262. Betabel has Visions

262. Betabel has Visions

“In this traitorous world naught is truth, nor  ís  lies. Things are but the colour of the glass through which one scries.”

There I was sitting under a linden tree reading Mr. Lovefield with Little Mauel again on my lap. And then my sisters Heather and Thistle showed up and asked me to visit my brother Malrose. They were wanting black cherries to make black cherry ice cream for what might be our last summer picnic.

“I’m going to visit my brother Malrose,” I said to Little Mauel, “so will you come with me?”

He had not left my side since he had yawned on my lap when we returned from Johnny Balthazar’s. He had followed me everywhere, eaten pizza with my brothers Cespuglio, Thymian and Devin on Friday and played with Thymie’s cat, Padimahaes. He had slept in my bed the nights he had spent with me, to Gatocatcha’s surprise, for my cat had never done anything like that. Fortunately, Gatocatcha was curious, but not jealous. Mauelito did sit during Saturday breakfast on my mother’s lap, and she had asked him the question I was afraid to ask him.

“Why aren’t you with dear Papa?” she asked. “Have you fallen out? Why?”

Little Mauel scorned to answer. He just looked another way.

“It has something to do with your new grandkids,” I said to Mum. “Grandpa wanted Mauel to be their nanny or something like that. Has Mauel ever deserted Grandpa before? I’ve never heard of his having done that.”

“Only twice in all eternity that I remember. But that was long ago.”

Little Mauel meowed.  And if you can speak Cattusgyptios, you would know that what he said was that the third is the last chance one gives others. So it looked bad for Grandpa.

 “Oh, no!” protested Mum. “Papi will be destroyed!”

“Serves him right,” growled Mauel.

“Please reconsider, dear,” insisted Mum. “I know you may have to take your time, but do give my poor father another chance. He can’t help being bossy. It’s his destiny. You should know that better than anyone. You’ve been with him more time than I have.”

And then Mum decided it would be best to let Little Mauel think things over and she didn’t put more pressure on him, at least for the moment. She just stroked and patted and made much of him, and when we were done having breakfast and I got up to leave, he leapt off her lap and followed me  outside, where I sat under the linden t oread poetry until my sisters showed up.

Now, my brother Malrose lives where two of the Apple Island Rivers meet and ran side by side for a distance till they part. My brother’s ideal home is like a Greek temple among orchards on what is a river island with thirteen hills, all covered with fruit-bearing trees, and the fruit he grows there is so good that even the crabapples are deliciously edible, and even their core and seeds are safe to have. They are the only ones of these type of seeds and cores that aren’t toxic and never turn into cyanide. My grandmother Celestial has her seventh grandson Malrose send her fruit all the way Up North every seventh, seventeenth and twenty-seventh day of each month, and her scrumptious apple pie is so good because she uses these crab apples when she bakes it. No others will do. I learned how to bake it when I visited her and now my sisters know its secret too. 

Mauel and I reached Malrose’s river paradise and paused to enjoy how beautiful it is. His orchards are of those that have flowers and fruit at the same time and are always at their best moment, which is forever. There are a great many of them, all over the hills, like I just said. As I enjoyed the view, I spotted three figures coming down the rolled stone path on the hill. A flock of sheep was also descending. I adjusted my eyesight, and saw with great detail that the shepherdess was a girl of eleven or twelve, with long curls of a reddish violet spreading out neath a wide-brimmed hat covered with garlands of flowers. She carried her crook elegantly, for someone so young. And with her were my brother Malrose, tall and thin and apple-haired. Today, hair like green apples. And the third figure was none other than the leprechaun Michael O’Toora and I was soon to learn he had come to reserve fruit and vegetables for his annual Halloween party. But there was also another reason why he was there. Betabel, Sweet Cicely’s little sister, was seeing visions.

Now, Betabel was the little shepherdess, and Sweet Cicely is Malrose’s girlfriend and Betabel’s older sister. And both belong to a family of shepherds that look after those unclaimed ten sheep every fairy has a right to. These include mine, for I have never claimed them yet, not being ready to settle down. I will add that another thing that characterizes this family is that all its members have somewhat stange eyes that never the less can see very well. Betabel’s are too large and very gray. Well then, I adjusted my hearing so I could hear from the distance what Malrose and Michael and Betty were saying as they strolled down the hill.

“You can’t be seeing things, lass,” Michael was saying to Betabel. “You see, the strange beings people see are us. Not the other way around.” 

“That is what I keep telling her,” said Malrose. “But she insists she sees these green, winged beings roosting on the Short Tower at the top of the thirteenth hill. If they were real, someone else would have seen them too. But only she does. I’ve been watching that tree since she first told Cicely about them. One thing is clear, whatever they want, it isn’t my fruit. They haven’t touched that. Or the veggies. I’m not missing even a single petal from a flower. Actually, there is no trace of their ever having been here. Do you think she’s gone mad?”

“There is no record of any of us ever having seen anything that can’t be explained,” said Michael. “We have weird people. Eccentrics, a lot of. Which of us isn’t? Folks with a depression, some of that too.  But plain coot-crazed people who see and hear inexplicable things no one else does,…no, I’ve never heard of any. None of that.”

“What do you make of this?” I asked Little Mauel and he shook his head and went to play with the lambs, who had now reached our feet.

“It’s not just that she sees things. It’s that these creatures are telling her the end of the word is near. How can our worlds end? Spirits are spirits, and dead mortals are spirits too.We’re eternal, aren’t we? Only the mortal world can end. Mortals pass from there to here. And that is the end of that.”

“Green,” Betabel explained to me. “And winged. Not large. Two of them. They have light golden light round their heads. Their eyes are a little strange. And their wings end in feathers that are purple and look like fingers. The rest of them is a greenish mist. They go, ´Betabel, Betabel, the world is about to end!  Climb up this tower with your lambs and be safe!´  Their whispering really scares me. And I rush away.”

“That’s what she gets for roaming uphill!” purred Little Mauel. “Graze on flatland, girl. Heights delude. Mountain dwellers are all nuts. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

None of this paused a real problem until people began to call the little shepherdess Mystic Betabel.