text: [Themes: Fantasy, fantasy, dolls, nonhuman protagonist, flowers, botany]
  
  > About you
  You are Bonnie Blithe, an eighteen-inch high doll with ceramic hands, feet, and head, and a cloth body. Klaus's parents, who are skilled magicians, enchanted you to come to life in case he comes under
  threat.
  
  > look at Klaus
  Klaus is lying flat on his back. His skin is dotted with sweat. He appears comatose, though his eyes are open, the pupils glimmering yellow, pink, and green.
  
  Klaus is the only child of two skilled magicians. He is perhaps too curious for his own good, which is why his parents enchanted his dolls to protect him in case of a magical attack.
  
  > examine starry
  A peculiar and worrisome orchid with green-black petals, dappled in yellow and pink.
  
  > look at the doll
  The paper doll is about six inches high and cut from cardstock.
  Klaus's parents have enchanted it to obey your commands. The doll is equipped with a paper dragon face, paper thigh boots, and a paper fringed dress.
  
  [Command the doll with the syntax >DOLL, GO EAST or >DOLL, TAKE THE BOOK.]
  
  > Examine book
  Klaus lugs this heavy reference manual of otherworldly knights everywhere. The book's paper dust jacket is illustrated with a drawing of a shield and sword.
  
  > read it
  Flipping randomly through the book of knights, you find an anecdote in which Swa Wortilda narrowly defeated Plulph.
  
  > take starry
  The starry seeksorrow is still attached to the stem. You will have to cut it first.
  
  > look at what you're carrying with you
  You are carrying:
  a long white dress (being worn)
  
  > look at the dress
  (the long white dress)
  Klaus sewed the dress for you, after cutting the cloth from the curtains in his parents' parlor. It is very much like a shapeless sack with a fringe of lace at the bottom.
  
  > go to the east
  A sunny green bank. Paths leads north, northwest, and west to the hidden lawn.
  
  The paned glass wall of a greenhouse rises to the east. High above
  your head a reflection of the sun gleams.
  
  Growing inside the greenhouse you see a sweet maskelyne, a galen's glory, a ligerlily, and a watchflower.
  
  Laid in the greenhouse floor is a drainage trough. At the east end is
  a faucet, and at the west end, a pipe, through which water can be flushed out of the trough onto the lawn.
  
  A six-foot high tangle of zephyrwort whirls and dances over the grass.
  
  > examine the zephyrwort
  A living storm of leaves and tendrils, moving under its own power.
  
  > look at sweet
  A flower with glossy black petals like a tail coat and top hat, and a yellow pistil like a magic wand.
  
  The sweet maskelyne seems to doff its top hat.
  
  > look at the ligerlily
  A flower whose petals, striped black and yellow, form the face of a snarling, maned cat.
  
  > examine the watchflower
  The petals, arranged in the form of a small globe, are red-veined white, with a central grey ring and black dot. The flower looks very much like an eye staring back at you.
  
  > Go east
  The glass wall is intact; there's no way inside.
  
  > examine the trough
  A tiled trough in the greenhouse floor. It looks intended to collect and then drain water.
  
  > examine the pipe
  The pipe allows water in the trough to flush out of the greenhouse.
  
  > examine the faucet
  Small and made of metal. It's etched with the illegible calligraphy of a spell.
  
  > go northwest
  Patterns of green and gold play around a structure of mossy stones built to look like a ruined temple. Its walls are overgrown with creeping diamondbane. Paths lead east, south to the hidden lawn, and southeast to the greenhouse.
  
  A single diamondbane flower grows low enough for you to reach.
  
  Inside the temple is a grooved marble altar.
  
  On the altar are a pair of clippers and a guide book.
  
  > look at the guide book
  Cowell's Guide to Arcane Flowers, Trees, and Shrubs is a
  standard reference for magical gardening. Klaus loves to pore over it whenever he gets the chance. There's an index at the back, allowing
  you to consult the book on particular plants.
  
