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Fox had been out hunting wild geese for their diner.
He came back after sunset with three of them, golden. Glynis was sweeping the autumn leaves from the new terrace under the light of fireflies, an endless task. Fox handed her the golden geese.

“They look so beautiful, and so peaceful,” she said, “look at those golden feathers.”
“They are dead,” said Fox with a hint of bitterness. “I’m not plucking them”, he added with a frown.
“I know”, said Glynis. She looked at him with a puzzled look. “Come closer into the light,” she asked him. The fireflies also came closer as if they obeyed her. He came, trying to keep his head down. She touched the bruises on his forehead and tsked. He shivered with pain. “You’ve been fighting again.”

He said nothing. Instead he looked at the patio. The little rainbows were playing around Gorrash’s statue. Despite the sun being set, it was rock still. It had been broken during an attack by Leroway’s men. The shaman had tried to glue the pieces together and Fox had believed she could revive him. But it had remained still for months.

“I miss him too,” said Glynis. “But I’m sure he’s still there inside, or the little rainbows would not stay.”
“You know, a few months ago I would have believed you,” he started, “but it’s been months and nothing has changed.” Fox felt suddenly angry, at nothing and at everything. Anger was better than sadness or pain. But he didn’t want to hurt her so he grunted and walked into the house with the geese and without another word.

She had to smile when she saw the thin blue thread stuck to the dogs collar. Lucinda’s friend Sparrow had just been telling her about an incident involving a blue thread, and his interpretation of it. There had been some discussions about the colour, and suggestions that with a somewhat limited range of perceivable colours, one could hardly assign such a broad category as “blue”, for example, to merely one interpretation, despite many agreeing that they would have interpreted it that way too.

Lucinda was inclined to find the fact that they’d each seen blue threads more amusing than who the string represented, and considerably more interesting (interesting though it was) than if a single blue thread had been seen by one person, regardless of who it represented.

The fact that all of this occurred on yet another blue thread ~ in a manner of speaking ~ made the whole thing rather amusingly droll.

“The Fellowship congratulates and thanks you for your continuity work on the script. We acknowledge the extreme difficulties you contend with as you face erratic forces resistant to any form of continuity and seeking only to create meaningless threads. The Fellowship also advises the script will be even further improved if you could sexy it up a bit.”

“Godfrey, I think this is a message for you,” said Liz. “Probably for you as well, Finnley.
Now then, you have a good think about that while I catch up with a few loose ends.”

“You could train it to play dead,” said Finnley giving Godfrey an enigmatic smile which he found rather disturbing. “Or to sit and wait till you give the command for it to take a mouthful of your blood.”
Finnley took a moment to snigger at the thought, noting that Liz and Godfrey seemed less appreciative of her inventive suggestion.
“Anyway,” she continued, “back to Bronkel. Something I neglected to tell you … because I have been SO busy cleaning … he called the other day. He is coming to collect the manuscript in person. Next week.”
“Is this your idea of a sick joke, Finnley?” Liz suspected it was, especially coming after the ridiculous flea suggestion.
“Nope,” said Finnley. “Sorry, notifications had been turned off in my brain. Better get writing, Liz.”

The garden was a mess. Roberto was emerging slowly out of the blissful haze of his stone elixirs where nothing really mattered into the harsh reality of the aftermath of the all out characters party.

He found cocktail glasses, plastic cups and even toilet paper scattered under and on the bushes, hidden behind the marble statues that had been dressed with scarves, blond and red wigs and false moustaches.

He looked clueless at a dirty muddy bubbly pond. He wondered what it could have been for a moment. Images of half naked guests throwing buckets of champagne at each others, of firemen extinguishing the barbecue appeared in front of his eyes, but it wasn’t quite right. Then he recalled the ice sculpture fountain he was so proud of. It was completely melted, like his motivation to clean everything.
A noise alerted him that the cleaning team was also emerging from their slumber. They arrived before the guests left and it soon had become a foam party, hence the bubbly pond.

Well, he thought, at least we had fun.

Liz glanced up from her communication device with a satisfied smile. She’d just invited some more characters to the garden party, characters from Elsewhere, and a few from Elsewhen. Come any time, she’d said. A riot of colours beyond the French windows caught her eye. Roberto was working wonders out there preparing for the party, it looked most enticing.

“I say, Roberto, nicely done!” Liz squinted in the bright sun as she emerged from her study into the garden.

