Ghastly Glass

by Joyce; Jim Lavene

  I slid into a small wooden booth in the darkened room. There were lanterns and candles everywhere. It’s always amazing to consider how anyone got anything done before electricity. This place was darker than Peter’s Pub or the Pleasant Pheasant. It was probably the big wooden beams that seemed to press down on the dining area.

  Luckily, we got a window seat overlooking the lake. The lake was artificial, too, but like the pirate ship, it put on a good show. The rising moon was peeking over the castle, the entire picture reflected in the still water. Torches were lit on the ramparts and across the battlements of the castle and the Great Hall. It was an awe-inspiring sight.

  “Good table, huh?” Chase mentioned as he looked at the menu, which was burned into a wooden slab.

  “The best.” I couldn’t look at my food choices for gazing out at the scene spread before me. The pirate ship was docking, which meant they would soon attack the tavern. I could see a few pirates sneaking up through the fog toward the restaurant. “Chase? ”

  “Hmm? ”

  “Where is all the fog coming from? ”

  He looked up at me and grinned, his leather-thong-tied braid slipping over one shoulder. “From fog machines, where else? Believe me, Adventure Land spared no expense.”

  “Great! Does that mean I have to worry about a big fake dinosaur eating me or eating what’s left of me after the werewolves are done? ”

  “How about a glass of wine tonight, my lady?” He touched my cheek. “I think you need to relax.”

  “Greetings and huzzahs to you my fine fellows!” The burly waiter approached our table. He glanced out the window and sighed. “Do they have to come and pillage us every night? They’re cutting into my tips. Show-offs!”

  Chase and I ordered pasta and mushrooms with white wine and the tavern’s specialty dessert, which was cheese-cake. The waiter took the order, complaining the whole time about the slow but steady advance of the pirates.

  When he was gone, Chase took my hand and kissed my knuckles. “We really need to get you another costume. I don’t mind people thinking I’m with another guy as much as I mind Livy hitting on you. I don’t even want to think where that could end up.”

  “I’m sure as soon as she realized I wasn’t a man, she’d be out of there really fast,” I ventured after a sip of the cool wine.

  “Not necessarily. I remember one night when there was more than that going on at the castle after closing time.”

  “Were you involved? ”

  “Let’s just say I never fell for Livy’s offer to knight me again.”

  I laughed as the pirates burst into the tavern. There were at least twenty sturdy lads and lasses dressed in traditional pirate garb of ripped pants, waist-tied shirts, and lots of bandanas. Each carried a knife and some sort of sword. Most had gold earrings, and chains around their necks.

  It was a good show. The pirates came in through a hole in the floor as well as dropping down from the ceiling. They pushed their way past a waiter in the doorway and generally invaded the dining area. Only the placid, sometimes impatient faces on the waitstaff gave them away.

  “Avast, me hearties!” I wasn’t surprised that it was Rafe, one of my long-ago summer flings. He was as sexy as ever with long, black hair, a few gold teeth, and a killer mustache. “What have we here? I think we shall be counting these spoils for days, lads. Strip them of their purses. Let none survive.”

  One very dainty older lady who was sitting close to me and Chase grabbed her purse and pressed it to her chest. “You can’t take my money, you scoundrel!”

  I glanced at Chase. Was she an audience plant?

  Rafe approached her with appropriate swagger and fingered his mustache while he looked down on her. “Madame, you do not know who you are toying with. I am the king of the Pirates from the Queen’s Revenge. You will give me your valuables or dance on my gibbet.”

  “The hell I will!” The dainty little lady brought her foot down hard on Rafe’s insole and had the pleasure of seeing the Pirate King shout in pain. “Are we going to sit here and let them rob us? ”

  “Is this supposed to happen? ” I asked Chase.

  Before he could answer, the tavern diners let out a resounding “No!” Suddenly the pirates were being attacked by the visitors. Chase was on his feet running into the fray. A wooden chair splintered on the floor near my feet.

