Changing the Prophecy Chapter 15

 Chapter 15 Buttered Biscuits

“Where’s Dosh?” Sonjay asked.

“At the North Coast with Jasper,” Maia told him.

“How come you guys split up?”

“We got separated in the passage,” Denzel answered.

“Then how do you know where she is?”

“Elena called her on her phone if you can believe it, but she was in the middle of something and couldn’t talk and now she doesn’t answer,” Maia explained.

Sonjay tried to process this extraordinary news. “Her phone?”

“For real,” Denzel confirmed with a quick laugh and an eye roll. “Crazy, huh? She said to meet her at Clover’s.”

Following Sonjay’s lead, they skirted the city and made for the main entrance. Occasionally Maia attempted to touch him, but each time her hand went straight through him. It was disturbing.

As they circled the city, while sticking to the protective cover of the surrounding forest, they saw that an encampment of Compost’s soldiers, heavily armed, guarded each of the entrance gates. Outside the main gate, Compost’s vast encampment stretched into the distance. Campfires glowed, tigers stirred restlessly in their paddocks, and soldiers went about their daily activities. Sonjay and the others concealed themselves in a grove of fir trees on the edge of the plain where Compost had established his military tent city.

They spoke in hushed voices.

“Stay here, away from their weapons, and out of sight,” Sonjay ordered. “I’ll go speak to them. They can’t kill me since I’m not in my body. If I can, I’ll appear to you again when I finish. Just in case I can’t, listen up. Do what Doshmisi said. Go to Grandmomma’s and I’ll try to meet you there with the Prophet of the Khoum.”

“Prophet of the Khoum,” Honeydew echoed dreamily.

“So you know what he means by the Prophet of the Khoum?” Denzel asked the princess.

“Of course,” Honeydew confirmed.

“Good. You can explain it to the rest of us later, after Sonjay disintegrates.” It bothered Denzel that he knew nothing about this Prophet of the Khoum and no one seemed forthcoming with more information.

“He’s not going to disintegrate,” Honeydew explained in the voice that Denzel thought of as her “professor voice.” Sometimes she was such an annoying know-it-all. “He’s just going to return to his physical body.”

“Whatever,” Denzel replied.

Sonjay sniffed the air distractedly. “Do you smell that?” he asked.

“What?” Denzel shot his brother a baffled look.

“Beans,” Elena said.

“Beans,” Guhblorin echoed, adding (because he couldn’t entirely suppress his geebaching nature) “the musical fruit.”

“Perfect,” Sonjay announced with glee. “I smell beans and I don’t smell meat to go with them. You know how the Mountain People love their meat.” Sonjay’s amulet began to glow with amber light.

“Can’t you ever think about anything other than food?” Maia demanded in disgust.

“Yup,” Sonjay answered happily. “But I bet those soldiers down there can’t. I bet those soldiers have thought about little other than food for days, maybe weeks. I have an idea. You can thank me later. Don’t go anywhere. Hopefully, I’ll be right back.” With those words he nearly disappeared. The others could vaguely see him in the form of a shimmer as he descended to the plain where Compost’s troops prepared to sit down to their meager meal of beans-with-no-meat.

Sonjay’s voice boomed across the plain. “Beans again?”

“How can he make his voice so loud?” Elena asked in wonder.

“It’s an amplification enchantment,” Honeydew said softly. “I can do that one too. It’s one of the first ones they teach us.”

“How many days of beans?” Sonjay’s loud voice continued, spreading in all directions so that the troops could hear him clearly throughout the tent city. “How long do you want to keep eating beans and leaves? Wouldn’t you just love to bite into a burger or crunch a tasty goose-chicken eyeball? Where’s the meat? Roasted, barbecued, fried up in a pan. Dripping with gravy and poured over mashed potatoes. With macaroni and cheese. With cranberry sauce. How about apple pie and pumpkin pie and pecan pie, with whipped cream, with ice cream. Or an ice cream sundae. Cold vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. Crushed walnuts on top.”

Compost’s troops had set their plates of beans aside and stood or sat transfixed, listening to the smooth voice as it seductively described the delicious food they dreamed about but had not tasted for some time during the siege.

