With me, who could only ever think of Pop.

That was more or less the way I told it, but like it was happening to the Fish Boy instead of to me. The room was silent when I finished. Then I heard a little crying sound coming from behind me. I turned and looked. It was Pop crying. It was Pop crying at my Orating, knowing good and well I was telling the story of his strong powerful lonely wife he abandoned. Spooked me, it did. I never saw my daddy cry before.

Drusilla Fey sat smirking at me, but nobody else thought it was funny. Even Boss Authority wasn’t laughing. He seemed hurt, like maybe he knew some of what I was talking about, what hard work and loneliness were. Like maybe Boss Authority understood a little bit.

“Durn fine Orating!” said Lawrence, clacking the ground with his cane.

“Hear hear!” said Johnson.

But Boss Authority just sat there, grinning that mysterious awful grin of his. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.

“Buddy,” he said, calm as could be, “how about you go ahead and throw down that Dolly Witch card you’re about to draw next?”

“What?” I said.

“You heard me,” he said. “Your next card is the Dolly Witch, so go ahead and draw it. It’s time for her in this story anyhow.”

I reached my hand out and flipped the top card of my deck. There she was, the Dolly Witch, gray-headed and tired, but with a power in her eyes. I saw it now, how much she looked like my mom. I didn’t know how Boss Authority knew I had the Dolly Witch coming, and it spooked me. I didn’t know what else he knew about my cards that I didn’t.

“Soon enough the Fish Boy made friends,” said Boss Authority. “Specifically, one friend. She was a witch, she was, the prettiest witch in the whole swamp. Better than that, she was nice to him. A good person through and through, and kind. The Fish Boy knew she was only nice to him because he was strange and friendless, that maybe she only took pity on him. But that was fine. Nobody had ever taken pity on the Fish Boy before, and pity was preferable to anything else he’d yet experienced.”

Boss Authority took a deep breath and let it out slow, his eyes crinkled shut, like the next part of the story was hard to tell, like it hurt him too bad to say it.

“But of course, this kindly witch had herself a man. The Rambling Duke, he was, and there wasn’t a handsomer fella in the whole swamp. Immediately he became the Fish Boy’s hero. I mean, his absolute idol. It never occurred to the Fish Boy to be jealous of the Rambling Duke, no sir. There wasn’t any question in his mind that he could compete with someone like the Duke, someone so wild and charming, someone with such natural luck, who could stumble through any situation and come out rich. Naw, the Fish Boy wasn’t jealous of the Rambling Duke. He loved the witch and he loved her man, and it was enough for him to be around them, for them to pay attention to him. They brought him along with them, let the Fish Boy join their little group, even gave him some responsibility, put him in charge of a job here and there. It was the proudest the Fish Boy had ever been in himself, the happiest too. He’d finally found a place for himself, and something like a family.”