328. Two Worlds Vision Salve

328. Two Worlds Vision Salve

A week after having taken Mr. Binky to the Temple of Mayet, we all united again to accompany Pentafloris and her twins back to her seaside home. The Memorion himself offered to take us there in his ship, probably to make the occasion more solemn. Thus, if anyone got to know about this voyage, they would also know it had the blessing of AEternus’ memory.

It proved quite a pleasant and relaxing experience. The ocean blue bluer than it had ever been, the sky a lighter hue of blue too, baby blue, to match our mission. The regal ship, in contrast to its majestic look from afar, making us sneeze when below deck because of all the pepper Belvedere had scattered about to keep bugs away from the tons of books and archives that filled it to overflowing. Pepper had something to do with avoiding rust or mould too, from the humidity or something.   

“Sorry about that,” said the Memorion, “My suppliers had run out of peppercorns so I used pepper powder as a substitute. Probably a mistake. Most likely. I hope I remember not to do this again. Can I offer you all a drink?”

Despite his hopes, he seems to have been forgetting for centuries.

As we lazed on the deck lying on deck chairs and sipping piña coladas and being fanned by palm leaves and paypays moving on their own, we began to make small talk that I, Heather, think got larger than expected.  

“Poor Sunny,” sighed little Neferclari.

“But why do you say that?” I asked her.

“Because now he has got an evil twin.”

“No! Mr. Binky isn’t exactly evil. Only overbearing. And he isn’t a real twin.”  

“We’ve broken rules, haven’t we?” asked Neferclari. “Is that right?”

“We don’t exactly have rules, dear. We have conventions. Traditions, ideas about what is ethical and what is not. We may have been a little unconventional. But in what do you feel we’ve transgressed?” asked Uncle Gentlerain.

“Whoever is first to touch a baby has to keep it. Unless someone has seen it first and shouted a claim. Heather took the baby from the box. Shouldn’t she have to keep it?”

“It’s not exactly a baby,” I responded quickly. “It’s Mr. Binky suffering from a most unfortunate intoxication. I put him in that box, so I suppose it was right for me to be the one to draw him out. That doesn’t mean I have to keep him, does it?”

“He’s in his second childhood,” said Uncle Rich. “Are there rules about second childhoods and who gets stuck with the twiceborn kids?”

“Heather has kept him for like fifteen years. I think you’ve  more than done your bit, Heathie,” said Uncle Gentlerain. “We’ve all done what is best. It’s someone else I am worried about now.”   

“Fancy Feverfew. Am I right to think so?” Uncle Rich asked his brother.

“You are too, aren’t you? Don’t tell me she’s been in that cave since her late teens!”

“I am five years younger than you are and she is my age. So she must have entered that hole when she was nineteen. The year you disappeared.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” said Uncle Gentlerain. 

“Don’t be on the defensive. Of course you didn’t. It was…well, those were the disappearing years. A number of people chose to remove themselves from sight or just happened to. There was a scare about that. Most of those who had vanished reappeared in seven years. Some in seven hours. He disappeared too. But still for good.”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Beau.

Uncles Gentlerain and Richearth exchanged a look.

“Henbeddestyr’s half brother,” said Uncle Rich softly, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

“Henny is a piece of cake,” said Uncle Gentlerain, “but his family is…sophisticated by comparison.”

“Don’t try to put it mildly. They are a bunch of self-important hysterics with egos that don’t fit in their heads and bump into everything when they move,” said Uncle Rich.

“Henny’s father is Ambivolo Parry. He lives in Italy and has children with a number of ladies. Not all at a time. Consecutively. One after the other,” said Uncle Gentlerain.

“But it’s not him that has disappeared, is it?” said Beau.

“Umbrian Silvervine is the person who did the disappering act. He is not safe to discuss,” said Uncle Gentlerain, “because he has this flaring temper. But since he has disappeared so definitely, it’s not likely he will storm in on us and bombard us with snakes and toads, for criticizing him, is it?”

“Disappeared or been made to,” whispered Uncle Rich. “The case is Umbrian was even more ambivalent than Ambivolo. He was like two people instead of one. A perfect gentleman one minute. And an enraged fiend the next.”

“It was not exactly that he was two different people. I think it was an irrational succesion of opinions that he had. I mean, he was okay with you and then, suddenly, you did something that he felt was an outrage. Usually, you had no idea what it was. And whereas up to that minute you had been a jolly good fellow in his opinion, you were suddenly an odious, undeserving lout. And from that moment on, one never knew where one stood with him.”

“A very difficult person to be around,” nodded Uncle Rich, “with a terrible temper. And then…what do you know? He laid eyes on Fancy Feverfew, the perfect example of a vocational do-gooder fairy.”

“It was the other way around, I think,” said Uncle Gentlerain. “She laid eyes on him and was enchanted.”

“Bewitched,” said Uncle Rich. “Though I will admit he was thought to be rather interesting to look at, I can’t help wondering  who hexed them. That relationship…it can’t have been natural. Opposites may attract, but no. There is no way this could have happened naturally.”

“He did feel flattered and responded well at first to her attentions,” said Uncle Gentie.   

“Too well,” said Uncle Rich. “I tell you, he was bewitched. He should have let her be. Someone as volatile as he was has no business toying with true love. That is supposed to be eternal.”

“Fancy was all sweetness and light,” explained Uncle Gent. “Curiously, she wasn’t easy to be around either, but for exactly the opposite reasons that it was difficult to be around Umbrian.”

“Cloying,” nodded Uncle Rich. “Too good to be good company. And nobody deserved her. In every sense of these words, good or bad.”

