Chapter 15 - Jodee Coats
“In exactly…” The queen paused. Her feet came to an instant, full stop. Mr. Grey and Ms. Maysey - freshly washed - stopped behind. The queen wheeled sideways to face one of the wicker hallway’s broad lattice windows. She stared through the glass into an interior courtyard, where a loud fire burned in a tall, four-sided, brick fireplace. The flame seemed to burn self-consciously in the exact middle of the fireplace, as though afraid to drop a spark on the wicker courtyard surrounding it.
The queen performed a ninety-degree twist, and resumed her march exactly where it had stopped. Mr. Grey and Ms. Maysey followed. The queen resumed her speech exactly where she’d left it as well. “…three refuelings of the palace furnace, a feast will commence. The feast is hosted to accommodate an excess of guests at the wicker palace. You will both be in attendance.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Mr. Grey.
“C-c-certainly, your grace,” said Ms. Maysey. “Only, is there food prepared without dangerous smells? My health, you know.”
“Guests, the food will be odorless. It will be delicious. If you wish, you may look through the yarn-covered doors to your right. You will see the grand dining hall.”
A needlework of battling kings and queens in gemstone armor covered the double doors indicated by the queen. Mr. Grey and Ms. Maysey peered through the partially open set. Beyond, tiny balloon-drones buzzed through the airspace of a domed wicker room. They delivered silverware and dishware to the circular table in the center of the floor, both floor and table also being of wicker. Mr. Grey saw some of the guests milling about the room, trying to peek beneath the covered dishes. He saw a few familiar faces. His heart, just then starting a new cycle of steady beats, began with one happy double-tap.
Mr. Grey saw, as well, the queen’s mint-robed faerie servants. They milled around the table setting places and silverware. A burly faerie pushed the door wide at that moment. It carried a silver platter twice its size overhead in place of a ruby cap. The savory smell of cooked root-vegetables wafted past. The faerie gave Mr. Grey a sour look and made as if to throw the platter. Then it noticed the queen. The faerie bowed, still balancing the platter, and said, “Oh goodness, oh me! How happy to see, Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Grace!”
When the queen asked the faerie what it was doing, it explained that the current dish had to go back to the de-scenting room. The faerie bid her grace goodbye and creaked off down the wicker hallway. It did glance back to stick its tongue at Mr. Grey when the queen wasn’t looking.
The queen resumed their march. Mr. Grey let his eyes wander along side corridors and through the open doors they passed. His ears hardly attended as Ms. Maysey asked, “All that food the faeries are making, your grace… It isn’t, you know, enchanting; is it?”
“No, Ms. Maysey,” answered the queen. She turned sharpy at a corner. “Guests, before the feasts you are allotted two great fireplace refuelings for P.T. You will spend a third in preparation for a grand meal.”
The queen waited for a response. Mr. Grey said, “Yes, your grace.”
Ms. Maysey bit the end of her pipe. She looked at Mr. Grey, but his eyes still wandered other rooms and halls. She said, “Yes, your grace. Only what does P.T. stand for? It’s not- not Physical Training, is it? Because reallytruly, my cardiovascular system-” Ms. Maysey completed her sentence, but at such a high pitch that no one heard.
The queen said, “P.T. stands for Personal Time, Ms. Maysey.”
“What a relief.”
“Guests, I will lead you upstairs. You have been assigned barracks. I mean rooms.” The queen made another crisp turn to a set of woven wicker steps.
Mr. Grey said, “Your grace, could I start my P.T. now? I’d like to… wander…” He trailed off. The queen and Ms. Maysey stopped at the stairs, and followed Mr. Grey’s fixed stare to another hall.
At a T-intersection on the other end of a statue-lined corridor, one of the faerie servants leaned back on the balls of his feet. He recoiled from a barrage of argumentative and abusive words. A harangue.
From Jodee Coats.
The young girl, plain as day, leaned against a broad window showing the starry sky. She wore the same robe Mr. Grey had first seen her in, the same woven pattern of a hot and smoking dragon-engine-tram. Now her outfit showed the fraying cuffs, and fraying hem, and sun-parched mottling of hard travel. She emphasized the points of whatever tirade she was giving with swings of her potted alwayslush sapling.
Ms. Maysey said, “Are you sure, Mr. Grey? Wouldn’t you, I mean, shouldn’t you take some tocks for yourself first?”
“I think I’ll be fine,” said Mr. Grey absentmindedly. “I can hardly get into much trouble in one hallway.”
The queen said, “Mr. Grey, you may move around the palace as you see fit. Your P.T. commences now.” She turned to Ms. Maysey and pointed her battleaxe upstairs. “Ms. Maysey, be pleased to follow me. I will escort you to your assigned barracks. I mean room. You will find a bottle of Starharbor cologne for personal use.”
The queen mounted the wicker steps with creaky stomps. Ms. Maysey huffed and puffed and followed. She spared one glance of many mice back at Mr. Grey. Then they disappeared, leaving Mr. Grey with a single corridor separating himself and Jodee.
