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No, she knew he wouldn’t appreciate that. Not a bit. No need to poke a sore spot. She knew Dax could handle things just fine. More than fine.
Despite the culinary catastrophe that surrounded her, she still leaned over to him and gave him a hug and a kiss.
“So, what is going on?” she breathed into his ear? “Is he okay? Dewey, I mean?”
Dax gave her a look that said, ‘no, he is not okay. Very far from okay actually’.
He gestured over his shoulder. On the other side of the apple section, she saw Rollo and a few others in a little crowd. Although she wasn’t entirely certain of what they were gathered around, she was getting a sinking feeling.
“Oh no,”
“I’m sorry, Bloom. It’s not pretty,” he said grimly. “Pretty weird, too, but not pretty. Maybe you shouldn’t look.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Dewey wouldn’t hurt a fly. I can’t believe anyone would hurt him,” she said as she rushed around to see what had happened.
“That’s just it. By all accounts, no one did anything to him. On the contrary.”
“What are you talking about?” she said as Dewey’s body, sprawled out in the middle of the aisle, came into view. Most of him was obscured, though.
“Hedid all this,” Dax said, gesturing around at the complete and utter destruction. “That’s what all the witnesses are saying, but it gets pretty weird.”
As Dax came up to stand beside her, she moved a bit off to the right to come within earshot as Dayton interviewed a young woman.
“I told you. I know how it sounds! But he was waving his arms all around and yelling crazy things. Like madness!”
“Crazy? I’ve seen many shades of crazy, lady,” Dayton was saying. “Could you be more specific?”
The woman gave him a look, apparently not appreciating his somewhat casual tone.
“I can, actually,” she said as she glared at him. Apparently acting out what she had seen, she yelled, “Rise! Rise! To slay your oppressors! Broccoli! Kale! To arms!” She was waving her arms haphazardly as well as she raised her voice another octave. “But the really crazy part is that the vegetables were listening!”
“What are you saying?”
“They were marching! Or at least moving! The whole produce section. Then he just started yelling, ‘Revolution! Revolution!’” the woman said, a little wild eyed.
Bloom noted Dayton’s raised eyebrow as his eyes shifted back and forth between the woman and his notepad.
“I’m just telling you what I saw,” she said defensively.
“Could they have come from an enchanted patch?”
“How the hell do I know? But I doubt it. They don’t just sell that stuff in the market!” the woman was saying, apparently incredulous that he was bothering her with such details.
“Okay, and then what happened?”
“Well, that’s when it really went off the rails. He just got wilder and wilder and the vegetables just started going everywhere, and the shelves everywhere started rattling! Then it was like a shockwave or, I don’t know what…some kind of magic I guess…And all at once his eyes rolled up in his head, and that thing…that spot on his forehead got real bright,” she was saying.
Spot on his forehead?
“And then ‘boom.’ The shockwave. His eyes rolled back and he keeled over, and everything on the shelves just exploded, and all the veggies, um…dropped dead.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Not that they were really alive, but you know what I mean.”
“Dropped dead,” Dayton said aloud as he scrawled her words dutifully.
Bloom looked around. Even though this must have happened a good thirty minutes ago or so, there were still stunned fae everywhere it seemed. At least she was pretty sure they were all fae. Nobody else really shopped here. Plus, she could almost always sense fae-ness. Not always, but usually.
She took in the dazed faces again.
I guess seeing dancing veggies would do that to you.
