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The first day dawns. Again.
A cuccoo crows and a pair of carpenters pass by with a big plank of wood. The town isn’t so crowded as it might be, with some residents already casting uneasy glances at the sky and deciding to stay home today after all, but there are ladies with baskets walking to the market street while children playing hide-and-seek and a stray dog yaps. Two minutes from now, a new soldier will come to relieve the one who stood watch at the southern gate during the previous night, and the tired soldier will stop to give the dog a pat before heading back to the barracks. The scent of fresh bread wafts from a bakery window.
From Skull Kid’s perch on the roof of the clock tower, Link looks like a little green bug; looking up from the street, Link sees Skull Kid as a small dark silhouette against the morning sky. Skull Kid waves cheerfully, then flashes a rude hand gesture. Link looks away.
Well. He found Kafei. Hours shy of the apocalypse and in the most barren, forsaken corner of Termina, Link found him, and he hadn’t even been looking. Putting aside the question of whether that counts as good or bad luck, Link can’t shake the feeling that he’s seen Kafei before—and not in the same way that he’s seen doppelgängers of people from Hyrule all over Termina. But if not in Hyrule, then where?
Link spins around. A boy with purple hair and a Keaton mask is standing on tiptoes to fit a letter into the mailbox, just as he always does at the dawn of the first day, just as Link always sees that same little dog and smells the same loaves of bread from the same bakery.
Tatl jingles. “That’s him! Kafei! Kafei!!!”
The boy-who-isn’t-boy snaps his head up at the sound of his name, his alarm at being recognized turning into confusion as a boy with a fairy runs to greet him.
“Hey! We know who you are, we know what happened!” says Tatl. She hasn’t been thrilled about the idea of Link wasting time looking for some runaway bridegroom when he could be saving Termina and reuniting her with Tael, but she can’t pretend she isn’t a little invested in the romantic melodrama of it all. Until now, she would’ve guessed there really was something going on between Kafei and Cremia.
Kafei’s eyes dart around behind the Keaton mask. “Y-you must have mistaken me for a different person. I’m only a child.”
Link shakes his head and Tatl provides the commentary to match: “You’re a kid now because Skull Kid turned you into one. Then your wedding mask was stolen. Well, so what? What were you thinking, running off on Anju instead of just telling her??? A fat lot of good that mask will do, now that she thinks you dumped her!”
Kafei doesn’t have any idea where these two came from, but his last encounter with a mysterious forest-child ended in disaster and he’d rather not take any chances, not to mention how the fairy keeps shouting for all the world to hear. “Leave me alone,” he pleads. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“If you really aren’t Kafei, then what’s your real name?” asks Tatl, buzzing over Link’s shoulder.
“It’s—it’s, um—”
If Kafei only knew how sad Anju looked when her mother convinced her to leave Clock Town, if Link could make him see, Kafei would understand why it’s so important that he goes and tells her the truth. But how could Link possibly explain, even if he had the words? The song has been played, time has been reversed, and Kafei has no reason to trust anything two strangers might tell him.
Kafei tries to dart around Link, only to be blocked in by a quick sidestep. Child or not, someone will surely recognize Kafei’s face, and once he’s found out, he’ll have no choice but to tell the truth. And if that happens, what is there for him to lose? Kafei has a fiancé and his parents looking for him; there are worse circumstances under which to find yourself suddenly transformed into a child, or the other way around.
As Kafei tried to get past Link on the other side, Link grabs the mask—and Kafei screams, shrill and piercing as only a child’s voice can be. “STOP IT, LET GO OF ME! HE’S STEALING MY MASK! HELP, SOMEONE HELP! MAMAAAAA!”
Link freezes in bewilderment and even Tatl gives a startled swear. Seizing his chance, Kafei slips free of the mask and bolts, his hands pressed over his uncovered face as if he were in tears.
Link spins on his heel to give chase, but a strong hand grabs him by the collar and yanks him off his feet like a misbehaving puppy being lifted up by its scruff. The Keaton mask slips from his hand and bounces over the cobblestones.
Link and Tatl exchange a split-second look; by unspoken agreement, Tatl hisses “Meet you outside the gate!” and zips after Kafei, her wings moving in a furious whir as he disappears around a corner. Link watches her until an angry face shoves itself nearly against his own, blocking all sight of anything else.
