Arguments over Dinner

We walked through to the dining room, but the Apocryphal man had beaten us to the table and upset Mrs. Ochre’s carefully thought-out place settings. After a few moments of consternation, she announced that the Apocryphal man’s place was “to be left empty as a token of respect for lost friends,” and pretty soon everyone was rejiggered to Mrs. Ochre’s satisfaction.

Naturally enough, Lucy and I were expected to wait table and did not have place settings. Interestingly, I noted, Sally Gamboge had been put next to my father.

“The Rusty Hill expedition was a huge success,” she said in a strained manner, “and I believe the sniffles is clearing up. Congratulations.”

Dad returned the compliment graciously.

“So!” said Mrs. Ochre. “Before we start our meal, I should first offer a toast to absent friends who are unable to attend this meeting. By this I mean our recently departed father and husband, Robin Ochre, who is missed”—she stopped here as her voice cracked, and I felt Lucy tense—“most terribly. We should also not forget Travis Canary, a member of the Collective lost last night, who will no more enjoy the simple pleasures of relentless toil, nor the buzz of comradeship that makes the Collective so special.

On the positive side, I would like to welcome the new swatchman, Mr. Russett, and his son, Edward.

We hope and trust they will enjoy their stay here.”

She held her glass up, and everyone murmured “Apart We Are Together” before Lucy gave a small reading from Munsell’s Harmony. Once that was done, she and I laid out the first course, which was colorized mock-prawn cocktail.

By the time the food was served and Mrs. Ochre suggested that everyone start, the Apocryphal man had already finished and had made a start on his neighbor’s.

“Well,” said Mrs. Ochre, once everyone had tried the starter and exclaimed not only how wonderfully average it was, but how delightfully pink, “last month we discussed a possible reason why metal corrosion was such a huge problem to the Previous, and a possible theory that might have explained ball lightning, but didn’t. For our first talk this evening, Mrs. Crimson will give one entitled—what’s the title again, dear?”

Mrs. Crimson stood up. “I call this talk ‘Forgotten Eponyms and the Etymology of Capitalized Nouns.’ ” Everyone’s eyes swiveled to Mrs. Gamboge to gauge her reaction. Discussion was meant to be unfettered, but it was generally best to have prefectural approval. Gamboge, however, said nothing, and simply made a note in what must have been light yellow ink in her notebook—to us, it didn’t appear as though she had written anything at all.

“How many of you,” began Mrs. Crimson, “have ever wondered why the following words are capitalized: Morse code, eggs Benedict, Ottoman, Faraday cage and fettuccine Alfredo?”

They all shook their heads. They hadn’t really thought about it. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about it.

“I will argue,” she continued, “that their origin may be in the person who coined them, or were involved in their discovery.”

“How can you discover eggs Benedict?” said Mrs. Gamboge with a snort. “Next you’ll be telling me Battenberg was discovered by someone named Battenberg.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Crimson, giving her a baleful stare, “that’s exactly what I contend.”

Mrs. Crimson gave a spirited talk that, while skirting controversy by the avoidance of proof, did offer a tantalizing glimpse of life before the deFacting: a rich world full of interest, and what’s more, meaning.

The conversation turned to the subject of High Saffron after that, and how the town was wholly untouched since the Something That Happened and would have a rich seam of colored waste just ready to be teased out of the soil. Mrs. Lapis Lazuli contended that there was a library there, too, of great antiquity, stocked with books long since confined to the Leapback list. Mrs. Gamboge replied that this was just the sort of “fanciful nonsense” that librarians are apt to speak, and professed her opinion that if it weren’t for the Rules, she would long ago have relocated Lapis Lazuli’s band of librarians to “somewhere they might benefit the community,” an opinion that caused Mrs. Lapis Lazuli to go so red with anger that I think even the Ochres noticed. Mr. Crimson defused the situation by telling us about the picked-clean village of Great Auburn and how, in order to flush the color from the soil, high-pressure water hoses had been used; although damaging to the ground, the hoses were by far the most time-efficient method of extraction. He was just getting to the difficulties of transportation when the night bell sounded. And with a fizz and a flicker, Fandango struck the arc outside. A fresh white light shone through the large windows, and the Luxfer panels above the sash projected their angular-patterned light upon the ceiling.

Lucy and I cleared the table and returned with the main course. After a discussion regarding the intractability of finding a way around the Spoon Question and a discourse on the unhelpfully random nature of pre-Epiphanic family names, Mrs. Ochre asked if anyone had come across anything “odd” in the past month that they wished to bring to the society’s attention.

“May I speak?” I asked, and when no one objected, I produced Dorian’s picture of the village taken at night. I passed it to my father, who studied it closely before he passed it on.

“This picture was taken a few weeks ago,” I explained. “Dorian G-7 accidentally left the camera shutter open all night and photographed these strange concentric light rings in the sky. Does anyone have any idea what they are?”

Dad passed the photograph to the Widow deMauve, who passed it to Mrs. Gamboge, who made another invisible yellow-ink note before handing it on. Mrs. Lapis Lazuli stared at it for some time and even traced the path of one of the lines with her finger. “They are not full rings,” she observed. “They are simply a series of interlocking arcs, all moving around a central point.”

She gave the photograph to Mrs. Lemon-Skye. “I would suspect that it is either a hoax,” she said, passing it on, “or a fault in manufacturing.”

“I don’t think so,” said her husband. “You can clearly see the lines falling behind the silhouette of the crackletrap.” He looked closer. “There are other lines, too—wispy ones, crisscrossing the circles.”

“Not circles,” corrected Mrs. Lapis Lazuli, “arcs.”

“Arcs, then—but for what purpose?”

“Circles in the sky we cannot see?” remarked Sally Gamboge, whose eagerness to believe nonsense about Riffraff did not leave much space in her head for objectivity. “I have never heard of anything more ridiculous.”

“Cats and Nocturnal Biting Animals can see on a moonless night,” observed Lucy, “so there must be some light, and from some where.”

“You are all mistaken,” said the Apocryphal man. “They are distant suns.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. We all wanted to know what he meant, but no one dared even acknowledge him.

“It’s of . . . distant suns,” said Granny Crimson, who was now staring at the picture intently. Everyone looked at one another, but no one challenged her on the impiety. Not even Sally Gamboge. We were all too curious.

“And could you tell us more?” asked my father.

“I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Crimson doubtfully, looking surreptitiously at the Apocryphal man.

“Distant suns,” repeated the Apocryphal man, “very like our own, but at such an immeasurable distance from the earth that they appear only as points of light, too dim for the Homo coloribus eye to see.”