“Spaghetti and meatballs. Garlic bread. Chicken noodle soup. Eggs and grits with sausages. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberry cheesecake. What are you doing here?” Sonjay asked the troops. “When you could go home to your family and friends, where you could drink kiwi juice, eat chocolate cake, barbecue some ribs, slow-roast a chicken. What do you gain by staying here? Nothing. You’re not well-fed. You’re not appreciated. How long has it been since you’ve had a good meal? A decent espresso? Waffles slathered in butter and syrup? Chocolate chip cookies. Tangerines. Butterscotch pudding. Sweet-potato pie. What keeps you from going home? Just say no. Go back to your farm and your gardens and your kitchen pantry full of tasty treats. Take back your life. Take back your dinner.”

Compost’s soldiers eyed each other with hungry eyes. They stared into their boring plates of beans-with-no-meat.

“Wouldn’t you give anything for a buttered biscuit? Can’t you just taste that biscuit right now? Flaky and light and warm? Yeasty and soft. Go home and make biscuits,” Sonjay implored. “Go home to your families in the Amber Mountains and bake biscuits and spread them with butter and eat them hot, straight from the oven. Imagine biting into those biscuits. Those hot, buttered biscuits!”

A sigh of longing rose from the soldiers as the words “buttered biscuits” passed from one salivating mouth to the next, reverently, longingly, and then with a fresh resolve. The soldiers gathered their belongings, mounted their tigers, and began a mass exodus from the encampment. In front of his tent, Compost threw a hissy-fit the size of Texas. He berated and threatened, jumped up and down and waved his arms in the air. He took off his hat and stomped on it. But no one paid him any mind and the din of departing feet drowned out his voice.

“Hot buttered biscuits,” Sonjay crooned again and again in that velvety hypnotic voice. “Flaky and buttery and warm from the oven. Melt-in-your-mouth buttery biscuits.” Sonjay repeated it until the legions of soldiers had mounted their tigers and headed away from the encampment while dreamily murmuring “buttered biscuits.”

The entire army quickly disappeared, leaving behind a deserted city of abandoned tents, uneaten beans, and trash. The news that the siege army had headed for home to eat buttered biscuits spread to the encampments of troops at each of the city gates and these troops also packed up and left for the Amber Mountains and their farms, families, and a good dinner. By the time the descending sun approached the horizon in the fading afternoon, only a handful of Compost’s most loyal followers shuffled and snuffled miserably outside Compost’s tent, burdened with the thought of all the buttery biscuits they would not eat.

Once the troops evaporated, Sonjay returned, exhausted, to the place in the woods where he had left the others.

“Awesome,” Elena complimented him as he approached them. “You’ve got game.”

“I’m one of the Four and that’s how we roll,” Sonjay boasted, with a weak smile.

“You’re the pusher-man,” Denzel said with an approving nod. “I can’t believe you pulled that off. I want some of them buttery biscuits my own self.”

Sonjay began to flicker in and out of visibility, Honeydew realized that his ability to control his locomotaport had worn perilously thin. “You need to leave,” she told him. “You need to go back to your body. Do it now. Can you do it?”  

“I think so,” Sonjay said faintly.

“Then go,” Maia urged him, anxiously.

“I’ll try to meet up with you at Grandmomma’s,” Sonjay whispered before he vanished completely.

After Sonjay vanished, the others turned their attention to the scene unfolding at the main gate of Big House City below. With his troops gone, Compost had no muscle. Honeydew’s father, High Chief Hyacinth, and a group of royal guards emerged from Big House City and proceeded to Compost and his tiny band of loyalists, which consisted of about a dozen bedraggled men. The instant Princess Honeydew saw her father, she called out to the others, “Let’s go.” She abandoned her hiding place and fairly flew down the hill. Elena and Guhblorin followed reluctantly since Elena didn’t yet feel safe walking out into the open and Guhblorin worried that someone would kill him on sight because he was a geebaching. He stuck to Elena like white on rice. Bisc trotted at Honeydew’s side. It reassured Elena somewhat to have Bisc with them.

As she ran, Honeydew called out, “Daddy! Daddy!” The royal guards had taken Compost and his men into custody. The high chief turned to look up the hillside and his face broke into a delighted grin as he saw his daughter and Bisc bounding toward him. High Chief Hyacinth adored animals and had a special way with them. Bisc jumped up on Hyacinth, nearly knocking him over, and licked his face enthusiastically. A few moments later, Honeydew flung herself into Hyacinth’s arms, sobbing. “Oh Daddy, I’m so glad you’re alright! I was so worried.”

