She would’ve cried out to claim the Plum of Beauty if not for the line of fruit still to be named. I shouldn’t choose too soon.
Above the fruits, flowers abounded in vases. Their petals glittered with a candy crust. The colors on display seemed to float above a table of stark black and white. Its inlay of geometric jasmine and moth patterns had a lavish gloss.
The Chef announced, “The Pepper of Death.
“The Pomegranate of Fertility.”
The swordsman said, “Wait, what was that last one? Not the pomegranate.”
“The Pepper of Death?” The Chef gestured at a fruit long and white like a dead witch’s nose.
“Yeah. I have another question.” The swordsman scratched the back of his head. The magic in the kraken meat had unlocked his hands, too. “Why?”
The Chef looked offended. “A goddess grew the Pepper to discourage Coyote from stealing from her garden. Now if I may continue, this is the Banana of Stature.”
Old Janny cackled at that one.
“The Kiwi of Intelligence.
“The Orange of Vitality.
“The Fig of Free Will.”
“But we already have free will,” Aja said. A scholar had taught her that in school.
“That’s what you think,” the swordsman said, without taking his eyes off the fig. The dark red pod had the wrinkled texture of an elephant’s trunk.
“Please show respect to the fruit,” the Chef said. “Now, this is the Papaya of Liberation.
“The Orange of Health.
“The Melon of Bounty.”
The empress’s voice soared over his. “A bounty of baby birds? Or ribbons? Or snowflakes? Would they fly out of my mouth after I took a bite?”
The swordsman stood behind her and crossed his arms. “You have to tell us what happens when we eat these.”
The Chef glared at him in a way that could bring water to a boil. “Having dined on kraken is no excuse for your disrespect. The magic in seafood lowers self-control, but you chose to eat more than you could manage.”
The swordsman said, “If we can’t control ourselves, who’s choosing?”
“Concerning this melon,” the Chef said, “a village suffering from five years of drought sacrificed all their first-born sons, and a jade-skinned god created the Melon of Bounty to feed the land.”
Solin rapped his crutch against the floor. “I know that tale.”
The Chef bore the full weight of his glower on him. Solin went on speaking anyway.
“They cut the melon, and a flood poured out. Killed them all. Turned the wasteland fruitful.”
The swordsman took a step away from the melon, pulling the empress with him. “You mean if we sliced that in here, it’d drown us?”
The melon had a yellow rind. Aja peered at it. An inner glow sloshed within. She jerked her head back. Was the Chef trying to serve them a flood?
He gave no explanation. He stomped to the next glass alter. “The Dragonfruit of Maturity.”
The Chef moved on. Aja couldn’t look away. The dragonfruit dazzled with the colors of a fireball, a magenta shell trailing green leaves. She thought this might be a better choice than the plum. The beautiful were gossiped about on the rooftops. People should take Aja seriously.
An itching sensation spread down her back. The lord leaned behind her in his crimson coat.
“Maturity is appealing at first blush.” He nodded to the dragonfruit. “But it’s sure to be dry and unsatisfying.”
She pressed a strand of her hair against her lips. “Maybe I should choose the Plum of Beauty. But a scholar told me, ‘Beauty is but the rind of the mind.’”
“Beauty is the only virtue,” the lord said. “When you’re beautiful, you are also wise, kind, and soulful. Everyone will be quick to tell you so.”
His face gave no sign of teasing, not that she could see. Aja looked back to the plum, and her fingers clenched with her hunger. She decided she was already more mature than the empress and Old Janny anyway. This is my one chance to be beautiful.
She caught up with the Chef in time to hear about the next fruits.
“The Blueberries of Muse.
“The Apple of Youth.”
“That’s for me!” Old Janny engulfed the case with her arms. Kissing it, she said, “You’ve waited so long for me, you rake, but shush now. Momma’s here.”
“A treasure indeed,” the lord said. “The one thing that doesn’t improve with age is everything.”
“Go eat the killer pepper, you well-dressed leech.” Old Janny slapped a hand over the glass handle, a sculpture of an apple tree. Her arm tensed. Adding a second hand to the grip, she strained. The case did not budge.