 “One has to admit Umbrian tried to please. Being liked by someone with such a great reputation for goodness sort of impressed him. To humor her, he tried his hand at doing good too. He did a couple of mortals a favor or two  when he went about with her and that made him feel good, I suppose. Good like he had never felt before. She was real pleased with him.”

“But?” asked Beau.

“It’s not easy for people to change.While the objects of his do-gooding were grateful and blessed him, and that made Fancy happy, well, well it went,” said Uncle Gent. “You know what went wrong better than I do, Richie. Do tell.”

“I don’t know the whole of it, but it sort of had to do with this mortal ignorant peasant woman who had a little child that was going blind. Umbrian and Fancy were celebrating their youth in a field rife with feverfew when that woman showed up. She wanted to gather some of those flowers to boil in water she meant to wash her kid’s eyes with. Now, Umbrian wasn’t the least bit interested in healing people, but he was Henny’s brother, so to please Fancy he took like two minutes of his precious time to procure from Hens’ apotheca a balm or an ointment or such that would restore the child’s eyesight. Unfortunately, being impatient and not wishing to wait till his brother was done with a client, he lifted the first thing he found that might do for his purpose and it turned out to not do only that. Umbrian made himself visible to the woman and gave her the eye salve he had made off with and told her she only had to apply it once on the child’s eyelids and that would cure the kid. She was to throw the remaining salve into a stream near her hut. Now, while Fancy was showing Umbrian how pleased she was with him for being so kind, the peasant woman went home. Before rubbing the salve on the child’s eyelids, she decided to try it on one of  her own, to be sure it was at least harmless. When she saw it had done her no apparent harm, she used it on the child and it worked its magic immediately. But like I said before, the salve didn’t just cure the child. A day later, this woman went to market to sell some beets and carrots and other nutrient-dense root vegetables she had taken the trouble to grow herself. So she spread a cloth on the ground and sat there in front of her basket of veggies and what did she see? She saw Umbrian barefacedly lifting all sorts of fruits and placing them carefully in a large basket of his own. Now Umbrian was only trying to be nice again, and he was preparing the basket for another charity case of his girlfriend’s. And he already had slipped some coins into the vendor’s purse, coins worth much more than the fruit he was taking, but the peasant woman hadn’t seen him pay. So, proving she was an ignorant fool, up she went and yelled ‘Stop, thief!´ at her benefactor.`What thief?’ asked the fruitseller, who couldn’t see Umbrian at all, because Umbrian was invisible to mortal eyes at that moment, but the salve the woman had rubbed on her eyes made her see what other mortals couldn’t,  because it was fairy medicine, made only  for fairy eyes, that Umbrian had unthinkingly given her. Two Worlds Vision Salve we call it. And Umbrian being as touchy as he was, flared up at being called a thief by an ungrateful person he had actually been kind to only the day before. So, without even blinking, he struck the woman utterly blind, thus proving that it is not safe for fairies and mortals to deal with each other, as our wise old folks say. And I imagine that Fancy was displeased with him for this and he with her for maybe rebuking him and not taking his side in his quarrel with the peasant woman with unwavering loyalty. And neither did Henny, who told his brother off for giving Two Worlds Vision Salve to a mortal without consulting him or anyone cunning first and I don’t know exactly what happened next, but Umbrian vanished from fay as well as mortal sight. And Fancy went into decay and began to say she’d been cursed and could no longer help anyone good, only bad people. And so I will end by saying again I don’t understand what Fancy and Umbrian saw in each other in the first place and how I suspect they were bewitched and there may be more to all this story than meets the naive eye.”

327. The Twin

327. The Twin

Uncle Rich and I, Heather, rushed to Fancy Feverfew’s dolmen. Beau and Uncle Gent arrived at the same time as we did.  And I barely noticed, so nervous was I, that little Neferclari was clinging to my skirt.

“Oh, dear!” said the white kitten, turning into the fay child this Atshebie really was.  “I didn’t mean to tear your dress! My nails.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “Why didn’t you say you wanted to come, honey?”

“I did. But you and Great Uncle Richie were so nervous you didn’t hear me.”

The truth was we were all nervous. Except maybe for Uncle Gent, who, I think, already had an idea what he would  find.

“Fancy Feverfew!  It’s Gentlerain!  Remember me? We’re here to help!” he shouted into the cave.

“It’s that man they stuck in here!”  Fancy shouted back.

“Is he still in there?”

“In here, yes. But a man no longer.”

“He’s a child now, isn’t he?” said my uncle.

“Worse. He’s a baby. If he doesn’t wake, he might disappear. That can happen, can’t it?”

“I have no idea. But there have been rumours.”

“Are you going to slap his ass to wake him like the humans do, Gentie?” asked Uncle Rich.

“No way I am doing that!” said Uncle Gent. 

But before more could be said, Fancy pushed the glass and gold coffin out of the dolmen. And being thus shoved, poor Mr. Binky awoke, and went “Wahhhhh!”  Then, with his eyes wide open, he shrank one last time.

“Oh, by Og! He is going to need parents!” said Uncle Rich.

“Don’t you volunteer, Richie,” said Uncle Gent.

“If you want him for yourself, I can understand  that. I have three sons as well as three daughters. You have two daughters. That’s much less than me. He’s yours! It’s only fair.”

“Fate forbid!” cried Uncle Gentlerain.

I was already drawing Mr. Binky out of the coffin, freeing him from the enormous clothes he was almost smothering himself among. I wrapped him up in his now enormous shirt.