“Not to worry,” Hyacinth comforted his daughter as he stroked her hair. “We’re fine. We heard the voice about the buttered biscuits from inside the city and wondered what enchanter had come to our aid. Who spoke of the buttered biscuits?”

“It was Sonjay, Daddy,” Honeydew told him. Then the words tumbled out of her as if a dam had burst. “The Four came back, only they got separated in the passage so Sonjay landed somewhere else but he locomotaported. Amazing, right? Not since Hazamon, huh?! But Sonjay did it. He found a Prophet of the Khoum. And Denzel and Maia are with me, and they brought a friend named Elena, and they found a geebaching, only he’s a friendly one, a Dud, who won’t hurt a soul, and Compost caught us and put us in a garbage labyrinth, but then the butterflies came and flew away with Guhblorin and when they brought him back he…”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Hyacinth stopped his daughter, “too much inflotation. I’m completely obtuse.” Hyacinth spoke in a unique and somewhat incomprehensible manner because he confused the meaning of words. Honeydew was one of the few people who could usually decipher what he meant. She laughed happily to hear his mangled language.

“You must mean too much information and that you are completely confused,” she told him, as she stood on her toes and kissed him on the tip of his nose. “Obtuse means you’re not very observant. I don’t think inflotation is actually a word.”

“I mean you make no sense at all,” he replied.

“I know what you mean. I’ll tell you all about our adventures at dinner. I’m starved. What have we got to eat?”

“Any buttered biscuits?” Denzel asked hopefully. The others had caught up with Honeydew and Bisc. Hyacinth released his daughter and pulled Denzel and Maia into a joyful hug. As royals, the Four were distant cousins to him. He beamed as he greeted them, “Welcome,” he announced in a loud jolly voice, “Welcome to Big House City. I welcome you with opulence, corpulence, and flatulence!”

Elena did not know for sure what opulence or corpulence meant, but she knew what flatulence meant. She thought Hyacinth seemed a rather peculiar ruler and she struggled to keep a straight face so she wouldn’t insult him by laughing at him. But Maia and Denzel, who had traveled with him the previous summer and knew him well, busted out laughing, while Honeydew explained to her father, “Daddy, Daddy! Opulence means wealth, corpulence refers to a really fat person, and flatulence, oh my goodness,” she giggled, “flatulence means farting. I hardly think you wish to welcome them with that.”

“Oh dear,” Hyacinth said, worried and embarrassed. “I do have a nice big house and I have put on quite a few pounds from your mother’s delicious cooking, but I would never wish to subject my guests to flatulence. Oh my.”

“Not a problem,” Denzel assured Hyacinth good-naturedly. “We’re happy to see you again too.”

Meanwhile, the royal guards from inside Big House City had tied Compost’s hands behind his back and similarly incapacitated his few remaining followers. Elena could not stop staring at Compost. She had not had a good look at him when he captured them at the garbage labyrinth. Now that she could see him clearly, she was fascinated by him. He had the nappiest uncombed hair and a film of dirt dusted his yellowish-grayish-brownish skin. His fat belly hung over his belt and jiggled. But most of all she noticed that he smelled bad, like a person living on the street who hadn’t taken a shower in months. She had never seen a more repulsive individual. She looked into his eyes, which gazed back at her sadly in defeat. A wave of pity for him washed over her. Friendless, abandoned, disliked, he didn’t’ seem all that dangerous. He reminded her of the homeless people who came to her family’s church for dinners on Sundays. Elena often went with her parents to serve food to the homeless at church.

Compost asked Elena quietly, with a sneer, “How’d you get out of the labyrinth?”

“The geebaching rescued us,” she answered, just as the others paused in their reunion conversation. Her voice sounded louder in the sudden silence.

“No, it wasn’t really me,” Guhblorin protested. “It was the butterflies.”

“It was you and the butterflies. We would never have gotten out of there if not for you,” Elena insisted. “It was Guhblorin,” she told Compost and Hyacinth and all those within earshot. “The geebaching saved our lives.”

“How irregular,” Hyacinth muttered. “A geebaching of all things.”

