It didn’t end the way we hoped it would, Feeseepkee’s story didn’t. The young people of our family, young of age or young at heart, were celebrating St.John’s Eve just like our traditions command, which is by casting buckets of water at each other and calling us by new names and also by leaping over bonfires, large or small, in Grandpa AEternus’ garden. Then Grandpa’s butler, Barnaby, whose real name is Mylor, but who got his name changed because it sounded too much like Milord, and Grandpa wasn’t willing to call anyone that, well, Barnaby came up to me and asked me to follow him as discreetly as possible.
I followed Mylor, which is what everyone but Grandpa calls him, or Barnaby, which is what Grandpa calls him, to the library of the Eternal Mansion, trying to avoid being noticed and entered that inner sanctum soaking wet because my brothers and a lot of little kids who found it cool to wet an older boy had left me in such a state.
Grandpa was sitting at his chess table and so was his perpetual chessmate and rival Amon the Mummy. I think I may have mentioned the latter before, but do not remember describing him. He is quite tall and very thin and looks rather dry, but you wouldn’t think he was a mummy, only that he looked like one. My brother Thymian did a nice enough job bringing this Egyptian priest of the god Amon back to life. Nobody would say he was anything but a very old man.
“Sit down, Arley,” my grandfather AEternus said to me, pointing to an armchair finished in light green leather.
“I would wet that,” I said. “See how I am flooding the floor.”
“Barnaby can dry that in an instant. Don’t try to incite me to do it myself. I’m practically a nervous wreck right now. So sit down, you’re getting on my grated nerves standing there in a puddle. I’m suffering more than enough from all the shouting and yelling going on out there. Don’t make things worse for me.”
“I’m sorry I’ve shouted, Grandpa,” I said. “If I had known this was bothering you I wouldn’t have, and I would even have taken all those kids away from the library windows.”
“What a fussbudget you are, AEternus!” exclaimed the Mummy in his deep, beyond the grave voice. “Complaining of the joy of youth. Is there nothing that doesn’t bother you? Your descendants can barely be heard with the windows shut.”
“Shut I must keep them. And you your mouth. Don’t irritate me, Momius. I know you only want to distract me from our game. And I am being disturbed enough by the howls of that pack of wolf cubs, so small that they are pathetically safe from being stepped on and crushed till silent. Yes, one needs to keep the windows shut. You don’t suffer because your hearing is impaired, you never totally recovred it, old mummy, but I have had as fine an ear as any consumptive all my life. But let’s not argue, for I have things to say to my beloved grandson. Yes, beloved. I like this one. He actually pays attention to me, I never thought I would have one that would. Because you are going to do as your grandfather asks, aren’t you, Arley?”
“I, if I can…I’m listening to you, Grandpa.”
“It has reached my fine tuberculose ass ears that your Uncle Richearth has again descended into hell to rid himself of that miserable creature that he thinks is his son.”
“My cousin Feesepkee,” I said.
“No way,” said Grandpa. “Your uncle Demetrius is a fool. Fool, fool, fool! And you’ll see he is soon enough. That thing risen from the dust has not met even Peter Booter’s approval. There has to be a reason for that, don’t you think?”
“I suppose you must have your reasons for saying so, Grandpa.”
“Time will tell any minute now. Unless we do something to stop this. Your silly uncle is unaware that if this creature is his child, those tree imps he has handed over to hell are his grandchildren.”
None of us had thought of that. Grandpa just might have reason to be upset, I thought.
“But exactly how is that important?” I asked.
“For once, someone has more obnoxious grandkids than I do,” said Grandpa. “However, whatever satisfaction I could find in that evaporates the minute I reflect and realize that if these imps are Richearth’s grandchildren, they are my greatgrandchildren. I can’t have that kind of descendants, Arley! Look, that girl, who is used to monsters, and believes herself to be one, will think she can. And the minute she thinks she has grandchildren she will want to recover them. Even if she has to raise hell to do it.”
“Branna?”
“She won’t be able to protect your uncle. People kept saying she would, because she can turn into a beast when provoked, but that will only make it tougher for my poor son. Look, lad, I don’t want you to undo the spell you put on my daughter-in-law. She mustn’t think of anything that has to do with that grimy creature risen from the earth like a blighted potato.”
“It so happens Aunt Nectarine and I plan to meet tomorrow to lift the spell.”
“Which is why I am speaking with you today.”
“But we are forbidden to bewitch each other.”
“What ought to be forbidden is the existence of dolts, but there are so many stupid people that while this is a democracy there will be no forbidding their existence.”