  [Consult the guide book with the syntax >LOOK UP X IN BOOK or >CONSULT BOOK ON X.]
  
  > take the book
  Taken.
  
  > look at the altar
  The temple might be fake, but this altar has the unfalsifiable eerie presence of the real thing; Klaus's parents, avid antiquarians, imported it from an otherworldly dig-site. Once Klaus "sacrificed" you on this altar. (And then sewed you up again, thankfully.)
  
  Some significance of an expedition nags at your mind.
  
  On the altar is a pair of clippers.
  
  > think about the expedition
  [You don't need to do that. Just >EXAMINE things that are mentioned in the text.]
  
  > examine the expedition
  The memory writhes like something alive. It's like a fat snake woven into a tapestry of dry and dusty threads.
  
  Klaus's parents, Victor and Alva Lindworm, acquired the altar fifteen years ago. They had heard news of a secret expedition to the ruins of Slee, the ancient otherwordly city which is the source of all magic. The expedition was headed by their old tutor from Blackbow, Percival Vitus Peck; Victor and Alva, who had just moved into their estate at Nightshade, young and full of mischief before they had a young Klaus
  to worry over, decided it would be a legendary lark to infiltrate Percival's expedition and reassign the ownership of some of his finds. So they donned preposterous disguises, feathers, false beards, dark glasses, long robes and longswords, and blustered their way into the dig site, where they stole this altar out from under Percival's nose.
  
  Further significances nag at your mind: a personal relationship, and a tragedy.
  
  > examine the relationship
  The memory stands out like a misshapen leaf in an otherwise flawless hedge.
  
  Alva and Victor had no particular reason to dislike Percival Vitus Peck, beyond the generalized and impersonal disdain engendered by any unexceptional teacher in the breast of his students. Until they heard news of his expedition to Slee, neither had even thought of him in several years.
  
  > examine the tragedy
  jungle growth.
  
  In order to infiltrate the dig site, Victor and Alva had to disable a warning spell set in place by Percival. It was easy to delete the spell--Percival's magic was dull and obvious, no match for the casual genius of the two brilliant Blackbow alumni, fired as they were by the low-stakes villainy of what they doing. The warning spell vanished as they wriggled their fingers like spiders; they did not realize they were deleting a warding spell along with the warning spell. Once they had flown away into the sky with the stolen altar obediently floating behind them, the missing warding spell was noticed, but not by Percival. A Rotted Leps emerged from the necrotic, abysmal depths of Slee and carried off Percival's infant son Charlie from his cradle in the command tent, and Percival was sent insane by grief and rage.
  
  > examine the clippers
  A standard pair of gardening clippers.
  
  > take it
  Taken.
  
  > Consult book on seeksorrow
  The starry seeksorrow orchid is the most dangerous and alluring of arcane flowers. Its scent, like a combination of hot metal, burnt sugar, blood, sweet pine sap, vinegar, bones, violets, rotten silk, peat, earthworms, overripe pears, apple juice, roses, and many other fleeting notes, is so complex as to induce catatonia in anyone unfortunate enough to smell it. The starry seeksorrow does not have a natural habitat, and grows only under the influence of a magician's curse.
  
  > examine the diamondbane
  (the diamondbane flower)
  A spiny flower with hundreds of short, stiff, dark blue petals.
  
  > Consult book on diamondbane
  The diamondbane is a flower with dubious magical qualities, which
  grows on a creeping vine. It is seldom grown in or near greenhouses
  due to the bloom's damaging effect on glass.
  
  > consult the book on the watchflower
  it unusually flexible rotation while seeking the sun, though it is sometimes said that it just looks around because it is curious.
  
  > cut the diamondbane with the clippers
  (the diamondbane flower with the pair of clippers)
  You cut the diamondbane flower free from its stem. It flutters to the ground.
  
  > consult the book on sweet
  The sweet maskelyne is a rare and magical flower, though it is
  possible that its apparent magic is all just illusions.
  
