341. Limpy

341. Limpy

“Thank you all for making so much noise. I couldn’t concentrate on sleeping. That made me come out. I know this will sound strange,” said Umbrian, a little timidly for someone as brash as he was known to be, “but I need to be alone. Of course, I’ve been alone for centuries, but it’s not that kind of alone I need. I mean I need to reinsert myself in society slowly. I’m glad to see you all, and grateful you saved me from further centuries of nothingness. But…I need time to think. As for Fancy, I heard her say she would rather not speak to me, and the truth is I prefer it that way too. Poor thing. May she recover soon.”

“Just stick him in the beach house in Venice with a pair of servants so he can be by himself there without anyone stressing him, Papa,” said Henny to Ambivolo.

“That would be nice,” said Umbrian. 

And Ambivolo agreed not to barge in on his newly returned son and to not put pressure on him so he would recover quickly.

“And as for us, I think you three kids have done enough do-gooding to see how complicated it can be. Do you still want to be do-gooders, Azuline and Esmeraldo? What have you learned from this?”

“That you have to be careful when dispensing medicines to humans. You can’t give them just the first thing you find,” said Esmeraldo. “That’s the main cause of all this fuss.”

“The detonator,” nodded Gentlerain.

“I haven’t been asked, because I’m not going into do-gooding, but I’ve learned you have to be careful when choosing your love interests,”said Neferclari.

“Very careful, indeed,” said Uncle Gentie.”It’s one of the most important decisions in life, choosing who you mean to share it with.”

“I have learned we might have to deal with disagreeable people,” said Azuline, “and dangerous ones too.”

“Unfortunately. All sound lessons. All spell out CAUTION. And to avoid confrontations with evil, I suggest you start by doing little good actions right here on the island and not something as complicated as helping Fancy has been. Right now I suggest you forget about all this  for a while and start thinking of celebrating Halloween.”

And we did. All but the Bluebell Twins. I took Neferclari to Castle Attor and Uncle Rich left with his two kids. Uncle Brightfire, Ambivolo and Henny left together, while Umbrian went off to his family’s beach house with Quiver, while Shiver stayed behind so there would be someone at the dolmen when Fancy woke.  But the Blue twins still had work to do, according to their father.

“Oh, no. Not you, ladies,” said Gentlerain to his daughters. “No thinking of elaborate costumes yet. There’s amends to be made first. For unlawful use of love dust.”

“What?” cried the Blue Twins. “We’ve been with you throughout all this, and Umbrian isn’t angry with us. He laughed when he heard we’d powdered him.”

“There’s Fancy, who´s probably had the worst part in all this.”

“But she was already secretly in love with him! From the very start and prior to our intervention. All we did was enhance her chances. And she’s a good person. Surely she won’t hold this against us!” argued Belinda.

“We’ve still one person to see to,” said Gentie. “You aren’t responsible for her at all, but I think the least you can do for Umbrian and Fancy is get Malina Badlight out of their way.”

“She’s stuck in a pea! What can she do to them?”

“She bounced and rolled all the way from the bar where she was coalpead to Granny Grimface’s to confront Fancy. She’s not exactly helpless. And, oh, is she determined!”

“Are you sure about that? Someone may have taken her there.”

“I am sure about everything. I have been all along. I just wanted this affair to unravel slowly so your cousins and niece would learn things from it.”

“But you’ve got Malina safely put away in a jar!” protested Arabella.

“I can’t leave her there. It would be mean of me.”

“But she attempted to coalpea Fancy!” cried both girls.

“Yes, that’s criminal. But I believe that if she finds someone that can make her happier than Umbrian she might forget about harming Fancy. That’s where you girls come in!”

“Ahhhhh!” sighed the twins, now interested in what their father had to say.

“We’ll find her a fitting lover. Yes, us. Not just you,” said Gentlerain, “I have to approve of your choice before you employ the love dust. That way the responsibility will be mine.”

“We’ll do it,” said Arabella and Belinda in unison. They were already giggling and hopping with anticipation. That’s how much they liked their profession.

“But we won’t find her someone just anywhere. We´ll do that in Hell itself, because that’s where she belongs. Which is why I am supervising this arrangement.”

Gentlerain took the girls to his office. At first it looked almost empty, very minimal and rather Japanese, but when he snapped his fingers, it suddenly expanded and  became crowded with unending tons of bookcases and archives and stands with odd stuff on them and more. Gen took an enormous book from a shelf, one very difficult to handle.

“Maybe we can find someone in here.”

Who is Who in Hell ? was the title of the book.

He set the book on a meeting table and opened it in half.

“We won’t have to study all that book, will we?” sighed Arabella.

“I think we’ll narrow it down by directly consulting Limpy,” he said.

“Who?”

"Our infernal documentalist."

Gentlerain went to the odd stuff stands and took hold of an unstoppered red glass bottle.

“Are you at home, Limpy?” he said.

The bottle began to shake and a mist started to rise from it. The mist moved aside and next materialized into a devil,  dressed in red, with horns and a pointed tail and black wings. But, instead of bearing a fork, he leaned on crutches.

“Hi!” said the apparition. “You are his daughters. You’re very pretty girls. Nice to meet you, Belinda and Arabella. Your pa isn’t making a mistake introducing  you to someone unsuitable. I’m not all that bad for a devil. Only a little silly.”

He did not add like you.