“You must wait your turn,” the Chef said. “The first choice goes to Lord Tethiel.”
“A man should never go first,” Old Janny said. “That’s as fair as drunk-wrestling a buttered dwarf. I’m a lady.”
The Chef said, “This Banquet grants due respect to elders.”
Old Janny’s wrinkles told of a long life spent smiling. The lord’s face was smooth as a mask. He didn’t look older, but he smelled faintly of stone tombs, gnarled trees, and other ancient things.
A sudden pain bowed Aja over. I’m the youngest here. Or, even if she wasn’t, they would never let her choose before the empress.
Aja would pick last.
Her gaze snapped back to the Plum of Beauty. She had to touch its dark smoothness, to taste its power. It looked so exposed, covered only by glass. Someone else would take it. They would eat it in front of her, and she would have to watch its red juices dribbling down a beautiful face.
Fifth Course, Part II:
Choices, Choices
The Apple of Youth filled its crystal case with a glittering mist. Beads of condensation clung to its gold skin. The lord caressed its transparent cage, and his fingers left etching scrawls.
He withdrew his hand. “No, I’m a man of moderation and will allow myself only one unforgivable excess.”
Old Janny twitched as if stung by hope.
“I choose none.” The lord stepped away from the table. To Old Janny he said, “Your apple if you wish it, my dumpling.”
Aja cupped the back of her head. How could anyone walk away from food so precious? He had to have magic of his own.
Old Janny trundled forward and touched the glass handle. The case floated upward in her hand. Her breath came in ragged bursts while the Chef spoke in a solemn voice.
“The Apple of Youth, plucked by the hand of a goddess from a garden of frost. Eat only the sweet flesh of this fruit, and with the reverence due….”
Old Janny slammed the apple in her mouth and chomped in gushy bites. Her tears mixed with the apple juice rolling down her chin. The gusto in devouring the fruit didn’t surprise Aja. They both had eaten of the kraken, and Aja would do the same when she laid hands on the Plum of Beauty.
All the guests but Old Janny turned to Solin. With grey in his hair, he had to be the next eldest. He moved beside the line of fruit, his good foot touching down followed by two bronze-capped crutches. Their pole ends sank into the carpet. The silver stitching had become a garden paradise with explosions of sterling flowers and birds feathered in extravagance. Aja thought it the best design yet.
Solin approached her plum. Aja told herself not to fear. She wouldn’t worry. He probably wouldn’t choose it, though he had passed almost all the fruit. The tiger-striped melon would be his, or the pear, or the cherries. Yes, the Cherries of Happiness. He needed those.
His crutches stopped in front of the plum. He swung himself around to face the fruit.
Next he would turn, lean, and reach for the cherries. He had to.
He removed the plum’s casing.
“No!” Aja reached out.
The Chef said something about the Plum of Beauty. Solin raised it to his lips. He inhaled as if smelling a flower.
“Don’t.” Aja had to say something, anything to make him choose a different fruit. “It…it
’ll turn you into a woman.”
“Could the plum have such power?” Solin asked.
“No, that’s the Cumquat of Transformation,” the Chef said. “Was no one listening?”
Solin was gripping her plum. She knew he would bruise it, waste it. Outrage steamed up Aja’s throat and seared her tongue.
“Eat it then,” she said, “it’ll make your leg less ugly.”
Aja clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She couldn’t take it back.
Solin didn’t look angry, only sad. He lowered the plum from his nose. He tucked it into a belt pouch.
“You’re saving the fruit?” The Chef asked.
“Might give it to someone more deserving.” Solin’s eyes flicked halfway to Aja.
She gulped down the greasy heat inside her. He meant to give the plum to Aja. If—if I bring him a hair from the empress.
Aja’s gaze crossed from the empress to her swordsman. He drummed his fingers against the breadth of his arm. “If saving and giving is allowed, then which of these snacks was of ‘health’?”
The Chef spread two arms toward a sphere of sunrise under glass. “The Orange of Health was protected from the unworthy by a river of snakes and a bramble of claws.”