“I don’t think Mungo would want me for a father. It would be humilliating. I would feel awful if this happened in reverse. I mean, I wouldn’t want a Binky to be my father. And this one yet! With the problems we’ve had. ”

“He would give you a weekly allowance and make you pay taxes out of that,” nodded Uncle Richearth. “You would have to defy him like you did our daddy.”

“I didn’t defy anyone. I tried to reason with AEternus.”

“Not a good idea,” said Uncle Rich, shaking his head vehemently.  “AEternus can’t be reasoned with. He knows everything and is mysterious in his ways. A very difficult combination. Were you unhappy among us, Gentie? Wildgale sometimes resented me a little.”

“No. And neither was Wildie. That must have come later. I think we all got along just fine. The usual fraternal spats now and then, not more than normal.”

“Still, if having two parents is trying, having three must be worse.”

“Four. No. Divina was wonderful. Warm and loving and amusingly crazy. She always treated me like I needed her to. Celestial was almost as unreasonable as AEternus. I say almost because she never asked me to disown him. Excelsius told me he would be anything I wanted him to be to me. He never gave me any problems. I did get a little sad when I had to leave  you all to go up north every New Year’s Eve, but once there, Celestial kept me so busy I had no time to think. I learned a lot. No time to think, but curiously, to think for myself was the best thing I learned there. Even if she was dominating, she never mentioned AEternus. Never asked me to give him up and stay with her all year. When I had to go, she packed my things up in silence. And I went. I think she knew I would not give her up either. Maybe I secretly enjoyed being fought over. Being important enough for that. As for AEternus, when I told him off, I was almost seven, and it was about the poisoned garden. Most fay kids leave home at seven. So when he told  me not to try to intimidate him and that I could leave if I wanted to, I didn’t take him seriously. I never have. I knew I wouldn’t move too far off and I didn’t.He knew it too.  I was home by day and helping our mother like Celestial had taught me to. At night, I would sleep in the boathouse. I knew he would pretend not to know I was there. ”

 “In the boathouse? I offered to share my room with you. Do you remember that I did?”

“Of course I do. Sobbing and all because you thought he had kicked me out. And he saying I was making everyone feel awful. That was kind of you, Richie. Evenfall lent me his ship, a little yacht he had,  And there I slept. Until I married Mabelle.”

“And your brothers up north were as nice to you as we were?”

“Celestial told them from day one that she could only spend half the time she spent with them with me, so she would be twice as nice to me as she was to them. I don’t think she mattered as much to them as she did to me, so they weren’t jealous. Only boring. They had no interest in sewing or weaving or making cider. Or even beer. Practice fighting and watching the horizon. That took up most of their time.”

“You learned to fight too?”

“Like a fiend. It came in handy when I fled to the preventionists.”    

I was cuddling Baby Binky when I suddenly heard a scream.

“PEDUBASTIS! HELP ME!”    

I almost dropped the baby.

“What is it, dearie?” Uncle Gentlerain asked Neferclari, quite alarmed.

“You don’t listen to me! I have to give you the solution to your problem!” she exclaimed, but very softly. She does always speak very softly.

And then Pedubastis appeared.

“They don’t listen to me!” protested Neferclari, much affected. “They aren’t solving anything. They are just talking and talking about their childhood or old times. I can’t get a word in. I can’t do this!”

“Well, great uncles tend to get sentimental about the past. But you are about to do your bit! You yelled for me and that attracted their attention.You have it now. So say your say.”

Pedubastis took Mr. Binky from my arms and little Neferclari said, “Pedubastis and my uncle  Arley spoke at dawn. And he spoke to the Mr. Memorion person who said that Pedubastis was right and we could give this baby to Penny Glassywave, who is still at the Temple of Mayet and can say she has had twins instead of just one kid when she returns with her parents, the beach bums.”

“Penny who?” said Uncles Richearth and Gentlerain in unison.

Pedubastis then explained to these gentlemen who Pentafloris Glassywave was. And what her parents were like, and how she’d had a baby with a human who no longer had anything to do with her. They looked at each other and nodded.

“If my father-in-law says this will be okay…” said Uncle Gent.

“Alright, let’s do it. So we might be kidnapping Mungo, but fairies do that, don’t they?” said Uncle Richearth. “Abduct people. I know a lot about being kidnapped. But only as a victim. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Well, not always. Sometimes yes. But we will be doing right by this kid.”

“I would normally never do this, but Mungo’s family didn’t think much of him. They’ve showed no interest in him for like fifteen  years, possibly even never,  and who knows why they want him back now?”

“Those people exploit humans,” said Uncle Rich. “Obie says maybe guilt is why Mungo Johnny was so obsessed with them. A family of sea bums couldn’t be more different from the one he had. Maybe he will be happier with this new one.”

“In any case, we´ll hide him among them until he can reason.”

“You think he ever did?”

“I mean, until he knows what he wants. He’s spent  years lying in a coffin. Spending seven more years now living by the sea can’t be that awful.”

“By golly, we are doing this! Can I be the one to steal him and give him to Penny? I’ve never kidnapped anyone. And I thought I would be bored to death today.”

“Neither of you is going to do anything, gentlemen,” said Pedubastis. “The temple will do it for you. I will take the child to the temple and give it to Penny. That way I can say I found the baby by itself and nobody will be able to hold anyone responsible.”   

“Why is everyone more sensible than I am?” Uncle Rich asked Pedubastis.

She shook her head and we all went to the Temple of Mayet. Yes, all of us, because Uncles Richie and Gentie said provision had to be made for the baby and also for Penny’s possibly human child.

