The Golden Lure - Entrée
Treats of The Pond at the Top of the Bottom of the Sea
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“I must’ve paused right before the end,” said Honeydew. “You were one flight ahead.”
Mr. Grey said, “It felt quite the trek. I started counting the tocks, and lost track of steps.”
“I was right behind,” said Tom.
Mr. Grey straightened his anchor shawl. “We’ve reached the top floor. I’d say we all earned a pat.”
Honeydew clicked. “Fine. How does this help? How do we get out? We’re farther than ever from our stuff!”
“We’re above the mist,” added Tom in a wondering tone. The three swayed their eyes as one. Each wore a different face as they beheld the prospect.
Tom began with wide-eyed, slack-jawed gaping. He stared at the open air sweep above a mist sea; all within a bubble beneath an actual sea of water; beneath another zone of merlot. He reeled his eyes back and slid them over the rooftop garden, floating alone above the mist. His bristly cheeks spread in a shining smile. He stared at dozens of water lilies, floating along a purling creek which ran perpetually into and out of a small pond.
Honeydew’s eyes flicked to the pond directly. Light spackled the dark orbs - like stars on an oily, moonless sky - from the gleam shining through the clear, rippling water. She walked slowly to the pond, ignoring the stepping stone path, prowling straight through shin-high grass like long swords of sapphire. Focus. Will. Zeal. She wore these on the thin line of her mouth and the sharp edge of her eyes. She crouched over the water. With those sharp eyes, she followed the light’s source; a glowing, spiny pufferfish.
Mr. Grey remained expressionless. He stood still. He glanced at Antiquity’s bubble membrane. It arced close above them; he saw the individual fish swimming in the schools beyond. He saw no Sun Fish in that outside sea. Only the little fish in the small pond shone; it threw rosy fingers from the skyscraper rooftop, out through the cloud sea. Mr. Grey saw Honeydew crouch at the water’s edge. He listened to the quiet voice of the water. He laced his fingers behind his back. He basked peacefully for a moment, in a cool breeze which fluttered his shawl, in the garden under the sea and over the clouds.
“Oh, hello there, Wind,” said Mr. Grey.
“Hey there Mr. Grey. Fancy seeing you, here. Pretty far from the balloon elevator.”
“You’re unexpected here too. I missed your passing, back on the stairway. Do you often come so high?”
The Wind laughed. She fluttered Mr. Grey’s robe and shawl with a hot air. “Oh Mr. Grey,” she said, shaking off her misty, amused chuckles. “Someday you’ll figure it out. Meantime, call it a trade secret.”
“I don’t mean to pry.”
“Forget it. So whatcha doing?”
Mr. Grey glanced over the verdant, swaying garden. Tom joined Mr. Grey and The Wind. Both Mr. Grey and Tom held spare eyes on Honeydew as she traced the fish in the water. Mr. Grey said, “This seems like the fishes’ pond.”
The Wind whistled sarcastically. “That must’ve taken some sleuthing. What gave it away, the glowing pool? Or the lack of great fish beyond the bubble? Or the loneliness of this garden in a misty sea?”
“Then, ‘here lies the Golden Lure’. Such was the advice - in the glass temple - of the bearded oracle.”
“Possibly. So you think you’re in the Fish’s Pond; that the Lure’s here. So why hesitate? Why aren’t you searching?” Honeydew neither moved nor spoke, but Mr. Grey saw - in the rippled reflection of her face on the water - a roll of eyes which said, ‘My thoughts exactly.’
“To the great fishes, we’d show our respect,” said Mr. Grey. Tom nodded. “You said you don’t know folkpoles, back in Wine Medo. Do you know fish lore? Or the proper hecatombs, or the rituals? Or anything else?”
“Trade secrets,” said The Wind in a sultry whisper. The grass-stained hem of Tom’s robe fluttered across his hairy knees. Then The Wind sighed warmly on their cheeks. “You’ve been let into a colleague’s house, but she accidentally left her purse, back at the tram-station. She insists you make yourself at home. What do you do? To show respect? To avoid offense?”
