Midnight Muscadines #1: Fresco’s Quest Begins
Midnight Muscadines is a lovingly crafted, cozy dark world where magic is waning and making jam is essential. The book is a joy to read and the whole world and system exudes heart.
Fresco the Observer is a 79-year-old Twilit folk, who does not speak unless explicitly asked. He spends most of his time sitting on the porch of his home in Flickerfen, perched above the marshland on stilts, looking out at the fen and watching life transpire through his two globes-for-eyes. He hears all sorts of whispers and secrets, and in his 79 years in the Wildernight, has become a sealed trove of history. Others see him as the town’s historian. Fresco just likes to listen. He hears everything. Before stars fall out of the sky, they share their secrets with Fresco. He’ll take them to his marshy grave.
Every year, Flickerfen hosts a Lantern Festival, where folks from Nimm venture into the Wildernight and release lanterns into the fen, carrying their wishes and dreams. As the foremost denizen of wishes and dreams passed between folk who barely notice Fresco is there, the old Twilit has been the silent leader of this festival for years. He wears a special medallion that designates him as the orchestrator. It sits just above his round belly.
Wading through the marsh and bog of the festival grounds, Fresco tunes himself to the many blips of gossip and rumors that swirl between people. Just as he wicks up a particularly curious conversation, there’s a shattering sound that turns the festival grounds in chaos. A lantern has ruptured—something Fresco has never seen nor heard in all his years running the festival.
As folk constrict and release around him, scattering from the grounds out of fear, Fresco remains still, waiting for things to settle. It takes no time to find the remnants of the broken lantern. The breaks are so distinct, as if it was tampered with from the beginning, but how? On the inside of one of the pieces, Fresco finds a note: “Beware the sun shards! They drain the magic!” This old conspiracy again? There is a sect of folk across the Nimm who believe the sun shards themselves are causing their world to lose magic, and not the grief of Old Gods.
A voice bristles over Fresco’s shoulder. A Nimmian peddler with a surprised expression scoots beside Fresco and picks up a shard. They’re a little too comfortable, a little too at-ease with the destruction. Fresco tunes to hear their mutters, but the peddler somehow blocks Fresco out entirely. Another first. Before Fresco can wrestle with what that might mean for him, the peddler whips around to look Fresco in his two large eyes.
An admission: “This was a fun party trick!” Fresco says nothing, for he was not asked to speak. Then, the peddler adds: “The scholars in Nimm finally have proof. The sun shards are draining the world. We have to change our ways at once.” Fresco says nothing again, and holds back a scoff. This is child’s play. This is the imagination of those too young to know better. The peddler takes Fresco’s silence as cause to keep talking. They urge Fresco to come to Nimm and see the truth with their own two eyes. A twinge of something twists in Fresco’s chest. Could he believe this peddler? His performance is certainly full of conviction.
More silence eases up the peddler’s resolve. They walk away and the crowd slowly returns to the grounds. For his part, Fresco returns home to his porch, to ponder what it might mean to leave home at his old age.