214. Black Diamonds

 

214. Black Diamonds

When my little cousins’ party was over, Alpin told me he would not require my services on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. He meant to be his sister and brother-in-law’s guest at their mansion. It would be Branna who would keep an eye on him there. At first I thought he was piqued because I had told him that one had to be a really mean person to throw cute little cookies at tiny girls who were stretching out their littles hands but could not catch them because they were under a spell. But I soon realized that it was more likely he was cooking up some scheme that would bring fresh trouble. However, I couldn’t invite myself to Branna and Richearth’s house, so I had to let him go his way. I would try to take his advice and enjoy my extra-long weekend. I don’t have to work on Friday nights and only return to work on Monday mornings, and now I had three more days of freedom. Come Monday, I would start to worry about what he might have been plotting during my absence. On Wednesday, the truth be told, I did nothing but sleep like a groundhog, that tired was I. When I woke up on Tuesday morning, I rushed to the breakfast nook to see how my parents were. I found Dad there. He was not wearing a crown as he usually does. He had a bandage round his head instead.

“How awful!” I cried. “How are you? And Mum?”

“Your mum is still sleeping. At least she wasn’t dented by your uncle Wildgale. Or maybe it is that she is tougher than I am.”

“No, Dad. Just more resilient.”

“Whatever. Tell that troublemaking friend of yours that I mean to pay him back for this. Of course, it is quite likely that I might not, because as soon as my headache disappears I will probably prefer not to even think of that abominable kid and won’t seek revenge.”

“Are you sure Mum is okay?”

“Yes, son, yes. Your mother and her brothers look a lot wimpier than my brothers and myself, but when they hit the roof they turn into bona fide monsters. How awful Wildgale is, by Og!  Blowing us off left and right!”

“Understand that he was trying to protect his daughters.”

“Sure. Of course I understand that. Look!” Dad pointed at the picture window that gave a view of the entrance to the palace. “Here comes your uncle Gentlerain, the most civilized of my brothers-in-law to all appearances. Seeing him in action yesterday must have come as a shock to many.”

“I thought the most civilized of my uncles was Evenfall.”

“Evenfall isn’t a man. He is a dream. Well, Wildgale must have given Gentlerain what for yesterday too, because he is obviously limping. Hey!” Dad squinted so he could get a better look at Uncle Gen, who was moving very slowly towards the palace. “I think one of his hands is bandaged.Val must have bitten him when he tried to cover Val’s mouth. Have you any idea what a catastrophe could have occurred if your windy uncle had been allowed to huff and to  puff and to blow  us all off?  The least that would have happened is that all those present would all have fallen with a crash into your granddaddy’s toxic garden, poisoned by that psycopath he insists on employing.”

“Hi, Arley! How are you, Obi?” said Uncle Gentlerain when he got to the breakfast nook.

“How are you?”

“Waiting to be better tomorrow.”

“So am I. Have you come to see me or your sister?”

“I’ve come to tell you both that under no circumstance must we allow the winter solstice party to be celebrated at your father-in-law’s place.”

“It’s years now that this party is being celebrated at Richearth’s plantation.”

“But now he is married and his wife might not want to host bedlam in her new home. After all that happened yesterday, this wouldn’t surprise me,” said Uncle Gen.

“Bah! It would be really bad luck if we were to suffer two brouhahas one after another in such short time. Besides, I think it was only us who were mangled. You, Wildgale, Titania and I. Surely no one else was injured?”

“Oh, yes. We may have lost our electrician.”

“What?”

“Poor Lucerna, who tried to catch for the babies the cookies the Unchangedling was flinging at the them, was hit on the head by the first hammer cast at the girls. She fell to the ground unconscious without anyone’s noticing and remained there till Evenfall woke all the kids he had put to sleep. When people began to pick up the gifts lying on the floor, they found her under a pile of them. Poor thing, with all her lights off.”

“But is she in so sad a state that she won’t be able to take charge of the lighting?”

Shimmery Aunt Lucerna is always in charge of illumination during our family parties, something very important that no one gives her enough credit for. I felt awful when I heard how she had been injured and no one had come to her aid.

“Henny is doing all he can to get her to recover, but he says it will take more than arnica and valerian to heal her. Her bruises will soon disappear, but the state of shock she’s in will need more to wear off than a ton of linden tea. We might have to ask Arley for the phone number of his psychiatrist.”

 “Doctor Freud?” I said. “It’s years since I last saw him. But I’ll find him if necessary.”

“I’ve spoken with Brightfire, who is always in charge of heating. But he says that if he is to take care of the lighting it will all be candlelight and people being as careles as they are we could have a fire. Poor Wildgale has offered to generate electricity, but it’s not a question of having him blowing away during all the Christmas season.”

“Don’t let Wild even breath!” shouted Dad. “What a fiend!” he then whispered.

“Christmas in the dark then.”

“You’ll find a solution, Gen. You always do.”

At this point Mum came downstairs, still in her négligée and looking like a sleep-walker.

“Am I stiff!” she exclaimed, stretching out and muttering ow, ow, ow.

She and Gen began to discuss where the solstice party should be held and while at it they said a lot of unkind but probably truthful things about their father and the garden gnome Botolph.

“I don’t know what to call Papa when we are arguing about Botolph without being insulting,” said Uncle Gen. “I’ve been telling him for centuries that no matter how spectacular his gardens look that gnome has to go.”

“I rememer the first time you discussed this with Papa, Gen. It was Easter. We were four years old. Mum had called the hare-lady Eastra and asked her to come personally to fill our garden with the loveliest painted eggs so we kids could enjoy gathering them. There we alll were with  our little baskets, so excited, waiting enthusiastically for the signal that we could skip and hop all over the garden like tiny rabbits in search of those lovely eggs! We were babies! Where you there, Obi?”