  Obviously, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Eight

  It was chaos in the tavern with visitors and residents throwing themselves into the battle. I’m sure the pirates were surprised to find such a lively audience. Usually they snuck in, sang a few pirate ditties, and took a few purses from other residents who were in the crowd. No one ever took something from a visitor. That was strictly taboo.

  I couldn’t help wondering if that old lady was as innocent as she seemed. I couldn’t see her anymore, so I hoped for the sake of the Village that she was actually part of the plot. Only a few people each year actually got hurt or upset about the theatrics going on around them. Most came here to be entertained on a grand level. The Village provided that with nonstop craziness.

  I saw Chase standing on the other side of the room. He was talking into his radio but not trying to separate the factions, which made me believe things were in order. A pirate I didn’t recognize sailed by me, and I saw the red letters painted on the back of his jerkin: Death shall find thee.

  Coincidence? I thought not. I’m not a big believer in coincidence. I ducked and weaved trying to get across the room to Chase. He needed to see that jerkin.

  I saw Rafe’s grinning, gold-toothed smile only a moment before he hauled me up on his shoulder like a sack of feed for the elephants and sprinted toward the open hatch in the floor. I made eye contact with Chase, but it was too late. Rafe passed me off to the next pirate in their underground lair and before I knew it, I was headed for the pirate ship.

  I’d been on the ship a time or two while I was seeing Rafe three years ago. It’s big and kind of musty smelling. There’s a lot of rope and buckets (the good ship has sunk a time or two). It was hard to protest as I was tossed from shoulder to shoulder through the lines of pirates making a ladder to the water’s edge. I’ve only crowd-surfed at one or two concerts in my life. This was a lot worse.

  By the time I was able to stand on my own two feet, I was aboard the Queen’s Revenge. It was dark and smelly, alive with the clomp-clomp of large boots as the pirates set sail from that side of the lake. I could hear the cannon fire as residents sounded the alarm and supposedly took aim at the ship. Luckily, they used only blanks and smoke bombs now. A good thing, too. The first time the ship had sunk, it was due to technical error: someone had shot real cannon-balls at the wooden vessel. They’d obviously had uncannily good aim.

  I wasn’t alone in the dark hold. Three wenches were taken with me. They all took a seat around the area, knowing the routine. One of them, a big, buxom blond, took out her cell phone to complain about everything to her boyfriend.

  “I’ve never seen them take a man before.” Another buxom blond came to stand beside me and actually put her hand through my hair.

  Yuck! I pulled away. “I’m not a man. Rafe knows me. He probably thinks this is funny.”

  She laughed. Apparently she thought it was funny, too. My sense of humor was off due to the loss of a nice dinner with Chase. Not to mention a forced hour-long cruise across the lake.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie,” the buxom blond closest reassured me. “They always let us go over by the climbing wall. You can get back home from there, can’t you? ”

  I didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead I started pounding on the hold door.

  “What’s he doing?” Buxom Blond with Cell Phone asked Buxom Blond Number Two.

  “He’s a she, believe it or not. I guess she wants to get out.”

  “God, she’s tall!” the third wench added. “Is she wearing heels? ”

  A pirate finally came to get us. I saw in the dim oil lamp light that it
was Grigg. “Jessie? How’d you get down here? ”

  “It’s a long story,” I snarled. “Where’s Rafe? ”

  “You have to refer to him as the Pirate King now,” he explained. “He gets really testy if you call him Rafe.”

  “Not a problem.” I smiled charmingly. “I’m sure what I plan to call him will be much worse. Just show me the way.”

  We walked upstairs to the main deck, which looked like a scene from a pirate movie. All hands were on deck making fast the lines and setting sail across the dark lake. Back when I was dating Rafe, I knew the names of all the lines, sails, and other gear that kept the ship afloat. There was the mainmast, mizzenmast, quarterdeck, steering wheel. Or rather, the helm. It had a certain charm back then even though it was damp and we were likely to be interrupted a hundred times every hour by pirates who had to report where the ship was on the lake.

  Grigg knocked on the door to the captain’s cabin, then shrugged and left me to it. The pirates started singing and playing that infernal squeeze box someone suggested was used during the Renaissance. Rafe called out for me to enter. I shoved open the heavy wood door and stepped inside.