340. Breaking Spells

 340.  Breaking Spells

Azuline did no more than speak and Uncle Gentlerain said, “We’re out of here!”

And he moved us all back to Uncle Richearth’s plantation.

“The cocoon spell is a lure out spell. It can be broken just like any other lure out spell. In this case, the luring  is done just like when someone is in a coma. You have to talk to them to draw them out of it,” said Little Azuline. “You talk and talk and play music and say things that will draw them out of wherever their spirit is. In the case we have here, out of the cocoon.”

“We are going to have to spend hours talking to Umbrian?” asked Brightfire, not looking too happy about this.

“Not you. Someone who really wants him out of the coma. That is, out of the cocoon.”

“Good,” said Brightfire.

“I want my friend out of the cocoon,” said Richearth, “but the idea of carrying him everywhere where I have to be, every minute, while doing my business, and talking and talking at him at the same time… is rather stressful, the idea is. Just the idea is stressful. I’m stressed already. So imagine actually doing this. A self-moving stretcher? To place the cocoon there?  With wheels and wings? Following one every place one goes? Should I be ordering one? Yes, because if I carry the cocoon in my pocket and it suddenly grows to the size of Umbrian,who is taller than me, we will both topple over to the floor and someone is bound to get hurt.”

“Maybe Fancy Feverfew will do this,” said Neferclari. “She might still love Umbrian and want to recover him. Why can’t she just wake him with a kiss?”

“We’ll study it, dear,” said Gentie and he turned to Azuline and asked, “Where did you learn this about drawing people out of cocoons, love?”

“I have this book about breaking spells that my cousin Arley gave me for my Name Day party.”

“Hmm. I’ll be wanting a copy of that myself,” said Gentie.

“I can make you one.”

“Would you, Azuline? What do you want in exchange for it?”

“Just to see you happy with it.”

“Oh, I will be. But I think you can do a little better. We’ll see. In the meantime, I think Neferclari’s idea about Fancy Feverfew may be a good one.”

“Sure,” said Esmeraldo. “All Fancy does is sit in that dolmen and sulk. We can stick the cocoon in there and she can talk and talk to it until it unravels or whatever it has to do. What else has Fancy got to do in there? Maybe she can even kiss it, like Neferclari said.” 

So, the three kids, our three uncles, the two imps Shiver and Quiver and I, Heather, who am telling this tale, went to Fancy’s dolmen.

“Oh,” she said, when we explained the case to her. “Oh, my. I’m not sure I want to speak to Umbrian ever again.”

“Forget about her kissing the cocoon,” said Neferclari. “This isn’t true love we have here.” And she shook her little head so vehemently that she embarassed Fancy. For when Fancy Feverfew heard this comment, she felt ashamed of herself and said, “I’ll try talking to him while he is in there, even if I will refuse to once he is out.”

And the poor lady did try. But…

“Umbrian, sweetie, I am Fancy, please come out of that cocoon.  **** you, Umbrian! What are you doing inside a ****cocoon? Hiding from me, you  stupid ****? Oh! Oh, my! Why did I say that? I didn’t want to. Honestly, I never meant to say something as mean as that! How could it have come out of my mouth?”

“We understand you are **** angry,” said Brightfire. “You have a right to be.”

“But I’m not. Not as angry as to say such things.”

“Try again,” said Richie.

Fancy took a deep breath and then yelled, “Umbrian, you stinking **** of a hollow man, get the hell out of that cocoon and get me out of here too, you ******* idiot! Oh, by Og! No! No! That’s not what I wanted to say! Really, I never say things like that.”

“Maybe it’s the curse you yourself are under,” guessed Neferclari. “You said you stopped being a do-gooder fairy because you couldn’t do anyone any good anymore. You are trying to do Umbrian good, but you can’t.”

“That makes sense, doesn’t it?” asked Gentlerain.

“Oh, my! Oh! I can’t do even Umbrian good!” sobbed Fancy, breaking into tears. “But it shouldn’t surprise me. I wasn’t able to even clean my gran’s kitchen. That’s how I began to notice I had become useless.”

“I think we will first have to break whatever spell you yourself are under, Fancy. Crack whatever is keeping you from doing good,” said Gentie.

“But I have no idea what is. Throw me up! Throw me up for once and all, you stupid *****!”

“Wow! Who are you speaking to now?” asked Richie.

“Fancy, do you eat peas?” asked Gent.

And before Fancy could answer, she began to tremble and shake as if suffering from electric shocks and even Quiver and Shiver who do a lot of this were stunned. And she didn’t stop until she had thrown up…a cracked pea.

“Get me out of this pea, you ****** fools! What are you waiting for?!” yelled a voice that came from the pea. Upon closer inspection we saw the potent voice came from an impossibly tiny little woman, tiny enough to fit into a pea, struggling to pop out of it. “Can’t you see I’m stuck? I’ve made all the effort I can. It’s your turn to help me, you useless idiots.”

“We’re not sure we ******* want to,” said Brightfire. “Especially if you happen to be mean Malina Badlight. Are you? Don’t bother spitting out barely visible snakes and toads, because the more you do the less we will want to help you.”

“We’ll see what we can do for you when we can,” said Gent. He made some pincers and a jar appear and very gently picked the pea with the woman in it and placed it in the jar. Then he shut the lid tight and made it and the pincers vanish. “One thing at a time,” he said.

“Now you must try again, Fancy,” said Richie. “You may be yourself again.”

“But what was that?”