  > consult the book on the ligerlily
  its own power. Since it is known to fiercely defend itself against all natural pollinators, it must be pollinated (carefully) by hand.
  
  > Go southeast
  A sunny green bank. Paths leads north, northwest to the folly, and
  west to the hidden lawn.
  
  The paned glass wall of a greenhouse rises to the east. High above
  your head a reflection of the sun gleams.
  
  Growing inside the greenhouse you see a sweet maskelyne, a galen's glory, a ligerlily, and a watchflower.
  
  Laid in the greenhouse floor is a drainage trough. At the east end is
  a faucet, and at the west end, a pipe, through which water can be flushed out of the trough onto the lawn.
  
  A six-foot high tangle of zephyrwort whirls and dances over the grass.
  
  > Consult book about galen'S
  The galen's glory, known since antiquity to cure all manner of
  maladies and complaints both magical and mundane, is a useful addition to any garden.
  
  > look at the galen'S
  A flower with broad petals of red, yellow, white, and black; the
  colors of the four humours.
  
  > throw the diamondbane at the glass
  You throw the diamondbane flower at the greenhouse wall. A pane of glass cracks at the impact and the flower explodes in a puff of
  petals.
  
  > go to the east
  There is a crack in the glass, but, as it's only paper-thin, you're
  too large to fit through.
  
  > Go west
  A narrow, secluded spot in which Klaus is fond of reading. The ground is covered by beds of lacegrass. The sky is a crescent of deep blue above interlocking squirrel puzzle trees. Archways under bowed trunks open north, to the folly, and east, to the greenhouse.
  
  Klaus is lying on his back in the grass.
  
  A starry seeksorrow grows near Klaus's head.
  
  A heavy edition of Archibault's 1,001 Knights of Slee has
  fallen at Klaus's side.
  
  A paper doll stands here, shivering slightly in the breeze.
  
  > ask Doll,  to go to the east
  It might be useful to ask the paper doll to do something, but you
  don't have a working mouth.
  
  > Go east
  A sunny green bank. Paths leads north, northwest to the folly, and
  west to the hidden lawn.
  
  The paned glass wall of a greenhouse rises to the east. High above
  your head a reflection of the sun gleams.
  
  A narrow crack stretches a foot vertically across a single grass-level pane in the greenhouse wall.
  
  Growing inside the greenhouse you see a sweet maskelyne, a galen's glory, a ligerlily, and a watchflower.
  
  Laid in the greenhouse floor is a drainage trough. At the east end is
  a faucet, and at the west end, a pipe, through which water can be flushed out of the trough onto the lawn.
  
  A six-foot high tangle of zephyrwort whirls and dances over the grass.
  
  > go to the north
  The hummocky ground is shaded by large fruit trees. Paths leads south to the greenhouse, west to the folly, and northeast.
  
  A coffintree grows here. High in its branches sprouts an immature gall the size of a baby's casket; close to the ground its massive mature gall has split open, ready for use.
  
  A chimecherry tree is covered with fruit. Most of the cherries are unripe, but one bunch hanging six feet up, bright red and glossy,
  looks ready to chime.
  
  A clump of needlevine is entangled with the bunch of ripe chimecherries. One spiny tendril dangles down almost to the ground.
  
  vegetation.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > consult the book about the zephyrwort
  Zephyrwort is a mobile, semi-intelligent weed. The zephyrwort
  plant has a playful manner, seemingly enjoying following and even pestering people it comes across, though fortunately it is easily distracted. Since it does not permanently root, instead resting at night to take sustenance from pools of water or from the dew, the zephrywort rarely grows larger than human-height, though travelers
  have reported finding vast monocultures of zephyrwort, thrashing jungles in which the playful teasing of the plant, magnified to the scale of a landscape, can quickly become deadly.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > examine the cherries
  Klaus's favorite fruit.
  
