After that, we entered the New Year season. At least, so I gathered from the preparations in the Caltrop Pond Water Court. There was no change at Honeysuckle Croft, but the little dragon king and his courtiers (and his servants) observed the appropriate festivities. A watered-down version, anyway.
My first inkling of the upcoming holidays came one miserably cold night when I met Bobo by the pond. She was curled up on the same rock that she and Stripey had been standing on the first time I saw them. It was their designated meeting place, where she waited every night to see if he’d gotten time off from highway robbery. I’d coopted it for our handoff spot, where she’d give me ale for my offering, but she always insisted on lingering well into the party in case he showed up.
Normally I had no objections – no one important arrives at a party right when it starts anyway – but it was particularly cold that night, and I wanted to get into the water and out of the wind. Bobo, however, wouldn’t hear of waiting for Stripey indoors.
“It’s the Eighth!” she insisted.
The Eighth of what? I asked, grumpily walking to her other side to use her as a windbreak. (In case you were wondering, no, snakes don’t make great windbreaks.) Pulling my head and legs into my shell helped. Marginally.
Why didn’t I just go in without her, you might ask? Well, I couldn’t explain it either, which only made me grumpier.
“The Eighth of the Bitter Moon! Isssn’t it ex-sssiting?”
Meh, okay, yes, in the sense that it heralded the coming of the holiday season near the end of one year and the beginning of the next. But the Feast of the Eighth wasn’t much in and of itself. Its signature dish was eight-treasure porridge, for Heaven’s sake: a peasant dish consisting of different types of rice supplemented by dried fruit, beans, and nuts. No matter how you dressed it up, in the end, it was just boiled rice. I’d always considered the Eighth to be a lead-up to the real festivities.
But Bobo was dancing around on her coils, making her an even more unreliable windbreak, and singing, “I’m sssuper ex-sssited! It’s gonna be a feassst, and we’re gonna get all the food we can eat, and there’s gonna be tons and tons of eight-treasure porridge!”
Ah, now her excitement made more sense. If tonight’s party were a feast that happened to include porridge as one of the side dishes, that was much better.
Let’s go in then, I proposed.
“But Ssstripey,” she protested. “He isssn’t here yet. We have to wait for him. They don’t ssseat you until the whole party is here.”
To me, that seemed like even more of an argument to go inside now, before all the good seats were taken. If we’re approaching the New Year, people are starting to travel, to go home to visit their parents and such. Stripey’s going to be very busy for the next moon, I reminded her.
Bobo wavered, twisting her head as if that would make the duck materialize out of thin air, the way Flicker had. For a moment, I wondered what the clerk was up to, and what the eight-treasure porridge in Heaven looked like. I’d bet Aurelia had supervised its preparation.
Bobo’s fretting yanked me back down to Earth. “Oooh, but he always comes to the feasssts. We go to the feasssts together every year. It’s our thing. He knows I’m waiting. He wouldn’t not ssshow up without telling me firssst….”
It’s okay, this year you have me!
“That’s true….”
She was right about to cave when a dark shape appeared in the distance. It lifted one wing and waved it.
“It’s Ssstripey!” she cried, bouncing up and down on her tail. “Ssstripey Ssstripey Ssstripey!”
“Hullo!” the duck demon called back, waddling faster.
One of his sides looked oddly deformed, but when he got closer, I realized that he’d strapped a big glass bottle to himself. Probably some fancy liquor he’d stolen.
“I’m ssso happy you came!” cried Bobo, launching herself at him and wrapping herself around his neck.
He patted her with one tolerant wing. “Don’t I come every year?”
“Yeah, but Rosssie sssaid you’d be really busssy ‘cuz of all the travelers, ssso I thought maybe you weren’t coming this year!”
“Hmmm.” Stripey looked my way. Ducks can’t really purse their bills, but that was the impression he gave.
The duck demon had never developed the same respect for me as Bobo and the Jeks. Each time he glared at me for upsetting the bamboo viper, I fantasized about revealing that I was an emissary of the gods and watching him grovel in the mud. Each time, though, practicality won out. I couldn’t risk having a bunch of bandits blab my mission to everyone they robbed. I’d forced Bobo to keep it a secret from Stripey. If and when I needed him to help the Jeks, I’d tell him myself.
Pretending I didn’t notice his disapproval, I chimed, I’m so glad you were able to make it tonight, Stripey. I was getting worried.
“As am I,” he replied curtly. “C’mon, Bobo, let’s go in.”
Turning his back on me and wrapping a wing around the bamboo viper, he ushered her into the pond.
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Hmph. Duck demons had no taste.
As it turned out, it was a dismal start to a dismal night. What the local spirits termed a “feast” was more what I’d call supper in the servants’ wing. The crabs had set up mismatched circular tables on the dance floor, and a senior crab was leading groups of guests to tables that still had the appropriate number of chairs left. After Bobo, Stripey, and I were seated (alongside a family of shrimp with obnoxious children), the only dish served was a vat of porridge. With a wooden ladle in it so we could serve ourselves into wooden bowls, out of which we then ate with wooden spoons. If the porridge in the vat started to run low, we could wave at the crabs, and one of them would scuttle over to refill it.
But that was it. All we had for the “feast” was rice porridge! What kind of feast was this?!
“Purple rice!” one of adult shrimp exclaimed, spooning up some porridge and examining it. “He got purple rice this year!”
And what was the big deal over purple rice? Sure, it had a slightly different taste and texture from normal brown rice, but not that different, and certainly not after you’d boiled it to death.
Also, the dragon and his servants hadn’t bothered to account for differing sizes among his guests, so the spoon was way too big for me. I had to stand on the table, lower my head into my bowl, and lap up my porridge like a fox kit. I wasn’t the only guest relegated to that state – but it was uncouth and undignified and I detested it.