“I’ve never seen such brazen behavior in my life!” says the town soldier who’s caught hold of Link, giving him a shake for good measure. “You rotten brat! Weapons like that shouldn’t be carried around like toys—do you think you can push other children around and take whatever you want, just because your mother buys you expensive playthings?!”
A few passing townspeople shoot disapproving looks in Link’s direction, but keep moving. The second soldier, with folded arms, considers the knight’s shield and gilded sword slung over Link’s back. After a night of standing guard, he isn’t in the best mood, and breaking up a fistfight between two little street urchins is the last thing he wants to deal with.
“Bought... or stolen?” asks the tired soldier. “Seems to me that it could be either.”
After he-doesn’t-even-know-how-many repetitions of the same three days, the possibility of the town guards acting as anything more than a temporary roadblock before they notice the sword on his back isn’t one that Link had considered. In his experience, adults don’t initiate interactions with him unless they want him dead, want him to make something else dead, or want his money.
The first soldier sets Link down, but maintains a firm grip on his collar while the second soldier stoops to retrieve the Keaton mask. The name KAFEI has been carved on the inside in childishly clumsy letters. Kafei. The name of the mayor’s son is common knowledge to any guard of the town, and ever since he’s gone missing, they’re under orders to promptly report any clues. “Madame Aroma will want to see this,” he says to his comrade.
The first soldier releases Link and shoves him toward the second. “Go on and take him, then.”
“I’m off-duty until tonight.”
“Well, I’m not. Just take him.”
The second soldier snorts in irritation and grabs Link by the arm, making him stumble. At least it was his right arm, so it didn’t hurt the stitches in his left. “Fine, fine,” the soldier says, his voice gruff from irritation and lack of sleep in equal measure. “You’re coming with me, boy. We’ll see what Madame Aroma thinks of this.”
Too far from the street for anyone but Tael to notice, Skull Kid is laughing himself hoarse.
Madame Aroma turns out to be an older lady with tiny feet in red silk slippers, a puffy face, and the most baffling hairstyle Link has ever seen. She’s sitting at a little round table with a round little plate of cookies and a silver tea tray, and the light from the stone fireplace flickers along its side. The room is stiflingly warm.
The soldier confiscated Link’s weapons before they entered the building, along with Link’s pack, which contains everything else except for the ocarina and the notebook tucked under his shirt. Everything, including all the masks—the goofy useless ones that look like animal faces, the stone mask and Garo hood, the creepy Great Fairy mask with the attached wig. The three transformation masks with souls inside them.
Link’s fingers twitch. The soldier glares when he notices Link eyeing at the tea tray, so Link tries to find something else to look at, but everything in this office seems equally expensive, from the tasseled curtains to the hutch full of dainty dishes with painted blue flowers matching the one on the table, the likes of which Link has never seen but could imagine a princess eating from. At last, he goes back to studying Madame Aroma’s tiny shoes. They’re laced up with ribbons around her ankles, like the fancy slippers worn by dancers.
The masks. The masks. If those three can’t really be said to belong to Link, then some stranger has no right to them whatsoever. The soldier doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know anything.
Even without his primary weapons or the strength he had as an adult, Link would be a match for some ordinary foot-soldier that spends his days guarding a town gate, but attacking him is only a realistic option inasmuch that eating Epona two winters ago was an option, so Link just stands there and fidgets and tries not to imagine the sound of angry, muffled whispering, hissing accusations. He looks at his boots. Dried mud is flaking off from the worn leather and leaving marks on the rug.
“This Keaton mask... yes, yes, it belongs to my son. Where did you find it?” Madame Aroma asks.
“...”
The soldier clears his throat. “A younger boy was wearing it, Madame. Until this one jumped on him and snatched the thing away, and that kid ran off. The poor little guy.”
“Hmmph. This is certainly Kafei’s mask... it must have been one of those little boys with the blue hats, I say.”
Madame Aroma looks expectantly at Link. The clock on the mantelpiece is ticking. There’s dry dirt caked on the bottom of his boots and blood under his stubby nails. It’s past eight in the morning. Link could have been halfway to Ikana by now.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...