Mr. Grey walked at his usual, steady pace towards the faerie and Jodee. His face and manner showed no hesitancy, but he did notice his heart pump a fraction quicker. He reached the space where statues lined the corridor, accent-lit by glass firefly tanks recessed into the floor. The statues showed crowned people - kings and queens Mr. Grey guessed - in arms-held-high poses of heroism. Their solid amber shapes glowed with inner light exacted from the fireflies. Some had aged to look like squishy garnet, while others seemed light and new, like solid citrine.
Though Jodee and her shouting distracted Mr. Grey, he did notice small, square lids at the plinth of each statue. One was propped open. Mr. Grey glanced inside and saw a mix of debris: old bottles and cans, broken glass, ragged couch-pillow. He realized the sculptures’ purpose; ornate bins for garbage.
Exactly one creaky step on the wicker floor after this realization hit, two shadows unfolded themselves from the statues ahead. Mr. Grey neither showed or felt the least surprise as, lurking one from each side of the bins, he met Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire.
With a flash of his shades, a flash of his teeth, and a rapturous whine, Slake began. “Oh. What. A. Pity! Oh. What. A. Shame! My sweet, wayward, lost little Mr. Grey has, at the last; at this culmination of avoidance; at this end of shortsighted act; he has been, by the faerie servants of the great and glorious monarch, detained.” Slake prowled tickerwise around Mr. Grey.
“In for it now,” barked Blackjaw. He moved countertickerwise, cutting a wider circle around his statuary prey.
Mr. Grey brought a breath in through his nose. Slake went on before he could speak. “Oh my darling Mr. Grey, if only you’d listened. If only you’d signed with these loyal servants, at our inchoate encounter in Honeydew’s Wheelhouse. If only these poor finders had not - out of just consciousness and in accordance with law - been forced to pursue a case with the queen. Against one for which we held such high hopes. But alas! These humble finders have reached their own end. And now, I fear-”
“You’ve got no choice.”
“No choice! Ah, woe! There are no options. No ways out. Now, regret it though we may, we require you to peacefully accompany us before the queen. Before the queen, the loan to the estimable sir Bugwitch shall be confirmed. Before the queen, you shall feel the heavy-handed justice of the law you have so blatantly flouted. You might resist, might try to flee. I hope that isn’t your intention. Attempt such a route, and on the instant, you would be… you would suffer…”
“Nabbed by faeries.”
Blackjaw and Slake ended their respective circles in front of him. They leaned in close and stared from behind their dark spectacles at Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey released his held breath, brought a hand up - they jumped back a step - and wiped at a weathered eye. He craned his neck and rose on his toes to peek past Blackjaw and Slake’s shoulders. He saw the faerie rebutting Jodee, but couldn’t hear the tiny creature’s words.
Slake leaned in to his partner and spoke again before Mr. Grey. “Do you know something, Blackjaw?”
“What, Slake?”
“I believe - no, I know! - an epiphany has struck. A method, by which our lost sculpture might avoid the legal reverberations of his proceedings!”
“Avoid?” Blackjaw made half-an-effort to look confused.
“This man might yet spare himself the pointed shoulder, by enlisting as our full client. You, precious Blackjaw, understand better than any the advantages of a finder-client relationship.”
“The privilege.”
“If he were only to take a loan.” Slake waved at ornate trash-bin-statues. “He might yet escape the aftermath of unlawfully shirking his cosignatory obligations. All this luxury - all this bright glory! - might even bedeck his own homely workers’ prison cell.”
Mr. Grey shook his head slowly. First to one side, and Blackjaw stood back; then to the other, and Slake recoiled. Mr. Grey said, “Home seems so far. If it came over the horizon, I wonder; would I see it?”
“Dearie, dearie me! How melancholy. Not to fret, sir. You’ll find these finders, willing. You’ll find these finders, ready. You’ll find, as our client, long-term options. Suitable to any situation! These humble finders, sir, specialize in long-term investments.”
“It’s the foundation,” added Blackjaw.
Mr. Grey dropped back to his heels and looked at the finders. He said, “Mr. Slake, Mr. Blackjaw, do you wonder - even a little - at your loans’ consequences?”
“No,” said Blackjaw.
“I’ve seen the temporary high and eventual crash of these loans. Seen what it does to an existence. We’re all three from Starharbor, gentlemen. We’ve all seen such contracts’ ruinous outcomes.”
“Dearie me once more, Mr. Grey,” said Slake with a pout and a forward lean. “But you aren’t such a one to throw loaned treasure on frivolities, are you? You’re a sturdy, lawful - excepting present circumstances - upright pencil pusher, aren’t you?”
“Mr. Slake, I never signed Bugwitch’s contract. Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps not. That case was dismissed anyway. By Ordus, you recall.” Mr. Grey heard Jodee’s voice from the hall’s end. She asked - or rather, told - the faerie to seat her closer to the queen.
Mr. Grey tilted his head to the side to catch a glimpse of Jodee, but Blackjaw and Slake moved with his eyes. Mr. Grey said, “Please, gentlemen. This has become an inconvenience.”
Blackjaw wagged his sideburns from side-to-side with a grim scowl on his lips, and Slake leaned closer to Mr. Grey’s ear. He said, “But Mr. Grey, we’re not in Glory Days. We’re not under King’s Law here, Mr. Grey. We’re under Queen’s Law, Mr. Grey. We’re in the queen’s own palace in fact. Old dismissals, innocent Mr. Grey, aren’t applicable. They’re inconsequential.”
