Chapter Four: The Scales

Jack and Sally's wedding had been postponed.

Once word leaked out, there was much discussion about what the citizens imagined had caused such a decision. They kept these conversations private, of course, but everybody knew they were talking.

There had been no official word about the motive behind the move, so the townspeople took it into their own hands to come up with every possibility, each more bizarre than the one before it.

A few of the denizens who weren't as interested in such canards offered that the king and his girlfriend had realized they were taking things too fast. Others considered that something had happened in Jack's family (this was subject to many skeptics, as almost nobody knew if Jack even had contact with his family, or if he even had family left), and some of the more hopeful females whispered that Jack was losing interest in the rag doll.

The unexpected decision had caused not only new gossip to arise, but they heard old bits of gossip bubble up, as well. Some, like others saying that Jack would gain nothing for marrying the doctor's creation, weren't so much gossip as observation.

They had heard almost all the gossip there was to hear; they weren't interested in it in the least, but the other citizens simply didn't bother to keep them from overhearing. It wasn't uncommon for them to be completely ignored, which they couldn't say they minded.

On the other hand, when they walked into the Witches' Shop and managed to walk out without paying a cent for what they took right under the witches' noses, they grew confused. So the king and supposed-to-be-queen decided that their originally planned date wasn't going to work, so what?

The truth had been and continued to be so blurred so much that they didn't know what to trust anymore – and that was coming from the three best liars in the village.

One of the vampires claimed that Jack and Sally had had a fight, and that he had kicked her out of the house. Another added that she was now staying with her creator again. The younger witch, Hilda (or was it Helga? They always mixed the two witches' names up), claimed that the rag doll had been discovered being unfaithful to him (she added that Jack had come to her for consolation, and that she had been the one to discover the girl's treachery).

Boogie's Boys (even with their guardian dead and gone, they never said "no" to the title) didn't believe any of it.

They didn't know much about Sally (they knew plenty of Jack, of course, from their brief encounters with him and his not-so-secret admirers, as well as their esteemed guardian, who used to mention him on occasion), as she had never really sparked their interest, even when they heard of her birth as the doctor's first living creation, but they figured they knew enough to say two things: for one, she didn't seem like the kind of person to get into a conflict with anybody, or even stand up for herself. Second... well, they couldn't see how anybody could think that she would even think to cheat on somebody, even if she had fallen out of love with them.

Still, they avoided the gossip debate. It was one thing they didn't think was worth getting themselves

Sally and Shock had not seen one another since their encounter in the graveyard, and Shock had not shared the rag doll's proposition with her housemates. She didn't need to tell them to know their reactions: laugh so hard that their faces turn blue, realize that she was serious, laugh some more, and then tell her how ridiculous she would look in a white dress carrying a basket of flower petals. (Even she had to admit that they had a point.)

She hadn't made her decision regarding the proposition itself, either. She couldn't help but be tempted on it, but the more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea. The idea remained on an invisible set of white-gold scales, which would occasionally dip so dangerously on one side that she was sometimes certain that she would decline next time she saw the blue-skinned blodeuwedd, but the decision remained not set in stone.

"That was an illegal move!" The dark-haired witch shrieked, unintentionally standing in her vehemence as she watched her lamia queen crumple and drag herself off of the game board after a blow from her green-haired friend's same piece. Her friends looked up at her, puzzled and slightly startled by the sudden move.

"How was that an illegal move? Pieces can be killed by another of their own rank or higher, you know that," Lock argued, tugging the ends of his blanket together in front of his throat. Shock huffed, but sat down.

The threesome were up surprisingly late for their usual routine; they usually got ready for bed at ten o'clock, fell asleep anywhere from then to eleven thirty, and were all awake by nine. Tonight, however, the clock on the wall behind the young necromancer showed a clear one twenty in the morning.

The three former henchmen of the bogeyman were huddled in their nightclothes around a thick game board, where several differently styled tombstones sat on a handful of the spaces. They were playing a game of "tomb chess" – altered to fit three players, of course – while seated around the board in various positions. They had pulled Lock and Barrel's (who shared a room and bunk bed) mattresses off of their beds and onto the floor so they didn't have to sit on the hard floor. They were settled in a triangle; Lock was lying on his stomach with his wool blanket draped over his shoulders like a cloak, his head being held up by his fists; Shock was sitting cross-legged semi-opposite him, and Barrel (who was constantly changing position in his need to be comfortable) currently sat with his legs straight out in front of him, leaning backwards and using his arms to support his weight so that he wouldn't fall.

Silence fell over the room, and it did not lift, even as the tombstones on the board disappeared and the number of bewitched figurines that had been banished from the board for the rest of the round.

"I ran into Sally a couple weeks ago," Said Shock casually, her sentence slicing through the silence like the blade of a sword as she directed a ghostly pawn a space closer to her devilish friend's demon king, which he in turn quickly moved away.

"That's nice," Lock said absentmindedly, carefully watching the ghoul's move and stroking his pointed chin in a rather villainous fashion (which, she suspected, he did on purpose).

"She wanted me to be in the wedding," She continued, ignoring his aloof tone, "She asked me to be the flower girl."

Barrel's already round eyes widened before he burst into a fit of laughter, falling over from the intense laughing. Lock was much slower in comprehending what his female cohort had said – much more interested in defeating one of the ghoul's pieces right under his nose – but once he did, he couldn't help but howl with laughter himself, clutching his sides and creating a slightly blue tint to his skin. Her sea green lips twisted into a frown as she watched them laugh (not like she had expected anything else).

"And... And what did you say?" Barrel asked, gasping for breath and returning a few pieces that he had knocked over to their spaces while they snapped irritably but incoherently at him.

"I told her I wasn't interested, of course," She lied, hoping that they wouldn't notice.

"Well, no kidding! Who does she think she is, anyway, asking you?" Barrel said, wriggling his three-toed feet and wrestling a sticky taffy off of the floor, popping it into his mouth.

Lock, on the other hand, did not look convinced. He narrowed his eyes at her, studying her, and she looked away, cursing his ability to see through to weaknesses and, apparently, lies fit into that category.

"I'm going to bed," She announced, suddenly standing up, jolting the game board.

"But we're not fin-" The devil began to protest, but she had already left the room.

A/N: Yikes! I haven't updated this since October! –Dodges burning pitchfork- I'm so, so, very sorry! I hope you're still with me, out there. If not... I deserve it. Anyway, yes, this story may actually be developing a plot! ...Or, at least a subplot. Lock, Shock, and Barrel demanded more spotlight (how could I say no?), but Jack and Sally will return in the next chapter, guaranteed.

This chapter was inspired by the silliest thing: I was playing a game of Tomb Chess (you can find it very easily if you simply Google it), which happens to be my favorite version of chess, and I suddenly got the idea to have The Boys play it. A few nights later, the first sentence popped into my head and I thought it was a great idea to get the ball rolling on this story again. Thus, this chapter was born. It was supposed to be updated on Tuesday, but, unfortunately, I had several ideas for other stories looming above my head, and to add further to the distraction, angelbones and Hedwig446 both updated stories that I was following. But, I got it up eventually!

~*Inferno Shock*~