158. The Fetching

 158. The Fetching

And Cespuglio went to Teddy Bosk to fetch his brother, that is, to fetch me. This time he came while the sun was still around, and I saw it smile at me from behind Ces, as my brother and two teddies waved to attract my attention.  When they had, Ces gave a little cough, and in his low, hoarse voice, he said, “Alpin Dullahan wants to see you.”

I was quiet for a moment and then I said, “I’m not sure I want to see him.”

“You’re being resentful,” said the Teddies. “We never are. We always answer calls.”

The poor things were rarely, to my knowledge, called, though there is a small pool here where they sometimes see their former masters remembering them. There is a flash in the water and then an image appears and it says something like “Whatever became of ...?” The speaker’s teddy’s name is mentioned and the teddies get all excited and call the mentioned teddy and he looks into the pool and sheds a tear into the water when the image vanishes as easily as he does from his once owner’s thoughts.

“I’m not being resentful,” I said. “It’s not Alpin’s fault I feel sad.”

“It’s things that happen,” nodded the teddies. “But you are being resentful with whatever makes them happen.”

That I could not deny. So I got on my feet and followed Cespuglio to the Dullahan home. When we stood before the door, I suddenly thought that it was Alpin’s fault that all this  had happened. He had eaten fouled up blackberries way back, fruit he should never have touched. And all sorts of dreadful things had happened since the Pookah’s curse had fallen on him. As I stood there, I forefelt that more dreadful things were about to happen. That puny little grotesque apple Alpin now was would push me into more trouble, just as his rail thin, voracious real self had before. I felt an urge to run back to the forest and was about to, but Cespuglio noticed and held me back, placing his rough as bark hand round my arm. Then Mrs. Dullahan was at the door, and I have never been able to resist the emerald green eyes of the ex demon bride. They were beaming now on me, so happy that I had come.  Uneasy as I was, I stepped into the house for her sake.

“Oh, Arley, love! Such long time no see, my precious! You look a little weatherworn,”

“Scraggy and feral,” I admitted.

“Ah, but there’s that comely face of yours,” she said, brushing my unkempt hair from my forehead, “enticing as sweet, fresh-baked bread, with those gentle nutbrown eyes.”

“They’re nutbrown today?” I asked smiling. Sometimes they were forest green, and other times very red, because of my allergy to pollen. “Yours are gleaming like emeralds,” I said to the former Demon Bride,  “as enchanting as ever.”

 She smiled mysteriously, as if she knew hers were wonderful eyes indeed but didn’t want to go into that. “Don’t think they haven’t cried,” she whispered.

“We can’t allow that,” I said immediately.

“My son wants to see you,” she said. “And I am so happy he does and you are here to let him do this. It breaks my heart to see him sitting there in a bowl on the credenza wanting nothing out of life but to shut his little eye and be as still as a wax fruit. And now he’s suddenly said he needed to see you! That’s all he’s said in years except for season’s greetings during the winter holidays and us round the fire and that he said with an effort, just to please us. And you are here! You are so kind, you loveable boy!“ And she turned to Cespuglio and asked, “Who else would drop his business and come at an apple’s bidding, but this amiable child, capable of befriending a fruit?”

Ces smiled. He gave a self-conscious little cough, but he didn’t say a word. It was clear he was smitten and under Aislene’s spell too.

“I can’t thank you enough for bringing him,” said Miss Aislene, her eyes still sizing up Ces, probably for future further use.

“What can I do for Alpin?” I asked.

“I have no idea. He’ll have to tell you himself. Will you allow him to, dear?”

I nodded, and she drew me into the formal dining room with an ivory hand that was  soft as  satin but a little colder than it should have been, though that didn’t diminish its charm. It only made you want to warm it.  She pointed at a large wooden  sideboard with four doors that had yellow sunflowers carved on them. On its flat top was a lace doily and on that, covered by a glass urn, was a large  porcelain bowl full of wax fruits. Among them sat Apple Alpin, his one eye shut and looking more like a blemish on this fruit than the powerful talisman it was.

“To think he can sit there without gobbling up the fruit, even if it is wax,” Mrs. Dullahan said ruefully. “It was always empty when he was alive. Oh!” she covered her mouth in fright. “I shouldn’t have said that! Of course he is alive, my little one! My youngest baby is only under a spell, poor hexed, helpless little thing!”

Mrs. Dullahan raised the glass urn and set it aside. “Wake up, dear,” she purred to Alpin. “Your best friend is here to see you.”