Honeydew introduced Elena and Guhblorin to her father and added in a loud voice for all to hear, “Guhblorin is a good geebaching. He’s trying not to hurt anyone. He remains under my royal protection.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Guhblorin said as he flapped his ears nervously.

“High Chief Hyacinth, I plead for mercy for these followers of Compost,” Maia announced. “I think if you allow them to return to their homes, they won’t cause any further trouble. You have captured Compost. Please release these others. The rest of Compost’s troops have left for their homes already.”

Hyacinth rubbed his chin in thought.

“You can do that, Daddy,” Honeydew reassured him.

“Last year we let Sissrath run away with his followers and now look what a problemic scintillation he caused,” Hyacinth pointed out.

Elena thought that a scintillation was a flash of light. She figured that the high chief must mean the situation that Sissrath had caused with the siege. His odd speech was difficult but not impossible to decipher.

One of the followers in question instantly dropped to his knees and the others quickly followed suit. They looked thoroughly miserable. The one who had first dropped to his knees appealed to High Chief Hyacinth for mercy, “Please, Your Highness, allow us to return to our families in the Amber Mountains and we will not trouble you again. We are simple men who fear Sissrath. Please protect us from him.”

Hyacinth blustered and blushed. “Get up, get up,” he commanded. The prisoners stood. “I can’t promise to protect you from Sissrath. I can’t even protect myself from him.”

“Release these prisoners,” Princess Honeydew told the royal guards, who followed her order. The former prisoners hurried off before their captors could change their minds.

At that moment, Honeydew’s mother, High Chieftess Saffron, emerged from Big House City accompanied by Cardamom the enchanter and a great deal of hugging and back-patting and hand-shaking ensued, along with introductions. Cardamom was genuinely delighted to make the acquaintance of a real-live geebaching. Explanations were offered and stories swapped. While the others enjoyed their happy reunion, Elena continued to eye Compost curiously. He smelled quite like over-cooked broccoli, which Elena considered one of the worst-smelling things in the whole world. When her mother cooked broccoli, Elena left the house.

“So,” Elena asked Compost quietly, “how come you’re so dirty?”

“I like dirt,” Compost replied defensively, also quietly. The noisy reunion continued, with everyone oblivious to Elena and Compost.

“I don’t believe you,” Elena told him firmly.

“That shows how much you know,” Compost said.

“You smell dreadful. You can’t possibly enjoy that.”

“It keeps people like you from bothering me.”

“You don’t know me. Maybe I like rotten vegetables. Maybe you would like me.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you want to fight the high chief? What did he do to you?” Elena asked.

“He’s an imbecile who rules only because of his royal blood. He has virtually no ability at enchantment. He needs a barn full of advisors to make even the simplest decision. And yet he leads the land,” Compost spat out venomously. “The People of the Mountain Downs, my people, are infinitely better equipped as leaders and yet we must do the bidding of that fool who can’t even speak a grammatical sentence. I come from a people of great enchanters. We should rule.”

“If you think about it, though, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how proficient you are at enchantment if you’re not a good person. To be a good leader, you have to be a good person. You have to be someone who cares about helping others and making their lives better. The smartest person in the world could be a rotten leader if that person is mean and hurts other people,” Elena countered.

Compost studied Elena uncertainly.

“Being smart isn’t everything, you know,” Elena added.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No. I came with my friends.”

“The Four?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what you call them here. I wasn’t supposed to come with them. They didn’t want me to come, but I came anyway. It’s a long story.”

“I’m their sworn enemy, you know,” Compost told Elena.

“Your point?” she asked, somewhat rebelliously.

Compost chuckled. “Tell me, do you think someone who treats most of his subjects with respect but treats one group of his subjects like second-class citizens is a good leader?”

“Of course not,” Elena answered. “That’s hurting other people. That’s unjust and unethical.”

“Well,” Compost continued, smugly, “that’s the treatment my people have received. As if we are inferior beings. I resent it. If Hyacinth can’t treat us properly then he shouldn’t be the high chief, right?”

“My people are treated like inferiors a lot of the time where I come from,” Elena told Compost. “And the leaders in our country don’t do enough to stop it.”

“What are your people?” Compost asked. He focused intensely on what Elena had to say. It was as if the two of them were in their own private room, separated from all the clamor that surrounded them.

“I’m a Mexican-American, a Chicana. Where I come from…” Elena began to explain.