“And unjust,” growled Blackjaw in the other ear.
“My colleague speaks strong, Mr. Grey. But the straight facts are these. You’re still beholden to your signature on Bugwitch’s loan. If you appear before the queen, you’ll suffer the punishment of law for avoiding that loan. And the final fact; Slake-”
“-And Blackjaw-”
“-can even now lead you onto new soil. Explore new lands. Provide new funds. How about it Mr. Grey? Put your faith in a finder.”
“I think I’m done exploring,” said Mr. Grey. Blackjaw and Slake had moved to his sides to speak in his ears. He tried pushing forward, but they swung round again in front.
The finders crossed their arms. Blackjaw growled and scowled. Slake said, “Mr. grey, this game has gone on long enough. We’ll make it clear to you, sir. Take a loan with us or face the tender mercies of the faeries.”
Mr. Grey looked first to Slake, then to Blackjaw. He shrugged - a stiff up-and-down of his shoulders - and said, “I haven’t got any treasure for collateral. My account’s empty.”
The vicious, triumphant, glimmering teeth of the finders faltered. Their brows furrow over their glasses. “What?” said Blackjaw.
Slake said, “My. Dear. Mr. Grey. We know your habits. Don’t try pulling wool over our eyes. We’ve seen your meals and sleeping spaces. You’ve not spent all your saved fortune.”
“That’s true,” said Mr. Grey. “But some time ago Honeydew and I happened upon a family living in a carriage. They were themselves troubled by finders’ debts. To pay those debts I signed my savings to that finder. I haven’t got much more than these robes to my name. To make it clear to you, gentlemen; I’m treasureless.”
Blackjaw and Slake gaped at him for several tocks. Mr. Grey waited. Slake said, “No. No this can’t be. We followed you-”
“So far,” said Blackjaw, in a cracked voice.
“I apologize if I gave the wrong impression,” said Mr. Grey. “But I did tell you I wasn’t interested. In any case you might as well return my visa too. It’s worthless now.”
Blackjaw and Slake, after several more tocks of disappointment sank in, shared a confused glance. They parted to either side and began to walk away. Slake did turn once and say, “Don’t know what you mean. We never took your paltry visa.”
“Poor loser,” snapped Blackjaw at his other flank.
Without another word, ‘Blackjaw and Slake: Finders for Hire’ left him to pursue other ventures.
Mr. Grey hung his head, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. He released with it, a long-held tension.
His lids snapped up at the sound of approaching movement.
The faerie servant who’d been arguing with Jodee shuffled quickly by the statue trashcans and Mr. Grey without a glance. The little fellow wore a beleaguered look on his scrunched features. As he strode past, Mr. Grey looked to the corridor’s end. He saw Jodee dusting at her dragon engine robe. She stomped her feet on the wicker, then turned to march from the window, down a different hall.
Mr. Grey raised his voice. “Excuse me, miss… Miss Coats?”
The porch swing creaked through a long, gentle, forward arc. It swung out from between its canopy and a high balcony of the palace. It swung over the empty space of an interior palace courtyard, where dragons and Ogurs and champions from bygone eras presented themselves as tangled wicker sculptures. The light of a half-moon shone over the court, and the porch swing, and - upon its seat - Jodee Coats and Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey heard a plastic rustle from the alwayslush sapling sitting between them. The plant, glossy with moonshine, hid Jodee from his view.
Mr. Grey tapped the stack of blank visa parchments on his lap to tidy the edges. He picked the feathered quill up and set it perfectly parallel to the edge of the parchment. He said, “Do you remember visiting the Starharbor Regional Justice Center? And visiting the Visa Processing Department? You were- a little frustrated. I think you kicked harder than intended at the cubicle wall of one employee. Which, incidentally, was my cubicle.”
He heard another rustle from the glossy plastic plant. Mr. Grey saw Jodee’s robed feet swish through the open air and heard her suddenly speak. “I remember you. The manners-guy who wouldn’t give me a pass.”
“The manners-guy?”
“You’ve got ‘good manners’. You wear them over every square of your body. By gosh, your very breaths are mannerly.”
“I thought to find you in the dragon’s lair. I’d expected a cave, not a wicker palace.”
Mr. Grey heard a huff. “I came to save people from the dragon. I came to end its existence. I couldn’t know the dragon was also a person.”
They fell silent. They passed into a long backward arc, out of the moonlight, underneath the porch swing canopy. Mr. Grey’s shawl fluttered around his neck, and the canopy threw a shadow on his face.
“Well?!” Jodee blurted from the other side of the plant. “What am I being bothered for?”
Mr. Grey looked down at the shadowed, blank sheets of visa parchment. He said, “I came here to complete your visa.”
Jodee barked out one laugh. “You trailed me all the way to Dreamland? For that?”
“It was supposed to be a vacation.”
Jodee paused. “Welp, I won’t waste more of your time. Sorry guy, I’m not filing some stupid visa.”
“Are you sure that decision’s right?”
He heard her foot touch the wicker floor, as if to rise. “Yep. I’m gonna go see the dining hall before the feast starts. Sounds like awesome food. Plus I don’t wanna be late.”