“Possibly human means possibly mortal,” said Neferclari. Everyone was very careful to listen to the child now. Uncle Gent even had her sitting on his shoulders so he would be sure to.  “When are we finally going to know if he is mortal or isn’t? When he suddenly drops dead?”

Uncle Rich and Uncle Gent looked at each other. Uncle Rich nodded.

“Tell her,” he said.  

“He can’t be left alone,” explained Uncle Gent. “The kids of a  fay mother and a mortal man can be very gifted and have all sorts of special abilities, but that doesn’t mean they can’t turn into ghosts without the least warning. Somebody has to be there to save them from this fate when it is about to come about.”

“Even when they are adults?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Uncle Gent. “Just eating our food doesn’t guarantee immortality. That’s why we ask them not to visit the mortal world. Especially unaccompanied. That is where they are most likely to drop dead, all of a sudden, unless  one of us notices something is wrong and hauls them back to fairyland and stuffs food in their mouths in time. Otherwise, they die in a heartbeat. But in the worst of cases they become ghosts, Clari, so it’s not as definite a parting as it sounds.”

“This Penny is kind of cute, isn’t she?” said Uncle Rich to Uncle Gentlerain when we saw Penny.

“Oh, Richie!” said Uncle Gentlerain shaking his head.

“I only meant Mungo will have a pretty mother. Young and happy-looking.”

“Happy-go-lucky, most likely,” muttered Uncle Gent, “but if Belvedere says she will do…”

Pedubastis  had already spoken with Penny and they had reached an agreement and all Uncle Gent had to do was give Penny the coat with a pocket that is always full of gold coins she had a right to, even if she wasn’t going to live in Apple Island. He also gave her two wee coats, just like hers, but tiny, and told her not to give them to the kids until they were seven, though he would drop by her hut by the sea to see how things were going now and again. And she was to call if she needed anything.   

“His name is Mungo John,” said Uncle Richie to Penny. “But since he’s to be in hiding and live incognito, I think you should call him something different.”

“This one is Sunny,” said Penny, pointing at her son. “So maybe I should call this other one Moony.”

“As long as he doesn’t turn into a lunatic,” said Uncle Richie.

“Don’t go into that now,” said Uncle Gent. “Everything will work out fine. The Mnemosinite himself says so. At the first sign of a problem, you call me. I already said that, Penny.”

326. No Cause for Alarm

326. No Cause for Alarm

“I admit I am all for revenge. I find it useful.  Sometimes. Dissuasive vengeance. But don’t think your uncle isn’t for it. You haven’t noticed, but he has already taken a pinch of it. He said he has set the vultures to spying on your daddy,” Beau was thinking for me to know.

“Daddy deserves that and more,” I thought. “And it is a good alternative to having the vultures spy on you and me, Beau. He is better at defending himself, isn’t he? And they won’t find anything because he isn’t hiding anything. Do you think Daddy is aware he is being spied on?”

“How can a vulture spy on one discreetly? Still, the Pinkheads are not just the average vultures. And very experimented when it comes to seizing what they want they are.”

Before Beau or I could think more, there was a soft knock on the door to the dining room. We all turned to see who it was that had announced presence and there stood a soaking wet, small but distinguished old gentleman  with graying lavender blue hair and glasses that I had never seen before.

“Good evening, Papá!” Mabelle welcomed him, and I knew this was Belvedere the Mnemosinite, also known as the Memorion because  he was my grandfather´s memory.

“I am wetting your floor. As I often do. I always get wet when I fall into the sea.  And I am falling into it with increasing frequency. I keep forgetting to open my wings when I jump from my ship.”

He lived in a ship. I knew that. Arley had told me this.

“Your mind is on other things, dear,” said Mabelle. “Gentie, introduce your  father-in-law to everyone.”

“He knows who everyone is, and now everyone here knows who he is too. So just say hail and well met or plain hi, everybody.”

“I’ve come as soon as possible. Which is why I jumped into the sea. It’s not midnight, is it? Now, I have to tell you that tomorrow  at noon you will receive by sparrow a rather alarming message from Fancy Feverfew.”

“And Fancy is, sir?” asked Beau.

“The Voice From Within the Dolmen,” said Uncle Gentlerain.

“Oh, my! We should go see what is alarming her right now,” I said, getting up from where I was sitting.

“No, no, no! Don’t anybody move! Fancy won’t know what will alarm her until tomorrow morning. You can sleep tight all night and rest properly so as to be ready to be frightened tomorrow. Except you needn’t be, because I am telling you right now you’ll get there in time to calm her down,” said Belvedere. “I’d like to sit down, but I would wet the chair, Gentlerain. It would be a pity. They’re very pretty. Are they new?”

“You sit on them every night and it never matters,” said Uncle Gent, “because these chairs I bought when I fixed the house and changed the furniture and I chose them waterproof.”

“Oh. Topsy! You think of everything, lad. I think you’ve told me this before. You have, haven’t you? Yes. I distinctly remember this perfectly now,” said Belvedere. And he walked  himself to a chair on sealegs. And he sat down. And he didn’t wet it at all. The water just stayed on him.

It was not midnight, but it was rather late, and Uncle Gentlerain walked us home. Arley stayed with Mabelle and the Memorion, who was about to have dinner because Granny Milksops reminded him that it was convenient to eat once in a while, even if you were fay. But before that, Mabel asked him, "Papá why are you wearing a moustache? You never do." "Am I? I have no idea. And it isn't even November," he answered. And, with his magic, he removed it, and tidied up, changed his clothes and combed his hair in an instant and I thought he looked a lot better.

The next morning I awoke hearing through my bedroom window a conversation between Uncle Richearth and Sylvan Marsh and Oliver Mallow of the Candid Candied Moon Gardening Center and Nursery.

