Chapter 10 - Winestorming
Tom shut the rental house door with a sandparchment scrape and a yardstick snap. The thin leather stretched across a timber frame did nothing to muffle the Wind’s latest circus. Every boom of thunder rode in on thoroughbred lightning. Every lash of rain drove herds of raindrops into static stampedes against the cured wall. Mr. Grey, Tom, and Honeydew felt the floor of the house wobble, like a steam bull in the center of a seesaw.
Tom shook water from his face in the way of a dog. He walked to where Honeydew and Mr. Grey sat at an oval meal table. “The canoe is lashed, in case the lake overflows.”
“Will we need it Tom?” asked Mr. Grey.
“The town’s built for spates. The houses must float or flood. When it’s a lake town, the canoes get used.”
“That’s clever planning,” said Honeydew. She looked at Mr. Grey. “What stops us doing the same? Back in Starharbor, during Jelly floods?”
“The buoyancy trait of stone,” Mr. Grey answered absentmindedly.
“That was sarcasm. You can drop the snark.” Honeydew turned and watched the thin walls light up with each storm flash.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s not a big deal,” said Honeydew with a dismissive click. “What were we talking about?”
Tom wiped his face with a wet handkerchief. He walked to a window, opened it a sliver, and watched the angry squall.
Mr. Grey picked up the conversation from where they’d dropped it. “Where to go from here. We should compare our options; in a list, foinstance.”
Honeydew pulled a skein of salt-licorice from the bag on the table. She passed the savory candy like a baton over her fingers. She frowned thoughtfully. “Alright, then list the options.”
Mr. Grey steepled his fingers and set his elbows on the table at an exact 45-degree angle. He unlaced the index of his left hand, pointing it up. “Option one: we go back home.”
“Terrible option.”
“Let’s state them all to start with. For completion’s sake.” He raised a second finger on his left hand. “Option two: we…”
“Forget the options. The best one is: make treasure. Find a way to pay. We’ve got to move on. Wine Medo’s gotten stale now. No offense meant Tom.”
Lightning flashed in frosty neon over Tom’s whiskered cheeks. Thunder boomed. Tom kept his eyes fixed outside. “There’s a boat sailing the street,” he said. “The house should float soon.”
As if on cue, the floor trembled. The reed foundation under their dwelling rose and swayed on the storm-diluted wine. On one side of the room, Honeydew’s luggage stack teetered dangerously. Several leather screens - built into the floor by hinges to allow for customized division of the space - fell with loud snapping noises as the house pitched. When it tilted the other way the screens stood back up, like tottering drunks. In one corner their bedrolls curled like pavement caterpillars, and bounded across the floor to form a neat stack-of-three atop a slatted boot rack.
Honeydew steadied herself on the edge of the table with the hand not twirling the licorice. Mr. Grey, being naturally adept at holding still, did.
When a break came between the thunder drums and the house had settled slightly, Honeydew resumed. “I’ll just pay our fee. I’ve been saving my treasure. All from my teaching.”
“I couldn’t ask that,” said Mr. Grey.
“And you didn’t ask. I offered freely.”
“We’d need more treasure. Glory Days’s fare is costly.”
“Then do what Snow said.” Honeydew bit hard and suddenly on the licorice. Her face scrunched, but she kept chewing. “Master a grand enchantment. It would show up Snow - another bonus. Tom, back me up on this one.”
Honeydew pointed her bitten licorice at Tom. He remained aloof and by the window. “The ship plies down our street now,” he said. “She may founder soon.”
“I doubt I’d learn quick enough. Miss Coats has a lead,” said Mr. Grey. He wanted to divert from the topic of enchanting.
“So you work harder…”
“I could check for parchmentwork.”
“Or you could just work harder…” Honeydew clicked in exasperation. “What’s the problem here? Why the waffling?”
“I just… ” Mr. Grey’s fingers clutched each other tightly. “I’m not showy in that way. I don’t do grand shows. They’re not my strong suit.”