“You ask for too much. No one can be as clever as you, AEternus,” said the Mummy laughing.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, but rather weakly. I wasn’t sure about it.
“You will see things the way I do, and don’t make me bewitch you so you shall,” said Grandpa.
“I understand,” I said. “This is something that has to be done and will be. Ok, Grandpa.”
“My daughter-in-law needn’t be harmed. She can recover her memory, but she must lose interest in that badseeds. That girl cannot descend to hell in search of her lost grandchildren. They are flowers of one evil act. It would make no sense to get them out of hell. They will do harm and die, like a bee that looses its sting. They might as well do evil among the evil, and not among good people. They won’t last, but the evil they will cause just might. Madam Nekutarin is right. If the devils become aware of the existence of this girl they will want her for their own. And we have a second problem. There is another reason why your silly uncle already wants to return down there.”
“Aside from recovering the tree? Will he have to return the cook?”
“There is no way I will give the cook up,” said Grandpa. “He is one of my employees and I will defend him in the awful ways I can if I have to. Because he adores me, and one repays love with love. You have no idea how that poor soul wants to work for me and not return to being scalded among infernal pots and pans.”
“I imagine so. He has prepared a lot of fancy stuff for the garden party. Your guests are delighted with him. By the way, what is his name? Or what do you call him?”
“I told him he must answer to Gastón. Richie had a toy army of Napoleonic tin soldiers when he was little and their cook was called just that. Gastón has to forget his past. You see why those little blossoms of evil cannot return among us? We would lose Gastón. And get busted by the imps, yet. Well, as I was saying, there is another bit of nonsense that can botch things up for us. Your uncle cannot always distinguish between people who are being good to him and those that are not. And, because he feels sorry for them, he wants to harrow his kidnappers out of hell.”
“Elucubrius and Bunglemore, you mean? You sent them to hell?” I asked with surprise.
“Where else? There are more than enough idiots among the mortals. And these two want to be evil idiots. But your uncle doesn’t see that. Because he is good. Good and silly. Like poor Parsifal. Have you heard him sing the title role of that opera? It’s almost scary. That is why it is dangerous for your uncle to abide with demons, and also why they can do nothing to harm him. Fools are not responsible for their actions, especially if they are well-intentioned fools. The devils cannot touch your uncle. Because he is so full of goodwill. Ah, they have tried and tried, yes, those unredeemable brutes have! But they can’t touch him because he is a fool, but also because he is a fool, he can get the rest of us into bad trouble.”
Amon then decided to back Grandpa.
“The surgery performed on the badseeds creature was correctly performed. I have seen what the Japanese doctor, Matasano, and what our User and Ptahhotep have done. They sewed their patient up with four hundred year old spider web thread, and that is so strong it will never break. But they forgot to sterilize it and the patient now has an infection that will make him most visibly ill in a few days time. Look, lad, what your grandfather is trying to ask you to do in his rambling way, is to go see the black kitty. You know who I mean?”
I shook my head.
“Cathsheba. Though the goddess Bastet loves her like a daughter, she belongs to one of the Seven Fairies. Jocosa it is. I don’t know how laughing Jocosa can have such a serious child. The cat, who is your second cousin, knows a lot about curing infections.”
“Let Cathsheba cure that wretch and I will see to it he leaves us in peace for keeps,” added Grandpa. “And don’t you worry, lad. I won’t hurt him. He will benefit from my intervention. Explain to Madam Nectarine that it is not the right moment to unhex my daughter-in-law. We’ll get down to that later. And under no circumstances allow your uncle to return to that hotel. It’s not the kidnappers I want him to avoid. He and they would have to very dense to go through what they have twice. I just don’t want him where the fiends below might become obsessed with him. Not again.”
“May I ask where I can find Cathsheba?”
I thought they might send me to ask Jocosa, but no.
“Yes, but ask your brother Attor. I believe he is always stalking her.”
“Ah! No, no!” said Amon. “He is in love with her and she is giving him a hard time and he is always aware of where she is and what she is doing but because he wants to be useful to her should the need arise.”
My brother Attor was in the garden, lighting small fires in cauldrons decorated with embossed lambs and full of lignum vitae for the littlest kids to fly over and also allowing himself to be drenched with buckets of water and called all sorts of weird names by our youngest relatives and a hoodlum or two. Normally he has no patience with the latter, but they were taking advantage of the festive spirit. Cathsheba was not present. I don’t know her, because she never comes to our parties. But she had to be a tough character if she was giving Attor a hard time. All the girls like him.
“Atty,” I said to my older brother, “Will you do me a favor?”
“Two too,” he answered.
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