Chapter 9:37 Sweet Nothings
When the Queen decided to bury the old castle she invited all of the old high society to a huge gala. She told them it would be a party that would never end. Then she locked the doors and buried them all inside.
Apparently the court jester and his wife Aisa, the beautician, went crazy and took scissors to everyone. Whenever Oliver looked into the ball room he made them close their eyes before they passed through.
"Welcome! All you freaks, weirdos, creeps and dirtbags to the place where the fun never ends! Where we never sleep and the party never stops! Where we're all so disgustingly happy we could die! Welcome, to the horrorshow."
They take off through the corridor, unable to tell where the voice is coming from. It laughs and sings:
"Four seconds do little heads blink!
Four seconds to finish their drinks!
Down comes the guillotine,
Whoops! My head is rollingggg!"
Ahead of them, the jester— a small man in a morning suit and top hat does a cartwheel past the hallway. They turn around and sprint in the other direction.
They dart through the bizarre castle full of twisting hallways, false walls, hidden passage ways, stairs to nowhere and doors that open up to walls. The laughter grows louder.
"This way!" Bonnie shouts.
Bonnie's a porcelain doll. They met her before when they stumbled into a neglected child's bedroom. Dusty, furniture unused, covered in white sheets. Maise twisted the knob on a music box and a song started playing as the ballerina twirled.
"Hey! Over here! I'm real!" the doll stood up and proclaimed. "Hi, I'm Bonnie."
She was eager to help and told them everything she knew about the old castle. How she was very delicate and was so scared of shattering that she's been hiding in this room for longer than she can remember.
She told them that the jester was brainsick and he doesn't have a heart. Whenever him and Aisa were married, the jester cut out his heart and gave it to her. One day they had a fight and Aisa threw away his heart so when she was sleeping he stole her heart and ran off with it. Now they're both desperate to get their hearts back so they eternally stalk the halls, looking for one another.
Bonnie agreed to help them find Enoch and led them through the corridors when they heard the jester's laughter from somewhere nearby that kept growing louder. So they ran. However they got separated when a false wall swings and they go through different doors.
Mr. Bear and Oliver run into Aisa; a thin, sickly woman with blank eyes, she chases after them with scissors. They bolt into a room to hide. An office with animal heads mounted on the walls and bear skin rugs. Mr. Bear shutters.
Maise finds herself in the dark treasure room where the royal family kept chests of gold and piles of gems and jewelry.
"Theo? Mr. Bear? Oliver?" she whispers, feeling overwhelmingly alone. Behind her she hears a noise and turns: the jester's dark silhouette lights a match, illuminating his triangle face as he grins from ear to ear. He cuts the tension by singing:
"There once was a dancer who didn't have legs,
So she danced on her hands 'til her arms turned to pegs.
She did pirouettes and did flips as she begged,
'Til she earned enough coppers to buy her kids eggs."
He holds up a golden egg for Maise.
"For me?" Maise asks.
"From the Silly Goose himself." he replies.
Maise takes the egg and when she looks up, the jester is gone.
When Theo realized he was alone he was in a room with hundreds of mirrors stored in it. He ran through as quickly as he could and came to an upside down room where someone put all the furniture on the ceiling and the chandelier on the ground.
"Boogers are your brains falling out!" the jester laughs from somewhere nearby. "Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!"
Theo keeps running.
Maise wanders alone through a hallway and bumps into Bonnie.
"This way!" Bonnie says and leads the way.
"Hey there, dollface," a voice says from nearby and Maise feels a sudden rush of dread when the Typho steps into view.
"Nice to see you again!" he says, swinging his arms out and the lute in his hand hits Bonnie, shattering her into tiny pieces.
"Oh, no! What have I done?!" he cries. "Was that your friend? How clumsy of me! How can I ever make it up to you?"
He puts his fist to his chin and thinks really hard. "Oh, I know! I can tell you my secret! Can I tell you now?"
Maise whispers frightfully, "Ok."
In the adjacent room, Oliver and Mr. Bear watch painfully as Maise drops the golden egg and follows Typho down the dark hallway.
In another part of the castle, Theo walks through the overgrown hedge maze of a patio courtyard, passing a marble sculpture of Atlas with his foot on top of the world. He carefully steps through the maze, trying to find the other side. Rats scurry past his feet— he gets turned around and starts to panic.
"Who goes there?!" a voice booms from a nearby gazebo. "Well don't you look delicious." says a sphinx as he lets out a small cough. "I'm weak. Come closer."
"No, I'm good." Theo says.
"Very well then," the sphinx declares. "Behold, for I am Jinx the Paradoxical Sphinx! You must now answer my riddle correctly. If you do not I will consume you. If you do, I will consume myself. Do you accept these terms?"
"No!" Theo objects.
"But you must!"
The sphinx clears his throat to perform the riddle: "I fly but move slowly, I never stop and you can never beat me. What am I?"
Theo thinks for a moment then shrugs. "I don't know."
"HAHAHA!!" the sphinx roars. "The correct answer was— it was—. It's been a long time since anyone's been down here. Anyway, whatever. Now I shall consume you!"
Theo turns and runs back inside the castle through the twisting hallways.
"Our food's escaping!" the sphinx shouts as he rings a silver bell that echos throughout the old castle.
Somewhere inside, the jester sings:
"There once was a boy who lived in a jar.
He wanted to swim but he couldn't swim far.
He hopped out the jar and he sank 'til he's blue
but then he grew wings and away. He. Flew!"
The jester pulls a lever that opens up a collapsible panel in the floor. Theo falls through and hits his head, blacking out.