Mr. Grey gave the wicker balcony beneath them a small push with his heels. He sent them both swinging back out to the moonlight in another long arc. Before Jodee could rise.
The visa and quill fluttered on Mr. Grey’s lap. He said, “I wanted to finish your visa. At the beginning anyway. But-”
“But what?” Mr. Grey heard Jodee’s robe rustle beyond the tree; he pictured folded arms and an impatient scowl.
“Not exactly a change of heart. I’ve seen new data, maybe.” Mr. Grey reached for his ticker, but deliberately stopped his hand short and set it in his lap. “I met the same merchant you met, by the way. Over in Stone-Head Town.”
“The drink vendor? The one with the frowning forehead and The Dew of the Sierras?”
“He seemed cheered by your meeting. You got him thinking better of visitors.”
“He wasn’t such a downer once I cracked him. I got him chatting about the merchants’ trade. That’s my whole purpose; get other people to see the way my eyes do. I want to lead people to new ways of existing. Better ways. I’m bringing people together wherever I go, and making sure they stay together after I leave. I’m a uniter, and a leader, and a shower-of-people that my ideas are good ones.”
“I wonder if, in following your trail, I left anyone the way you left that drink vendor.”
The conversation stilled. Mr. Grey couldn’t see Jodee’s face past the sapling. But he had the sense of her eyes looking his way at that moment, brow bent. Though she said nothing, Mr. Grey pictured, on her lips, the word, ”…And…?”
The swing rocked back into the shadows of the canopy. Mr. Grey said, “But there is some danger with meeting strangers.”
“Ugh. Such as?”
“Consider the smells. Don’t you think too much-”
Jodee interrupted him with a snap of her finger. “Rampaging odors are another King’s Lie.”
“I disagree.”
“A lie. Like the fortune auctions. Or the wealth of the wheelhouses. Is there some sniffling involved the first time people hang out? Maybe. But calling it an ‘odor attack’ is just stoop-wash. No one gets that sick.”
Mr. Grey winced, but swallowed a sharp word. He spoke in his usual, steady voice. “I’ve seen otherwise.”
Another silent span. When they came to the middle of their arc, it was Jodee’s feet that pushed them back over the woven sculpture court. Mr. Grey saw the alwayslush sapling shift. He watched as Jodee took it up and set it to her right side. Her hands fidgeted on her lap, like they couldn’t rest comfortably against the burning coals of her robe-pattern. She looked first at the visa application in his lap, with a scowl of disdain. Then, with a mistrustful contraction of her brow, she met the plain, open, stony eyes of Mr. Grey. They appraised each other under the half-moon.
Jodee said, “I doubt it. You’re not the type to venture into sick houses. Give me one example of a person my style of existing hurt.”
“Jodee,” Mr. Grey said quietly, “Scent maulings decimated Wargermopolis.”
“More like the Defense Force thugs rolled through.”
“And I know someone - two friends in fact - stricken ill from odors outside their native moats.”
“So people need to hermit themselves away forever? Never see a scrap of history, or shop at a new store? Because your two friends got sick?”
“Is it fair putting the risk on others for personal enjoyment?”
“Any locals shaking in their shoes, who don’t want to mingle with tourists, don’t have to mingle with tourists.”
“Some smells are stronger than others. Some people have their own, distinct scent. And here’s another thing; what about the damage to historical sites and artifacts? Take a place like Antiquity in Glory Days. Won’t allowing extra tread over old stones wear them faster?”
Jodee drummed her fingers on the top of her leg. “You think it’s better to stick people into little boxes. Of course there’s risks in letting people mingle. Maybe it’s not totally fair to every single person. But golly! Forcing a lady to wallow in just her own scent, never seeing another face; that’s not fair.”
“I don’t think the choice is so narrow. Nothing’s perfectly dark or perfectly light. I thought the Odormoats were a good compromise.”
“How’s forcing me to stay home ‘compromise’?”
“You’re not in Starharbor alone.”
“You mean Starharbor’s natives? Geez, some company that. Not a one’s got grit.”
“No moat’s perfect, but Starharbor has its charm. And again, it’s a middle ground; a healthy one.”
Jodee huffed. “Maybe nothing’s dark or light, but I see lots of shades between.”
Mr. Grey felt the cold breeze on his neck, as they slipped back from the moon once more. The canopy and terrace seemed like the upper and lower jaws of some huge wicker monsters, lolling them in and out of its mouth on a swinging uvula. Jodee stopped drumming her hand. She turned bodily toward Mr. Grey now, the better that he could see the accusation in her face and posture. She said, “So you followed me all this way, huh? So you’ve seen Wine Medo? Did you visit Toscamo while you were there?”
“I did.”
“Did you see anyone starving?”
“I didn’t.”
“Do you know why?”
“You convinced the landowners to replace their gardens of flowers with gardens of produce.”
“You can’t say that was wrong. You have to agree that my perspective switched those people’s dumb habits for good ones. All it took was me - one girl with some bean farming notions - and nobody else went hungry.”
Mr. Grey tapped his chin. “There’s still consequences. I met a woman named Pots. She hadn’t left her Oh Well for some time.”
“She lives down an old well?”
“‘Oh Well’. It’s a special kind.”
“Why’s there a woman in a well?”
