As I Was Going to Strawberry Fair

Chapter 9

Cai

I passed through the doorway of the church. The heavy door shut with a thump behind me. Within waited a high-ceilinged chapel boasting an angelic host of candles. They perched on shelf and chair and candle stands, providing more light than I had experienced in my life. I wondered about my first dawn. It promised to make me blink.

Waxy smoke did not mask the stench of mold and dust. This church had no regular congregation but mice, but rats, but pious bats. Old wooden pews were pushed to the walls, making room for a long mad-tea-party table. At its head stood a carved lectern, relic of ancient prayers. A small crowd stood about the table, observing, whispering, nodding at some arcane interchange. In the choir balcony a man tossed tunes on a fiddle, leaning so far over the rail I wondered he did not plunge into the crowd. A red-haired woman beside him piped and trilled upon a flute. I could catch no exact melody; yet it made a sly, comic dialogue as the two flirted with their notes.

A creature in stiff black dress and dark pointed hat ruled a stand just beside the entrance. From under her hat shot stalks of stiff white hair. She wore a face of wrinkles and warts I took for mask. She gestured me to approach; I did, wary of the next challenge. She grinned, a thread of wet crossing lips of a rubbery mouth. I peered closer, unsure.

"You aren't going to tug my old nose, are you dearie?" she asked. Her voice creaked, the gears of an antique windup doll. "They keep doing that. Quite annoying. Tug my nose, finger my warts. Hoping a pretty thing is hiding just behind this old tired face."

I shook my head, denying any intention to tug or poke. She grinned. Clearly she hoped I would. Was this a test? I felt only the desire to peer under her hat. The hair poked out impossibly white, curls and stalks of snow. But I left hat and warts alone. She sniffed disappointed. She pulled a card from a deck, placed it between us. The Moon. She looked at me, at the card, then nodded as if to say exactly as I expected. Thereupon she stuck it with a pin and presented it. The night kept giving me birthday presents.

I held the card, puzzled. It showed the moon above the night earth; gazing down on strange creatures gazing up. What should I do with it? I looked to the costume crone. Her nose was so long it near touched her chin. It occurred to me that she was a young girl, fair face hid behind fantastical mask, and she had disarmed my suspicions with sly complaints of suspicion. I met her eyes. They were bright stars in two black bowls. She grinned wetly, enjoying my confusion.

She wore a card pinned to her hat; the seven of cups. Inspired; I pinned the Moon to my cloak. She nodded satisfied. With this token I entered the main chapel, approached the long table to stand with the onlookers.

I peered between a boy dressed as gauzy princess and a woman dressed in the fur of a bear. Beyond them I spied my companion's thin face and feverish eyes. They were quite green. I had not appreciated that by moonlight. He sat between two female things, doubtless the Twins. I wondered they did not shiver in the chill. I recalled his warm palm. Perhaps he provided them heat. He wore t-shirt and blue-jeans, with a coffee-colored sheet for a cloak. They wore glittering tape in a crisscross over their breasts, lines of glitter down their arms. It counted for no costume; mere decoration. No doubt the tape was painful to remove. Pity, unless one wished them pain. Not me.

The figure behind the podium wore a high pointed hat and a befuddled air. He rifled a book come unbound to a bird's nest of loose pages. Now he turned to the table and addressed a man masked for a fox.

"You have reached the third and last gate to the Goblin Palace. A golem guard stands holding a flower to its stone face, seemingly enjoying the bouquet though lacking a nose. Its fiery eyes glow a sleepy red. At its belt jangle a ring of keys."