The house tilted precariously on a tall wave of wine. Before Honeydew could catch it, the bag of licorice slid from the table. It skated across the floor and slipped beneath the sliding door, into the stormy night.
Honeydew chucked the remains of her half-bitten strand after the bag. “Is your fiddle the problem?”
Mr. Grey settled his eyes on his rocking coffin, hanging from the ceiling in a netted instrument hammock. The instrument was not the problem. He knew that. Mr. Grey’s violin had remarkable verse for something produced in Starharbor. When he played the notes right, it resonated like trembling glass. And the wavy wood collected the tiniest of shines and wore them like veins of quicksilver in the dark grains beneath its varnish. No, the fiddle itself had no issues.
Mr. grey pictured himself, carrying that wonderful instrument before an enormous crowd. He pictured placing an expensive, grand treasure forth as an enchantment offering. He pictured the expressions - the silly gestures - he’d need to turn that grand treasure into a grand effect…
“I think my ticker’s at fault,” said Mr. Grey. He paused for a long solo of the Wind’s thunder. Honeydew cocked her head quizzically. “Since it broke I’ve felt lower.”
“Since it was broken,” Honeydew corrected firmly.
“From then on I’ve felt troubled. It kept me in time. Now I feel rambly. I move my feet and say words. But they’re disordered.”
From the seat beside him, Mr. Grey picked up a bag of caramel-conches. His fingers pinched and fought to get it open. His body moved with the undulations of the floor, perfectly in rhythm. He seemed frozen in place by the floor’s frame of reference.
Honeydew raised her eyebrows, dropped the corners of her mouth, and leaned back from her side of the table; as if to say, “That makes sense.” What she actually was, “I’ll find a ticker fixer. Where’s the nearest, Tom?”
Mr. Grey quickly put in, “We’d find one in Starharbor, and a bank as well. I could get some funds.”
Honeydew scoff-clicked. “And then we’d stay there. There’d be no chance of leaving, if we went back home. TOM!” she suddenly barked. The big man’s eyes seemed drawn, moth-like, to the flashing outside. He’d not responded to her last question. “Tom, is there a ticker shop?”
Tom said, “That ship’s passing our door now.”
“Tom, forget the ship. Where can…”
Honeydew was interrupted. Another tribal drumming shook the house’s leather. This time the boom came not from The Wind’s cackling thunderbolts, but from man-made explosives.
The head of a stone statue - carved in the bearded likeness of some forgotten Wine Medo noble - ripped through the stretched-leather wall next to Tom’s window. It cannoned through the room. The stone head observed, in a flash, the proceeding inside; its expression almost as imperturbable as Mr. Grey’s. Then it vanished, exploding through an exit-hole tatter in the opposite wall.
Before Tom, Mr. Grey, or even Honeydew could leap to, the entry-hole spurted with a swarm of rain.
And bandits.
Parasitic and invasive, a wriggling tangle of inky slick hair pushed through the leather rent. A dozen human shapes followed the hair. Despite the storm’s disheveling, Mr. Grey recognized the many-styled beard of Heavy-Shining-Gourd, invading the house at the head of a bandit host. The leader stuck his just-visible hands onto his covered hips and expanded his chest. Gourd wore Lord Snow’s gumdrop badge prominently against the shiny wetness of his hair. His mustache - the main one covering his upper lip, rather than the miniatures scattered across the beard - shifted. He grinned beneath the hirsute mass. The other bandits grinned too. Behind them, the rain and gusts stormed through the flapping tear in the house’s skin. Through the tear, Mr. Grey glimpsed a large boat, armed with a single bust-cannon, lashed to the railing of their floating home.
Gourd passed his eyes over the three. Then he locked them with Mr. Grey’s wide ones. “Plunder the quarters,” he said. His voice came out through the hair in a deep, wheezy bellows-motion.
The bandits took out their clubs. Clubs, Mr. Grey understood now. Not scepters of office. Gourd drew the mallet over his shoulder. He teetered at Mr. Grey on the unsteady floor.