“She enchanted the water. That’s not my point. When she learned the flowers were gone, it made her sad. I think it made other people sad too; the loss of something beautiful. Something unique to their culture.”
“Oh don’t be such a beefy line-chief. Are you actually going to sit nice and stiff, and tell me - with that placid face - that a pretty garden’s more important than ample feed?”
“I- I suppose not.”
“I know not. What have you done?”
“Done?”
“What have you got that stacks? What brought off, in all your following? What peoples’ problems did you solve?”
“I’m not sure.” Mr. Grey turned the visa parchments on his lap, first to the right, then the left, trying to center them perfectly. “I’ve tried to be polite. It’s easy for me; to exist in a polite, inoffensive way.”
“Yeah, like I said. Lots of manners. To me that’s a lame excuse. Sounds like not having purpose. I don’t understand that one bit. Don’t want to understand it.” Mr. Grey had been looking purposefully forward, out into the courtyard. He didn’t see Jodee, but he heard her feet scuff on the balcony, and felt the swing shift slightly as she stood.
Mr. Grey said, “You might be right.”
He felt the shudder in the bench as Jodee plopped back to her seat. He felt the swish of air and watched the wicker sculptures roll out below as she kicked them out. He felt her eyes, molten on his stone cheek. She waited for him to speak.
“Have you seen the oven prison?” asked Mr. Grey.
“Excuse you?”
“It’s a real prison, not a tourist trap. It’s run by faeries, managed by the queen. They keep people there who’ve developed the worst smells. Smells that might lay waste to cities. At least according to Death.”
“According to Death? Jee-pers. I hadn’t thought you’d talk so plain.”
“He’s not what you might expect. Anyway it’s beside the point. In this oven prison they keep people in hot, humid, fume-filled cells. They get bullied by faerie jailers in minty robes. Like these short fellows in the ruby hats walking through the yard just now.”
“That’s awful.”
Mr. Grey nodded. “It is awful. I wanted to say something to the queen.”
“Yes!”
“There have been a few times - since I’ve been following you through the moats - where I wanted to speak. There were a few times where I thought I might have, only I was interrupted.”
“I tell you what, those wouldn’t have been the ‘missed chances’ you paint them to be if it had been me.”
“On the balloon flight here I thought more about the prison. Of what might result if I did speak out. What if I convinced the queen to let these heavy-scented people free?”
“Small chance.”
“I’m not sure I could convince her. But if I did, other people might be attacked by odors. Others might be made sick, because of something I said. That would mean I made a mistake. My opinion would have been the wrong one. I’d have been better not giving it.”
“Ugh, now you’re preaching.”
“Just a moment more. Even if not for those difficulties, I ask this: is it right for me to press myself? To spend other peoples’ time and energy? On what I think is right? Especially when I wasn’t involved to start. Is that fair to them?”
Jodee said, “Good grits. If you say nothing, there’s not even a chance of those prisoners catching a break. These mean old faeries will keep torturing.”
“I know.”
“Well I don’t give a mouse-curler what you do. I’m gonna lay a piece of my mind on this grand dragon-dame.”
“I thought you might.”
Instead of leaping from the bench as Mr. Grey had anticipated, Jodee slumped. He saw her brow furrow. She said, “Okay okay okay, so foreign fumes might make some folk sick. What’s your big idea? Maybe the oven-people smells are ultra-potent super-manglers. But then what the beans are we supposed to do, Mr. Manners?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great.”
“I push the same pencils as everyone else. I could bring it up in Starharbor. I could speak to Jack Yorke, my boss. There might be a King’s reform which improves the oven’s conditions. What if they put the fume around the oven, instead of inside? Alternatively the faeries could be made to act nicer.”
“That’s not the fairest fix.”
“It could help. And small reforms like that, over time… There’s less risk of harmful reverberation.”
“Meanwhile, perfectly healthy folks will be stuck too. Stuck in their Odormoats even if they don’t have a smell to ‘em.”
Mr. Grey tapped his chin. “My boss mentioned some upcoming reforms sweeping the Justice Center. Perhaps they’ll make it easier to travel? I’d also work a little harder to help people when they apply. I’d like to help people get their visas, with proper safety measures.”
“Wouldn’t be here jawing if you’d just done that when I applied.”
“It would help to give examples. Some firsthand accounts of the good from meeting strangers.”
Mr. Grey and Jodee had swung on the bench for a long time now; arcing back and forth in pendulum motion; now under the half-moon light and over the courtyard sculptures; now beneath the shade of the canopy. Their swing stopped as Mr. Grey completed his thought. Jodee stayed silent. Mr. Grey looked at her. Her arms roved restlessly, and she twisted on the hard wicker seat. She snorted like a smoking dragon. She took her arms from her legs and crossed them over her engine robe. She tossed her ruby hair. Finally, with an angry shove of her heels, she pushed their swing into the moonlight over the court.
Jodee said, “If you reallytruly think it would help, and you need someone who’s actually seen the world: Gah lee. I could waddle with you back to Starharbor.”
Mr. Grey didn’t immediately speak. After a moment he laid his hands on his lap and said, “You probably wouldn’t get out again if you did. The bouncers would have a keen eye on you.”