Compost interrupted her, “In the Farland?”

“The Farland?”

“You come from where the Four come from, right? The Farland.”

 “The Farland,” Elena repeated after him. “OK, where I come from in the Farland, Mexican-American people are often treated as inferiors.”

“Why do they do you like that?” Compost asked.

“Well, for one thing a lot of us speak Spanish instead of English as our first language, and for another a lot of us are immigrants.”

“Spanish? Immigrants?” Compost asked, uncomprehending.

Elena thought for a minute about how to explain it to him. “We originally come from a land farther away from the center of things than where most of the other people who live around us come from. Our land is called Mexico and we speak our own language called Spanish there.”

“The People of the Mountain Downs live farther from Big House City than anyone,” Compost said with a note of surprise.

“Do they treat you worse because of that?” Elena asked.

“Partly. We do things our own way, which is a little differently from the other people. For instance, the Mountain People eat meat and all the other people don’t.”

“You mean all the other people here are vegetarians?” Elena asked incredulously.

“No lie,” Compost confirmed.

“That’s loco!”

“Loco?”

“Crazy. They’re crazy. I couldn’t live without Carne Asada, Pollo Con Mole, or Pork Carnitas.”

“What is that stuff?” Compost asked.

“Mexican food! But of course; you never had Mexican food. Pobrecito, poor guy. Pollo Con Mole is chicken in spicy chocolate sauce,” Elena explained.

Compost’s eyes grew large. “Oh stop. Stop this minute. You’re killing me. That sounds so excellent. I haven’t had anything except beans and cabbage for weeks.”

“I can cook some for you. Mí abuela (that’s Spanish for grandmother) taught me how to cook and I love cooking traditional Mexican food.” Elena’s words tumbled over each other in a hurry as her thoughts raced.

“You would do that? Cook me Pollo Con Mole?” Compost sounded shocked.

“Why not?”

“Because no one likes me,” Compost blurted out.

“So change,” Elena said, as she tossed her blue-black hair over her shoulder. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

“Change?”

“Yes, change. Become a person people will like.”

“That’s too hard.”

“If the geebaching could do it then you could do it.”

“The geebaching?”

“Yeah. He decided to stop killing people with laughter. He changed. You could change too.”

“Like how?” Compost mumbled.

“Take a bath, for one thing. Get a haircut. I could cut your hair for you. Sheesh. Isn’t it obvious? Look at yourself. You’re a hot mess. Put on some decent clothes. You look like you just crawled out of that hideous garbage labyrinth. Brush your teeth. I mean, make an effort.”

“And what if I agree to do that?” Compost sounded extremely surprised to be saying those words even as they tumbled from his mouth.

“People might take to you. And I’ll see what I can do about this present predicament of yours and your previous unwise association with that unsavory Sissrath character.” At Elena’s words, Compost laughed out loud. His laughter caught the attention of Denzel, Maia, and the royals, who fell silent and gazed at Elena and Compost.

“Compost would like a bath if that can be arranged,” Elena announced.

Unfortunately, she announced this just as Guhblorin was taking a long drink of water from a bottle. He exploded with laughter, spraying High Chief Hyacinth. Water then poured out of his nose and ears as he fell on his back laughing like only a geebaching can, which set everyone else laughing. They all roared with laughter. Except for Elena, who kept a completely straight face. She had taken on a mission and remained unmoved by the hilarity.

“Compost is rethinking his identity,” Elena insisted, when the others had quieted enough to hear her. “He needs a makeover. He wants a bath and a haircut, which I will give him, and a large tray of Pollo Con Mole, which I intend to cook for him.”

“You’re serious,” Denzel replied.

“As serious as a hunting coyote,” Elena confirmed.

“As serious as what she said,” Compost added. “I’m with her.”

“We’re going second class together, aren’t we, Compost?” Elena linked her arm through Compost’s and, to everyone’s astonishment, she planted a tiny peck of a kiss on his grimy cheek. “Compadres,” Elena said.

Then the most amazing thing happened. Compost blushed. “Second-class compadres,” Compost said to Elena, with a twisted little smile.

Maia nearly fainted dead away at the shock when she noticed that Compost’s eyes glistened with unshed tears and she remembered a line from one of Momma’s favorite Otis Redding songs:  “Try a little tenderness.”