                        

“When we work non stop for hours, grass grows out of our  ears and nostrils,” the gardeners were saying. “We have to trim it before we step on it.Or pull it out, so it won’t get in our way. Like caught in the lawnmower, you know.”

“Ouch! No offence meant, but I’m glad that doesn’t happen to me,” said Uncle Rich. “Does it hurt much when you tear that grass off?”

“Nah! Tedious it gets, yes. But we’re used to it and we take it in stride.”

When ready, I went outside and said hi to these three and congratulated the gardeners on the great job they had done. My garden was back to normal, but with a special glow,  like when you wipe the dust off something pretty. I invited Uncle Rich and Marsh and Mallow to breakfast but the boys said they had to go and left.

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t call me, Heathie,” said Uncle Richie. “I could have fixed this place for you.”

“I didn’t call anyone. They showed up. But you would have left my garden looking fifty times more grand and palatial than it ever was. Too much really, Uncle Richie. This is more modest. Like me.”

“We’ve been comparing  notes, the green  elves and I, and they do have it tougher than I do. Takes them more time and effort. By the way, I’m here because my kids told me all about the…the… well, what you swore them to silence about.”

“I was sure they would tell you.”

“They do blab, yes. Actually, I think they don’t even know what silence means, so they can’t even have known what they were promising. It’s not that I am trying to excuse them. It’s that they are awful noisy. I had no idea kids could be so scandalous. I mean, I was a kid once myself, but I don’t remember shouting like to bust eardrums.Well, I’m here to help. I know…more about this affair than you do. I’m acquainted with…well, the person you don’t know from a troglodyte. Was it the troglodytes that built… the you know what.”

“In a couple of hours I will receive an alarming message from this person,” I said. “The Memorion told me I didn’t have to worry about anything.”

“Nevertheless, I mean  to be of help.The Memorion. Maybe he meant I would be here and that’s why you need not worry. That man, Heathie, he does more for my daddy than even I do, really. Because he is always at it. And he barely remembers anything that has to do with himself or the life he doesn’t have, only what is important for your Grandpa to know. That down to the last detail. I feel terrible for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It is his job to see to it that AEternus can keeep things under control. Not just here on the island. But everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. All the time. We don’t give much trouble, the islanders here. We bicker and brawl a lot among us, but the blood never flows to any of our rivers. For instance, my brothers and I, and our northern cousins, we have this lousy reputation, like that we are fatuous fiends because  we sometimes do awful things to each other, but we never go too far. Neither in doing nor in resenting. Because we know it is in no one’s best interest. We start trouble, but we know how and when to stop it. Imagine, if I were to defy Daddy and have the misfortune to win and overthrow him, I would have made a misery of my life. I would have to do everything he does so we could all live in relative peace instead of just walking around my plantation singing now and again. And I don’t see myself playing golf and chess so as not to go crazy, and then paying attention to the Memorion so I can remember what I have to do. To Uncle Belvedere. We don’t even call him that, because he never has much contact with anyone except his sisters and his daughter and of course Grandpa since way before I was born. ”

“I’m glad to hear you all can control yourselves,” I said. “I get very upset when I see people quarrel. Like when Grandpa pretends not to know who Uncle Gentlerain is. And Uncle Gent teases him.”

“Poor Gentie. He is the only one of us who has ever really stood up to Daddy, but not to supplant him or anything terrible like that. Only to try to reason with him. Just because he didn’t want to have to choose between his mothers. That’s the root of their tiff. He learned all sorts of things from Aunt Celestial, Gentie did. Especially how to be independent.  And Daddy hates that. He lets people do as they please, but he doesn’t like it when they don’t do what he would rather they would do. Not that poor Gentie ever does anything wrong. In fact, it’s that he does everything right. And this makes him look like he might be better than everyone else. And who can like that?”

And Uncle Rich said that though my garden was lovely, there were a few flowers he had recently invented and he felt I ought to have them in my garden, so we toured it all, and it is a big garden, so there was room for more flowers in it and he put them here and there.

Bluebeards, tenderhearts, citric pink garlic, Venetian mirrors and a few more. Yes, they were splendid.

“The only one of my kids to take an interest in plants is Crown of Roses," said Uncle Rich.  “She always watches me when I am creating a new flower. And she claps politely when I have. And if she loves the new flower, she flies up and kisses the tip of my nose, poor little thing. She will be little always, you know. Ghost children don’t grow up. Not unless they reincarnate and make it to adulthood in their new life. I have a horror of the idea that she might want to do that one day. But it also makes me sad to think she will always be a baby and all she will be able to do is observe our world.”

And then the Atshebies  came over to play at their dollhouse, that was once at what used to be Cathsheba’s Nook in Minced Forest,  and was now in my garden, and Uncle Rich played hide and seek with them. And thus we spent the morning until my sparrow Wilbert showed up and dropped on the palm of my hand a note he bore in his little beak.

I’m horrified! Something awful is happening here. And I don’t understand what is. There is no one here but me to deal with this. Please come as soon as you can.

That was what the note from Fancy Feverfew said.

“It does sound alarming, yes, the note does,” said Uncle Rich. “I’m so glad it isn’t going to be a real problem we have here.”

325. The Green Elves of the Prestigious Candid Candied Moon Garden Center and Nursery

 325. The Green Elves of  the Prestigious Candid Candied Moon Garden Center and Nursery

“No, Beau!” I said to my boyfriend. “Don’t even think of doing what you’re thinking of doing. It’s not worth it, please!”