Tom beat Honeydew to action; only by a little. He heaved his own mallet up from its resting place against the wall. He brought it whooshing down. The blow scattered the bandits to the walls and corners, but struck none. It impacted with a splintery crack on the reed floor.
Honeydew leapt immediately after Tom, just as the bandits spread out from their entry point. She darted a hand out to a tiny metal sandal rack nearby. It was a knee-high, poetree-shaped furnishing, with a weight and shape suited to flinging.
Honeydew flung it.
The rack struck the face of the nearest bandit. He instantly dropped his club and clutched smartingly at his nose. Honeydew hadn’t stopped there, but rushed behind the improvised missile. She prowled over the rocking floor and jumped the unfortunate bandit. She attacked without mercy, a shower of shoulders.
Mr. Grey reacted last, just as Gourd started swaggering toward him over the rocking floor. One grey hand clutched the unopened bag of caramel-conches. The other waited stiffly for orders. Though not trained in arrhythmic stepping, Mr. Grey’s experience with the Tockwork Crags of the Visa Application Department gave him an edge. His first encounter with Gourd, and his flight from the Sourbeak Hoppers, gave him another. Mr. Grey did not freeze. He took hasty, even steps away from Gourd. He sought cover behind Honeydew’s luggage.
Gourd pursued in a teeter.
Of the three, Tom inspired the broadest terror. His roars carried a rumble which put The Wind’s thunder to shame. The bandits fled before the whooshing barrel-head of his mallet. One peglegged bandit stumbled over a caterpillar bedroll as it rolled across the floor.
Tom leapt in, and settled a sideways swing of the mallet into the man’s torso. With a rubbery smack, the victim launched sideways, like a golf ball from a tee. He ripped through the stretched leather wall with an, “AYYYEEEEEE!” Through the fresh wound in the leather came a fresh spout of rain. Tom leapt for the next nearest foe.
Honeydew, in contrast, sustained a frenzied beating on her single target. The bandit - a greasy, warty, lanky one - had lost his club in her initial assault. Now he crawled on bony knees, chasing his weapon across the floor. He slunk around the bases of moon chairs. He slipped under the legs of the eating table. He scrambled over the short raised platform which acted as a practicing dais in Wine Medo houses. All the while Honeydew peppered him with shouldery jabs.
Mr. Grey stuck to aversion. He kept clear of the bandits. They had their attentions full fleeing from Tom’s mallet and Honeydew’s shoulders. Gourd, however, followed Mr. Grey relentlessly. The hairy bandit closed, and swung a mallet strike of his own.
Mr. Grey kicked up a fallen screen. The mallet struck the screen and ripped through, but the screen snared the weapon by its head.
Gourd released the handle. He flung a surprise grabbing hand from his beard at Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey slid out of reach and deftly pushed a footstool between them. Gourd tripped as he followed, and crashed into the stack of Honeydew’s luggage.
But Gourd turned the collapsing luggage tower against the three. As one tarmac-textured suitcase crashed against his hairy shoulder, he snatched it up in his hands and hurled it. The case struck Tom’s mallet handle and ruptured.
Honeydew’s new, sunflower-eye-patterned, Wine-Medo-style robe burst forth and entangled Tom. He fell backwards through one of the holes in the leather. The rain instantly soaked the robe. It tightened its grasp on the huge man. Tom held desperately onto the tattered walls. The bandits closed in. Honeydew noticed and rushed to Tom’s defense, leaving her former victim groaning beside the group’s bedrolls.
The other luggage trampolined harmless off of Gourd’s wet hair. He emerged unharmed from the suitcase shower. He closed again with Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey beat a steady, backwards trot before Gourds bluster. A box of Honeydew’s hair clips lay in a pile of sundries nearby. Mr. Grey hefted and hurled it like a pitching machine. The box burst. The clips scattered harmlessly off of Gourd’s beard-armor. The bandit recoiled - only for an instant. Then he came swaggering on.