Richie explained to the flabbergasted Fancy that Malina had been turned into a pea and that somehow Fancy must have swallowed her.

“I’m thinking back,” said Fancy. “I have a prodigious memory. The last time I did eat peas it was a dish of peas and corn. There was a pea on the kitchen floor that I thought had fallen out of the dish, but…there was no sign of a woman in it. I was crying and crying and salting the dish with tears, and I picked and pushed the pea into the dish. I remember I cleaned it a little with my apron first. It looked a little grimy, as if it had been rolling on the floor before getting on the table. But I was so sad I didn’t mind at all what I ate.  I was in Granny Eulalie’s kitchen. That was ages ago. She wasn’t there. But I grabbed a bite to eat. I didn't chew. I just swallowed and swallowed.The pea gave no sign of life. I could barely even swallow, I was gulping and sobbing so, and I may have swallowed it whole.”

“However it got there, you did swallow *******Malina Badlight at some ****point. That fact has been established,” said Brightfire.

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I had no idea!” Fancy cried, and she broke into tears.

“Of course you didn’t, dear,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been living with that dreadful woman inside you hundreds of  years and she has been blocking your every attempt to do good.”

“Between my lungs! I suspect she was stuck there. I always felt a pain, a bad feeling there. Like something was trying to burst out of me. Gosh, it banged against my chest so. I thought it was a bit of my broken heart.”

“When you feel better, we can try again,” said Brightfire. “To free Umbrian, I mean.”

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to try. Now she was even more upset than she had been. With both Umbrian and Malina. She never wanted to hear of them ever again. And she shook and cried and made everyone very nervous.  So Gentlerain called Henny Parry.

First, Henny was asked to calm her down. He gave her a sedative, and she fell asleep in her own bed there in the dolmen. Then Uncle Gent had the honour of telling  Henny about the cocoon.

“I’ll try,” said Henny. “But he never paid any attention to anything I said to him when he was with us. I don’t think he will listen to me now either.”

While Henny was trying his desperate best to persuade his brother to break out of the cocoon, Ambivolo Parry appeared. He was wondering why Quiver and Shiver hadn’t returned from the errand he had sent them on. And he had located them with his crystal ball.

“Why are you talking by yourself as if you were mad?” Ambivolo asked his son Henny. “Who or what are you talking to?”

And then it was Ambivolo who began to rave like mad, when he heard about the cocoon.

“Umbrian, get out of there! Are you trying to kill me? Do you know how it feels to see a child of yours in a state like this? I can’t take this, I will go into a cocoon myself! Why are you doing this to me?”

And, to everyone’s surprise, the cocoon began to unravel. As the thread unravelled, what it held within began to get larger and larger. And then it was the size of tall Umbrian. And it was Umbrian. Himself. And everyone gasped with relief when he got up and pulled the dish the cocoon had been lying on from under his bottom and said, “I’m not trying to kill anyone! I didn’t do this to myself. At least, I think I didn’t.”

339. Magatola Patola

339. Magatola Patola

“No,” said Uncle Gentlerain to the Immortal Barber Athanasius, “we are not stepping into your backroom. There is no need for that. The barbershop is empty. You have no clients here at this moment. There is no one but you and us. And as for what I might see in your backroom, you will be better off if I don’t see that.”

“You have no jurisdiction here,” smiled Athanasius malevolently, “Prince of the Reappeared.”

“I don’t have jurisdiction anywhere. But, like you, I have power. And also like you, I use it as I please. The difference is it pleases me not to harm people, whereas you charge to do that. Answer my questions, Athanasius, and we’re out of here. I’ve told you I don’t want to know what you are about just now.”

“But I am sure you do know. They say you spy on everybody.”

“Be that as it may, today is not the day I will shut the Cabinet of the Dark Horse. So blab, will you?”

Athanasius’  barbershop was absolutely not much to look at. Four chairs, two of them plain everyday chairs and not that of a barber, the other two, yes, being so. Two mirrors, a sink, and little else. Drops of blood in the sink. It needed cleaning. The beauty parlour my grandparents went to was something totally else, so spectacular. I must admit I was curious about the backroom, which was bound to be more interesting to study, but I felt my uncle must have his reasons for not wanting us to step in there.

“Whether you step in the backroom or not doesn’t change the fact that this is like an apppointment. I charge for my services, even for consultations, querent.”

“You are well served yourself with my not folding your business up. Let’s get this over with.”

“At least give me a rain check. Owe me a fairy favor.”

“No way I am giving you anything, Athanasi. You might do something awful with it. Understand that.”

“Look, I have no idea how cocoon curses work. I should and wish I did, but I don’t. However, my time is valuable, and I’ve given you an answer you’ve asked me for. It might not be useful to you, but I deserve something in exchange for my time. And there’s the second question. That I can answer. Will you at least give me tickets for the  Rollicking Rampant Reindeer Race? It’s the least you can do.”

“Why would you want to be there?”

“When I’m not up to my business, I enjoy some innocent fun just like anyone else. I like to take my wife out once in a while.”

“What you want is to use the tickets to make trouble for someone who will assist. I’m not giving you anything, Athanasi. Speak out or what there will be next is threats. My brothers have short fuses. And they are getting impatient. And you say your time is valuable, so you haven’t got all day either.”

“Tell your rich brother to give me a little token then. So I won’t feel humilliated and cheated.”

“How about two cases of champagne? Christmas is near,” offered generous Uncle Richearth. “Just like two months away.”