“Yes, vomiting like the best,” said Dad.

“That crazy man waited till Eastra finished hiding the eggs that night and when dawn broke immediately fumigated the garden without giving anyone notice. When you all entered it and began to become ill, he said, as cross as two sticks, that the garden had to be fumigated that day. He couldn’t postpone his plans even for a couple of hours.”

“He neither could nor wanted to, Gen,” said Mum. “You were lucky in that you let everyone else go first because most were younger than you were. You scolded Papa and told him kids had to be able to play in the garden of their house. And he replied that Botolph was the lord of those gardens and everyone had to do as he said, hush and obey. Or something awful would happen to them.”

“It already was happening,” said Dad. “At least to me.”

“That was exactly like Papa. He is always telling people horrible things will happen to them if they don’t behave properly. Didn’t you hear him yesterday? He told poor Wild that his daughter would be just like Botolph through his own fault.”

“Yes, he did say something like that,” agreed Mum, while Dad shook his hurting head in desperation. “He told Wildie that he was being paid back for having laughed at Botolph. Now he had a child named after the gnome. Hey, he also threatened the rest of you with divine justice to come.”

“And poor Wild, so worried how his daughters will turn out, had to hear that and conclude that his elder daughter and the crazy gnome might have more in common than a first name. As if it were Wild’s fault that this gnome is insane! It’s true that Papa never hit or punished us, but he always harmed our psyches telling us that sooner or later something awful would happen to us for having misbehaved. He said this with such conviction that we would freeze and stand there waiting for the sky to open and be hit by lightning.”

“People here have always frightened kids a lot with different kinds of bogeymen. But why did you believe all the nonsense Papa said? Didn’t you see that nothing ever happened afterwards?”

“Ah, but it did! Something always ended up happening. Papa said he had nothing to do with that, but there was no proving he didn’t. Matters were never clear. And all those bogeys exist, sister. More or less under control, but in existence. I know because my job is to control them.”

“Well, yesterday,” I said timidly, “Botolph was kind to the little girl with his name and with Gretel too. He gave them packets of wonderful seeds I would love to have myself and pendants made of serpentine that will protect the girls from snakes.”

“Serpents he himself lets loose in his gardens. Which are not his gardens. They are Papa’s, no matter that Papa lets that madman do as he pleases with them,” insisted my uncle.

“Well, you see, Botolph likes girls better than boys,” said Mum. “When I was little, we would complain to Dad that his gardener didn’t let us gather flowers or chase butterflies out there. But the gnome did allow us to hold little tea parties  in that lime green pavilion that looks as if it’s made of lace provided that we went there following the stone path. And he actually decorated the table for us with little vases that held flowers he had chosen for us himself. According to him, you boys didn’t watch where you stepped or minded what you tore when you played in the garden.”

“Well, I don’t think these new wave little girls will play much at tea parties,” said Uncle Gen.

“What they won’t be able to play with is a ball,” said Dad. “Not while everything cast at them bounces off.”

“Have you seen the Australian sharks Richearth has given the little girls to keep as pets? He heard their mother meant to build a moat round their house and while on his honeymoon he bought these creatures for them to house there.They have these frightful teeth that-”

“Heck! Don’t tell me horror stories, Gen!” said Dad. “You’re a worse doomsayer than your father. Nothing ever really happens, Gen.”

“Says the man with the bandage on his head.”

“This is nothing but my fault for having panicked when I saw you and my wife taking on Val, swatting and kicking and rolling on the floor among the mists of the clouds!”

“I pummeled and pummeled him with my handbag but there was no way he could be  knocked out cold,” said Mum.

“So I feared you would need help to reduce him and I made the mistake of  leaping into the fray.”

“And you got a kick on the forehead for your efforts. But no, nothing ever happens.”

“Because we lost our heads! Look how Evenfall put an end to the commotion in a blink.”

“He didn’t reduce Wild, but okay, you win. Nothing ever happens.”  

Then I, who was feeling guilty of not having kept Alpin from casting the cookies of discord at my cousins, decided to apologize for this. 

“But what nonsense are you saying? No apologizing, kid, no!” exclaimed Uncle Gen. “All this is the result of a cumulus of weird circumstances. Why, you’ve been very professional controlling Alpin. What you went through this summer! Precisely, I must say I have something for you.”

My uncle drew out of one of his pockets a brown envelope that he handed to me.

“Remember how I said we would pay you? We always settle at the end of  the mortal year. Well, this is what we owe you, aside from many, many thanks.Taxfree, thanks to me, and with compensation for all your expenses taken into account, for how else can one work properly?”

I opened the envelope, which seemed to be quite full of something that turned out to be shimmery black stones I spilled in a pile on the breakfast table.

“This year we are paying in black diamonds,” said my uncle. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“How lovely, Arley!” cried Mum. “You can make yourself a grand crown.”

“Yes, they are indeed pretty. But I will give them to you, since you like them,” I said to Mum.

“No! I will only accept one and as a Christmas gift. And this since it is the first time you are being paid and I know you will insist if I don’t.”

“I’ll have a ring made for you and another for Dad and a third for Uncle Gen.”

“No, not for me. I’ve been paid with these same stones myself,” said my uncle.

“Well then, what I have to do now is visit Aunt Lucerna and tell her how I hope she gets well soon,” I said. “I will give her a couple of these stones so she can make herself earrings. She’s bound to like them even if they absorb light. They may not be flashy, but they’re sure special.”