“POTATO MOON,” Part 20 by Steven Marsh

“Will someone explain what’s going on?” shrieked Woeisme as Edwood revved the engine into a fine red whine.

“How to explain the immortal perspective?” began Edwood. “I’ll try. Over 50 years ago, encrypted messages began appearing in newspapers. Strings of seemingly random letters could be decoded by keen eyes to spell out answers to questions.”

“You mean those Jumble puzzles?” asked Jakob.

“I do,” said Edwood, betraying no emotion. “I’ve honed my skills over the years, and can unscramble such sequences into the form that makes the most sense. Woeisme, how many letters are in your name?”

“Seven.”

“Right. Jakob, how many letters in ‘potatoe’?”

“Six.”

“I was pronouncing the silent E.”

“Oh, right. Six.”

“SEVEN,” corrected Edwood. “And how many in lobster?”

“Seven,” said Woeisme. “But I still don’t see–”

“If you take the letters in WOEISME, LOBSTER, and POTATOE, and unscramble the letters, you get?”

“A headache?” blurted Woeisme.

“A headac–dámņ,” blurted the too-slow Jakob.

“A sentence. ‘Bite me! Peel sorts woo, too!’ ”

“I’m not sure I’d call that a great sentence,” said Woeisme. “What’s it mean?”

“The key to the universe. Who would be wooed by ‘peel sorts’ — that is, those drawn to potatoes?”

Jakob thought of his evening’s earlier starchy indiscretions, swallowing hard. “Bela.”

“Who would say ‘Bite me’?”

The others replied, “Bela.”

“Right. The only way to form that sentence is to rearrange WOEISME with POTATOE and LOBSTER.”

“Or ‘BOLSTER,’ said Woeisme, getting shushed. “But what does ‘lobster’ even mean?”

“That the Potato King doesn’t exist in a vacuum; he is opposed by one tied to lobsters. Probably someone Invisible. Forgotten. Linked to Quayle.”

“Couldn’t you have plugged in any word to make a different anagram?”

Edwood exhaled, a gesture mortals would call a sigh. “I knew the sentence had to involve biting and peeling and wooing. The rest fell into place. I realized long ago that if you start with the assumption it’s all about Bela and work your way backward, you get at the right answer without a lot of sidetracking or moping. Comparatively speaking.”

Everyone nodded.

“You knew about this anagram thing, Jakob?” asked Woeisme. “You’re the one who said ‘lobster’ first.”

“No; I just remembered that I’d smelled lobster when I was in Sullen Manor. I couldn’t place it before, but my uncommon sense is stronger than my common–”

“–And that is why we’re driving back to the Manor as fast as possible,” interrupted Edwood.

“So who’s the lobster person?” asked Woeisme.

“That, I am uncertain,” admitted Edwood.

“We can figure this out,” said Jakob. “It’s someone with ties to… where does lobster come from?”

“In this country?” asked Woeisme. “Maine. Maybe Massachusetts.”

Edwood kept silent the suspicion of history.

Meanwhile, at Sullen Manor, Bela was sullen. It had been nearly four chapters since she had a scene. This didn’t seem right; wasn’t it all about her?

Her sullen thoughts were disrupted by a voice in the dark — a voice that had beckoned Jakob to enter the Manor earlier in the evening. She looked around but saw no one.

The clearing of a throat caused her to turn her gaze downward to a diminutive figure in the shadows, who spoke. “You may call me… Dukakis.”