“I’ll take that,” said Athanasius. “The person you are looking for is Magatola Patola. She owed me a favor and was going to coalpea Fancy Feverfew’s coke for Malina Badlight.”

“And for you, felon. We’re out of here,” said Gentlerain.

And the next thing we knew we were standing in front of a charming little cottage, prettily surrounded by a very lovingly-tended orchard. Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, cabbages and carrots and, of course, pumpkins, including the pointy kind called patolas and more veggies all growing at the same magical time.

“What did you give that criminal anything for? We had him cowed, us three,” Gentlerain scolded Richie. “Now he’ll use the champagne to poison people. And people will say it was your champagne that did that.”

“I said I would give him champagne. What I produce is cava. Dom Perignon should be enough for that ruffian.”

“Not good, but better,” said Gentie.

“No. My product is much better.”

“I meant the deal you made. Better than I thought.”

“Now I suppose we are standing before the home of this Magatola the Maga person,” said Brightfire. “Cute place. Never thought she would live somewhere this neat and tidy. She’s usually rather messy herself, with earth all over her apron and under her nails.”

“I hope that is where we are. That was the idea,” said Gentlerain.

Magatola was at home. She was a little old lady, so little we hadn’t spotted her among the green and violet globe artichoke plants. And she was chatter friendly.

“I’m here,” she said. And Gentie helped her get up from a garden pad she was kneeling on.

“Why have you left your island to stand on the outer side of my fence staring at my garden, Goodfellow boys?”

“We-” began Uncle Gentlerain, but she cut him off.

“Is it my much envied idol, Richearth, is in need of children? I thought that was all over now? You know, I used to dream he would come to me for help. But he never did.”

“You grow children?” said Richie. “I had no idea. Of course I would have come had I known. I was pretty desperate, but now I have half a dozen  toddlers. Really cute ones too.”

“I don’t exactly grow babies. I think I tempt them to appear among my radishes. Children are the toughest of all crops to grow. In my long life, I’ve never managed to harvest more than seven. Still, I’ve a reputation for it. That’s because it is so difficult to lure them. Fifty years can go by without a single child materializing in this orchard. I’ve never kept any. All gone to good parents. I make sure of that.”

“I know you do,” said Gentlerain, “but we’re not here because of that.”

And he asked her about the coal pea affair.

“Ah, that! I’m an irascible person, you know. I get into a lot of quarrels with my neighbours and such. Especially about the roots of the trees in the back of my garden. Very fine fruit trees I have there.  That’s why I work so much in my orchard, to calm down and temper my temper. So I owed Athanasius for helping me counter a bad spell placed on my best cherry tree. It had been given a very evil eye. In exchange for his help, he gave me a little vial with coal pea potion and said I had to drop that into a coke a girl would be drinking at the Violet Lovers Society February Show. He showed me the girl in a crystal ball so I would recognize her and make no mistake. That he did. And I wasn’t too happy about having to do what he wanted me to, even if he never told me what the potion would do. The liar said it wouldn’t do much, just give her indigestion. She’d pass a bad night and be fine by morning. I knew he was fibbing to get me to cooperate, but I went, for the sake of my cherry tree that was dying a miserable death until he told me how to cure it.”

Magatola paused a little. She cleared her throat and then her eyes began to look as if her thoughts were wandering.

“We won’t judge you for something that happened centuries ago. Just tell us what happened, please.”    

“When I saw the girl I was to coalpea in person, I found she looked very familiar, though I couldn’t place her. So I decided to speak to her, though I was cautioned not to, not to allow her to notice me at all. I broke that rule and asked her why she looked as if I knew her. And then I realized she was once one of Eulalie Bloodstone’s little ones. `You are  Granny Eulalie’s friend. Her best friend in all the world,’ said Fancy to me. I had done all I could to get that poor Bloodstone woman a child, but there was no way.  And that decided it. I wasn’t going to harm one of my friend’s darlings. Why, it was I who recommended Eulalie she turn her cheating husband and his paramour into peas instead of stabbing them multiple times openly. I took her to Athanasius and he gave her what she needed to jinx them. So I invited Fancy, poor thing, to a coke, but I didn’t drop the coalpea juice into her drink.”

“What did you do with it?”

“What had to be done. Chatting with Fancy I learned all about this heartbreaker Umbrian and I went to see that spiteful creature Malina Badlight and we went to a bar and I invited her to a Bloody Mary, more like a dozen, and she croaked out that I was right, it was she who had ordered Fancy be turned into a pea and thus I learned it wouldn’t be just an indigestion whoever took the potion would have, so I turned her into the pea. She was dangerous, young man. She wouldn’t have stopped until she’d harmed Fancy.”

“I agree. And what did you do with that pea? You ate it? Like Granny Grimface ate her husband?”

“No! Not that. But frankly, I don’t remember what I did with it. Lost it somewhere, maybe. It might even have fallen to the ground right there where we were, at the bar. This was so long ago. I think I was a little worried about losing it for a while, but then…time passed. I haven’t thought about the pea since back then. Not till you brought the subject up.”

“Just one more question. You wouldn’t know how to lift a cocoon curse, would you?”

“What is that?”

And then Azuline tugged at our uncle’s sleeve.

“You needn’t ask anyone that. I already know the answer.”