“Nobody busts my true love’s garden and gets off scot-free. And much less if it is pinkheads.”

“Who are those?” asked Thistle, who was also outraged and ready to avenge me ferociously.

“It doesn’t matter who they are, just don’t even think of vengeance, And much less in the heat of the moment,” I insisted.

“Look here, sister, you are a fool!” Thistle said to me. “How could you defend Binky? And do it yet while I was trying to get that mystical voice to let us hide him in her cave. Of course Binky was an imbecile! And to top it all you faulted our father! Daddy is our father! And we defend our own! Maybe the poor man unthinkingly suggested Binky hound Uncle Gen, But surely he never thought that idiot would really do it. And so unrelentingly yet!”

“Okay. I hope you are right. I want to think so. I want to believe that Daddy only made the mistake of not taking Mr. Binky seriously.But what a mistake! When you deal with someone who is as mad as a hatter you have to be careful what you say! Sir Mungo was an executive. A person with a boundless will to do what he considered had to be done.”

“Yes, turning our world upside down and against the free will of everyone else. There you’ve nailed him. Binky believed that he was the only person with good intentions in the whole universe and that he knew better than anyone else what was good for everybody and therefore had the right to force his ideas on us and manipulate us as if we were his puppets and he the puppeteer. He didn’t see himself as our equal. He saw himself as a superior being with the right to do what he willed with us. He felt no respect for anyone but himself. Nobody ever had better ideas or intentions than he did,in his own opinion, of course. I have the power. And power is to be used. That is how he thought. Well, in any dictionary, that is the definition of a tyrant. One must not be that, my ultracompassionate sister.”

“Beau! Where are you? Hold it right there! You’re not going to act now like Thistle says Mr. Binky did. This is my garden. I decide what to do about it. Respect me a little.”

For a second I had lost mental contact with Beau, but fortunately he listened to me and returned from wherever he had vanished to.

And once he was visible he said, “Fine. We’ll serve this dish cold. But this is not going to stay like it is.”

“And so it won’t, I have brought people who will leave this place just like it used to be, Heathie,” said Uncle Gentlerain. “Or better than before. If you want to make improvements, now is the time to say so.”

My uncle had appeared in my wreck of a garden with the green elves Sylvan Marsh and Oliver Mallow from the prestigious Candid Candied Moon Garden Center and Nursery, the best of its kind on this island. And with Arley too. Yes, my brother had come too.

“Thank you so much,” I said. “Just like it used to be, please!”

I was truly grateful. To leave my garden like it used to be would have taken me much time and effort. And it was best to have it repaired as soon as possible because the plain sight of the ruin only encouraged Beau and Thistle to think of exterminating  the vandals. For these two, revenge was a priority. For me, and for my uncle, I think, repairing the garden came first.

“They won’t return, sis,” said Arley. “They know what they are searching for isn’t here any longer.”

“But do they know where it is at?”

“Even we have no idea where you’ve hidden Binky. Because it was you who carried him away, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. Actually, rather than nodded, I answered moving my eyebrows. I was that afraid to say that we had moved Mr. Binky.

“The gardeners will remain here working. While there is light, they will clear the garden and remove the debris. When it gets dark, they will plant. Our Moon will do you, Heathie, the favour of going through all five of her phases in one night, so the gardeners can plant everything they mean to. All that grows below the earth and all that grows above it. So as not to disturb, we are all going to my house. All of us, including the Lorcans,” said Uncle Gent. I knew he was saying that because it is safer to speak there. “Like Arley has said, the vultures won’t return. Now they are spying on your father, convinced that he has hidden his prime minister. I made them think so myself. Never in my life did I ever think I would end up aiding my persecutor. But the world revolves and many a turn do events turn.”

At Uncle Gent’s house, Granny Milksops and Pearl were already preparing an early dinner. Our uncle left us in the dining-room and went for Mabelle. Agapeton and Crispin and his brother Anselm had already come out to receive us and were sniffing the Lorcans. Uncle Gent managed to draw his wife out of the library and we began to tell her all that had happened.

“Those of you who are wondering who the pinkheads are, know that Beau can give you the answer,” said Uncle Gent.

“The family of that persistent pest. Not even they could put up with him. They didn’t let him work with them. They left him to his own devices, doing what he could to dominate us.”

“Mr. Binky is a vulture fairy?” I asked. I had never known him to take this shape.

“Not as much as the rest of most of his people. But the obsession with obtaining all there is to be had he did have too. In his way,” said Beau.

“Those people are very calculating. They calculate and calculate. They know that they can lose their powers and turn into mere mortals if they go too far when at their sullen trade. They haven’t wounded any of the Lorcans because that would have made them look more wicked than they wanted to look,” explained Uncle Gent. “I must say they have never messed directly with us. They only deal with the shady ones and the mortals. That is how they justify their acts.”

“Why do they want that mummy back now? These people never sew with threadless needles. They must be up to something,” said Beau.

Uncle Gent shrugged. “I suppose we will eventually find out. For the present we had better not let them have their relative. They should have come for him at the very start of the man’s problem. It wouldn’t have cost them a thing to claim Binky kindly back then. You have never hidden him. He was lying out in the open for all to see. But then, Binky was never much considered by his family. They found him rather second class. They didn’t understand each other. Not much.”

“And you are going to help him? You really want to do that?” Mabelle asked her husband.

“Want to, I don’t want to. But he will have his second chance. Everybody gets one from us. And he has been like annulled for years. Who knows how he thinks now?”

“A second chance to put an end to us, Gentie? Look how we have relaxed since he was knocked out cold.”

“They are going to say you are a fool, uncle,” said Thistle to Uncle Gent.

