187. Weaknesses

187. Weaknesses

One noon I was returning from a stroll with Dreamboat. Though I now knew what my ideal home would look like, I still hadn’t claimed it. I still lived in Mum and Dad’s palace. I was taking Dreamboat back to the stables when something attracted my attention. I saw there was a figure wrapped in a blue, hooded cloak standing with a large, five-tier lunch-basket before a grove of elms. For a second I thought of Rosina, but only for a second. This being was taller.

“Hello there!” I cried. “Can I be of help?”

The figure looked up and then around, as if it didn’t know where the voice that had spoken came from, though I was right there before it, only a prudent few feet away.

“Oh, thank goodness!” said Blue Hood. It lifted its hood and showed its face. There was Aunt Mabel, looking lost and a little worried and quite dizzy. At first I thought it might be because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. But those glasses are the kind Thymian also wears. They are only for reading damaged ancient writings. They help you decipher texts offering different versions of missing words, pictograms  or letters. That´s all they do for you, and if you leave them on, as Thymian does, when you aren’t reading such texts, it is because you are absentminded or lazy.

“Aunt Mabel!” I exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

“I am now,” she said. “Because  you are here. It’s been so long since I’ve stepped out of my house that I don’t quite remember how it is done. Wandering about in the world, I mean.”

“But why are you outside? And alone?”

“I thought I would go see your mother, since Gen has kicked me out of the house.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Will you let me take you by the arm? I’m a little giddy,” she said.

I went right up to her and took the large basket and offered her my other arm.

“I can claim my ideal home,” I said. “And you can live there. It will be just like yours.”

“What are you saying, dear? Ohhhh!”

And Mabel began to laugh.

“Thank you so much!” she said squeezingmy arm. “That’s so generous of you! But what I said is not what it sounded like. I was able to keep Gen distracted for five days, and then I lowered my guard and he suddenly got up this morning and vanished. I was worried, so I checked in my crystal ball. And do you know where he was?”

“You can see the PSP in your crystal ball?”

“No,  nobody can. But he wasn’t working. Well, not there. He was with Cobweb, who was hiring a team of cleaners for him. That man…no wonder they call him the butler! He reappeared with the cleaners, plus painters, upholsterers, carpenters and gardeners. You can’t imagine what he brought back with him. Even bothy boys. And cavers. Do you know what that is? They clean the inside of caves and secret passageways beneath the house. I couldn’t work with all that turmoil going on. Impossible to concentrate. Plus he kept interrupting me to ask which colour I wanted the doors  painted, or if I preferrred leather or silk upholstery, you know. All those things that are so pretty but matter next to nothing to me if I have to do them myself. So I thought it was the right moment to visit your mum, who wanted to see me and I owed her a visit, so I called her, and she said to come have lunch." 

I smiled.

“You won’t want to help me decorate my house then,” I said.

“Heavens, no! You ask your uncle to do that. They say he has very good taste. And he knows all the good workers. Me, I don’t mind living with fairy dust, and fairy mould doesn’t scare me. We’re on good terms. All I have ever done is cast peppercorns at the books on the shelves, because my father used to do that. He said it kept them from being eaten by bugs. Of course, he lived in an area that was almost human. A shared zone, with bugs that need to eat to survive. None of those here. And no uninvited bugs of any kind in ideal homes. I have ladybugs and dragonflies in the garden. I like those. And glowworms at night. I told Gen he has to be careful what he does in the garden. I don´t like these square, perfectly trimmed gardens with exasperating  mazes I slip into by mistake and have to concéntrate hard to find my way out of. Nor do I like one single lone scraggly tree gardens.”

“Neither do I,” I said.

“Flowers, lots of flowers, the wilder the better,” nodded Mabel, “Tons of green and lots of colourful spots.”

Suddenly, Aunt Mabel’s pocket crystal ball tinkled. She pulled it out of her pocket and it was Mum, scolding her.

“Where on earth are you, Mabel, you clumsy thing? Can’t you ever get anywhere in time? Are you lost as usual? I’ll send someone for you.”

“No need. Arley is here with me,” answered my aunt.

“Well, what are you waiting for? For the stars to be propitious?”

“We´re right by. At the stables, Mum,” I said, showing myself in the glass. “We´ll be right there.”

Heather and Thistle didn’t find Mabel impossible to talk to either. She didn’t say anything about Asinius Gallus or recite boring economic history facts. She told us a lot of anecdotes about our parents when they were children and about our ancestors and identified all the people in the portraits hanging on the walls of the galleries we passed through. She even identified the pet dogs and cats and other animals in the portraits and told us all about them and even how all these people and pets could be summoned when needed. When she left, she said for me to be sure to come to her house the next day, which was Saturday, because Gen worked very fast and everything was sure to be in order by then. The girls would come to tea later in the afternoon. Ah! And the five tier basket contained all sorts of goodies baked by Granny Milksops that my brothers made short work of in the evening when I went to dine with them.

Later, I saw Aunt Mabel home so she wouldn’t get lost. From a distance, we saw Uncle Gen speaking with the cavers, who were miner dwarfs.

“Aren’t kobolds dangerous?” I asked.

“Only for miners. And sometimes for uncautious explorers,” explained Aunt Mabel. “They almost always get the wrong people. But they saved your uncle’s life.”

“He was in a cave in?”

