Harrogate smacked the floor with his whip and made indents in the floor. The horses raised their legs and started their gallop, through the dirt road running fast past the farmers by the edge of the town. Men and women with their little sacks and baskets full of wheat, heading out from Zullywood. All of them then moved out of the lights, out of the pearly white gates and the thin-mustached twirling guards with wide and pompous royal red bottoms. Out of the opulence, out of the gated metropolis. Out from the crowded streets. Out from the golden roads, the carnival people, the mafioso. Out from that underbelly and that facade.

They left running, around the bend and into a forest.

“How much did you pawn that thing off for?” Cecile asked.

“About a hundred fifty gold. Should get us through to the next down.”

“That it?” She peeked her head through the flaps.

“That’s it.”

“Guess he wasn’t that impressive after all.”

“Or the award was meaningless. And the people. And the everything.” He said. “You really shouldn’t be so gullible, Cecile.”

“Me, Gullible? Never.” She left the doors open. Harrogate wiggled in his small seat with the straps of the horses in his hands, looking at the down trodden trees suddenly come to life. The thin sticks growing greener, the roots more colorful, the dirt a deeper and healthy black. Birds sang their happy tunes perched along the edges of green.

“Where are we going next?” Turnus asked. “I’m all outta drink.”

“Good.” Harrogate said.

“I hate being sober.” He threw the bottle out, it cracked against the floor. The horses skipped just that bit faster at the noise.

“Learn to love it. You were sober most of your life, what’s a little more?” Harrogate leaned back in his seat. “We’ll be Thimblewood in a bit.”

“Aww, seven hells. The elves?” Turnus said.

“Yup.”

“I’m with Turnus, do we really need to go there?”

“It’s the closest town.”

They both leaned back into the seats at the back, which was little more than the stuffed pillows laying by the sides of the carts. Both of them with their small nests of nut shells. The brown-brain looking walnuts that sat cracked open. A bird came in, pecking at the pile. Cecile shooe’d it with her hand. Another. Another.

“Maybe we’ll finally die.” Jenba knows where, but Turnus took out another bottle from behind him.

“Why do you say that?” Harrogate asked.

A glug. A burp.

“You know how those elves are around humans. Around anyone, really.” He said. “Bunch of racists.”

“Won’t matter, we need the work.” Harrogate said.

“The work. Always work with you. Can’t you stop and just appreciate not doing a god damn thing?”

“You gonna tell him or am I going to tell him, Cecile?”

“How ‘bout neither of us talk about that?”

Harrogate smiled. He hung his head low and set his body a little forward, nearly over the wooden rail seperating horse from cart. His chin rested on the divider, it made his jaw clap with each small bump in the road.

“Maybe another time then.” Harrogate said.

So they wandered into the woods with the sun to their back setting down with an orange glare, the birds flying with wide wing spans a little crooked in the air, dipping their bodies in and out of the green woods. Elks looked up to the sudden noise of the ungreased wheels turn, they fled.

An owl stepped into the cart, Turnus was at the reigns by now. He couldn’t shoo it away if he tried, the fucker was too busy sleeping on the job.

“Get that thing out of here.” Harrogate sat on his side reading a book.

The owl turned its head to Cecile, a whole three-sixty. It hooted once. Then, like a shit, dropped a note.

The note had a heart on it, stamped with red ink.

“Another collectors notice?” Harrogate turned up and away from his book. “Throw it away.”

“It’s a love note.” Cecile said. Her eyes lit up. “It says, to my love Cecile. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth. XOXO-”

Harrogate started to grin. Cecile’s face went flat.

“Love, Aldous.” She turned to Harrogate, throw the card out the back. “Don’t even.”

And Harrogate started to laugh.