338. Malina Badlight's Little Castle

338. Malina Badlight’s Little Castle

While we were thinking what to do next, an embassy from Ambivolo arrived at Uncle Rich’s plantation. The grand old man had sent his favorite pages, the imps Shiver and Quiver, with a huge yellow pumpkin stuffed with angel’s hair sweet and cases of bottles of  apple brandy, vanilla whisky, spiced pear, bramble and almond liquers and a fig leaf and white chocolate concotion.

He wanted to know if we had advanced in our search.

“How do we tell this mercurial crackpot that the spirit of his son is now within a tiny pink cocoon? He sends us all this load of stuff and we in return a tiny pink cocoon. He won’t be able to bear it. At least not calmly. I can already hear him screaming and raging and tearing his clothes and putting ashes in his hair and banging and breaking stuff and maybe even fainting if he isn’t too manly for it,” asked Uncle Rich.

“That doesn’t surprise me. I myself would burn the place to the ground if one of my kids ended up in a cocoon,”

“What place? Your home? Because we don’t know where Malina’s is,” said Uncle Gentlerain. “And it won’t do to burn Nick of Time’s workshop.”

“You have such a stiff upper lip, Gentie. First you find the place and then you throw a fit. It doesn’t work that way. You have to go berserk from the first minute. Raze everything in your way till you get where you want to.”

“I would rather find someone to lift this curse before matters get further out of hand. Quiver and Shiver, do  you think Henny might have some notion how to help his brother? This isn’t exactly an illness, but … who knows? We can hope, can’t we?”

“That pink cocoon is Master Umbrian?” the imps were aghast. “Kill the messenger! No, we´re not telling Don Ambivolo that. Are you sure? Because if he massacres everybody in his way and it turns out that isn’t Umbrian at all and we would have died in vain and...”

“Would you tell Henny? Or at least bring him here in secrecy for us to tell? Maybe he can give his father a tranquilizer before informing him.”

“Yes, like put him to sleep for a thousand years too. Well, till that cocoon thing cracks open or whatever it has to do,” said Brightfire.

“Yes, we can get Henny. It’s probably all we can do,” said Quiver. “But we´ve heard you mention Malina, and we can’t find her, but we know where she used to live and you can burn that house.”

“Get Henny and if he can’t do anything, we´ll see about Malina. No sense in alerting her about this if we can fix the problem ourselves. She’s a very bad lot,” said Gentlerain.

Henny’s eyes were as round as two billiard balls. He didn’t say a word. He just listened to Gentlerain explain the situation to him. It was not his father he was worried about. “My mother had better not hear of this,” he finally said when he spoke. For all his knowledge, he had never heard of the cocoon curse and we had no choice but to allow Quiver and Shiver to take us to Malina’s old home, a small castle-like place somewhere near Minced Forest.

We thought it would be abandoned and even in ruins, but no. It looked very well tended. It had, for instance, all around it, a magnificent space of brightly colourful poisonous flowers.

“Who lives here now? Because someone does,” said Brightfire.     

“Clients is it? I’m inside hanging a chandelier,” shouted a woman’s voice.

And we stepped into the castle and there was …the oversized third tooth woman who could multiply herself by three. She was about to place lit candles in a metal chandelier that hung from the ceiling. There were six candles and three of her, and the candles were momentarily stuck in her foreheads, two each, like horns, until she began to pluck them out of there and put them in their places on the metal structure.

“What can I do for you? You’re quite a crowd. And with children too. You don’t bring children along on occasions like these unless you mean to eat them. You are fay folk. We can speak openly. What is this about?”

“Why are you living in Malina’s home?” asked Uncle Gentlerain.

“Are you relatives of hers? She gave us this house in payment for a job we did for her. Like three hundred years ago,” said La Avernina.

“Was it a cocoon curse job?”

“Why, no. Is that where the girl ended? Inside a cocoon?”

“Malina?”

“Not Malina. The other girl. Her rival. The one she payed us to hex.”

“No. This is not her in here either. What did you do to hex the rival?”

“Oh, we gave a friend of ours  who owed us a favor a tiny vial with coal pea juice and instructions to pour it into a coke the girl would be drinking. That girl drank lots of coke. That would turn the girl into a green pea. We used to turn people into peas a lot back then.”

“Well, that didn’t happen.”

“Really? Well, if it didn’t you should have said so hundreds of years ago. We’re not answering for a mistake now. So the girl ended in a cocoon? But you said she didn’t, and that sort of curse doesn’t need anything but mean words. No drinking anything.”

“I have two questions for you now,” said Gentlerain. “The first is have you any idea how to lift a cocoon curse? And the second is who is the friend who was supposed to administer the coal pea juice?”

“You’ll have to ask my husband both questions,” said La Avernina. “I’ve already spoken too much. And for free. He’ll want something in exchange for the answers.”

“I don’t think he’s going to like what we will offer him for his answers,” said Brightfire. And his hair suddenly glowed like a bonfire.

337. The Third Key: A Five-leaf Clover by no Light.

337. The Third Key: A Five-leaf Clover by no Light.

“We’ll do it in my study,” said Uncle Richearth leading us to it. “We’ll draw the curtains, lower the blinds and shut the shutters. We’ll banish any hint of light that can get through any hole and into the room.”

“But first clear your desk,” said Uncle Gentlerain, beginning to do this himself, pushing objects to the sides of the large cherry-wood desk. When he was done, he put the third coffer right in the middle of the desk on top of a green leather blotter.