  The pirate with the painted jerkin was with Rafe at the crude table. There were a few roughly made wood chairs and an oil lamp in the middle of the table. Rafe looked up and smiled brilliantly at me. I wished I had something to throw at him.

  “Why am I here? I don’t think I signed up to play Captured Female Number Four at the tavern.”

  “Jessie, as beautiful as ever! Especially when you’re angry!”

  “Besides being the lamest thing to say, I seem to remember you weren’t particularly fond of me getting angry when we were seeing each other. Some kind of affront to your pirate manhood.”

  The other pirate laughed. “She’s a feisty one, sir. Methinks we should keep her for the crew.”

  “Well, methinks you’re gonna have some explaining to do when we get to the other side of the lake,” I told him. “Where did you get that jerkin? ”

  “This? ” He shrugged. “You like it? ”

  “I think your choice of slogan on the back is either inappropriate or involves you in a potential homicide.” I stared at him as hard and seriously as I could.

  He glanced at Rafe. “What’d she say? ”

  “She’s a history professor,” Rafe told him. “It could be anything. Smile and nod.”

  “I’m talking about the red writing on your jerkin that says Death shall find thee. Those same words have been written in various places around the Village as well as on the figure of Death as portrayed by Ross DeMilo. Would you like to explain that? ”

  “I think she’s saying you killed Death.” Rafe snagged an Oreo from a wooden box at his elbow. “What say you, me hearty? ”

  The other man looked surprised, then made a sudden run for the door. Rafe got to his feet and barked out orders to his other crewmen on deck, but they weren’t fast enough. The pirate jumped overboard. I ran out of the captain’s cabin in time to see him swimming away from the ship.

  “Stop that man!” I ordered. No one moved. I turned to Rafe. “Tell them to stop him.”

  “How would you suggest we do that, Jessie? You know we don’t have any real weapons. I could throw him a life preserver, but I don’t think he’d take it, do you? ”

  We just stood there watching the pirate swim toward the shore. I remembered Buxom Blond with Cell Phone in the hold and ran down the stairs to borrow her unlawful apparatus.

  She put up a little struggle; I’d interrupted her conversation, from which I gathered she’d just broken up with her boyfriend. But in the end, I was the faster sprinter. By the time she got on deck, I was already on the phone with Chase. Rafe held her off by explaining the situation while I explained to Chase what had happened.

  “I was going to meet you at the other side,” Chase said. “I guess I’ll make for the Eve’s Garden area instead. Thanks, Jessie. Sorry about dinner. I’ll meet you back at the dungeon.”

  I couldn’t say much with an audience of buxom wenches and bloodthirsty pirates standing over my shoulder. I briefly said good-bye and handed the phone back to the wench. “Thanks. Maybe we can take care of this problem now.”

  “Come and have a repast with me in my cabin,” Rafe said.

  I had to admit he was super sexy in his pirate gear with the moonlight on his dark hair, illuminating his handsome face. If it weren’t for Chase, I might’ve said yes. But I had a good thing going, and I wasn’t blowing it for any sexy pirate. Been there, done that.

  “I think I’ll just stay out here and look at the water. Doesn’t the castle look romantic with the torches and the moon? ”

  “No one refuses the Pirate King,” Rafe whispered close to my ear.

  “I guess there’s always a first,” I whispered back. “You and I are so much history.”

  He sighed. “It doesn’t look good to have something like this happen. It undermines my authority with the others. If you can say no, so can everyone else. That’s what happened to the Pirate Queen, you know. She got soft. Actually, she got pregnant, then she got soft. There was no authority left. The men look to me for guidance and authority. I have to do what I think is right to maintain that.”

  I saw it coming with the moon shining in his eyes just a moment before he tossed me over the side of the ship. On my way down I heard him laughing. That stupid squeeze box was playing, too, and one of the buxom wenches was giggling.

