319. The Crowned Heads Choir

 319. The Crowned Heads Choir

Esmeraldo had had enough. Tired of all he had been through, wheeling and dealing and rampaging and kidnapping and meeting too many strange people, he suddenly burst into tears.

“Wahhhhhh!” went Esmeraldo, reminding everyone that tough as he was, he was just a baby, “I want to go home!”

“Oh, the poor child!” cried Lady Splendour. “That’s what the poor thing is, really is! For all his bravado! You’ve just been playing at pirate, haven’t you, dear? You aren’t really one. As fortune would have it, you found yourself stealing your own daddy’s boat, for that’s what it is. Well, the lucky part is that since it is your daddy’s, it all stays in the family. Yes, that’s where it is staying. Generosity and I between us will find something more suitable to grace Lady Jittery’s Peevish Pond with. Now the unlucky part of this business is that you, I think, have unwittingly given two bad guys the right to be free from the constraint they were subject to. I wonder what can be done about that.”

“If I may speak, Lady Splendour,” I, Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy said, “they aren’t half as bad as they are stupid, these offenders  Gemmy has favored aren’t. I admit they do have the stupidest ideas, but within the foolish genre, not precisely the evil. Our problem here is AEternus, for since they attracted his attention, he has a strong dislike of them. In any case, they are about to enjoy the few days of leave they have a year. And that is the time we have to find what to do with them when their free time is over.”

“Ufff! Old man AEternus is awfully hard to please. He is terribly exacting and likes everything to be in the right measure. Needless to say, he’s not too fond of me, though he can be splendid any time he wants to. Now and again…, oh, well, we’ll let him be Divina’s problem. She knows him best. As for now, I’m taking you all home,” said the Lady Splendour. “Just give me a few minutes to pack a few things, stock mostly, for my daughter Dadivosa’s bazaar. Soon it will be Christmas and I myself should be getting out there.”

As you can imagine the few things Lady Splendour packed were far from few. But I won’t go into that now. I will only say she took the children and me to Apple Island, to the Richearth plantation, where I too spent the night. We had dinner and a nightcap of chamomile tea, which is one of those things it is good to have after an adventure. We awoke late, several days after, in fact, but not so late or so tired that we couldn’t make it to the Crowned Heads’ Concert.

And just what is that you may ask, if you are not in the know? Well every year, some day in December, the fay kids who have reached or will reach the age of seven during the current year get together to celebrate their coming of age. A party is organized for these kids, with a show in which they participate, and they form a choir and sing together for the delight of their families and friends. They themselves wirte the music and the lyrics of half the songs they sing. The other half of the songs are traditional or the work of those who came of age before them. Old Crowned Heads Choir hits these last are. The songs these young ones write are almost always sweet in tune, though there can be surprises. As for the lyrics, well, there is always something a little weird about them. Not bad, just odd. 

The little bat fairy Angelmouse Grigio, now a grand divo in his own right as well as a professor of the school of voice run by the siren Marina O’Toora, was to direct the choir.

It is called the Crowned Heads Choir because these young fairies who have come of age or are a few days from it and will do so before the year ends, are now their own masters and monarchs of their very own ideal homes, which can be claimed starting the first of Jnuary of the new year. And for their feast they wear bright, glowing crowns on their heads to make this statement, that they are free and commanding themselves. Most of them are good kids, almost all. This year, every one to the last is good. Twelve they are this year, which is a good enough number for a choir, for there have been years when only two or three or even only one fay babe has grown up. 

Being good kids, this year’s crop are expected to remain living in Apple Island forever and a day. Also, I must say, this batch sang rather well, and so everyone was happy. They ended their concert reminding people that on the eve of the thirteenth of December Generoso and Dadivosa’s Christmas Bazaar would be held and eveyone present was expected to be so there too. And the last song they sang, to the music of seven gold-stringed harps, was Lambent Lucy, the lyrics of which I publish here in case you aren’t acquainted with them. I particularly like this song because it was written by one of us, a fay child of Minced Forest, and describes our ways.

Up in the heavens, veiled by black clouds, the pale moon is struggling to shimmer,

To see and be seen tiny stars fight mists that wish them dimmer and dimmer

Through a lace of branches black and bare! Ah, the wind is still, frozen air!

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!

We have left our warm beds for it’s got in our heads to welcome dearest  Lucy!

Down in the forest, the pines and we covered in snow shiver silently,

Toes clad, fingers gloved, yet they are so numb, noses red, knees knock soundlessly, dumb.

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!

Stiffling yawns in this most longest night, awake await to witness the sight,

Chant now in the dark so like the lark we can joyous sing away the night!

Black turn dark blue, then rose and then bright, for when it is darkest dawns the light!  

Put an end to this endless night! Lambent Lucy, bring back the light!