“Oh it wasn’t me, Liz, I think it was someone called Petunia.”

“Well, that was fast! I only just invited her!”

“She has lined the pathway with colorful ROTE flowers. They’re like Alice’s bite me cookies, she says, Choose wisely.”

“Oh, so it’s a Rotes Garden is it,” Liz snorted.

“Petunia’s big into decorating with color”, Roberto said, “Looks like a tulip farm. Rainbows of ROTEs…”

“Well, that’s one less thing for you to have to take care or, which is most excellent! As I said to Finnley, just make a start and the characters will help…”

“Oh, er, by the way, Liz,” Roberto said. “I think the idea is that they are rare jewels of condensed information. Consume slowly, savor, and enjoy. The nectar is a tonic for the soul.
Like, don’t pick them all at once and shove them in a vase, kind of thing.”

Liz gave the gardener a withering look, and then changed it to a smile, thinking that withering looks in a freshly blooming garden perhaps wasn’t the thing.

“Splendid, Roberto, everything is coming along fabulously.”

Roberto continued: “To digest them is to know. and the knowing is both deep and fresh. Something new she says, that you already knew.”

Elizabeth was impressed.

The wind was playing with the fine grained ash that had been the enchanted forest and Margorrit’s cottage. Fox felt empty, he sat prostrated like an old jute bag abandoned on the ground. He was unable to shake off the inertia that had befallen on him since his arrival.
He was caught in an endless cycle of guilt that rolled over him, crushing his self esteem and motivation until it disappeared in the ashes like his friend and the whole world.

After a moment, his stomach growled, reminding him that he was still alive and that he hadn’t eaten that well during the last few days. His nose wriggled as beyond the decay it had caught the smell of a living creature that was passing by. He heard a crow caw.
Fox wailed, he didn’t want to be taken out of his lamentations and self pity. He thought he didn’t deserve it. But this time, like all the others before, hunger won the battle without that much of a fight and Fox was soon on his feet.

He looked around, there was cold ash everywhere. It smell bad, but he couldn’t really tell where it came from. It seemed to be everywhere.
The crow landed in front of him and cawed again. It looked at him intently.
It cawed. As if it wanted to tell him something. The black of its feathers reminded him of Glynis’s burka. Glynis. She had told him something. They count on you, as if there was still time. The last potion, cawed the crow. And it took off, only to land in what would have been the cottage kitchen. It rummaged through the ashes.
“The kitchen!” shouted Fox, suddenly recalling what she had said. The crow looked up at Fox and cawed as if encouraging him to join it in the search.
“The last potion that can turn back time!?”
“Caw”

Fox ran and foraged the ashes with the crow. He found broken china, and melted silverware. He coughed as his foraging dispersed the ashes into the air. Suddenly he shivered. He had found a bone under a piece of china. He shook his head. What a fool, it’s only chicken bone.

“Caw”
The raven, which Fox wondered if it was Glynis, showed Fox a place with its beak. There was a small dark bottle. He wondered why they were always dark like that. He felt a rush of excitement run through his body and he was about to open it and drink it when he saw the skull and crossbones on the label. In fact it was the only thing that was on the label. Fill with a sudden repulsion, Fox almost let go of the bottle.

“Caw”
“I’m not drinking that,” said Fox.
“Caw!”
The bird jumped on his arm and attempted to uncork the bottle.
“Caw”
“Glynis?”
“Caw Caw”
She picked at the cork.
Fox looked at the dreaded sign on the bottle. He hesitated but opened it. When the smell reached his nose he was surprised that it was sweet and reminded him of strawberry. Maybe it was by contrast to the ambient decay.
At least, he thought, if I die, the last thing I taste would be strawberry.
He gulped the potion down and disappeared.
The bottle fell on the floor, a drop hanging on the edge of its opening. Certainly attracted by the sweet smell, the crow took it with his black beak. It just had time for a last satisfied caw before it also disappeared.

A deep guttural roar echoed through the mountains, ferocious and hungry.
Fox’s hairs stood on his arms and neck as a wave of panic rolled through his body. He looked at the other his eyes wide open.
Olliver had teleported closer to Rukshan whose face seemed pale despite the warmth of the fire, and Lhamom’s jaw had dropped open. Their eyes met and they swallowed in unison.
“Is that…” asked Fox. His voice had been so low that he wasn’t sure someone had heard him.
Rukshan nodded.