The Wind went quiet; Mr. Grey and Tom’s robes fell still. Tom took big, thoughtful paces. He walked over and stood by Honeydew at the edge of the rippling pool. Mr. Grey pinched his chin.
“Don’t worry,” said Honeydew. Her rippled reflection’s eyes twinkled with drive. “I’ve got it solved. These water flowers - constantly turning in the current - they stick out to me. I’d wager we pick the nicest. We prove ourselves worthy, the flower becomes the lure.”
Her rippled reflection arms stretched toward the nearest lily. Mr. Grey spoke fast. “But would you touch a friend’s things? Alone in their house, on your first visit?”
“It’s just a flower. Why so solemn? We don’t buy into these fishes.”
“It seems courteous.”
Honeydew reached again. She saw Tom’s rippled reflection hold out a hand in a gesture of pause. “The partisans wanted him,” said Tom with a nod at Mr. Grey. “‘Come with,’ said Nuggets. They had Candlehead, but they still asked Mr. Grey. He may be a clue.”
Honeydew click-snapped. “Then do something,” she said. “Act. Don’t stand there; praying, meditating, whatever.”
Mr. Grey followed the path of sunken slate which looped through the tall, sea-dark grass. His shoes made soft taps on the round stones. He walked at his usual steady pace. He let the water’s babble fill his ears and the slow ripples fill his eyes. He went and stood between Tom and Honeydew. He looked down, past their wavy reflections.
The water flowed clear of silt. The quilled pufferfish lit the pond to its bottom. Spiny shadow fell from wisterias and pennyworts dancing beneath the surface. A lumpy blobfish floated under one thick water-plant leaf. Not far from it, a manta-ray stretched lazily across the sand and uneven rocks scattered over the floor. Suddenly the ray started, and darted away, as a meaty prawn sprung from a nearby crevice and punched twice with its claws. Mr. Grey looked to a different spot of the water; the prawn reminded him of the armored-ghost lobsters.
On the pool’s farther side, making its way through the widest expanse of clear water, a salmon fluttered busily along the sandy bed. A translucent koi - the exact miniature of the one they came to Glory Days on - floated beside the salmon, with its whisker-tendrils undulating lazily. Thin shadows of the two swam on the water’s surface - like shadow’s from Tom’s lantern - cast there by a pufferfish underlight.
The spiny pufferfish itself floated at the pond’s precise center. No other fish dared swim near. Mr. Grey felt why; intense heat radiated from the fish alongside its brilliance. Bubbles boiled off its spines. Mr. Grey saw Tom’s reflection doubly wetted with pouring sweat, worse than on the dragon-ski. Seeing his friend’s plight under the pufferfish glare, a sudden understanding clicked for Mr. Grey. He realized why Candlehead would’ve failed this challenge.
Mr. Grey, at first, thought he’d seen every fish in the pond. But on a second passage of eyes over water, he saw a last creature existing. Camouflaged among a rock cluster, just under the boiling pufferfish, lay a hard clam.
Mr. Grey pointed out the clam to Tom and Honeydew. All three instantly guessed that it held the Golden Lure.
“Does the clam conceal the lure?” asked Mr. Grey openly. “How do we find out?”
“We grab it and look inside,” said Honeydew. She kept her eyes fixed on the fish and the water, but she raised her brows at Tom and Mr. Grey’s rippled reflections.
Tom said, “But the water boils…”
“And aside from that, it does seem disrespectful,” said Mr. Grey.
“Maybe the clue’s in the fish,” suggested Tom. “What does each fish do? We could try tributes.”
Mr. Grey mused. “The manta ray stands for rain. We could show jelly, if we had any. And that prawn nearby, I think he’s a fish of war. Dipping your mallet; that might show respect.”