“No. I’ll tell you a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone that can’t be trusted. Your uncle once had to hide in a mine. He was there for a while and then he began to like almost die. The kobolds came out of their lurking places and saved him.”

“He was bitten by a bat or there was poisonous  gas or something?”

“No. The secret is he is allergic to cobalt. You mustn’t tell anyone about this weakness of his. You know how it is with us and our weaknesses. Most fairies have problems with iron. Your uncle is fine with iron. But he always carries an antidote to cobalt the dwarfs gave him. Still, don’t mention this to anyone. I’m telling you so you can save him in case he has an emergency. They say we love others more for what we do for them than for what they do for us. You know how it is with people who have been able to help someone else. They are so proud of having done that, that they love the person they have saved. So it is with your uncle and these dwarfs.  They adore him. These dwarfs originally lived in a semi-human area, and when the humans began to take it all over and waste it, the kobolds went on the warpath. The kobolds swore they would destroy their mountain before surrendering it and caved the mines in and some humans became ghosts and the dwarfs  were in danger of becoming human themselves. Your uncle stopped the conflict giving these kobolds a  mountain he owned in totally private fairy space. It took some persuading but they moved there and people said he was dealing in cheap labour because he didn’t pay them, but the truth was he had given them the mountain. He was no longer the owner of those mines.These are endless, everlasting  mines if you administer them properly and the humans have no access to them. The dwarfs have a deed, but they couldn’t show it, because Mr. Binky said this donation couldn’t be allowed even if your uncle paid the donation taxes. You know what? Your mother thought up the ideal home policy when she saw how Gen had successfully resettled the kobolds.”  

Back home Mum and I spoke about Aunt Mabel. And I learned she was Uncle Gen’s third weakness.

“She used to go out more,” said Mum. “Not as much as most of us do, that never. But when you consider she hasn’t gone anywhere in the past three hundred years, it’s no wonder she can’t find her way about.”

“Why did she lock herself up?”

“She was being used against Gen. When he disappeared, they followed her everywhere thinking he would try to get in touch with her. Inside our ideal homes, no one uninvited may break in. And only really potent magic mirrors can reach your reflection. So she just stayed there. She said she was sure he would show when he was finally able to. And it turned out she was right. And she got used to being in there, I suppose. It wasn’t pleasant for her out here anymore anyway. People were always baiting her. Even people who had no interest in Gen but only wanted to molest her kept calling her and asking her if she knew where her husband was. She received all these mean, anonymous calls. That started way back, when Aislene was looking for a husband and decided to see if Gen might suit her. At first people thought Gen would rain on her and her fire would die. But it didn’t work that way.  Because the moment a woman makes him think she likes him, he feels it is his duty to be grateful for the attention and make her happy. He doesn’t want to disappoint them. In his discharge, I must say he never starts anything. But it costs  him not to finish it, once started. But  you know how it is with Aislene. There is no happy ending. Mortal men are consumed and die, fay men waste away so badly they have to hole up in a cave or a tree and sleep for centuries to be even shades of themselves once Aislene discards them. Fortunately we were able to save Gen before that happened, but it  took some doing. You are probably thinking Mabel has no blood in her veins because she didn’t fight off Aislene. But wives and fianceés  can do nothing, because their intervention only makes matters worse, weakening their men further. So Mabel stayed at home confiding that Gen would be able to break free. She did speak with Aunt Aureabel. Only the elder fairies can unhex here. Even my mother was too young to deal with this.  Very grand and great dames  Aureabel, Mikala and Mabinia had to unite forces to shoo off Aislene and knock Gen out of his trance. They bothered to do it because they liked him and didn’t want to lose him. But even they couldn’t manage to rescue him until Aunt Una added herself to their trio. This confrontation with the four pillars gave Aislene a lot of prestige. It showed how strong she was. People began to speculate that Brightfire might be the one to out burn Aislene. They were all waiting expectantly to see that conflagration. Or Wildgale blow her out, if he didn’t just fan her fire. Evenfall we have never had to worry about. He is the only one that really knows how to be elusive. Now you see him, now you don’t. But fortunately  Brightfire and Wildgale were too young for the Demon Bride to prey on. Aislene is kind to children. It was young men she love-hated with some kind of a vengeance. Aislene has never been known to mess with anyone under twenty or over forty. Fortunately, Aislene attracted Ernest before my other brothers got to be old enough for her to try her luck with. People say Ernest survives her because his head isn’t connected to his body. Anyway, enough sordid details. The case is people know your uncle loves Mabel and that if they hurt her, they hurt him. So she got herself out of the way by holing up. More of a cane than an oak, Mabel. Wait for the storm to blow over and bend not break, and all that. For a long time after Aislene, your uncle holed up some too, and they were very happy, but then the Binky chase thing happened. You know the rest. Have you seen what Gen has done to the floor of his home? It looks like you are stepping on a continuation of the sea. The floor turns the colour you see in the water outside the windows.”     

When I got to see the house is when I realized how shabby it had been. I hadn’t noticed the paint on the ceiling was peeling, or rather, I had, but it hadn’t mattered enough to make me remember that. Other signs of deterioration I had overlooked  too. To me, it was a charming place as it was. Now it was spectacular, sumptuous and imposing. But there was something about the tattered and touchingly decadent way it had looked that had made it both mysterious and endearing.