In Which I Am Tormented By A Glistening Spirit

I awoke to yowling sunbeams and an absolute shag of a headache the next morning. I’d taken myself away for an early night after the brawl, but my companions had remained downstairs for some hours after, and as I lay awake on my straw mattress, held back from slumber by the lurching beat of heart, I listened to the laughter and songs and vague crashing sounds that drifted up from downstairs.

We set out in the morning, Boomlay’s snoring bulk across the backseat of her cabbage – she had, Glob informed me, quaffed a substantial amount of gin, and had been aggressively flirting with the assorted tavern patrons. Selladore, Edgar and Glob sat up at the front to steer the enchanted vegetable, while I nominated myself to watch the slumbering witch within – mostly so I could sulk and pine in the gloom without anyone seeing me.

We rumbled away down the forest path, homeward bound. At the rate we were going, I supposed we would probably make it home in time for Pugglemunt’s Harvest Festival. The festival wasn’t anything too bonkers; just an annual day of bread-waving and confetti and whatnot to celebrate the changing of the seasons. I usually gave a gallant speech to kick things off from my balcony – standing there all sparkly and bejewelled with Astra by my side. I had absolutely no intention of attending the ceremony this year of course, but my companions seemed determined to heave me all the way home regardless.

We were still on the Great Valley Road, albeit on one of the more pleasant stretches. I’d not been sober enough in days to pay any attention to the landscape, but as the morning breeze lapped at my face and neck through the carriage window, for the first time in a week I was inclined to look around me. The valley floor was a half mile across, and our jangling cabbage was making its way straight down the middle. Parallel ranks of jagged earth hemmed the road in; the snowy peaks of the Klinghorns shot into the clouds on the eastern side, and the fair, rounded greenery of the Sevillian Mumps to the west. I don’t know why they are called the Mumps. My great great grandmother Ethelstar named the range, and it’s a fact well-known that she was nipple-twistingly bonkers.

Everything looked very pretty and good and nice and lovely, and for a moment I felt happy. And then I wished I could show it to Astra. And then, with the winding thwack of someone booting you in the stomach mid-yawn, the realisation that I was alone flooded back in. I slumped back in my seat and let out a very long groan that sounded a bit like someone slowly introducing an elk to a freezing cold bath.

I had to get her back, somehow. It could surely be done. In a clamour of desperation I sat up in the carriage and began to rifle through Boomlay’s various trunks for a bit of paper to scrawl on. I would make a plan! Yes, a plan! My mind began to whir and giggle with the brilliance of it. Why hadn’t I made a plan before? Everything was possible with a plan!

“Muahaha,” I said aloud, before catching myself and realising that saying ‘muahaha’ to yourself while concocting a plan usually inferred that you were a cretin and would be on the receiving end of a good stabbing several scenes later. So then – I calmed myself, coughed away my manic cackle, and continued rooting quietly through the hungover witch’s underwear chest.

What kind of plan would it be, I pondered as I threw enormous pairs of knickers over my shoulder with desperate abandon. I could scale her tower under cover of night and– and what? Steal her back? No, that was uncouth. Perhaps I could challenge Vena to a duel and – and – and then I’d either kill him and Astra would hate me forever for killing her lover or Vena would slay me and then I would be slain and nobody would care. Harrumph.

Maybe I could find some kind of potion or broth or magical lotion that would make me handsomer, and a better person – one with a proper nose! And then I would simply have to meet Astra and be absolutely completely different to the person had been all my life – and maybe she would fall in love with me, without knowing it was me, and then I could have her back, and we would be in love forever, and – and – ugh.

I wheezed out a hateful breath and slumped back, covered in old pants and frilly undergarments. The witch slumbered on, squirming occasionally and giggling like a schoolgirl; it seemed somebody was showing her a good time in her dreams. At least one of us was enjoying ourselves. I was occupying myself by glaring at her recumbent form, when suddenly the sun that pattered in through the window danced over a half-hidden object in one of the rummaged chests. My eyeballs swivelled to it and I let out a gasp. It was the gravy boat.

Gingerly, I wiggled the little vessel free from the hefty brassiere in which it was entangled, threw the off-white garment out of the window with a grimace, and gazed in wonder at the magical device that weighed lightly upon my remaining palm. How did I activate it last time? I couldn’t recall. I just sort of tossed it around a bit and – 

“Shiiiit! Shiiiiiit!”