“That is most likely. But who knows? Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

324. Four and Twenty Grim Birds

 

324. Four and Twenty Grim Birds

Hello! This is Heather speaking. Little Dolphus asked me to narrate this chapter myself because he gets dizzy trying to keep up with the way Beau and I think at the same time and knowing what we are both thinking even when we think differently the one from the other.

In the last chapter, a bird that could not have looked of  iller omen was roosting on Sir Mungo John Binky’s resting place, the glass coffin in which my sister Thistle and I had placed him when he succumbed to the effects of an enormous tin of Shyboy Oil. He had been sleeping off the effects of this oil for years now in that glass and gold coffin in my garden. And looking younger and younger. At first, yearly younger, now monthly younger and we have no idea if he will look weekly, daily or hourly younger or what will happen if he doesn’t wake before he becomes so young as to also become inexistent.

At first this didn’t worry us much. It was happening very slowly. But when the baleful bird began to haunt Mr. Binky’s resting place, we noticed that the prime minister didn’t look a day over twenty. And this scared us. We feared the bird might be waiting for him to be a small child, portable enough to be carried off and fed to its young.

So we decided to hie Mr. Binky off and hide him somewhere else, where the bird could not find him. And Little Dolphus suggested a dolmen known to Esmeraldo and Azuline, an odd and singular construction here in Apple Island. And Beau and Quentin Treadfaster bore the prime minister’s glass coffin between them to the said chamber tomb. And Thistle and I followed them as quietly and discreetly and invisibly as we all could.

Esmeraldo and Azuline were already speaking with the Voice that emerged from the dolmen, telling her – we supposed the voice was female, for it sounded that way – that they had discovered their vocations.

“You said you couldn’t do anyone good any good. You are under a curse that makes you able to only do good to evil beings. And that, of course, results in evil events. Evil you do not wish to propitiate, but indirectly bring about. Well we´ve been thinking about this and we’ve come to a conclusion. We want to tell you about our plans,” said Azuline to the Voice.

“I am going to bust those evildoers you can only do good to. For you,” said tough little Esmeraldo. “They will rue the day they met you.”

“Oh, dear!” said Azuline. “It’s not exactly that way. What we mean to do is the good that you aren’t able to do. And if this requires frustrating the plans of wicked beings, we will be up to it,” explained Azuline. “You told us you were a do gooder fairy. And that is what we want to be. Do good fairies. That will be our vocation.”

The Voice inside the tomb was not too sure the Richearth kids would be able to do what they had decided to do. She said the curse she was under might reach way beyond her. For if she had helped these kids find their true vocation, that had to be an act of goodness, and she couldn’t do good to anyone good. And the kids were good. So…

“Just how far can this curse go?” asked Azuline. “We won’t know unless we try.”

The Voice within the chamber tomb also had misgivings about allowing Mr. Binky to be hidden in there.

“If I let you hide him here, that would be helping good people, wouldn’t it? And I can’t do that.”

And then Thistle said, “Look, Insecure Voice, this fellow we are wanting to  hide here was a jerk when awake. That is who you will be helping.”

“Oh, Thissy,” I said, “it’s not exactly like that. He believed himself to have the best of intentions, but hardly anyone thought he did. At least not the Apple Islanders.”

“He made a misery of one of our uncles, who is probably the best of our mother’s brothers when it comes to being helpful and of service to others. And he made a misery out of our uncle’s  harmless wife too. Don’t say Binky wasn’t a jerk, Heathie, because he was.”

“All that was our father’s fault. It was Daddy’s idea that got him to go after Uncle Gentlerain.”

“Gentlerain?” said the Voice. “I know your uncle. If this fellow you are transporting was mean to someone as kind and obliging as Gentie Goodfellow, maybe I can let him hide here after all.”

And that was settled, because we grabbed at that straw as fast as we could and shoved the coffin into the cave before the Voice got the chance to change its mind.

“We’ll be in touch with you, whoever you are, Voice,” said Thistle. “But we have to make very discreet contact. Nobody must know Mr. Binky is in there with you.”

We agreed to communicate through two of my pet sparrows, who would keep us in touch in case anything went wrong. We swore the Voice and Esmeraldo and Azuline to utter silence on the subject of Mr. Binky and then Beau and Quentin and Thistle and I returned home.

And when I reached my garden…it was no longer one. It couldn’t have looked worst! All the bushes had been uprooted, and the trees almost so too. Holes of at least six feet had been dug all over the grounds, that were all raked. A true disaster area it was. And we could only conclude that someone had thought we had buried Mr. Binky and was trying to dig him up. And Thistle’s Lorcans, her pet dogs specially created by Finbar O’Toora, were howling and growling and confirming that our suspicions were true.

Yurick, Cedrick, Alderick, Roderick, Herrick and Worrick told us what had happened, yelping in unison and in verse because they were still overexcited.

“Sing a song of many pence,

Many less have I! 

Four and twenty blackbirds

Descended from up high.

When they touched the ground,

They all began to rake

With sharp claws the good soil

Trying holes to make,

Seeking for a coffin

With their beady eyes.

When we started barking,

They cawed bloodcurling cries!

We tried to seize their long necks,

But they outnumbered us.

They tried to peck our noses,

A back and forth there was!

Pandemonium, pandemonium,

We all began to raise!

We tore off their black feathers,

See ‘em strewn all o’er the place.

Finding naught but resistance,

The pinkheads off they fled,

And all that’s left to say is

All we’ve to say’s been said."

“I know who they are,” said Beau, and his face was worth seeing, so rigid was it that I was more scared of him and his intentions than of the desolation before me.

