happy to help!"

I had been guessing all afternoon. What more did the chair think I could do? Obviously, I thought sourly, sneering and cruelty and unfairness did not disenchant the chair. Good manners now, the wizard would never use those if he could help it-- I gasped. What if--? "Chair," I thought slowly. "Will you take me to my father, please?"

There was a long moment of silence. Then the chair buzzed wonderingly, "Please! It's been so long since I heard that word! I had almost forgotten that people could be polite. I have obviously been around Wilen for entirely too long."

I was glad that the chair appreciated good manners, but I had hoped for a little more. "You're not disenchanted yet?"

The cushions writhed under me and dissolved. I sprawled on the hard floor, blinking up at the figure towering over me. It was like flames whipped by a wind, but it did not burn me. It laughed a crackling, firy laugh. "I believe I am, my blue-haired princess! You sat there like a lump on a log, and thought the right word, and I am free!" The jinn laughed again as it hoisted me off the floor. Its arms flickered under me like luke-warm flames. "Where did you wish to go, Princess?"

I would have liked to scream with delight or, maybe, cower in terror but all I could manage was to blink. "Can you still hear my thoughts?" I wondered.

The jinn beamed. "Of course I can. I am a magical being after all. Escape was what you wanted, wasn't it?" Without waiting for my answer, it swooped out of the window again.
The dragon did not have time to do anything except give a startled roar as we whizzed past. I heard Wilen yell in fury, and I laughed inside myself as we flew back to the dark mountains that bordered my father's kingdom.

As Wilen had told me, Father was not far away. He was camping on the edge of the mountains, and he almost fell into his cookfire when he saw us. The jinn set me gently into his lap and said, "I wouldn't let that wizard be king of anything if I were you. He's too fond of sticking people—-and jinns—in prison!"

Father gaped at the flaming creature. Then he looked at me. "Rosalie?" he whispered, as if he couldn't quite believe it.

I spoke to Father for the first time in my life. Or at least, I thought words and the jinn repeated them aloud. "I love you, Dad. And I'm not going to sit around like a lump on a log anymore. From now on, I'm a princess who gets things done, and it's time to go home!"

Father hugged me tight with tears streaking his face, but the jinn grinned at me. "It could be fun being your voice," it said. "And your legs too, because I can take you anywhere you wish, but I'm never pretending to be a chair again!"

I laughed inside of myself, and Father laughed out loud. Then the jinn's crackling laughter joined in as it lifted us off the ground and flew us over the mountains. Home.

The End

Jenny Moore knew she wanted to be a writer by the time she was 8, but she did not get a story published until she was 24. In the meantime, she worked on a farm, at a hotel in Ireland, and as a nanny. Currently, she lives in Oregon, works as an aide at a local school, and writes the rest of the time.

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