  Then I hit the water. At least he knew from our past history that I could swim. That’s about the only good thing I could say about the situation. At least he knew I wouldn’t drown. If I’d been dressed in a long gown, he wouldn’t have thrown me over. I wanted to feel sure about that. Then I started plotting my revenge.

  I swam ashore not quite knowing where I was until I saw the lights from the main gate and heard the music playing. I had no idea what time it was, but visitors were still streaming in through the gate, which meant it wasn’t midnight yet.

  One group of twentysomething visitors dressed as Renaissance trick-or-treat rejects saw me and started laughing. “Do you think she’s supposed to be some kind of water spirit? ” one of the girls asked her partner.

  “If so, they sure did a good job on her makeup.” That started them all laughing again.

  I was too angry to speak. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I opened my mouth. I ignored them and clung to the shadows, which were easy to find in the dimly lit Village street.

  A long line of lighted pumpkins followed every shop and amusement. Lords and ladies dressed in ghostly attire, their faces painted a deathly white, strolled the cobblestones. The wolf howled and bats chattered through the streets. Halloween had truly come to Renaissance Village.

  The hatchet-throwing area, located conveniently close to a first aid station, now offered scarecrows, rather than fruits and vegetables, as targets. Even the monks at the bakery went all out. Two of the brothers walked by me on their way from the building. When I looked at them, I saw that their eyes glowed red. Chase wasn’t kidding about Adventure Land doing it up right.

  I dashed behind the Honey and Herb Shoppe, which took me into a dark part of the Village behind the privies and the Dutchman’s Stage. Apparently the Renaissance Faire Village planners had not put any lights back here because they didn’t want visitors getting off the beaten track where they couldn’t spend any money. It was a good place for me in my drenched, angry state. I could hear the music and smell the roasting turkey legs, but I was by myself.

  At least I thought I was by myself. I heard a rustling sound and glanced over my shoulder. There was Death again, if possible, bigger than when Ross was playing the character. The sight put such a chill down my back that I had to stop and confront him or leave the Village. To my way of thinking, you can only be so scared before you have to fight back.

  “You must be the new Death,” I greeted the specter. “Nice robe. I think your scythe must be bigger than the first Death’s. Or maybe it just lo
oks bigger.”

  He didn’t say anything, just stood there towering over me (not an easy thing to do). The figure had to be eight feet tall. I glanced down at the ground where his robe met the damp grass. There were no feet that I could see.

  “You must be new.” I held out my hand. “I’m Jessie. I’ve worked here for about the last five years on and off. I’m apprenticing with Roger at the Glass Gryphon right now. Nice to meet you.”

  There was no response for a moment, then slowly, a bony hand slid from beneath the dark robe. I don’t mean bony as in thin either. I mean bony as in skeletal, no flesh.

  That was it. Someone might laugh at me later, but I was terrified. I took off running past the actors coming out from behind the Dutchman’s Stage, through the darkness to the front of the dungeon.

  I stopped when I reached the lighted front door. I looked back to see where the figure was. He hadn’t followed me. I even went back a little (not too far) to see if he was waiting around the corner of the dungeon, but he was gone.

  Is it real? My pounding heart, tortured lungs, and sweaty face said it was real. My brain denounced what my senses told me was true. Of course there isn’t a real figure of Death stalking the Village. He’s an actor just like me, hired by someone at Adventure Land to scare the living crap out of everyone he can. He’s somewhere laughing right now, repeating the story to other Halloween figures.

  Or maybe it was real. People had died here. Maybe there really was a figure that personified Death. Maybe that figure just met me in the darkness to let me know he was real.

  I heard the tree swing creak, close to the dungeon door, and glanced that way. A terrible specter sat there swinging from the tree. She had long white hair and a horrible death countenance, her gray gown trailing on the cobblestones behind her. The wind lifted her hair as she held her horrible face up to the moonlight. The wolf bayed.

  I’d had enough for one night. I opened the door to the dungeon and the banshee wailed. I couldn’t take the sound, so I slammed the door, stormed over to the Pleasant Pheasant, and sat down in the closest chair. I dared anyone to mention that I was soaking wet as I ordered a tankard of ale.