323. The Vulture and the Dolmen

323. The Vulture and the Dolmen

I, Little Dolphus, the intellectual Leafy, was sitting on the shady  branch of an apple tree in Heather FitzTitania and FitzOberon’s garden when I heard a shout.

“What is it?” I asked Heather, for it was she who had shouted, as I found when I flew towards the noise.

“Shoo! Shoo!” she was crying at a huge bird, the colour of a black vulture but the size of a formidable condor,  that was staring at her with great contempt.

“Go away!” I shouted at the vulture, and it turned to face me with a contempt even greater, of course.

“It won’t go!” said Beaurenard Leonado Flynn. “I’ve chased it away before, but it keeps coming back. And it won’t say what it wants. But it must have something to do with that fellow you keep in that glass coffin, because it is on that box that it always perches.”

“Oh, dear!” said Heather, very worried.  “Maybe we should get Thistle to deal with it. She’s tougher than all three of us together.”

“I’m asking you nicely. Please leave,” said Beau to the vulture. “You’re molesting my girlfriend. Don’t make me chase you away again. It´s too hot for that today.  Go now. You´ll be back when you please, anyway. We’re getting to know each other, aren’t we?”

The vulture turned from Beau to Heather. And then it flew off.

“What can this mean?” Heather went to the glass coffin and studied Mr. Binky. “He seems to be resting placidly and doesn’t look as if he’s been disturbed. But he is getting to look very young. If he sleeps himself into childhood, the vulture might snatch him to feed its young. Oh, what a horrible thought! This can’t be happening in Apple Island! There are no vultures here.”

“Maybe we should bury him somewhere else,” said Beau.

“I know where!” I said.

Wheras Hum and Rosendo had found their vocations very early in life and both worked at them with a one track mind, she as a singer and he as a beautician, Azuline and Esmeraldo were still wondering what to do with their lives. She had learned how to build ships, but didn’t think she wanted to dedícate her life to that. He had learned it was better not to be a pirate, especially if you didn’t need to be one. They would spend most of their time wandering about their father’s plantation, knowing there was no need for them to be farmers, but doing some exercise, walking and walking and meandering about. And then, one day, when they were near the entrance gate, they decided to walk outside. There was no  reason why they must not do their walking somewhere else on Apple Island.  The Island was the safest of places.

“Where shall we head for?” Azuline asked her brother.  “Grandma Divina’s? So she will give us some tutti-fruitti  ice cream? She probably won’t be at home. Grandpa’s golf course? So Rhubarb will give us lunch? It’s early for that.”

“And Grandpa is cranky,” said Esmeraldo. “We’d better not trouble him.”

“East, West, North or South?” Azuline asked.

“Let’s follow the sun,” said Esmeraldo. And they followed it until noon.

“Where are we?” wondered Azuline. “It’s getting very hot and we don’t know where we are, but though we are safe in this island, and have only to wish to be back home to get there,  we have passed by countless homes, quaint houses and tall castles, humble huts and  impressive palaces, I would like to know where we are at.”

“We are where the sun has hit its peak,” said Esmeraldo. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

“It is right on top of that hill,” said Azulime, pointing at a mound . “Shall we end our walk there?·

They strolled slowly round the hill until they came to the back that was the real front of it and they saw a large horizontal stone over two vertical ones marking the entrance to a cave. A cave that held a great yellow light within.

“Who lives there?” they wondered.

“It can’t be the sun, who has entered that cave. No, despite the great light, no,”  said Azuline. “The sun is out here and above.”

“I’m going to find out,” said Esmeraldo, always ready for adventure.

They walked up to the stone portal and a voice called out, “Please don’t come in. This is a chamber tomb."

“Oh!” said Azuline. She and Esmeraldo exchanged a look before she asked the voice, “Are you a ghost?”

“No and yes.”

“Oh! How can that be?” asked Azuline.

“That can’t be!” contributed Esmeraldo. And then he added, “Can it?”

“I’m not dead, but I am the ghost of whom I used to be.”

“And who were you?” asked Esmeraldo.

“If we may ask,” added Azuline.

“Well, since you have,  I used to be a do-gooder fairy. Do you know what that is? Do-gooders  wander around the world trying to do good wherever they are. Please don’t confuse us with comeuppance fairies. Those can reward good people but more often chastise the bad.”

“Well, why are you asking  us to go away instead of doing us some good?” asked Esmeraldo.

“That’s just it. You seem to be nice kids, though curious. You are asking questions but you haven’t barged in here ignoring my petition. I can’t do you any good. Not anymore. I’m under a curse. I can’t do good to good  people . Only to bad people. So I’ve built myself this tomb and I’ve retired from the world of the living. I’m not dead, so I have no place in the underworld and just sit here. I can’t do good even to myself and  I don’t want to favor bad people and help them with their wicked plans. Or become evil myself.”

 “Oh!” exclaimed Azuline. “That…that is quite a problem you have. And…I think… the next question we should ask is if we can be of help to you. Can we do you any good?”

I, Little Dolphus told all this about the cave tomb to Heather and Beau.

“Perhaps the do-gooder in there is a real do-gooder and won’t mind sharing the chamber tomb he or she is hiding in with Mungo Binky. There aren’t many tombs in Apple Island. Barely any at all, except for the Marvel on Chalice Hill, to my knowing,” I said to Heather and to Beau.

“If we take the coffin to the dolmen right now, while the vulture is gone, maybe it won’t know where to find it,” said Beau. “We can make it and ourselves invisible while we move it. This may be an emergency we have here. We’ll have to act fast.”