JinxCrossover origin story

Act I — The parade finds its rhythm

The band began at noon. The clock struck eleven, paused thoughtfully and added three more bells. The mayor called this a ceremonial variation. Jinx leaned against her cart and listened to the mechanism struggling above the square.

Her finale used compressed air, colored paper and a row of tuned pipes. It was loud, theatrical and designed to turn a solemn pause into a considerably less solemn event. She had planned the timing carefully. Unfortunately, she had planned it around the town clock, whose relationship with timing was currently aspirational.

The first burst of paper arrived during the mayor’s opening sentence. The second interrupted his attempt to repeat it. The third landed inside the enormous head-shaped float, which began shedding green streamers through its painted nostrils.

The crowd loved it. The organizer looked as though he had discovered a new and expensive meaning of “free performance.” Jinx accepted the applause with a bow large enough to suggest that every detail had been intentional.

Then the clock tower began making a different noise.

Above the square, one of the restored bells swung out of sequence. Its supporting frame shook. The band stopped playing, leaving the crowd able to hear exactly how little the mayor’s confidence contributed to structural stability.

Act II — A joke becomes work

Jinx reached the tower stairs before the organizer finished explaining whose responsibility the problem might be. Inside, she found fresh paint over old cracks, decorative brass over damaged fittings and a drive mechanism forced to move parts that no longer aligned.

The restoration had improved everything visible from the square. Nobody had budgeted for the inconvenient machinery inside.

A goblin apprentice stood beside the control lever with both hands locked around it. He had warned the contractor about the frame. The contractor told him the opening ceremony would be short. The apprentice had apparently been expected to hold the entire schedule together by refusing to let go.

Jinx asked which part would fail first. He pointed upward. She looked at the descending counterweight, then at the street below, where people still waited for someone authoritative to tell them whether to move.

She shouted from the window. The mayor tried to answer with reassurance. Jinx rang the small service bell beside the stairway in a pattern so irritating that the crowd finally looked away from him and toward the exits.

Her cart had enough rope, air pressure and sturdy framing to create a temporary stop. Using it meant sacrificing the finale. She complained about this at length while doing it anyway. The apprentice followed her instructions and wisely declined to describe the situation as character-building.

Act III — A more honest closing ceremony

The counterweight stopped short of its failing guide. The main bell settled into place with a sound that made everyone inside the tower consider a different profession. Jinx and the apprentice climbed down covered in dust and carrying the remains of the musical cart.

The mayor attempted to praise their contribution to the successful reopening. The apprentice, still shaking, explained that the tower was closed. Jinx supported the announcement by dropping a cracked fitting at the mayor’s feet.

The crowd examined the fresh paint, the broken mechanism and the invoice for a complete restoration. The contractor had chosen that moment to become unavailable. Several very interested residents went to help him reconsider.

Jinx recovered one functioning pipe from the cart and played a short, terrible tune. The brass band joined in. The head-shaped float continued leaking streamers. Without a speech to organize it, the festival finally developed a personality.

The apprentice asked whether she was angry about losing her finale. She looked at the mayor trying to explain the invoice to a woman holding a cracked support bracket.

“No,” she said. “It needed a better ending.”

By sunset, a temporary sign covered the responsible-celebration banner. It read CHECK THE BOLTS. Jinx considered it the first genuinely inspiring civic message she had encountered all day.