You’re snacking on In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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A double-helix of chocolate and malted milk smacked Mr. Grey and Tom in their noses. The combo-scent split from a bulbous growth of candy coral, reconvened in the air around the platter and servant who carried it, circled up from the courtyard, and attacked the pair in their place of hiding atop the rampart roof. Mr. Grey ignored the smell.
Tom’s stomach rumbled.
Mr. Grey held his breath - and the chocolate and malt milk - in his nose.
The servant and platter passed by underneath. Mr. Grey exhaled slowly and quietly. “That must be one of the lures,” he whispered.
“I imagine so,” said Tom.
“The kind the captain spoke of.”
“I heard her say it.”
Mr. Grey glanced sideways at Tom. “I thought it worth repeating.”
“I can’t help my stomach sounds,” said Tom with a moody shuffle.
Before Mr. Grey could begin an apology, Tom pointed across the courtyard. Mr. Grey saw shadows passing through the dark gardens atop the parapet roof opposite. The shapes prowled like racoons between rows of tall flowers, silhouetted against the starry night.
“You keep watch for the signal,” said Tom. “I’ll nibble some mints. Will you hold this, please?”
Tom held out his mallet. Mr. Grey shifted on his rooftop perch. “My hands are full Tom,” he said apologetically.
As proof Mr. Grey showed Tom his hands. He held what the captain had coined a ‘threshold device’. She’d placed it in Mr. Grey’s hands during their moonlit journey to the castle. In his hands it had been ever since.
Tom grunted a quiet acknowledgement. He tried setting the mallet on the sloped roof. It slid when he let it go. Tom picked it up and sighed hungrily.
Mr. Grey kept one stone eye sliding with the shadows through the roof garden. He waited on the captain’s signal. This was not a simple task. The loud and wild activity in the castle courtyard below attracted eyes.
The courtyard thronged with singing, dancing, madly-laughing people. They made merry in every nook and cranny. In circles of stones set for training and wrestling, men and women linked their arms and capered through a whirling salsa. Beneath one canopy a line of enchanters played disjointed, out-of-tune music. Another group tapped an uneven beat as they skipped across the bridge of a decorative wine pond. Children rushed through the sliding doors and leapt through the sliding windows opening onto the court, playing a neckbreaking game of tag.
And yet everyone - except the children - looked miserable. In every face, tearstained bags hung under long-dry, bloodshot eyes. In every mouth, the wide grin was the kind made by a jaw-clenching, electric bolt. The people laughed and danced and sang, and looked as though they loathed it. No one seemed happy about their celebrations, yet no one stopped. Some managed to pause for a tock or two. Only to swipe wine or candy from the platters of equally-boisterous servers. Then they whirled back into the anguished, desperate party.
“Too few leisure nights,” the captain had said. She’d explained the situation - the soldiers’ reason for quitting the castle - on the trip. “Our lord’s cares are wide: Tourists lost in the forest, public relations, honor and courage. He summoned a toymaker. To help him relax. Our lord was deceived; Toymaker is an Ogur. Now our keep is cursed. A plague of leisure.”
Tom had bristled at the story. He’d asked if she was mocking Mr. Grey. But now, seeing the people in their desolate revel, neither doubted the captain’s tale.
Mr. Grey switched his attention to a higher slope of the castle roof. But what he saw wasn’t the signal. It was the moon’s spectral luster on mountain snow, flickering behind the turning blades of a creaking castle windmill.
Tom’s stomach grouched again. The hungry man’s eye followed a platter piled with gummy-fingers. Followed too closely for Mr. Grey’s liking.
“Do keep your lids up,” said Mr. Grey. He wanted to pull Tom’s attention off the food. “If we see the Ogur first, we’ll reach him faster.”
“The Toymaker’s your duty,” said Tom. He jerked a testy elbow at the device in Mr. Grey’s hands. “I just keep them off of you.”
The captain had called Mr. Grey, “The perfect man for the job.” The gravest, stoniest creature she’d ever seen. The very way he blinked (when he blinked) was stern. He alone might resist the curse. Mr. Grey knew she spoke the truth.
The plan had sounded simple in the captain’s briefing. The soldiers attract the attention of the unwilling revelers, freeing Mr. Grey. Tom stays at his side to handle the party’s loners. Mr. Grey finds and confronts the Toymaker. Device in hand, he vanquishes the Ogur and breaks the charm.
She’d outlined the plan the way Jack York outlined work reforms; confidently. Something easily begun and sure to succeed. Mr. Grey couldn’t help but feel that, were it pencil-pushed onto parchment, the plan would need some major revisions and the usual addendum gamut.
“Oh Tom, I’m not sure…” Watching the revelers, Mr. Grey couldn’t picture himself joining them. “Even if we’re successful, they’ll need lots of sleep. The captain said days. We’d be stuck till they’re restored. We’d miss the contest. This seems dangerous.”
Tom grunted. He’d lost interest in everything except the passing platters of candy. Mr. Grey looked to the court. He followed the sack-eyed residents through the forced romp. He thought again of catching that curse. He tried once more to picture his body stripped of decorum, stiff legs forced into slapdash, unchecked larks.
“They did rescue us,” Mr. Grey mused further. “I suppose it’s neighborly. Helping them to bed.”
“I’d like to help them,” said Tom with a nod. “But with their candy and wine.”
Mr. Grey felt he had to be forceful with Tom. He had to remind the hungry man of the curse on the food and fun. He was just about to do that - he was, genuinely - when he saw the sudden flash of a parchment lantern among the rooftop flowers. A chorus of new shouts joined the existing revelry. The captain and her serious soldiers charged down the wooden rampart steps. The revelers turned forced friendliness upon the newcomers.
Mr. Grey clutched the soft, plushy threshold device tight in his grey fingers. He and Tom slid slowly down the roof.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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