265. All's Well That Ends Well?

 265. All’s Well That Ends Well?  

What could Jocosa’s ideal home possibly be like? A fun house? Would the floor be unsafe to step on? Would loose planks rise to knock you on the forehead? Would the floor beneath a carpet sink and make you fall into a slide the size of of a mountain that would give you friction burns and end in a ball pit of rotten eggs? Would the house be crooked, making it impossible for one not to crash against furniture and walls? Would there be fetid air jets?  Water jets that soaked one with unnameable filth? Jets of substances that made you itch all over o r sneeze till your heart stopped? Wastebaskets filled with  phosphorescent  paint or biodegradable garbage that would fall from the top of doors as one opened and walked through them? Would the outside of the house be lined with distorting mirrors that reflected blinding lights and make the entrance door difficult to find? Or would the house be set  not in the middle of a garden, but of a spider-filled corn maze with no guiding rope to clutch?  Or, the gods forbid,  would it be even worse, and straight out of Grand Guignol? Pits of worms and a herpetarium of  terrarium-free vipers instead of rotten eggs, for instance. Would it be so revolting  that I would have to make herculean efforts to remember that all this would only be a joke and that at some point it would be over? And where would I find Aunt Jocosa? Would I have to go on a scavenger hunt for her all over her house and lands? Could things like this happen in a place of utter bliss like Apple Island?

Ah, but there would be no finding her even after a scavenger hunt! Though, mercifully, what happened when I got to the street where I knew that the Seven Fairies lived – poor neighbours of Jocosa’s,  I thought! – was not at all what I had expected. It did begin disturbingly. I passed Lucerna’s house, with its coloured lights still unlit in the golden afternoon, Fronda’s home, barely visible behind protecting trees, Alondra’s, hearing a harp accompany a chorus of larks, Laetitia’s simple cottage,  friendly and inviting, Calendula’s museum-like place, with its garden spotted with modern sculptures set off  by colonies of marigolds. It was relatively early afternoon but this thick mist was covering the last  houses – or whatever there was - at the end of the street.

“I have to enter that,” I thought. I can see very well in the dark, but to see through a fog I have to be immersed in it.  I was about to step into the fog, when a blue and green ball bounced out of it  and began to spread into a large cloud of the same colours but that ended in a purple fringe that framed the whole of it. And then the cloud contracted, acquired pinkish and yellowish tones too and turned into a brilliant star. 

Fortunately, the star's intense light was not at all of the blinding kind. And then, the star turned into a woman. And the woman I recognized at once.

“Aunt Nebula?”

“You won’t find anyone else here. Just me. No, don’t go on a hunt for Jocosa. It could take ages to find her and you don’t want revenge to become your only concern for the next thousand years, do you? She’s asked me to ask you not to do that. I’m to apologize to you for her. Though I don’t think she’s really sorry for what she’s done. It did get out of hand, that she admits. Two of her jesting friends saw Betabel and thought what a lark it would be to tease an innocent shepherdess a little. They disguised themselves as green heads on large wings and harassed her some. They found this amusing because she is so credulous. That would have been the end of that if word hadn’t gotten round when they bragged in a mortal tavern of the ease with which they had confounded the poor girl. Do you know who – or what – Ruinothers and Thrivemeself are?”

“Grandpa mentioned them. When we spoke of the devils that were stalking Uncle Richearth.”

“That’s what they are too. Or what it is. They are one and they are two, and they are legion. A two-headed, many souled devil, composed of all the individuals that do just that, ruin others to thrive themselves. Once in a while the Devil cuts this monster down to size and drags a part of this creature to hell. Those seized souls stay there burning forever, but new ones adhere to the monster. Do you know that there is black  gold in Apple Island? Oil, I mean. We don’t use that. We don’t need it for anything. But a certain enterprising exiled spirit and his mortal friends would have loved to get their hands on it and sell it in the mortal world, where it is overvalued.  They threatened to tell on the jesters if they didn’t instruct Betabel to instruct  her crowd of spectators to bring gallons of oil to  her to stop the world from ending. Betabel doesn’t know what black gold is. When she heard oil, she thought olive oil. So it was green gold she asked her followers for. And it was with containers of this that they would have flooded the rivers. The speculators meant for the containers of the gallons of what they thought would be petrol to float all the way to the sea, and there they would fish them out and use them to enrich themselves. That won’t happen Arley. Jocosa wants me to tell you that everything is now as if nothing ever happened.”

“Everything except Betabel,” I said, “victim of amoral entertainment and plain greed.”

“Well,  Uncle AEternus told you what to do about that, didn’t he? Do as your grandfather counselled, Arley. Betabel doesn’t need to know what has really happened. Nor most of her followers. And forget about my sister. She won’t be heard from in a while.”    

I couldn’t leave without asking Nebula something that had been bothering me all afternoon.

“Can you tell me what Jocosa’s ideal house is like? And was I right to search for it in this street?”

“Jocosa  lives in the garage of my house. Well, in an apartment over it. I don’t want her in mine, not even in my basement, but she is my sister, and no one else can bear to harbour her for long. She is one of those fairies who can frequent Apple Island, but doesn’t have a house here. The people here are all happy because they live in bliss. But they aren’t fond of practical jokes. Most have no time for them, just for radiant happiness. Jocosa herself realized it wouldn’t do for her to live here always. She herself asked for her house to be placed  in one of the inmost parts of Minced Forest. It is not always as awful a place as you might think. Sometimes it is good fun. But yes, on occasion she can be trying, and her house reflects that. Do you want to see my house? It’s rather nebulous, but very beautiful, and decorated with stars of all colours that I have fashioned myself. It’s because of me, not of her, that the end of this street, where I live with my other sisters, is so misty.”

“I would love to see your house,” I said. “Not only because I am sure it will be beautiful, but also because I am so confused I don’t even know if you are really my Aunt Nebula. I want to think you aren’t Jocosa in disguise, pulling my leg.”

“Oh, Arley!” sighed Aunt Nebula.