  Once he ate a quart of them in one afternoon, which he much regretted later that evening.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at the needlevine
  A vine with mottled, red-brown leaves, covered with needle-like
  thorns.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > Consult book about cherries
  You check the index, but see no entry for cherries.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > consult the book about the chimecherries
  The sweet and tart fruit of the chimecherry tree contains, instead
  of a pit, a tiny metal bell. When ripe, the fruit splits, allowing the bunches of cherries to ring like a windchime. Because of its lack of seeds, the chimecherry does not grow naturally and must be magically propagated.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > Consult book about needlevine
  Needlevine, an epiphytic parasite, is a common weed in magical
  gardens. It has no roots, instead subsisting directly on the magical energy of other arcane plants, leeched through a prehensile
  haustorium. The needlevine is equipped with sharp thorns, which it is quick to brandish at anyone who disturbs it, making its eradication quite difficult.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > pull the needlevine
  The vine spasms at your touch, and dozens of needles stab into your body. Fortunately your body is made of cloth.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at the coffintree
  A tall tree with long, straight branches at the top. Several galls
  grow from it.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > examine the gall
  Which do you mean, the immature gall or the mature gall?
  
  > Immature
  It looks like a large, angular nut.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at mature
  It looks like a huge, angular nut with an open seam running around its rim. The inside of the gall is etched with the spectronym the
  erstwhile gall ghost gave itself: Revilecto.
  
  mind.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at the history
  The memory glitters like a diamond in a heap of shattered glass.
  
  The gall first formed on the bark of the coffintree six months ago; since then, when the most recent gall ghost spore first arrived, the gall grew to maturity and split open, releasing the ghost to wander
  the garden.
  
  A further significance nags at your mind: the question of an intruder.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at the intruder
  The memory stands out like a discolored spine in a vast library of otherwise identical volumes.
  
  A conversation between Victor and Alva several years ago concerned the security of their magic garden. It seemed they were worried about the possibility of a revenger. The garden was sealed tight with a hundred warding spells; there was no way anyone who wished Alva and Victor or their child Klaus harm could get inside. Of course, one loophole had
  to be left; without such a loophole, gall ghosts would be unable to enter the garden to fertilize the coffintree. And a magical garden
  with no ghost-inhabited coffintree is no magical garden at all...
  
  What if someone who wished ill against the Lindworms found a way to infiltrate the warded garden? What if such a person stipulated that when they died, they be buried in a coffin gall, knowing that they would subsequently become a gall ghost which could freely enter
  through the garden's wards?
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > consult the book about the coffintree
  induces the growth of large, hollow galls which resemble, and are occasionally used as, coffins. A corpse buried in such a coffin gall will become, in turn, a coffintree ghost, and float in the form of an invisible spore until it finds an unfertilized coffintree to
  inhabit.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > take the zephyrwort
  The zephyrwort, seeming to enjoy this game, cheerfully evades you.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > go northeast
  The red brick wall which bounds the northeast corner of the garden is broken here by a wrought-iron gate. The bricks are overgrown with mime's-mouth. A path leads southwest, to the orchard; far beyond the gate to the northeast is the pink stone bulk of Nightshade, Klaus's parents' house.
  
  One mime's-mouth flower droops down within reach on a long tendril.
  
  A red-brown statue of a dogjaw, with its tail curled under its body, stands here on a granite plinth.
  
  > examine the mimethe 'S
  A tiny flower whose two red petals are parted like lips.
  
  > Consult book about mime'S
  The mime's-mouth is a useful flower which grows on a climbing, deciduous vine. Shaped like a pair of human lips, the mime's-mouth can be worn in emergencies to provide a voice for those who have
  none.
  
  > cut the mimethe 's with the clippers
  You cut the mime's-mouth flower free from its stem. It flutters to the ground.
  
  > wear the mimethe 'S
  (first taking the mime's-mouth flower)
  You attach the mime's-mouth flower to your face.
  
  > examine gate
  A heavy gate, beyond which you can see an avenue of mundane oak trees, a field sloping down to a slow river, and, almost at the outer extent of your magical vision, the eclectic towers, wings, and windows of Nightshade.
  