“It seems you are leaving the mountains sooner than you expected,” said Kumihimo with a jolly smile as she dismounted Ronaldo.
She plucked her icy lyre from which loud and rich harmonics bounced. The wind carried them along and they echoed back in defiance to the Shadow. It hissed and hurled back, clearly pissed off. The dogs howled and Kumihimo started to play a wild and powerful rhythm on her instrument.
It shook the group awake from their trance of terror. Everobody stood and ran in chaos.
Someone tried to cover the fire.
“Don’t bother, we’re leaving,” said Rukshan, and he himself rushed toward the multicolour sand mandala he had made earlier that day. Accompanied by the witche’s mad arpeggios, he began chanting. The sand glowed faintly. It needed something more for the magic to take the relay. Something resisted. There was a strong gush of wind and Rukshan bent forward just in time as the screen and bamboo poles flew above his head. His chanting held the sands together, but they needed to act quickly.

Lhamom told the others to jump on the hellishcopter whose carpet was slowly turning in a clockwise direction. Fox didn’t wait to be told twice but Olliver stood his ground.
“But I want to help,” he said.
“You’ll help best by being ready to leave as soon as the portal opens,” said Lhamom. Not checking if the boy was following her order, she went to her messenger bag and foraged for the bottle of holy snot. On her way to the mandala, she picked the magic spoon from the steaming cauldron of stew, leaving a path of thick dark stains in the snow.

Lhamom stopped beside Rukshan who had rivulets of sweat flowing on his face and his coat fluttering wildly in the angry wind. He’s barely holding the sands together, she thought. She didn’t like being rushed, it made her act mindlessly. She opened the holy snot bottle and was about to pour it in the spoon covered in sauce, but she saw Rukshan’s frown of horror. She realised the red sauce might have unforgivable influence on the portal spell. She felt a nudge on her right arm, it was Ronaldo. Lhamom didn’t think twice and held the spoon for him to lick.
“Enjoy yourself!” she said. If the sauce’s not good, what about donkey saliva? she wondered, her inner voice sounding a tad hysterical. But it was not a time for meditation. She poured the holy snot in the relatively clean spoon, pronounced the spell the Lama had told her in the ancient tongue and prayed it all worked out as she poured it in the center of the mandala.
As soon as it touched the sand, they combined together in a glossy resin. The texture spread quickly to all the mandala and a dark line appeared above it. The portal teared open. Rukshan continued to chant until it was big enough to allow the hellishcopter through.

“COME NOW!” shouted Fox.
Rukshan and Lhamom looked at the hellishcopter, behind it an immense shadow had engulfed the night. It was different from the darkness of the portal that was full of potential and probabilities and energy. The Shadow was chaotic and mad and light was absent from it. It was spreading fast and Lhamom felt panic overwhelm her.

They ran. Jumped on the carpet. Kumihimo threw an ice flute to them and Fox caught it not knowing what to do with it.
“You’ll have one note!” the shaman shouted. “One note to destroy the Shadow when you arrive!”
Fox nodded unable to speak. His heart was frozen by the dark presence.
Kumihimo hit the hellishcopter as if it were a horse, and it bounced forward. The shaman looked at them disappear through the tear, soon followed by the shadow.
The wind stopped. Kumihimo heard the dogs approaching. They too wanted to go through. But before they could do so, Kumihimo closed the portal with a last chord that made her lyre explode.

The dogs growled menacingly, frustrated they had been denied their hunt.
They closed in slowly on Kumihimo and Ronaldo who licked a drop of sauce from his lips.

Liz was lying on the living room couch in a very roman pose and admiring the shiny glaze of her canines in the pocket mirror she now carried with her at all time. The couch was layered with fabrics and cushions that made it look like a giant rose in which Liz, still wearing her pink satin night gown, was like a fresh baby girl who just saw her first dawn…

ehm, thought Finnley, eyeing Liz’s face, Maybe not her first. But to the famous author of so many unpublished books’s defence, since the unfortunate ageing spell it was hard to tell Liz’s true age.

Finnley looked suspiciously at the fluffy cushions surrounding Liz. Where do they come from. I don’t recall seeing them before. I don’t even recall the couch had that rosy pink cover on it. She snorted. It sure looks like bad taste, she thought. She looked around and details that she hadn’t seen before seemed to pop in to her attention. A small doll with only one button eye. Reupholstered chairs with green pattern fabrics, a tablecloth with white and black stripes, and a table runner in jute linen… Something was off. Not even Godfrey would dare do such an affront to aesthetic, even to make her cringe.