“And lotus ssseeds!” shrilled Bobo, devouring one with a slurp that made me cringe. Unlike me, she had no trouble looping her coils around her spoon and raising it to her mouth. “I love lotus ssseeds!”
“I like the dried red dates best,” put in Stripey, who seemed determined to act extra solicitous tonight. “You like dried red dates too, don’t you, Bobo?”
“Uh huh! I do! What do you think, Rosssie?” she asked eagerly. “How’s this compared to the eight-treasure porridge in – ”
My death glare chopped off the rest of that sentence.
Gulping, she stuffed her mouth with porridge and let out the most unsubtle “Mmmmm! Ssso tasty!” imaginable.
Stripey’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
After we mercifully ate our way to the bottom of the vat, some crab servants ushered us aside so they could clear the tables, more crab servants started passing out strings of dried caltrop nuts, the dragon king bellowed at the musicians to play “A dance tune! None of this formal stuff!” and the real party began.
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After the Feast of the Eighth, the Jeks and their neighbors started their holiday preparations too. The primary one seemed to involve digging up white cabbages that they’d buried in the ground at the beginning of winter. According to Bobo, the shoots that sprouted without sunlight were tender and delicious, especially when made into soup. One of her jobs was helping to excavate the cabbages, although Mistress Jek insisted on cooking them herself. That kicked off an endless round of visits: the Jeks went to see their neighbors, bearing clunky crocks of the soup as gifts, and their neighbors returned said visits, bearing near-identical crocks of near-identical soup.
As she should have, Mistress Jek offered me the first bowlful, but I found it watery and tasteless. The cabbage shoots were much better raw.
Anyway, I was congratulating myself on training some modicum of manners into the Jeks so they wouldn’t embarrass themselves too much this year – until I overheard a conversation between two of their visitors.
As a young woman who looked like a pub serving maid left the Jeks’ yard, she ran into a farmer who was just clomping up the road.
“Yo! Clio! Wassup?” He waved his free arm, the one that didn’t have a crock under it.
“Hi-hi, Jonjon!” she called back. “How’s it goin’?”
“Good, good. How’re – ” he pointed his chin at Honeysuckle Croft – “today?”
That was an odd way to inquire after his neighbors’ health, I thought. It felt as if he didn’t want to say their names, as if he might be a little afraid of them, even. It was the same way Cassius’ courtiers behaved when they thought a rival was plotting to destroy them.
Ha. As if there were anything in this barony worth destroying anyone over!
Sashaying up to Farmer Jonjon, Clio put a hand on his chest (to steady herself, of course) and stood on tiptoe to whisper into his ear. I was just assessing her technique and giving her a passing grade when I registered what she was hissing.
“They’re still bein’ weird. Like, super, super weird.”
“Still actin’ like they’re inna play or sumthin’, huh?”
“Yup-yup.”
Okay. That was a big, fat fail. If she thought that the Jeks’ behavior was wrong and hers correct, then she didn’t know the first thing about etiquette.
The farmer, however, shook his head and heaved a long sigh. It was the kind of sigh humans gave when they heard that a favorite old great-uncle was on his deathbed, or a spoiled niece had just wasted her parents’ last copper on a new ballgown.
Seriously, what was wrong with these modern-day Sericans? Just because they didn’t know how to move and speak properly didn’t mean they had to condemn those who did!
After the standard inquiries after each other’s families, Clio continued on her way, and Jonjon proceeded towards the cottage. I followed him, staying in the dead grasses so he wouldn’t see me.
Stopping a good six feet from the door, he called, “Hullo!”
It was Taila who opened it. As I’d taught her, she positioned herself to one side of the doorway, with her body at a slight angle to convey a welcoming air. She swept one arm around gracefully, finishing with her fingers gesturing into the cottage. Overall, it was a solid performance, except that she’d forgotten to point her toes out. I’d have to scold her later.
Tipping her head in a charming, innocent way, she dimpled up at the farmer and recited, “Thank you for gracing our humble abode with your presence, Uncle Jonjon! Won’t you please come in?”
By this point, she’d repeated the sentences so many times that they flowed almost smoothly.
The farmer, however, had no appreciation for my training or her efforts. He recoiled. His back and shoulders stiffened, and his voice came out harsh. “Hullo, lil’ Taila. Is yer ma or pa home?”
Maintaining her sweet smile, Taila recited the words I’d drilled into her. “Yes, of course! My mother is inside. Won’t you come this way, please?”
That was when Mistress Jek came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. “Ah, Jonjon! So good to see you again! It’s a true pleasure!” she tacked on, remembering the lines I’d tried to teach her. “Come in, come in!”
The farmer backed away a few steps, as if he thought she might lunge forward, seize him, and haul him into the cottage. “Oh no no – no need. Yer too busy. I just wanted t’ drop this off – the missus made it – she’s hopin’ you’ll tell her how it turned out this year….”
Switching on the bright smile I’d taught her, Mistress Jek exclaimed, “Why, thank you, Jonjon! You’re too kind! But please, do come in and sit for a while. I have the tea all ready….”
“Oh, but the missus is waitin’ for me….”
They danced around for a while before she won, which pleased me: She could hone her tea ceremony skills. Goodness knew she needed practice.
I was much, much less pleased, however, by the next group of guests to come up the road.
It was a passel of young women, sisters to judge by the dull uniformity of their facial features, and they were passing a crock among themselves and squealing over how “Heeeeeeavyyyyy!” it was. Several feet from the yard, they stopped, huddled up, and started whispering while darting glances at the Honeysuckle Croft.
Suspicious, I crept closer to eavesdrop.
“ – says they got their bodies stolen by fox demons!” one girl was hissing.