• “the butterlike secretion”
• growing use of the current slang
• applied his forefinger to his forehead
• seems a bit hypocritical
• their nefarious schemes

Tune in next time part 450      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I assumed YoYo was just being spitefully dramatic, but she was serious about her disbelief in twins. I could only shake my head as she worked herself up into a rant about the myth of multiple births, spread by the ruling class to further their nefarious schemes.

“It seems a bit hypocritical of you to jump into bed with someone like me, if you’re so opposed to what the fat-cats are up to.”

“But don’t you see? I’m trying to liberate you from their clutches! Free you from your sham marriage. As for the whole ‘twins’ thing, that all dates back to a legend that says William Penn II applied his forefinger to his forehead while his concubine applied her forefinger to his foreskin. The wordplay is quite droll in the original, but sadly it doesn’t translate.”

My Olde High Contrarian was pretty good, actually, and I had read the legend of which she spoke. Hers sounded like a heretical interpretation to me. “Are you part of a faction?” I asked her. “Trying to convince high-ranking military officers to defect?”

She nodded, then shook her head, then shrugged. “Everybody’s part of a faction, when you come right down to it. I mean, there must be a faction that would have me, right?” She rambled some more about her ideology and I struggled to make sense of it. Her speech was rife with contradictions and peppered with unfamiliar figures of speech. At least she didn’t seem to join in the growing use of the current slang term “the butterlike secretion” to refer to any disagreeable political view.

I had to find out if there was anyone at Enigma Fortress I could trust. Including YoYo.

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• “Thanks for a very interesting evening,”
• The merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the schoolboy
• stubborn at first, she eventually
• I super-duper love it.
• it was a beautiful thing

Tune in next time part 448      Click Here for Earlier Installments

William Penn XII rolled off the bed as soon as he noticed his wife watching us from the doorway. “Thanks for a very interesting evening,” he said as he hunted for his boxers, apparently having forgotten he hadn’t been wearing any. He did locate his hat.

YoYo sat up and began laying tarot cards out on the blankets.

“Where were you hiding those?” I asked, but she ignored me. She recited as the spread filled in, “The merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the schoolboy, the usurper…”

“Ahem,” I said. “Maybe that can wait?” But YoYo kept adding cards and announcing their embarrassing implications while Yesterday sternly watched her husband putting on his cape. “Really, just pause your reading. Please!”

Being stubborn at first, she eventually did stop after saying “the man-whore” in a suggestive tone of voice. William and Yesterday left at last.

“What do you think of this layout?” YoYo asked.

“It’s great,” I said. “I super duper love it.” And in truth it was a beautiful thing. Contrarian tarot are always very ornate.

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• nickname “Humbug Billy”
• the sacred ashes of her husband
• two filthy little monsters
• , just ask a librarian.
• forbade our illiterate children

Tune in next time part 444      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I followed William Penn XII through the winding passages of Enigma Fortress to a raised veranda overlooking the snow-clogged courtyard. As we stepped into view of the assembled spectators below, I learned that William’s stunt had earned him the nickname “Humbug Billy” and that he did not find it amusing.

But when I strode to the railing and held my arms aloft, the crowd cheered. Having no clue what my duties in the ceremony actually were, I sought my green-lipped advisor. She turned out to be YoYo, which shouldn’t have surprised me. She took her place behind my right shoulder and coached me what to declaim and which puppets I was supposed to use for emphasis on certain points.

I learned the folkloric origins of the Spring Scampering as I conducted the ceremony. A hedgehog seeking a place to store the sacred ashes of her husband‘s failed novel takes them to the library. This part of the story would feel normal to anyone raised in Contraria, where libraries customarily have a whole wing full of such urns and hedgehogs are generally held to be poor writers. The hedgehogs’ children were two filthy little monsters, which all Contrarian hedgehog children of myth seem to be, just ask a librarian. Rodney the fox represented Mr Hedgehog, who appears at the gates of the library to plead for his ashes back, being too ashamed of his work to let it be housed there. My job was to speak his lines, while he pantomimed the action down in the snow.

YoYo fed me the words and I spoke them in a booming voice. “Oh, noble keeper of the book-fortress, who forbade our illiterate children to scurry on the shelving, let me bury these pathetic cinders under a log as they deserve.”

But the librarian had other ideas.

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• called the “picker-upper thing”
• with considerably less pep
• “What do they look like, these eyeglasses?”
• my increasing cravings
• referred to as “mystery candy”

Tune in next time part 442      Click Here for Earlier Installments

William Penn XII sized me up in my new, white uniform and nodded wearily. “That’s right. I should have known this would happen if I showed up in last year’s accoutrements.”

A suspicion flared in my mind. “Did you try to usurp my part in the Spring Scampering?” He nodded again. “And the crowd turned on you?” He shook his head this time. I waited for him to explain his appearance.

“Rodney did this.” William went on to explain that only the fox seemed to care who was emceeing the event or how that person was dressed, and even though he used the special implement called the “picker-upper thing” when attempting to handle Rodney, matters quickly got out of hand. And so, a defeated William had limped out of the courtyard with considerably less pep than he’d entered it. Furthermore, when he suffered the laceration to his brow he also lost his glasses.

“What do they look like, these eyeglasses?” As far as I knew, William did not need glasses.

“They are very stylish,” he replied. “Frames covered with rhinestones, and mirrored lenses. They were necessary to satisfy my increasing cravings for fashion street cred.”

William Penn XII then droned for twenty minutes about his aim to found a designer clothing label specializing in accessories, which he referred to as “mystery candy” and described in tedious detail.

“Are you going to explain why you interfered with the ceremony?” I interrupted.

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