“Hah! They couldn’t keep me.” Jodee’s voice sounded confident, but Mr. Grey saw her bite her lower lip. “Besides, I broke out once. Twice would be showing off.”
Then a stone fell from Mr. Grey’s heart, which wagged like a lamb’s tail.
As their swing returned to the balcony, Jodee dug her heels in to bring them to a stop. She tapped her finger impatiently, and said, “Well? Show me how to write on this stupid thing,” She grabbed at Mr. Grey’s blank visa and quill.
Mr. Grey waved her hand back. He rolled the parchments and placed them with the quill in his pocket. He said, “We don’t need the visa.”
Mr. Grey placed his arms - though certainly not his elbows - on the table’s lumpy willow-weave. He leaned over a polished silver plate scattered with pellets of golden sweetcorn, and torqued his neck sideways. He looked up into the queen’s face; she, sitting in a high-backed, woven-reed throne with a rigid spine, and a firm forward stare. Mr. Grey hesitated - the queen showed him no notice - but eventually spoke. “Your Grace, I wanted to say thank you. For hosting all of us at your palace. And for providing dinner. It’s kind.”
Jodee shot out on the queen’s right side and nearly overturned her own silver plate of coal-dark, tiny, stuffed pumpkins. She said, “If you wanted to say thank you, just say it.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
The queen nodded with her eyes only, then continued to pass them over the feasters.
Jodee set her elbow down hard enough to divet the wicker table. She rested her chin on her palm and cocked her head at the queen. “Yeah, the chow is stilt-houses above plain-grain beans. Thanks a bucket full. Now,” She turned her grindstone eyes on Mr. Grey, “when are we bound for Starharbor?”
Mr. Grey began organizing the scattered kernels on his silver dish. “We’ll have to find my visa first.”
“What?” Jodee half-stood from her stool and bumped the round table. Her outburst caused Ms. Maysey, sitting on Jodee’s right, to swallow whole the apple core she’d been nibbling. Ms. Maysey’s eyes bulged. She threw her hands to her throat and made choking sounds, while her mice hyperventilated. Jodee turned to help, and Mr. Grey slid his stool from the table.
Death beat them both. On the other side of Ms. Maysey from Jodee, he raised the hand that wasn’t smoking and smote Ms. Maysey once upon her spine. She didn’t cough out the core; she simply stopped choking and breathed easy. Ms. Maysey turned to Death and said, “Oh. Thank you, Mr. Death. Goodness, those sudden starts never catch me when I’m mentally ready for them.”
Mr. Grey scooched in and resumed arranging his corn. Jodee turned back to him and said, “What do you mean, ‘find your visa’?”
“I lost it,” admitted Mr. Grey. “When we first came to Dreamland. Probably during a dance at a large barn.”
“Great, just great. Now I gotta go on another quest. Before the one to Starharbor.”
On Mr. Grey’s left, Wilson McDourr’s voice cracked in high falsetto. “Yea. Are these not, my beloved, the juiciest, crispest apples you have ever settled your vision upon? In waking or dreaming?”
“Inside wail, my husband,” said Anna.
Mr. Grey turned to the poltergeists. Both floated over the edge of their stools with wide-eyed, anxious-looking expressions. Wilson sat directly to Mr. Grey’s left, while Anna sat one space further. Wilson resumed in his calmer, adult voice. “My dear, I make only a modest apology for my exuberance. My enthusiasm pays homage to our chivalric hostess. And, besides, you are cognizant of my fixation regarding the fruit-most produce of our Dreamland holts, dear wife.”
“Wilson loves to make apples move,” Anna explained to Mr. Grey.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Grey with polite interest.
“More than any other fruit in the bowl.”
“Begging a thousand of your leaves, my dear elder lady,” said Wilson, not to his wife, but to another elderly lady across the table. “Would you be so generous as to direct that dish of flaming-apple-skewers in my direction, by way of these delightful airborne vittles-translocation devices?”
Nesting-Inside-Pots’ reverse echo didn’t blare as obtrusively in the wicker-walled, domed dining room, but the whole company still heard her answer. “I’ll fly ‘em to you. But as a return shipment, pass the sawblade gourds.” Pots reached around blindly with her long-nailed hands until she felt the heat of the flaming skewers. She waved the air until she found one of the balloon-drones. She set the flaming-skewer dish on the drone and sent it flying - blindly, but accurately - in the direction she’d heard the ghosts. They, in turn, shipped her the saw-shaped roast pumpkin wedges.
After that exchange, the guests broke into individual conversations, sometimes chatting to the person at one side, then turning suddenly to another guest some spaces away; everybody babbling here and there; a verbal dance of feasters, sitting in a ring around the wicker table. Sometimes voices rose in anger, or sank in hurt feelings. Any talk of that kind found quick salve in the immense array of dishes. Pumpkin-pasta, roasted wedges of pumpkin, riced-pumpkin with sweet-and-sweeter sauce, and, obviously, pie. Corn-on-the-cob, maize tortillas with sweet corn salsa, and - less obvious — corn pie. Apples in every cut and cook. All of it, brightly-fresh or darkly-crisped. All of it dense with smells of baked thyme, sage, rosemary, cinnamon and nutmeg, every spice and herb under sun or stars; all these smells mixing together to create a humid cloud almost as tasteful as the food itself. And despite this breakage of the queen’s earlier promise of odorless food, no one cared. All these foods came served on platters of silver carried in by faeries, and all were traded back and forth by the guests using the tiny balloon-drone trays. Even Blackjaw and Slake - normally odious and unwelcome - made tolerable company at this table. Aside from occasional attempts at engaging the queen in a loan (which she ignored), they feasted themselves on the dregs of almost-empty platters. Within the bounty spread at this table, however, empty plates were a scarcity.
