Chapter Fifteen

A Clue Left at Dawn

At the self and same time, Zootch descended the rungladder from the guest cone room at the top of a hutter’s striped green and white conical cottage. He had overslept. What he meant to do was slip away shortly after his hutter hosts went to bed, but the nonstop sleepless excitement and planning of the previous two days tripped him into unexpected slumber. With the Cap of Cloak firmly invisible on his head, Zootch reached the bottom floor. He couldn’t resist taking from the platter on the round oaken table a wedge of ladgecake left over from the feast the hutters served him the night before. He poured himself a bowl of mollywater and quietly sipped it as he thought.

Didn’t know I was that tired. Didn’t know ladgecake tasted that good. Riffle Sike was right about hutters. What hosts! Jolly songs. Recitations. Feats of nimbleness. Harmony rhymes. Rhymes … hmmmmm. Did she solve it yet? I’d best hurry and plant this next clue. No time to wait for surprise petals to open. Sun’ll be up soon. Mmmmmm … ladgecake. If I was Kig, I’d have it every day.

The Blossom Prince in the guise of hutter, tell true thanks to the Cap of Cloak, dropped to one knee, shoved a shoulder under the oaken table and pushed up, lifting one side of the table atilt. He carefully placed a folded slip of oat parchment beneath the nearest elevated table leg and slowly lowered his shoulder until the table once more stood solidly on the floor. The clue was hidden completely, not even a speck of corner or edge protruding from under the table leg.

“What’s the trouble, young hutter? Did you lose something?” a concerned kindly voice called down from the rungladder hole in the ceiling which was so such also in fact the rungladder hole in the floor of the kitchen.

“Oh, no, no concern, didn’t want to wake you after all that fine harvest of feast and that splendid crop of entertainment you and your family grafted onto my mind’s stem of fond memories,” said Zootch in a voice just that much above a whisper. “I have a long road to travel. I’m eager to be home.”

“At the veriest least take a jar of palmpear compote and a flask of mollywater,” insisted the hutter Mother, for indeed it was she descending the rungladder with hutter agility and balance, using legs alone, her hands occupied one with a flask, one with a jar.

These she handed to Zootch, who accepted ‘em with a smile and a bow. Inside, he praised himself for the snapjaw decision he’d made to wear the Cap of Cloak whenever there appeared even the slightest chance he might be seen. This was one of those times. Slightest chance occurred. He might have been seen.

“Many thanks to you and your husband hutter and daughter hutter and son hutters, Mother hutter,” he said. “If ever one or any of you wander near the Outerest Orchards close to Danken Wood, we would blossom to entertain you. My brother hutter makes the cleverest gadapple pie.”

Zootch bowed again and backed to the door. The Mother hutter stood in a pose of farewell. Opening the door, the prince bowed out. He turned and marched east through the oats. East through the oats was where he wasn’t going, but he wanted the hutters to think it so such. He marched until the sun threw long shadows on the new morning. He looked back over his shoulder and saw in the distance only the tip of the green and white conical cottage. Satisfied, he stepped from the path and into the tall grassy oats. He took the Cap of Cloak from his head. His hair took on a curl. His nose widened and flattened noticeably. His chin squared. His cheeks filled out with a perceivable slightness. His fingers lengthened. His battered silver tunic and leggers glistened in the sun. He kicked a circle flat with his pummeled gold boots and sat at its center, cross-legged. He closed his eyes, raised the Cap of Cloak high over his head, and murmured the words he had been taught by Riffle Sike. Flash. Puff. There in the oat fields was an empty flattened circle.