The Devil on Kazoo

22: The Concert

"To comet across the blistering hue
Beyond the spaces of false and true
Away from the world we have riddled with scars
To be wholly free and amongst the stars"

"Trip the Light Fantastic" by Greta van Fleet

Syl couldn't sleep.

The only thing odd about his fact was that Kathy couldn't sleep either.

They laid in Kathy's bed, looking up at the cobweb-covered beams above them.

"I can't believe it," Kathy said with a muffled giggle as she pulled her covers over her face. "Do you know how often I've dreamed of you and Bash?!"

"That sounds...what's the word? Creepy?"

"Oh, not like that, you goose!" Kathy playfully nudged Syl's side. "What was it like? Did he sweep you off your feet and carry you off into the sunset?"

"Considering we live on a boat, the sunset is rather hard to get to." Syl's cheeks warmed at the memory and she was grateful it was dark in Kathy's room.

She had to tell someone about the kiss and Kathy was the only person she would ever consider confiding in.

"But what does it mean?" Syl asked.

Kathy scoffed. "It means he loves you. You'll get married and I'll make your wedding dress. We'll have the ceremony aboard this very ship and invite the richest people in London so they'll at least send you expensive gifts and–"

"But what if we don't get married?" Syl asked. The mere thought of it terrified her. "We're only seventeen. What if all of this is just for fun? What happens if we break up?"

"You stop it." Kathy touched her fingertips to her eyes painfully. "Oh, I can't even think about it. You've been together for less than seventy-two hours and you're already thinking about breaking up?"

"You're already thinking of marriage," Syl muttered.

"Maybe me, you, Bash, and Jim could all have our wedding together."

"You really think you'll marry Jim?"

Kathy shrugged a shoulder. "Who knows? That's not the point. The point is to dream about the possibility of the whole thing."

"Hmm," Syl murmured, unconvinced. "Depending on how the concert goes tomorrow, the only thing we might be able to dream about is our next meal."

At the mention of the concert, they both fell quiet.

They hadn't even touched their instruments that day for all the work they had to put into pulling everything together.

At breakfast, they'd had to make a decision about how they were going to get people onto the boat. They'd passed around idea after idea, none of which seemed practical.

Finally, they had decided to hire a fisherman in town who owned a large pontoon boat to shuttle people back and forth from the docks to Wolgemoth. It would take up the rest of the money Syl had earned from selling her painting to Retorov, but there was simply no other way to do it.

Syl and Kathy set up the stage and the curtains while Jim tested out lighting features. Smiley went into town passing out fliers, using his most charming sales pitches to convince people to come while Bash hired the fisherman and made sure all of the plumbing and electricals were in order.