The swordsman picked up the orange, tossed it overhead, and caught it.
“My turn! My turn!” The empress ran to the largest glass case. It covered a blueberry plant that grew in a kettle of engraved gold.
“The Blueberries of Muse were grown in a goddess’s enchanted cauldron.” The Chef assisted the empress in lifting the glass. He touched the metal pot. “In this she brewed a potion of poetic insight, but a servant stole her labor by swallowing the first three drops. After that, the elixir turned to poison.”
“Mine!” The empress licked the bush. She fumbled a few of the blueberries into her palm. Each looked like a bead of sky’s horizon. She raised them to her lips.
The swordsman caught her hand. “Did these berries grow in poison?”
“The caldron was cleansed.” The Chef tapped its etched motif of sea cliffs. “The enchantment in it renews every fruiting.”
The swordsman let go of her hand, and the empress popped a berry into her mouth. She made a sound between a squeak and a gasp. “It tastes of rain and sadness and honey mint.”
The Chef nodded to Aja. She was the last.
Aja faced the dragonfruit. Leaves curled from it like green flames. If she couldn’t have the plum, she would have this. One day she’d stand at the center of scholars. Her maturity would impress them all. The scholar who once taught her at the Wayward House would be proud.
She didn’t think her choice impressed everyone. The lord clicked his tongue in disappointment. Aja ignored him. The glass case seemed to weigh nothing. She cupped the dragonfruit in both hands and brought it to her nose. It smelled like a wilted flower, good but faded.
The Chef said, “Another such dragonfruit was fed to a goddess’s newborn son. He gained his full power in but a single day, and the people called him the Winged Fire.”
Something cold grazed Aja’s arm. She clutched the fruit to her chest and saw Solin. He had reached to her with a crutch.
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t eat its peel.”
Aja couldn’t look at Solin without needling sensations running down her neck. She shouldn’t have shouted what she had about his leg being ugly. Nodding to him, she sat in front of a plate and pressed a knife against the dragonfruit.
On the first cut, the fruit wriggled in her grasp. She could only guess the plate had shifted on the carpet. Or the fruit had moved, trying to escape.
Her knife sawed through an outer layer of fiery pink. She wondered if the fruit’s flesh would be a swirl of yellow or orange. A blast of green?
“What if it’s blue inside?” Aja asked. She had noticed the empress eat a second blueberry. “That’d be amazing.”
The knife tip clicked against the plate. Aja pushed the halves apart. She held her breath, ready to gasp. Instead, she sighed.
A speckled white filled the dragonfruit. Its insides looked like boredom dotted with disappointment.
“Don’t be sad.” The empress wrapped an arm around Aja. A third blueberry sneaked its way into the empress’s mouth. “You’ll hurt the fruit’s feelings, and it’s made itself so delicious for you.”
The lord rested himself on a knee to speak over the empress’s shoulder. “My little licorice, don’t eat another blueberry. It’ll not be so inspirational.”
“I’ve only had two,” she said.
“You’ve had three. Enough for any mortal.”
Aja cut off a square of dragonfruit and crunched it between her teeth. How astonishingly bland. She shook her head. The lord had been right.
A smacking sound made Aja glance at Old Janny. She was licking her fingers and nibbling the apple core. She belched and lifted her arms to inspect her hands. “I’m still made of wrinkles and veins. When is my youth kicking in? Where’s that man-strocity, the Chef?”
He was leaving. The glistening dome of his head descended a spiral staircase. The marble balustrade reddened from a surge of kitchen light.
“He skulked off again,” Old Janny said.
The djinn floated in front of Old Janny, pouring tea into a cup decorated with blue lotuses. “Most people don’t digest magic instantly,” the djinn said. “Is it usually different for you?”
Aja chewed another piece of dragonfruit. It had sweetness of a sort, but not like candy. A mild taste, a thoughtful one, it made Aja curious for the next mouthful.
“Oh—oh!” The empress gripped her belly. “It’s still tickling me. Ah! The eel ate one of my blueberries.”