“We won’t be seeing a thing, so whoever is going to open this should be standing right here before the box with the five leaf clover in one hand and the other hand right on the coffer,” advised Gentlerain.

“The last box opened with fanfare and a flash and what was in it flew out as if shot from a cannon,” said Uncle Brightfire. “We should be ready to catch whatever comes flying out of this box should it do that too.”

“Everything will be shut tight here. It won’t be able to leave the room unless it can walk through walls. But you are too bright, Fufi. Extinguish your flaming red hair, will you? Or it will be lighting my study up,” Richie said to his brother. And when Uncle Brightfire complied, Rich added, “Now go stand next to the switch by the door. The second the coffer has opened we will yell for you to turn on the lights, including your hair.”

Brightfire nodded and went to the door and laid his hand gently on the switch.

“After what happened with the second coffer, it could be dangerous for one of the kids to do the opening of this one. You do the honours, Gentie. Here’s the clover. Take it and use it as soon as I  banish the light. Which I will do now, so everyone stand on your marks, and good luck to all. May no one get banged.”

And Uncle Richearth turned his study into a place of total darkness. No light indeed for the five leaf clover to be able to do its trick.

“Speak out and say you are done when you are, Gentie,” said Uncle Rich’s voice.

“I’m done. It´s open,” answered Uncle Gent. This time there had been no fanfare and no blast at all. Of course, we couldn’t see what there had been. “You can bring back the light.”

Blinking, we all gathered round Gentlerain to see what there was in the coffer. He drew out an index card and read, “I found this while sweeping the floor. I haven’t the least idea what it is. It has a pretty colour so it might be valuable to someone. I’m keeping it here till someone claims it.”

“Is that all? What did she find?” asked Brightfire.

“A tiny pink ball of cotton or…a…a…Oh, by Og! No!”

“But what is that? Do you know?” asked Richie.

All we kids were watching them stunned, peering at a little oval ball that looked like the cocoon of a silkworm.

“Yes, by Og! I’ll bet I do know. This is Umbrian, under the curse of the cocoon.”

“What?!!! What Umbrian what?” gasped Richearth.

“Oh, ****!” said Brightfire. “Tell me you are wrong, Gentie.”

“Curl up inside yourself and wait for a thousand years until you are who you were again.”

“Oh! Oh, how awful!” said Richie.

We all gave little shrieks.

“You can ******* be shrank to the size of a little finger?” asked Fu.”That’s him inside the cocoon?

“A little finger because Umbrian was tall. Otherwise, to the size of  a distal phalanx.”

“What is that?”

“The top part of a finger. Where the nail is.”

“Well, at least we have found him,” said Richie. “We have, haven’t we?”

“Malina must have pronounced the cocoon curse when she was spitting out snakes and toads and curses. But I think she didn’t even know what she’d done, or she would have sought for him when he vanished. I mean, looked at the floor and picked the cocoon up,” speculated Uncle Gent,

“Maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t know what she was doing. I mean, that she didn’t get hold of him,” said Fi.

“Of course it was! That woman is crazy,” said Gentlerain. “No telling what she would have done with the cocoon.”

“And now what?” said Brightfire. “Do we have to wait for the whole of the thousand year period before Umbrian gets to be himself again?”

“Maybe someone can lift the curse,” suggested Gentlerain.

“And that someone would be?”

“Not Malina. We don’t know where she is, and even if we did, she’s so mean she would probably not want to.”

“How many horrible people do we know?” asked Richearth. “Because of your profesion, you know a lot of rotters, Genti. Because of my private life, I know a lot of questionable women. But there is this one that stood out back then.”

“One of your ex ladyfriends?” asked Brightfire.

“No. Someone they knew. Someone I’m scared to mention. Someone who doesn’t stand out too much but has a foul reputation and that is the kind that you go to when you are desperate. I’ve never been desperate enough myself to want to harm others badly, but… this is someone Malina might know. Malina left in a rage, not knowing what she had already done to Umbrian but swearing she would have revenge. Who would you go to if you wanted something really bad done to someone?”

“A blast from the past,” said Brightfire. “We're speaking the Renaissance here, aren't we? That would  have been…was it the Dark Horse Cabinet?A barbershop? Didn't they call it that? Because you never saw them coming.”

“Athanasius the Immortal and his multiple wife,” nodded Uncle Gentlerain. “He seemed harmless, always protesting his innocence, but he is unlucky even to mention.”

“His wife was three people in one, and one of her was known to all would-be troublemakers, the kind of person that goes from house to house selling trinkets and promising to jinx anyone you would have jinxed,” said Brightfire. "For money of course."

“La Avernina they called that one,” said Gentlerain.

“She used people who didn’t even know each other against each other. She would say that if  A wanted to harm B, then A had to slip a potion into the cup of C, even if A had no idea who C was and nothing at all against C. And if A did, B was sure to end up harmed. Probably by D, whom no one knew about either. A weaver of harm, La Avernina. It helped that this weaver was not one, but three women, or something like that. Was she really three people?”

“She could multiply herself by three, or something like that, though two of herselves she mostly kept in the dark. She had this one oversized tooth between the two front ones. I don't know what service it did her, but it caused impact. But it also helped her that Athanasius was a barber, and he went from house to house too, early in the mornings, to shave his clients and receieved people in his barber shop in the afternoon and sometimes in a back room for evil business.”

“What became of this people? Are they still around? Athanasius and Avernina?”

“They moved to the mortal world. We’re talking mostly mortal clients now, though he is immortal. And she too.”  