Mr. Grey retreated, farther and farther, until he felt a wet lash against his spine. He’d fallen away in a steady zigzag all across the room, rebounding from wall to wall. But now he found himself boxed in a corner, his back to one of the holes in the house. Glancing outside, he saw the rain rushing through the air - huge sheets of cold watery walls - and thunderbolts detonating into taffycapped waves. Mr. Grey turned back to Gourd.
The hairy bandit cut the distance between them, and stood before Mr. Grey. For a moment they faced each other. Gourd’s hand dashed out of his beard, striking like a snake. He snatched the caramel-coral bag from Mr. Grey’s hand, ripped it open, and dumped the contents in a single pour through the hair-vent covering his mouth. Mr. Grey stood motionless. Gourd gulped, belched, looked at Mr. Grey again, smiled behind his beard, and brought his hands up; fingers wriggling.
From the corner where Honeydew had left her prey lying among the bedrolls, there came a cry. Gourd and Mr. Grey turned. They saw the lanky, shoulder-battered bandit waving his hands in a signal. The beaten man then jumped up and darted through the nearest wall hole, towards their ship. Gourd turned back to Mr. Grey. He shot another arm forth from his beard. Mr. Grey did not flinch; he was unfamiliar with the motion. Gourd grinned at him for a moment. Then he patted Mr. Grey twice on the cheek, turned, and sprinted for the opening.
The other bandits stamped after their leader through the flapping wall; a heavy, destructive tide of persons, now receding. Honeydew yanked Tom into the room with a jerk. She peeled the wet, ruined robe off him while he blindly struggled. Tom huffed for breath, and searched for a body to swing at as he picked up his mallet.
The bandits had gone.
Honeydew rose from a crouch and scanned. Tom wiped at his face with his handkerchief and did the same. Mr. Grey stared blankly. They stood, bewildered, in the ravished room, while the rain slipped in through the tears in the walls.
“Are your bodies well?” Asked Tom. He looked between the other two.
Honeydew answered. “They didn’t scratch me,” She squeezed water from her hair and tightened loose strands back into a ponytail. She brushed bandit grime off her shoulders.
Mr. Grey smoothed his tiny mustache. “Gourd took the caramel bag. Then they left at once…” He felt a chill, and realized he was still collecting rain from the tear at his back. He stepped away from the wall, into the ruins of their room. Honeydew prowled over to where she’d left the bandit by the bedrolls. She began putting them in order.
The thunder clapped outside; but distantly, and the rain fell softer. Peering between ciliated leather edges, Mr. Grey saw a creeping glow of sunlight; albeit only through a dismal sheet of The Wind’s unintelligible cloud word tangle. It revealed a leaden city of sloshing water and wine. Toscamo’s raft-homes and raft-shops floated on the dark, choppy mix; like pale bodies brought to surface by the flooding of a mass, unmarked grave.
Mr. Grey and Tom’s eyes followed the sudden arcing path of a bedroll as it sailed over the jumble of screens and chairs in the center of the room. They turned to see Honeydew beating her fists against the reed floor like a war drum. Her teeth were bare, her body shivering with anger.
“They. Took. Our. Trrreasurrre!” She growled the last work through a bolted jaw.
Tom vainly searched the floor for their missing purses. Mr. Grey looked at Honeydew. Both the news and her rage made him tense. “How much did they…” he began.
“All of it! Your performance earnings. Whatever Tom had. My trip funds. MY school earnings!”
Honeydew ceased striking the reeds. She held her arms in fists before her and convulsed with fury. She stared at a downward angle, magnet-eyes set in a glowing golden face. She stared distantly, right through the floor and the water-wine below it, seeking vengeful pacts in Bottomworld’s abysses. Mr. Grey and Tom shared a nervous glance. Even The Wind retreated before Honeydew’s vibrating mass of wrathful, solar energy. Outside, the storm drew away. The thunder dropped off.
