218. Epon

218. Epon

At last we reached flatland, a sort of small plateau, not very wide, but not too narrow either, where we could move with comfort. They air one breathed was different there, and one felt like trapping the wisps of clouds that passed floating by.

“Here is where I will leave you,” said Fons. “You know the way back and it is less likely that he will become angry if he sees just one person instead of two. Nothing bad will happen, but call us if you need us.”

I thought it would not be the fauns I would call, considering how much it had cost Fons to get to where we were, but I thanked him and said goodbye.

“Don’t be afraid, whatever you see. There is no evidence that Epon has ever harmed anyone,” said Fons before leaving. But he didn’t look too sure.

From where I was standing I could see a stable or a barn and a pen. I went towards these. When I got to the pen, I almost turned back. It wasn’t the half dozen skulls nailed to the wooden planks that formed part of the pen. Nor was it because of the four mares that were kept in there. Nor because the water in their drinking trough was red. It was because of the arms and legs strewn on the ground, half covered by snow.

“Don’t ******* let what that fool has ******* staged here impress you.”

I turned, but to see my uncle Brightfire standing behind me.

“Plastic, like ******** Barbies. And puking tomato sauce.”

I wasn’t sure I could believe this.

“You don’t believe me?” said my uncle, reading my mind. “Well, you had better. One day, someone is going to ******* leap at Epon’s throat for having this revolting junk out here. We aren’t all **** ** *** ***** cowards who run off at the sight of bloody ****! One day someone is going to take heart and give that stupid ass a bad fright.”

“What are you doing here, uncle?” I asked.

“Gen said you left to fetch Elysio. I’m here to make ****** sure you do. I’m sick of the idea of having to take charge of the lighting during the holidays. Blooming Elysio is going to come back home with us yes or yes.  And Lucerna will get up. EPOOOOOOON!” Uncle Fi suddenly shouted at the barn. “Come out of the stable, you stubborn ass, or I’ll set fire to it with you inside.”

“I´m your brother!” I shouted, when I saw no one was coming out. “I’m with Brightfire. We only want to ask you a question!”

I turned to my uncle and asked him not to burn anything just yet.

“Can’t we just walk in there?”

“If you want to be maybe bitten by a spider and aren’t affected by hay.”

I hadn’t remembered that stables and barns are usually full of hay. Would I have a bad fit of allergy? It could happen.

“Come out or we’ll raze the barn to the ground!” I shouted.

My uncle laughed.

“Well,” he said, “you do learn fast.”

“We’re not going to do it, are we?” I whispered.

“We´ll see,” said my uncle. “You stay out here, since hay isn’t friendly to you. It’s not my thing either. It burns up too ******* fast.”

My uncle entered the barn. Some shouting was heard and then he was outside again, dragging what seemed to be a sack that wiggled.

“You put him in a sack?” I gasped. I was no longer sure who or what I had to be afraid of.

“What are you saying? Why would I put anyone in a ******* sack? I look like a ****** bogeyman to you? Yeeees! I do.”

 “No!” I assured him. “It’s just that the sack keeps wiggling.”

“Of course. This is Epon. But I didn’t put him in there.”

“Epon,” I said to the sack, “we don’t want to bother you. We only want to find Elysio and take him back home with us.”

“And that’s what we will do,” Uncle Fi said to the sack. “So you’d better hand him over while the handing is good.”

The sack stretched and stood up straight. It was made of a thick, beige cloth and had turquoise and corral and lapis lazuli beads sewn to it. With Epon standing straight it looked a little like a  teepee.

“I have no idea why you are wrapped up in that cloth,” I said, trying to calm Epon, though I couldn’t see that he was nervous. “I´m your brother Arley. I don’t know why you don’t want to live with us. If it is because of Mum, she’ll take you in. She takes everyone in. And I know Dad wanted to bring you home ages ago. Tell us where Elysio is and we’ll all four go have dinner at the palace. It’s getting late.”

Epon said nothing, but Uncle Brightfire said a lot.

“He’s not your ******* brother. He doesn’t belong to your mother or your father, like the ****** gossips say.”

“But Dad found him,” I said. “And he wanted to bring him home. I know because I heard the horses at Darcy’s stables murmuring about this. He refused to come. Look here, Epon, I’m a very ordinary-looking person. But I can assure you that there are a lot of very peculiar people among us. You won’t stand out for being weird.”

“You see?” my uncle suddenly shouted at the teepee. “All this nonsense of yours has brought nothing but confusion and delusions. And fodder for jabbering tongues. But nobody is going to say anything mean about my sister because of you.”

My uncle turned to me and said, “Don’t go making ******* conclusions, you, because this isn’t what you think it is. Your parents aren’t hiding anything.”

He turned to the sack again and pulled the cloth that covered Epon off him.

I had thought I was going to see someone who looked like an an ass or a donkey or …or anything but what I saw.

“Why, he…he looks like Lucerna!” I said, much surprised.

Because yes, the young man that stood before me looked just like my Aunt Lucerna.

Epon  gave me a wicked grin, but said nothing.

“And don’t you now go thinking what you shouldn’t about your father,” said Uncle Fi. “This one was found first by Lucerna and Elysio. Not by your father. Your father found  him a week later, when he was strolling through a field and ran into some donkeys.  Epon had left home and was sitting among them. Your father thought he didn’t belong to anyone and asked him who he belonged to. Epon said he wasn’t anyone’s child. And now everyone thinks my brother-in-law has a child that is like an ass and keeps him hidden from his wife. Or worse. I’ll bet you yourself were suspecting something like that weren’t you?”

I said nothing, but it was true I had.

“Where is your father?” Uncle Fi asked Epon.

He didn’t get an answer and he didn’t wait for one. He entered the stable to search for Elysio there, shouting, “Elysio! Confounded bug! Get the **** out here, wherever you are, you blasted **** of a moth! Come out!”

And Epon drew a glass jar out of a pocket. It looked empty, but there was a label on it that said it had held tomato sauce. 

“He’s gone crazy. He thinks he is a horsefly and he bites. He bites me and the mares.”

“Heeeeelp!” screamed Elysio from inside the jar. If one can call such a little, quaking sound a scream.

“We asses don’t like to be bitten,” said Epon.

“Do you really think you are a jackass or are you thinking I am one? Haven’t you seen yourself in a mirror?”

“Yes, but I see an ass. People say I am worse than an anorexic.”

I wasn’t sure what to say or do. But I knew I had to get hold of the glass jar.

“Come, give me the jar,” I said. “Your mother is desperate because Elysio has disappeared. You should visit her. You should have done that and taken this jar with you.”

“Am I foiling your holidays?”

“You enjoy doing that?”

Before Epon could answer me, I yelled in the direction of the barn, “Come out, Uncle Fi! Elysio is out here with us!”

“Take it!” said Epon, throwing the jar at me. “I’d rather give it to you than to him.”

I was only too pleased to take the jar, but I was still not sure what to do. I wanted to free Elysio, but if what Epon had said about the moth fairy having lost his mind  were true, he might fly off and we would have to go chase after him again.

“Hold on, Elysio,” I said. “I’m going to take you to Lucerna.”