     

336. The Cow, the Grogoch and the Amber Oracle

 336. The Cow, the Grogoch and the Amber Oracle

“Groggy,” said Neferclari, pinning her nose between her thumb and her index finger.

“Of course! She’s right!” said Gentlerain. “He doesn’t live on the island, but he lives among cows and similar creatures.”

So Uncle Gent found out where Groggy was living at the moment and it turned out to be the barn of a human family. And though it was not precisely a convenient place for us to go to, we went there. Not because there are no cows on our island, but because it seemed right. And we were fortunate in that Groggy received us smiling from ear to ear though also stinking as awfully as he usually did, and  we were also fortunate in that we found him precisely tending to a cow and that there were still Peter Keys about the place, which he allowed us to pick for our purpose.

“I’ll replant these at home,” Uncle Rich assured him as he picked a few. “They can’t fade or die while they are with me.” Uncle Rich is the only one of our uncles who is not too afraid of dirt. 

And the uncles let Esmeraldo do the honours of opening the second silver coffer, tapping it lightly with the bouquet of Peter Keys under the warm noon sun. As the box sprung open there was a blast of fanfare and something flew out of it, and before anyone could catch this a cloud from the sky above us descended until it was just over our heads, that is just over our uncles’ heads, for they were the tallest.

“Hi, you three of the five Goodfellow boys!” said a woman whose carefully painted porcelain-like face appeared in the cloud. So did her nattily manicured long-nailed hand, holding an index card. And we knew she had trapped what had flown out of the box. “I know you would have called on me if you had gotten to read what is in this card,” she said, tearing the card in bits and giving them to eat to a raven that sat on her right shoulder.  “So I’m here to spare you the trip and tell you about it.”

“Wise Amber! Hi to you too!” cried my three uncles. “How are you?”

“What does it matter how I am? I’m here, aren’t I? That should be good enough. I needn’t be springing happy for you, need I? Useful should do. Like three hundred years ago, I was at Nick of Time’s workshop ordering stuff I needed when Malina appeared with Umbrian in reluctant tow. While he entertained himself examining a collection of golden cups, Malina whispered to me she was sure Umbrian had only courted Fancy Feverfew because he was under a spell. She insisted it couldn’t have been otherwise. He couldn’t have liked that curdless bowl of tasteless, vomitive whey. I told her whey was tangy, so wrong metaphor she had employed there. I said saltless sea water was more like it. But she never was one for interesting language, except when she took to cussing. And she wasn’t particularly original at that herself, though she was enthusiastic when at it.  She told me to stop speaking nonsense and insisted I prove her right. `I’m here because you are here. I knew you would be and I’ve come to tell you to tell Umbrian he was hexed,’ she said. `He doesn’t believe me. You’re supposed to know almost everything. Surely you know he was hexed. You he will believe. And you are telling him he was wether he was or not. Or else!´ Ah, she wouldn’t have it otherwise.”

A word here about who Wise Amber is. We later learned from our uncles that this lady of enormous prestige is called The Oracle because many people consult her when they need to know something past, present or future. Many people in Fayland have crystal balls and peep creeks and talking heads and boards and such, but for the really difficult questions, they go to Amber. And she gives sound advice aside from almost always informing correctly, though she is an oracle and they can’t be always understood. Ah, and she is interesting to look at. She had big hair that is like red amber. Yes, dark red and a little transparent. It shines like crystal and has a little spider trapped in it since ages ago. Two of her three eyes are the colour of green amber. The third one, which is right in the middle of her forehead, is golden amber at its most magnificent.   

“When I confirmed that she was right, ok, yes, he’s been hexed, Malina made me repeat this before Umbrian. He listened with interest and everyone thought he would explode in anger but though he did explode it was in laughter. He didn’t say a word, but he laughed and laughed and laughed and when Malina made him stop, he refused to be angry with whoever had sprinkled love dust on him. Apparently his experience was good and it made him happy that he had been hexed. He was the last person I thought would be amused by a joke at his own expense, but that went to show you can never tell with some people. Unfortunately this made Malina furious, and she began to berate him viciously. And then he began to retort, and asked her who she thought she was to tell him what he could and couldn’t enjoy, and they had this dreadful fight where first it was words and then snakes and toads they flung at each other – Wow, how they infested the workshop! - and then, when they got to curses, Umbrian vanished. To put an end to the dispute before it got entirely out of hand, we supposed. Left behind, Malina began to swear she would take vengeance herself since Umbrian could not be counted on to. And she disappeared in a blaze of flames, ranting and rambling awful threats. And then an Aurea found something that you will  probably find too, if you’re careful, but not even I noticed what it was or am even now sure about this. And now I have to go.” 

And before we could thank her, Wise Amber went. And so did we, but after thanking Groggy again for the flowers. And where did we go? Well, first to have lunch at Uncle Rich’s plantation and next to find a dark place where we could open the third coffer in no light with a five leaf clover. 

335. The Second key: Peter Keys by Noonlight

 335. The Second Key: Peter Keys by Noonlight

“Different boxes, different keys,” said my Uncle Gentlerain. “We’re to use a five leaf clover for this one.”

And he made the second coffer stolen from the Aureas with their express permission appear.

“Will it be by moonlight again?” asked Neferclari.

“By noonlight, dear. Where can we find five leaf clovers, Richie? There’s not many of them readily available on the island, because they all have to do with treasures, and one doesn’t want one’s treasures messed with, does one?”