A pungent, spicy smell of baked-apple-and-cinnamon mushroomed up from where it lay trapped in the wicker, as Death struck the table with a fist. He passed his cigarette to a nearby faerie and spoke in a scratchy, casual tone. “Yeah, this spread’s quaint. But we got some super-stellar meal-deals back on the resort. No comparison.”
The gentler conversations dropped to awkward silence at Death’s loud bragging. Mr. Grey tried raising the good humor again by turning to the McDourr’s. He said, “Pardon me, Wilson, Anna?”
Wilson hesitated halfway through a sip of cider. He gulped; Mr. Grey watching the liquid slide into his stomach like tree-sap through the poltergeist’s translucent skin. “Y-yes, sir?” said Wilson.
“Did you have any luck finding a place to rear your future family?”
Wilson sighed. Anna said, “My dear sir, our search has given us only disappointment upon disappointment.”
Death interrupted. “McDourrs! Lord and Lady! You know I’m hosting anytime you’re willing,” Death’s grin splayed his bristly chin whiskers.
Wilson said, “No thank you, kind sir Death. Though your proposal is, as always, a generous one,” Wilson turned to Mr. Grey. “I fear that, no matter the location we inquire, we meet with misinformation, confusion, and faces like three rainy nights.”
“No place in Dreamland seems like a good place for kids,” added Anna.
“It is lamentable, Mr. Stoat,” Wilson turned suddenly. He puffed his chest in a show of deportment and faced a (the?) pipkin stoat. The weasel had come late on his palfrey and squeezed between Blackjaw and The Old Wind. “Would you be so agreeable as to transmit that bowl of apple jelly into our vicinity?”
The stoat passed the dish.
Mr. Grey heard Jodee’s voice addressing him, from the other side of the queen. “Hang on Mr. G. Once I find your lost visa, you know the road to go, right?”
“We’ll head to the Change of Address Office,” said Mr. Grey. He nibbled a piece of corn evasively.
“Which is where?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Grubs and beetles. I’ll be lost in the woods with this statue forever.”
Pots’ reverse echo caught them all by surprise. “You can stay with me. You missed the tavern party, but there’s lots of room.”
Death’s bag-eyes wobbled as he regarded Pots. The apple core in his hand speed-rotted and fell to his plate. He wagged its stem back and forth for emphasis as he said, “Alas, lady. You’re wasted in some dank iron box. Why not get trapped in my castle for a spell? I’d show you real dancing.”
Across the table The Old Wind said, “Why don’t you stop with your endless myths? No one wants to go to your island. Better it was a cold, barren rock. Quit butting in like some bridge troll.” After this outburst, which Death took with a sneer of feigned nonchalance, The Wind fluttered sulkily over her plate of corn husks.
Death said, “Just hate seeing fine people having a worse time than they could. Do whatever you like I guess.” Death sulked then too. He brooded for a time over his plateful of rotten apples, Until Ms. Maysey offered to smoke with him. Death’s good humor returned gradually with their puffs.
Meanwhile, Jodee answered Pots’ offer by saying, “I’m willing to travel root and valley with this grey boy. But I won’t squat all night in some dingy tavern.”
Mr. Grey addressed his old mentor. “The offer’s kind pots. Jodee and I may travel, revisit some spots.” Pots smiled and said that was fine, but that he’d better drop in sometime. Mr. Grey leaned across the stiffly-observant queen, and said to Jodee, “If we’re stuck here, you could show me how you chat. We could return to Stone-Head Town.”
“CEASE!” Wilson McDourr’s Victorian wail set off a reverberating ring in Mr. Grey’s left ear. “Let there be an ending to the relentless torment. An ending. An epilogue. An annihilation of all things!”
“No dearest, don’t,” said Anna quickly. She raised a hand into Wilson’s cheek. He turned his face aside.
“Regret that this should come to pass, love, overflows my form’s quadrated foundation-block. But, alas. No longer can this beleaguered specter endure the pangs of guilty conscience,” He faced Mr. Grey with a sad, solemn face between his tonsure and chin. “My good sir, may the subtle thrusts you unknowingly skewer my incorporeal chest with, be ended. It is by the McDourrs, sir, that you have been deceived.”
“Not with ill intention, Mr. Grey,” added Anna with a nervous tug on her plaited hair.
“No, my love, not with ill intention. Nevertheless, a wrong we have performed, and a wrong we must correct.” Wilson stood solemnly, within the table, inside of several dishes of corn and apples. He flicked his wrist; some small fragment of cloth soared through the air at Wilson’s beck, through the main hall door (presumably from his luggage), past several startled faeries. The cloth flitted into Wilson’s hand. He presented Mr. Grey with the cloth; with the legal-writing-covered square of long lost, Odormoat-crossing fabric. His lost visa.