“Well? Aren’t you going to tell her?” says the soldier.
It’s too warm in here. The ticking of the clock is driving Link crazy, and his throat is so tight he can hardly breath, let alone think of speaking. He hadn’t even realized Madame Aroma had asked a question. It didn’t sound like one.
The soldier folds his arms. “He’s been like this all along, Madame. He won’t answer a thing. Won’t say where he came from or why he’s walking around Clock Town armed to the teeth.” He tips his head, indicating the tangled sword-belt and bag slung over his shoulder and out of Link’s reach. “And he hasn’t said how he came by all these masks.”
As if he would even believe Link’s story of he told him.
Madame Aroma scowls, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. She had been hoping for news of Kafei, hoping even more desperately for Kafei himself, and instead here’s some little urchin with grubby hands and unhappy eyes. The boy looks as frustrated as she’s beginning to feel. “The carnival of time is three days away, you silly man! Haven’t you ever seen a mask-seller before? Don’t you know there are dangers beyond the walls of this town? He had a fight with some other boy, so you took away all his things and dragged him to the wife of the mayor. Of course he’s frightened! Come here, child.”
Not wanting to be any farther from his possessions than he already is, Link stays put until the soldier shoves him forward.
“That’s enough!” Madame Aroma snaps. Without further warning, she grabs Link by the chin and tips his head up as she notices for the first time the hand-shaped marks around his throat. “And what’s this?” she demands of the soldier as Link squirms out of her reach. “You certainly didn’t do this just for the sake of a mask, did you?”
The soldier splutters indignantly and Link shakes his head, not wanting to get a well-intentioned person in trouble even if that person hasn’t shown him the same courtesy. Just for the sake of a mask. It’s too bad Madame Aroma wasn’t around when the actual mask-seller in town picked Link up by the neck and shook him until his teeth rattled.
“I see,” she says, after an icy silence. “You may go. Leave the boy’s things here.”
The soldier mumbles something respectful-sounding, sets Link’s weapons down in a heap, and retreats from the office with as much dignity as he can muster. Link pounces on the pack and pats it to make absolutely sure that the masks are all accounted-for. His weapons are next, and all are unharmed as well, to his relief. He could replace or forgo any piece of equipment except the ocarina, but he went through a lot of trouble to upgrade the Kokiri sword, and the shield, objectively mundane though it may be, has been with him since before he left Hyrule.
As soon as he’s finished clipping his sword-belt back into place, Madame Aroma waves to the couch by her little table. “Go on and sit. Sit!”
The arms of the couch are made of some kind of dark wood Link can’t identify despite a childhood spent among trees and the cushions are upholstered with green velvety fabric. Link reluctantly perches on the edge of the seat, half expecting Madame Aroma to change her mind and scold him for touching these nice things.
Navi would know what to say if she were here. Tatl would, well, she would say something. Or knock over a plate. Link wants to laugh, but he can’t make a sound, and then he feels a pang of loneliness in his chest. He wishes he hadn’t let Tatl go off on her own.
“He truly didn’t hurt you, did he? I don’t know what he was thinking... honestly! Some of those men that Viscen recruits have more loyalty than good sense.” Madame Aroma says. “You have an honest face, I can see it. I don’t know how he ever could have made such an accusation.”
Since he can’t figure out if that question at the beginning was somehow rhetorical or not, Link goes back to looking at Madame Aroma’s hair. It’s pinned up in a big loop that bobbles around when she moves, with two pigtails sticking out from the base at perfect right angles. How? Why?
Up close, his assortment of bruises and scrapes and clumsy stitches are hard to overlook, and he looks so very tired. Madame Aroma shake her head—you never know what to expect with these out-of-towners. “There isn’t anyone that you need to... get away from, is there? You can tell me, darling, it’s all right.”
Link stares in blank incomprehension. The only person sort of matching that description would be Skull Kid, but he’s pretty sure she doesn’t mean him.
He scoots closer and points to the name carved into the Keaton mask in Madame Aroma’s hand, then gives her a questioning look.