“Far too theoretical,” said Honeydew. Mr. Grey and Tom both gestured to the boiling water, but she went on. “Granted, the pufferfish is trouble. That doesn’t mean we bow and scrape to seafood. Let's stir the water. Or take a different fish.”
“But these embody Great Fish,” said Mr. Grey.
“So what? More reason to grab one. What could you do, I wonder, controlling a Great Fish?”
“Stealing the Sun Fish-”
“Not the Sun Fish especially! That one matters for cotton and light. Fine. But if we had that prawn, for instance. Maybe we could use it to beat the lobster-monsters. Get back to our stuff. Or that Koi! We could go anywhere, see everything.”
Honeydew’s rippled reflection padded softly around the bank. Her eyes fastened on the translucent koi. Just as she reached the side where the koi swam, both it and the salmon darted to the pool’s other end.
Tom held up a palm which he waved toward Mr. Grey. He said, “Let’s pause a moment longer.”
Honeydew straightened her back, folded her arms, tapped her foot, pursed her lips, and showed - in general - all the recognized signals of impatience. Had she a ticker, she would certainly have drawn it and glared pointedly at its tocking hands. As she didn’t have one, she made do with her pocket mirror. She glared pointedly at her un-rippled reflection; as if making it answerable for this tedious scheme. When she finished visually upbraiding her own reflection, her eyes returned to the pond, and followed the koi.
Mr. Grey rubbed a thumb over his small mustache. He wondered. The Wind - interested in the outcome, but not in affecting it - blew soft around the three and over the water.
Another realization clicked for Mr. Grey. He said, “Candlehead’s talent, enchanting with the bagpipes… But he’d have melted, if he stood so close. That’s why they invited me, is what I’m thinking. In Candlehead’s place, I’d have been the enchanter.”
Tom nodded encouragingly. Sweat flew from his cheeks. Honeydew said, “Does enchantment travel in water?”
“What should I play as a test?” Tom, Honeydew’s rippled reflection in the pond, and her un-rippled one in the mirror, all looked at him and shrugged.
Mr. Grey unbuckled his coffin, drew the violin, tightened the bow, and tuned the strings. He took a deep nose breath. He reflected, like a fiddler’s statue, on the bank of the Fishes’ Pond. As his music began, it mingled with the purling water. He set out no treasure, playing instead an unaffected, simple song.
He played his notes carefully, though he knew not that they were right.
The pool shadows shifted. The boiling bubbles moved across the surface. The spiny, bright pufferfish drifted towards Mr. Grey’s music. As its little fish tail wagged it forward, the clam mouth opened, as if to say, “Who turned out the lights?!” A glint of gold darted from the soft mouth. It arced through the clear water and broke the surface. It fell with a tinkle on one of the smooth stones at Mr. Grey’s shoes.
Mr. Grey stopped playing. Honeydew and Tom walked slowly around the Pond’s edge to join him. The Wind whistled low, the azure grass murmured. Mr. Grey bent down, picked up, and held aloft a golden minnow; rosily shining in the pufferfish day.
“Well that wasn’t much trouble,” said Mr. Grey.
Honeydew asked, “That’s it then?” She sounded disappointed. Suddenly, before Mr. Grey or Tom could stop her, she lunged at the water. Her hand darted in and shattered the rippling reflection. Mr. Grey feared she’d reach for the pufferfish, that she’d scald herself. But when her hand splashed from the water, it held only one of the floating lilies.
“A souvenir,” she said, turning away from the pool as it returned to tranquil ripples. Tom stared at her, first in anger, then with widened eyes. Even Mr. Grey, expressionless, darted a sideways glance at Tom. Neither spoke. The Wind tossed their robes in her laughter. Honeydew raised her eyes and asked, “What?”
The sunflower-eyes on her robe had changed. The dark eyes were still surrounded by blonde petals. Instead of sunflowers, however, a pattern of water lilies grew across her robe.
Mr. Grey cleared his throat. “So, how do we get back down?”
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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