“I have like a hundred and fifty in my gardens. But I don’t know if any of them will open the second silver coffer. I’ve never linked them to a treasure or tried to find one with them. So far, they’ve been just for show. Except I haven’t shown them to anyone but myself. Would you like to see them?”

“Obviously. We´ve enough problems without having to go hunt for a five leaf clover, don’t we?”

“You´ve got this wrong,” said Azuline. “The second box must be opened by a Peter Key. I’m sure I heard that right.”

Uncles Rich and Gentlerain glanced at each other. Azuline had made them doubt.

“The child might be right. I was so concerned about having to steal the boxes that I may have got the instructions wrong.”

“The Aurea was rather confusing,” said I, Heather, “when she spoke.”

“It’s moonwort by moonlight, Peter Keys by noonlight and a Five Leaf Clover by no light,” said Azuline. “That’s what the golden girl said. It’s not the two last plants by noonlight. It’s the clover by no light at all.”

“Promising,” said Gentlerain to Azuline. “That’s what you are. She did say something like that. Or that, actually.””

“Alright. Now, Peter Keys can be found almost anywhere here on the island, but the best place for them is near cows. Where there are cows, there are cowslips,” said Richearth. “And that, to my knowledge, is what Peter Keys are. Yellow flowers that grow where cows have…well, deposited  and rid themselves of what they are better off without.”

“Dung!” said Esmeraldo, in case someone hadn’t understood what his father was saying.

“What a place for keys to fall in!” said Neferclari.

“But they were St. Peter’s keys, the keys to Heaven, so when they fell into the waste they made pretty flowers grow right out of it as soon as they grazed it.”

“You have cows on your plantation, Richie?” asked  Gentlerain.

“I don’t even have my ten sheep. I don’t know where the ten sheep I have a right to are, now that I think of it. Sheep aren’t good for plants.”

“Well, don’t worry about them now, if you haven’t till now, Richie.”

“This girl Betabel, the one who married the Ravenous Unchagedling who evolved into a Garbageeater…  how do you spell that? Garbageeater with one e after another?”

“I have no idea,” said Gentlerain. “Never heard of one. Well, yes. Alpin I have heard of, and his succesion of trasnformations too. But not of any other eaters of garbage, the usual vermin excluded. I’ve never seen that word in print either.”

“She was taking care of my sheep for me. And then she went and married this horrible fellow and I hope he hasn’t eaten my sheep. He ate everything he set eyes on. He was my brother-in-law. I should know.”

“He is your brother-in-law, though you may have lost contact. Your sheep were never garbage, I’m sure. So surely he hasn’t eaten them.”

“Before he was jinxed into becoming a garbageeater, he might have. Of course, for a while there he was an oyster, but that doesn’t count. They don’t eat sheep. What do they eat? Phytoplankton and other teensy things I suppose. Boy, it does make me nervous not to know how to spell garbageeater. Irritating sensation.”

“Call him a rubbisheater and be done with the ee problem, Daddy,” said Esmeraldo.

“Does that have a hyphen?”

“A what?” asked Esmeraldo.

“A little line between both words that shows they are connected.”

“Your sheep are probably with Betabel’s family. Other members of her family were shepherds too and tended unclaimed sheep,”  I said.

“I want them back!”

“Not now, Richie. We have other things to do,” said Uncle Gent.

“I think it’s irresponsible of Betabel not to have warned me that she was going to abandon my sheep. Is she my sister-in-law now? Or is she just my brother-in-law’s wife? He’s still my brother-in-law, though I haven’t seen him in ages. That I like.”

“Like Heather has just said, someone from her family must be tending to the sheep. Let´s get on with the coffer business. Take us to a cow, Rich.”

“I don’t have even a single chicken in my plantation. Only my dogs and cats and Branna’s Arcane, who is a dog too, and they don’t count.  Not as farm animals, do they? I really want my sheep back now that I´ve thought of them. I´m not going to be able to go anywhere until I have  found my poor lost sheep. What if they are off the island and some wolf eats them?”

“Look here, Richie, I will call and have someone from my office go find your sheep this minute, but you take us to a cow while I give the order.”

“Texas?” said Richie. “We’re going to Texas? With the yellow roses. But are there cowslips in Texas? I don’t think so. Not naturally.”

“Somebody on this island has to have a cow,” said Uncle Gent. “But first I have something on my mind too. I want to thank my daughters for having disowned me in front of Granny Grimface, Thank you, girls. I want to think you did that so she wouldn’t eat me for having let your grandmother raise you instead of doing it myself.”

“We have no problem with you, Daddyman,” laughed the Blue Twins. “But that witch might have seen it otherwise.”

“I saved my dad too,” said Esmeraldo. “Though I’m still hopping mad at him for considering ceding me to Ambivolo.”

“I did nothing of the kind. I just reminisced about a man who was older than the hills and tried to fool me into being his daddy,” said Richearth. “Actuallly, he did fool me for a while there.”

“Were you drunk?” asked Esmeraldo.

“Certainly not! I never am!”

“Then stupid. I was trying to find an excuse for you.”

“We’re done!” cried Gentlerain raising his voice a little. Something he very rarely does. He has such a clear, steady voice, never saying a word louder than the next, and is always easily understood.  “We’re done with reminiscing and complaining and  thanking and spelling  and sheep and other distractions. Let´s find us a cow!”