“Oh, yes,” she says, concern for her own child being the one topic that could distract her from her more immediate concern for this one. “Yes, this mask belongs to my son. He wore it everywhere when he was your age, and kept it even after he outgrew it... then, the night after he disappeared, it vanished from his room. An old mask is nothing that any robber would want to make off with, so we thought that he might have returned for it himself, but there’s been no sign of him since then, not for a month. Did that other boy tell you where he found this mask? Maybe... it could be a clue...”
Link shakes his head, which technically isn’t lying. He still feels guilty when Madame Aroma’s face falls in disappointment.
The clock ticks away. Madame Aroma considers her predicament.
“If it isn’t too much to ask... would you find that boy again, the one who had Kafei’s mask? Find him, and find out who gave it to him. Won’t you, dear?”
She hands the mask to Link, considers for a moment, then takes out a second mask and offers it as well. Carved from pale wood, it’s meant to resemble a human face and yet somehow looks less natural than the frog mask sitting at the bottom of Link’s pack. He takes it anyway.
“My son, you see,” Madame Aroma explains, though the wavy purple bangs made that easy enough to guess. “I would have given it to the investigator that I hired, but he never came as he promised... you’ll be in town for some time, wound you? Someone might recognize this, if you carry it with you.”
Link nods solemnly as he puts away the two masks. The clock is ticking. As he stands up, he silently hopes that he didn’t leave any dirty marks on Madame Aroma’s nice couch.
Before Link can make an exit, she pushes the little plate of cookies by her teacup to the edge of the table and motions. “Here. Take some.” The you look like you need them goes unspoken but is heard loud and clear nonetheless.
Link selects a random cookie from the tray and flees.
Outside the office, Link finds himself sweating despite the cooler air. He lets out a big breath, leaning back against the door to push it shut.
Well. That could have gone worse.
Link absently takes a bite from the cookie. It’s sweeter than any food he’s accustomed to, covered with powdered sugar with sticky red filling in the middle that tastes like raspberry.
He nibbles a little more from the cookie and stuffs the remaining half into a pocket to share with Tatl later. As he licks the sugary crumbs from his fingers, he hears men shouting in a room down the hall, their angry voices only a little muted by the closed door in between them and and Link. He follows the sound and, finding the door ajar, peeks inside.
A burly carpenter and a soldier in embossed armor are standing to each side of a massive desk, behind which slumps a tiny man with purple hair, a funny mustache, and an expression of abject misery on his face.
“There are already townsfolk taking shelter, fleeing town, even without orders from the mayor!” the soldier is saying, banging the butt of his spear on the floor for emphasis. “At this rate, the only ones left will be public servants and committee members... Mr. Mayor, we must order all those who remain to evacuate!”
The mayor hums.
“Pah! Coward!” spits the burly man. “Do you actually believe the moon will fall, Viscen? The confused townsfolk simply caused a panic by believing this ridiculous, groundless theory... your soldiers couldn’t prevent the panic, and now you want everyone to rush out past the walls, to where the real danger is! The carnival goes on, I say! Isn’t that right, Mr. Mayor?”
“Ahh... Hmm... well, I...” Mr. Mayor slouches low in his chair.
“Are you serious, Mutoh?!” the soldier shouts, banging a mailed fist on the corner of the table and making the mayor jump. “Has the giant chunk of rock in the sky not caught your eye? At this time of year, we’re swamped with tourists! Every year except this one! Why do you think that is?! What good is it to hold the carnival if no one even attends it?! And what good is a carnival when Clock Town itself is in danger?!”
Link’s teeth are coated in sickly-sweet goo from the cookie and his mouth has gone uncomfortably dry. He stares at the guard captain’s back, gripping the door until its edges dig into his palm.
Mutoh folds his arms and laughs. “Danger?! Haha! Paranoid cowards, all of you! We’ll stay, even if you and your ‘men’ are too weak to stand by the town you’re meant to defend! We respect tradition! We don’t give in to hysteria!”
“Don’t drag my soldiers into this!”
“Madame Aroma would surely agree with us, wouldn’t she, Mr. Mayor?”
“Please don’t drag my wife into this,” the mayor mumbles.
“Mayor Dotour, please—”
“Mayor Dotour, please,” Mutoh mimics in a squeaky falsetto, as if he were trying to sound like an old lady.