I fell off my seat again as mighty Ian sprang forth from his ghostly prison. The spirit rose in front of me, glistening wet, wearing naught but a bath robe. His large, curvacious belly was a sight to behold, and his torso was adorned with strange inked markings. One of them read ‘Mam’. Another one read ‘Marching On Together’ in eldritch handwriting, daubed across a family crest I had never seen before, with colours of white, yellow and blue. Ian looked confused as to his whereabouts.

“Ian! O, magical and wise Ian!” I cried, raising my hands to hail the spectre.

“Eh,” said Ian.

He looked around him – at my grovelling form, at Boomlay’s giggling bulk, at the sun lapping through the cabbage windows.

“Oh, right. I’m back here, am I? Bloody hell, I was just getting out of the shower. I’ll be late for work now.”

“O, mystical Ian! I do not know what is this ‘shower’ of which you speak!”

“Can we make this a quick one please? What do you want?”

I pondered this a moment; I had not made a plan beyond hoisting the ghost out of his gravy boat prison. This is what happens when you don’t have adequate planning paper, you see. I glowered ruefully at Boomlay’s snoozing mass once more.

“I– I don’t know, really. I, er, just wanted to…” I trailed off with a heavy sigh, before lightning whipped my heart. “O, mysterious Ian, I have a request for thee!”

It was actually the first time I’d used ‘thee’ since the Great Dumping, and it felt kind of nice – a familiar shape on the old tongue. I’d decided not to use my fancy king words anymore after having my heart bludgeoned, but to hell with it – addressing spirits is a special occasion. I thought it apt to indulge myself.

“What,” said Ian, magically.

“O, great and weird Ian, I beg of thee – show me my queen – show me Astra as she be this very moment.”

Ian shrugged his damp, hairy shoulders and produced his magical black square, and once again began to tap at it with his forefinger, as a woodpecker at a pine.

“Alright,” he murmured. “That’s a bit of a weird request, but maybe there’s some information in here somewhere. Let’s have a look.”

In his frantic tapping, Ian’s towel began to slip, and I found myself eye level with a luscious mane of ethereal pubic hair. I pulled myself back onto my seat, lest the towel slip further and I were to find myself staring down the barrel of a moste spectral and harrowing pennisse.

“Er, right. I can pull up a scene from the film, I reckon. This clip has quite a vague name – it just says ‘one night in Bloodroot’, but it’s got Astra tagged in it, so I reckon it should shed some light for you.”

“O, crazy Ian, I know not of what you speaketh, but I beg of thee, show me my love! Show me she is safe! Show me she misses me! O! Ian!”

“Chill, dude. Here.”

Ian turned the strange black slab to face me, and I gazed into its glowing surface. I gasped with joy to see the fair visage of my beautiful lost Astra cast upon it. I reached out to touch her, but my hand melted straight through the image. Dazed and aching, I could only sit back and watch the flickering, bright face of my love as she sat in what looked to be Vena’s chambers, brushing her hair. She was singing softly to herself. Oh, how I adored it when she sang.

“O kooky Ian, she is even fairer than I recall. Truly, the most resplendent face did e’er I see.”

Ian was busy brushing his teeth and didn’t seem to hear. I watched my love brush her hair and my heart frothed over with joy. And then a shadow passed over her, and her eyes drew up, to speak to an unseen presence.

“Who is it, my love? Are you safe? Must I return to save thee once more? Fear not, for I am coming, my love!”

I stood up and drew my sword, ready to call Selladore to wheel the cabbage around and back to Bloodroot. Then, in the flickering portal within the small black slab where I was gazing upon my love, Vena entered the frame.

“Hello, sweet one,” said the stupid ugly dickhead prince.

“Hello there, my love,” said Astra.

I tried to yell, to roar an objection, but it caught in my throat; all that came out was a stuttered gurgling hissing sound, like somebody repeatedly dunking a snake into a glass of milk.

“I’ve missed you,” said Vena.

Astra stood up, and I saw she was wearing only her night gown. Vena approached her and she caressed his horrible cheek, kissed his dirty awful horse lips.

“No! No, no, no! Ian! O, cruel Ian, wicked spirit, I beg of thee, take it away!”

But Ian could not hear me – he was holding the slab out for me to gaze upon, while he himself was preoccupied with a strange cylindrical contraption with a handle; it seemed to be roaring at him and making his hair blow around.

I watched, paralysed, as Vena pulled my love closer to him, and led her over to his bed. They fell together as one onto the straw mattress, limbs writhing, entwined in each other like squabbling octopi, squawking like giddy ravens, mewling like soggy cats.

My sword dropped with a clang, I screamed in anguish, Boomlay giggled in her sleep, and Ian shot back inside his gravy boat before I could throttle him.