Finnley went into the kitchen, where she rarely set foot in normal circumstance, and found a fowl pattern fabric stapled on one wall, a new set of… No, she thought, I can not in the name of good taste call those tea towels. They look more like… rubbish towels.

“Oh, my!” she almost signed herself when she saw an ugly wine cover. Her mind was unable to find a reference for it.

“Do you like it?” asked Roberto.
Finnley started. She hadn’t heard him come. She looked at him, and back at the wine cover. She found herself at a loss for words, which in itself made her at loss for words.
“It’s a little duckling wine cover,” said Roberto. “I made it myself with my new sewing machine. I found the model on Pintearest.” saying so, he stuck his chest out as if he was the proud duck father of that little ugly ducklin. Finnley suddenly recovered her ability to talk.
“You certainly nailed it,” she said. In an attempt to hold back the cackle that threatens to degenerate in an incontrollable laugh, it came out like a quack. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her head: “You can not hold energy inside forever, my little ducky, it has to be expressed.”

Uncomfortably self conscious, Finnley looked up at Roberto with round eyes.
“I…”
“Oh you cheeky chick,” said the gardener with a broad smile. He pinched her cheek between his warm fingers and for a moment she felt even more like a child. “I didn’t know you are so playful.”

Somewhere in the part of her mind that could still work a voice thought it had to give him points for having rendered her speechless twice.

The full moon was high and a cluster of fireflies were flying stubbornly around a lone corkscrew bush. The baby rainbow creatures were playing like young squirrels, running and jumping around on Gorrash’s arms and head.
The dwarf was still, as if he hadn’t awoken from his curse despite the darkness of the night. He was looking at the bush illuminated by the fireflies and his the dim glows of the rainbow babies were giving his face a thoughtful look.
My life is certainly as complicated as the shrub’s twisted branches, he thought, his heart uneasy.

The others all had been busy doing their own things during the day, like Glynis with her invisibility potion, or Eleri with her Operation Courtesan. Rukshan went away with a goal too, finding the source of the blue light the children had seen in their dreams and he left for the mountains with Olliver and Fox.
Margoritt was an old lady and with all the fuss about the upcoming eviction and destruction of her nice little cottage farm she had been tired and went to sleep early. Gorrash understood very well all of that.
A ball of sadness and frustration gathered in his throat. The rainbow babies stopped and looked at him with drooping eyes.

“Mruiii?” they said as if asking him what it all was about.
“Don’t do that, you’re gonna make me cry,” he said. The raspiness of his voice surprised him and distracted him from the sadness.
“Mruii,” said the little creatures gathering closer to him as if to sooth him. He shed a few tears. He felt so lonely and frustrated because he couldn’t be with his friends during the day. And the summer nights were so short.

Gorrash didn’t like the sadness. It made the nights seem longer, and the joyous explorations of Glynis’s garden seemed so far away.

I have to find a project for myself, he thought. Maybe find a cure to my own curse like Glynis.
Gorrash felt a tinge of bitterness in his mouth. Why? he wondered. Why didn’t my maker come lift my curse like that man came to deliver Glynis from hers?
He regretted this thought, if anything it only made him feel more miserable and lonely.

An owl hooted and there was some noise coming from the house. Light was lit in the kitchen, and soon after the door opened. It was Glynis. She carried a small crate written Granola Cookies, but it was full of potions and other utensils. Her eyes looked tired but her face was shining. Since she used that potion to cure herself, she had had that inner glow, and despite himself Gorrash felt it started to warm his heart with hope.

“I will need some help,” said Glynis.
The rainbow babies ran around and changed colours rapidly.
“Sure, I can do that,” answered Gorrash. And as he said that he realised he had felt the need to talk to someone so badly.
They sat near the corkscrew shrub and Glynis began to get her stuff out of the crate. She drew the shape of a circle with a white chalk that shone under the moonlight and gave Gorrash eight candlesticks to place around the circle. Gorrash placed them a bit too conscientiously around, and he felt the need to talk become stronger, making him restless.
“Can I tell you something?” he asked, unsure if she would want to listen to his doubts.
“Of course. I need to reinforce the charm before the others arrival. It will take some time before I actually do the spell. We can talk during that time.”

Encouraged by her kindness, he told her everything that had been troubling his heart.