“You would sacrifice the people of Clock Town for the sake of your own vanity?!”
“And you would abandon the town and its traditions just because the sky looks funny to you? It’s the moon! It changes every single night! That’s nature!”
“It has a face!”
“What? Scared of a creepy face? Are you afraid of masks, too? Some soldier you are!”
Mayor Dotour looks like he wants to cry.
Link shuts the door and returns to the lobby. A pretty girl with green hair and freckles is standing behind the front desk, leaning on her elbows and picking her fingernails. There are benches, potted plants, colorful mosaic tiles covering the floor, and upon the walls hang decorative masks with eerie smiles. Link’s boots tap across the floor. At the sound, the girl glances up and smothers a yawn.
On a low table against the wall sits a model of Clock Town constructed from balsa wood, plaster, and paint, so small in scale that Tatl would have to stoop to fit through the painted doors on the little houses, yet so big that Link could wrap his arms around the outer walls and only reach halfway. Link hadn’t had the chance to look at it when that soldier first dragged him in here.
From this overhead view, Link only now notices how the town looks very much like a clock—circular, with the tower in the center where the hands would go and sections of the town divided up like the hours. The accuracy of detail is exquisite. Over there is the rounded roof of the treasure chest shop, over here, the milk bar and the houses and the inn, the winding side alley and the bank, even the laundry pool, rendered with what looks like a thin film of glass over blue paper. There are puffs of wool dyed green to represent shrubberies, twisted bits of colored paper for the flowerbeds, and little wooden dolls with fabric outfits as the townspeople; at each gate stands a tiny guardsman shorter than Link’s little finger, each clutching a spear the size of a toothpick, and the streets are paved with shards of brick no bigger than apple seeds. Near the center of town is a scrap of undyed wool with black dots to form eyes and a nose. A little white dog.
Link looks at the miniature town for a while.
There’s a modernist vase sitting on the front desk, an orb the size of Link’s head made of of blown glass with swirls of red and orange and yellow and blue, with a flat bottom to keep it from rolling and a hole on one side where the flowers stick out. It’s heavier than it looks.
The girl slaps her hands on the desk and bolts upright as Link dumps the vase’s contents out on the floor with a great splash of wilted flowers and cloudy water. “Huh? What are you—hey!”
Link brings the vase back to the table and raises it as high as his arms will reach, then lets it slip through his finger and crash squarely on top of the clock tower at the center of the model town.
The balsa wood tower explodes into splinters and the rooftops of the surrounding houses are crushed flat. The wool-puff shrubberies stay rooted in place by the strong glue, but the impact of the vase shakes the low table and sends all the little wooden townsfolk tumbling on their faces, except for one doll which gets clipped by the edge of a fallen roof and sent flying, until it ends up lodged in the town wall on the southeastern side. A tiny stream of blue glass fragments from the miniature laundry pool tinkle down onto the beautiful mosaic floor with the fancy tiles. The round vase, unharmed by its fall, sits in the middle of the carnage like some surreal bird’s egg in an ugly nest.
“Are you crazy?! What did you do that for!” the girl behind the counter cries. Not that she actually cares about the model, but she’s going to be in so much trouble for this. “Where are you going? Hey, kid!!!”
Before the girl or the mayor or anyone else can stop him, Link throws open the door and bolts out into the street.
“He’s been living in that storage building by the laundry pool, on the other side of the curiosity shop—he’s got a little cot and some food and papers lying around, that sort of stuff,” Tatl explains through a sticky mouthful of raspberry filling. “I had to crawl under the door to get out. The place is locked up.”
Link nods, his eyes on the dirt path as it gives way to Epona’s hooves. With the help of the bunny hood, he can actually outspeed her, but there’s a long distance between Clock Town and Ikana Canyon, and he needs to conserve his energy while he can.
Tatl bounces on Link’s shoulder as Epona trots along.
“So, what about you? It sure took you long enough to show up. What happened in there?”
Link gives a one-sided shrug and reaches down to pat Epona’s neck. With his face turned away, he mouths a word, though it’s too quiet for even a fairy to hear:
”Nothing.”