Mr. Grey clasped his hands behind his back and paced the disheveled room. “Where’s the nearest Bouncers’ Box?” he asked, swiveling to Tom. “We’ll submit a case.”
“Quit pacing!” Honeydew snapped. “You’re making the house rock. I’m not ‘filing a case’. I’ll see that hair clog shouldered by a hundred boney spinsters! I want my treasure. I want to put this ridiculous Medo’s hick sights at my rear. I want to buy our tickets. CLICK. And I need rent treasure for this stupid floating house!”
She’d dropped anything close to a Wine Medo accent in the warmth of anger. Tom paid close attention and got the gist. He leaned on his mallet and spoke calmingly. “Your next teaching purse comes soon. While we resolve this, you can eat off that.”
Honeydew muttered. “I’ve a prize for Gourd, next time I see his gross beard. He won’t like his odds…”
She did, however, stop shaking. She stood and walked to the window where Tom had watched the pirates. Mr. Grey stopped pacing. He walked to stand beside Honeydew as she slid the window open.
The rain had laxed to a light patter and drizzle against the nettled surface of the widened lake. A morning sun tossed his misty light through the wet scene. The light touched Honeydew’s eyes with that oilfield shine, but took no part in the stoic face of Mr. Grey. The light also contoured the houses bobbing on the crooked waves. The canoe Tom had tied down earlier remained lashed to the side of their own house.
Tom reasoned out the situation behind them. “Let’s think in patterns. The small shows were a facade. They earned you pebbles. Your school was the same. Glory Days was faraway, and now it still is.” He paused and stroked his bristled face. The other two had turned and listened. “I have a saying: When the pantry is empty, visit the grocer… We’ve had a setback. So we make a path forward. With a better plan.”
Mr. Grey said, “I’m not certain, Tom… Maybe we should return home,” He turned back to the drizzly day beyond the window.
“Do you have something in mind?” asked Honeydew of Tom.
“We do another contest,” said Tom.
“Lord snow might object,” said Mr. Grey absently.
“Not with a sponsor. You should seek a lord’s support. I met a lord once. He dwells out of town, in a distant island keep. He’d be your sponsor.”
“My play still won’t change. Grand works won’t come from my hands. They’re beyond my skill.”
“Because your ticker’s broken,” said Honeydew. She leaned with palms on the window. Her fingers pressed pale indents in the leather. The zeal of a moment past still had her tense. “Where can we fix it? I’ll get that task done. You go and speak with the lord.”
Mr. Grey turned with arms crossed. He stared in the space between the two. His speech came out like a recording; as though the only way to disrupt it was physical interaction with the producing device. “We don’t have treasure. We can’t afford the repairs, if they’re offered here,” Both Tom and Honeydew started to speak. Mr. Grey went on heedlessly. His head turned to Honeydew, though his eyes didn’t follow. “We’re split so often. We seem to travel apart. This plan’s the same thing. We came together; shouldn’t we stay together?”
“Let’s focus on the ticker,” Honeydew pressed firmly.
“I don’t know a ticker store,” said Tom.
“You only know restaurants!”
“I know mallets too,” said Tom defensively. “And candy gathers people; friends and new faces.”
Tom and Honeydew quarreled. She stepped forward and snarled beneath his broad face. She berated him for his single mindedness on pointless matters. Tom huffed in a mood fouled. He talked down to Honeydew, saying she lacked wisdom and experience.
Mr. Grey remained by the window. He looked at neither. He spoke in the record-voice, with no Wine Medo accent. “I think the working day’s done. It’s time to return to Starharbor. This has been a busy trip, but there’ve been too many setbacks. Besides, Glory Days was never part of the original route.”
Neither Honeydew nor Tom heard him over their bickering.
Mr. Grey said, “I’ll get everything arranged.”
He stepped calmly through the hole in the stretched leather, unlashed the boat from the railing of their house, slid it into the water, and rowed away into the floating city. Tom and Honeydew missed his leave.