  > examine the Nightshade
  Nightshade is a whimsical maze of a magical manor house. Under the whimsy, if you know where to look for it, are deep foundations of madness and horror. But that's the world of magic in general; you
  would know, being nothing more than a magical collection of memories and motivations brought to life to help Klaus in case of emergency.
  
  at your memory.
  
  > examine the history
  The memory shines like a polished star on a wall of tarnished silver.
  
  Nightshade has a long and frankly bewildering history; your magically implanted memory includes most of it, at least in abbreviated form. What seems important just now is something that happened shortly after Alva inherited the place, when she and her new husband spent a weekend expelling all the ghosts that had accumulated at the estate over the years like barnacles on an old hull.
  
  A further significances nag at your mind: the memory of a ghost hunt.
  
  > look at the hunt
  The memory rattles like an impervious bumble bee trapped inside a closed book.
  
  Some of the ghosts were strong enough to be met with blades--the young couple had great fun chasing the ghosts with swords in their right hands and blue-flaming candles in their left--but many were weaker,
  and paradoxically these weaker ghosts were the greater hazard. Weak ghosts often inhabit statues and sculptures, of which there is (or was then) no shortage at Nightshade, and once inhabiting a statue, like a hermit crab inside a shell, the ghost can only be shaken loose and expelled with the proper magic formula: the magic word, followed by
  the given name it bore in life, followed by its hidden spectronym.
  Alva and Victor spent a weekend trading duties: one would research the given names and spectronyms of the offending ghosts, and the other would roam looking for eerie, moving statues and shouting out the formula: "Susohabor Beatrice Huskloom! Susohabor Henry Osteorn! Susohabor Reginald Gravesile!"
  
  > look at dogjaw
  A statue of a prehistoric psuedomammal, a cynodont, carved from an unusually large piece of petrified wood. Its body is bulky and powerful, with a barrel-like torso, short, sturdy, clawed legs, and a huge toothy mouth. It's red-brown, with stripes along its flank like a young boar.
  
  > Go southwest
  The hummocky ground is shaded by large fruit trees. Paths leads south to the greenhouse, west to the folly, and northeast to the gate.
  
  tree trunks.
  
  A coffintree grows here. High in its branches sprouts an immature gall the size of a baby's casket; close to the ground its massive mature gall has split open, ready for use. Some significance of the history
  of a ghost nags at your mind.
  
  A chimecherry tree is covered with fruit. Most of the cherries are unripe, but one bunch hanging six feet up, bright red and glossy,
  looks ready to chime.
  
  A clump of needlevine is entangled with the bunch of ripe chimecherries. One spiny tendril dangles down almost to the ground.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > look at mature
  It looks like a huge, angular nut with an open seam running around its rim. The inside of the gall is etched with the spectronym the
  erstwhile gall ghost gave itself: Revilecto.
  
  The zephyrwort whirls excitedly around the bunch of chimecherries, but the needlevine has tangled them up so they don't make a sound.
  
  > Go northeast
  The red brick wall which bounds the northeast corner of the garden is broken here by a wrought-iron gate. The bricks are overgrown with mime's-mouth. A path leads southwest, to the orchard; far beyond the gate to the northeast is the pink stone bulk of Nightshade, Klaus's parents' house. Something significant about the recent history of Nightshade nags at your memory.
  
  A red-brown statue of a dogjaw, with its tail curled loosely under its body, stands here on a granite plinth.
  
  > Susohabor percival revilecto
  The statue of the dogjaw shatters and a squirm of otherworldly translucency arises from the fragments: the ghost known as Percival Revilecto.
  
  The ghost shrieks with rage. "You bloody stupid toy! Have you any idea what hells I endured to avenge myself on those who fully deserved my revenge--"
  
  But the invisible hooks of the magic word are already dragging it backwards into oblivion. Its complaint is silenced as the ghost vanishes into a crack of air.