“Good sir, I deliver to you, the visa to which you have the greatest claim,” said Wilson.
“We would have returned it,” added Anna. “Once we’d found family accommodation in another moat.”
“But our efforts to discover the migration office have devastated such hopes. We return this priceless object to its most-genuine owner.”
“I do wish we had a visa of our own!” wailed Anna.
“Now, now, love. Has this strain of fortune not always been our hardship to brook? Easy come, easy go.”
“Now we must drink our penance without cups.”
Wilson raised his cup in toast, and took several deep, gulping swallows; as though trying to drown himself in cider. He turned one last time to Mr. Grey, and added, “We are sincerely sorry, Mr. Grey.”
The assembled guests had ponged their eyes back and forth between Anna and Wilson McDourr during this dramatic display. Now, every set settled on Mr. Grey. His face and posture were regular. He waited to ensure the McDourrs had no further outbursts. Then he said, “I hadn’t missed it much until now anyway. No harm done.” He looked at Anna. “Can you pass me that platter of striped beans?”
Anna and Wilson drifted through arrayed dishes back to their stools. Ms. Maysey raised her voice a diminutive fraction, and said, “I’m a little concerned myself. I too don’t know the Dreamland Migration Office’s location. I am trying to avoid prolonged exposure to the sun. But I feel like prolonged exposure to the moon might be just as harmful to my skin. Maybe worse?”
Blackjaw and Slake also cast worried, shaded glances at one another. Slake turned to Death and said, “You sir, estimable gentleman! You appear local by your dress. Death, I’ve heard, is your title?”
Death winked. “Got it.”
“Do you, sweet Death, know the Migration Office’s location? We finders are quite- quite-”
“Industrious,” barked Blackjaw.
“Industrious fellows. We would not wish to keep our home clients waiting. Might you, by any way, tell us a way to leave Dreamland?”
Death let his cigarette smoke swirl inside his lungs and throat. He breathed the fume to the side and said, “No.”
Ms. Maysee twirled a finger through a mouse of her hair. She said, “If I’d known I’d endure so much - and in my state of health - when Tom-”
Ms. Maysey swallowed her next word. She fixed her eyes on the plate of apple peels before her, but the beady mouse hair eyes darted at Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey poured himself a glass of pearly wine from a carafe. He raised it and said, “To Tom.”
The gathering toasted and relaxed.
After a long, unexplained silence through every course and conversation, the queen at that moment suddenly shouted between Mr. Grey and Jodee. “Guests, after observing the traditional period of respectful silence demanded of a monarch and host, I am permitted to speak. I am commencing the feast. You may revel.”
There was scattered, confused, polite applause.
The queen turned her head - almost threateningly slow - to Ms. Maysey on her right. She said, “Ms. Maysey,” then turned to Mr. Grey on her left, and added, “Mr. Grey,” and lastly, back to her right to look at Jodee, and continued, “Ms. Coats; I will arrange return transportation to Starharbor.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” said Mr. Grey.
Ms. Maysey chimed in. “Of course the queen knows the Migration Office.”
The Queen said, “Ms. Maysey, Dreamland has no Migration Office. The Migration Office is an establishment of King’s Law. I am the law in Dreamland.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” said Ms. Maysey and Mr. Grey in unison; the former inaudibly, the latter politely. Jodee said nothing.
Blackjaw and Slake waved their hands and tapped their plates at the table’s other end. Slake was just starting to whine, but the queen turned to the McDourr’s and cut him off. “Wilson McDourr, Anna McDourr; I will arrange quarters at the palace, until you find suitable family accommodations.”
The McDourrs thanked the queen profusely, Wilson with tears in his eyes. Aside from Blackjaw and Slake, the whole company - even the bitter Old Wind - gave a more-than-polite applause. Mr. Grey raised his glass again. “A toast to Queen’s Law?”
The toast was done, and everyone drank, and spirits soared. Anna McDourr said the occasion called for music. Her theremin faded into existence before her. She played a soft melody, though not sad. Wilson joined her with his Victorian falsetto. Then Death’s ocarina picked up the tune. Pots and Mr. Grey found their fiddles, tightened their bows and joined the music.
At the outset; with Anna McDourr’s theremin wobbling and teetering through unnaturally oscillating sounds; with each of Wilson McDourr’s sung words volleying over the feasting table like so many arcing arrows; With Death carefully cutting, striking, rolling, and striding his long pale fingers over the bubbled clay ocarina, and with each movement letting notes slip from the instrument, slide down his long chin hair, and tumble across the dishes of corn and carrots and apples; with Pots’ and Mr. Grey’s fiddles desperately searching for the right notes to tie the other three together, first by jumping high on one string, then with a sudden spidery rush of fingers down another; with these elements stumbling into each other at the start, the queen’s feast’s score opened with a non-traditional theme. As moments passed, however, they played with growing ease. The different notes of the different instruments seemed to find ways of cooperating, or at least of tolerating each other. After warming up as the feast continued in full swing, the music - rather than deterring - inspired the revelry. Faerie servants danced and cartwheeled and cavorted in the background. The other guests joked, and told stories, and tossed laden balloon-drones back and forth to share the food.
Mr. Grey, fiddling all the while, was happy.