Aja said, “The eel might have found another bite of caviar.”
“I can only eat a few blueberries. What if it stole my muse?”
“Fish probably don’t even like fruit.”
“Then it’d be a funny fish in me.” The empress squirmed. “His name is Wiggles. I think he ate it.”
Aja hoped her tickler eel disliked the taste of dragonfruit. Maturity would be wasted on a fish. She never should’ve swallowed it live.
The flavor of the dragonfruit grew on her. Its subtlety unlocked in her mouth in a hidden treasure of vanilla and watermelon. I won’t rush eating this. She would savor it to the last bite.
“Pfthh!” Old Janny made a sound of disgust and set down her cup, glancing again at her hand. “Tea might as well be bath water. Where is the sugar?”
Petals smoldered as the djinn drifted above the flower vases. “We have honey crystals.”
“Bring me sugar.”
“The Chef will forbid it.” The necklace key bounced against the djinn’s chest. It was ornate, the kind of key that always opened something amazing. “Sweets are poisonous to magic.”
“Those words don’t make sense together.” Old Janny gazed at her hand.
“Too much sugar dispels magic.”
“Well then….” Janny jerked her hand up as if to slap herself, but her palm stopped inches from her eyes. “It’s gone. The spot is gone, and I can see so close up. Do all fingertips have these little grooves?”
Aja lowered a slice of speckled white to her plate. She knee-walked closer to see the miracle. Old Janny’s skin tightened around her body. Her cheeks turned from flabby to rosy. She was a plump youth with a freckled face. Her bright eyes squeezed with an emotion that looked like pain.
The empress clasped Janny’s arm to her chest. “Does the change hurt?”
A dimple on Janny’s chin trembled up and down. Between sobs, she said, “Do I—Am I—”
“You’re lovely as a bunny,” the empress said, “and young as hope.”
“Young at last.” Janny wept.
Aja returned to her plate, rubbing her hands together. If an apple could turn back time, then a dragonfruit could make Aja wise. She wouldn’t even need to study, as the other scholars did. She could become an arbiter, perhaps even the next vizier. A patron might spo
nsor her training in the academy for enchantresses.
She scraped off the last of the fruit flesh and swallowed. She tasted pear with flavors of contentment and understanding. The rind littered the plate like discarded rose petals.
Sipping her tea, she felt as if she drifted in a pool of sunshine. The scent of lotus flower misted around her with heady warmth.
Aja set down her cup. I have to do this. Bowing before Solin, she said, “I apologize for shouting what I did about your leg. I was jealous.”
He rubbed a six-sided tattoo on his hand and nodded.
When Aja stood, pain pricked her back. She swatted behind her but did not feel any biting insect. “Now I must say goodbye. I’ve already stayed longer at the Banquet than I should.”
“Are you sure?” He tapped the pouch holding the Plum of Beauty.
“I ate what I needed.” She waved to her plate.
Solin glanced at the cut rinds, then narrowed his eyes. “You ate all the dragonfruit?”
Aja couldn’t say what he meant by that. Before she could ask, the paisley-dressed Janny cried out. She threw her cup, shattered it in an arc of tea and porcelain.
“It isn’t stopping.” Janny clawed at herself. “Why won’t the pain stop?”
Fifth Course, Part III:
Rotten
Agony distorted Janny’s features, making her appear old once more. “Hurts everywhere, like I’m stuffed with needles.”
“Oh, no!” The empress reached out to hug her.
“Don’t touch me!” Janny’s eyes rolled. She lifted the apple core, flung it at the djinn. “What did you do to me? Poison an old young woman? You weightless blob of flaming ego!”
The djinn lifted a hand, and the core stopped midair. It revolved, and the djinn seemed to inspect it. “Did you eat an apple seed?”
“No.” Janny yanked off her turban, dug fingers into her reddish hair. “Maybe one. What does it matter?”
“The flesh of the apple contains eternal youth. Its seeds, mortality,” the djinn said. “Eating two seeds would’ve killed you.”
Janny panted. “What’s the cure? Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
The djinn gestured. A seed floated from the core.
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