267. The Building of a Shrine

267. The Building of a Shrine

The Nephelai did a first rate job. They rained for all they were worth for all seven days of a week, flooding and sogging the whole of the fay world. The damages were not as bad in Apple Island as they were in other parts, such as Minced Forest, where even the mortals were somewhat affected. Alpin was furious with me for not having come to his rescue.

“You’ve been gallivanting for a whole week!”

“No! I’ve been helping my uncle aid the injured and the shocked and other victims of the flood. And I helped assess the damages too.”

“What uncle? Not my brother-in-law. My sister was stranded in their plantation and all he did was tell his servants to send for her family so she wouldn’t be alone. I’ll admit it was more fun to be at the plantation than at home, and safer in Apple Island, but where was Richearth all the while?”

“Helping,” I said, with as straight a face as I could manage. I was not lying. Uncle Rich had been helping. In his way. It was mostly thanks to him that the End of the Worlds Flood had been a great success. He had done everything that was in his hands to encourage the Nephelai to rain and the Nuberu to deal out lightning, never leaving their side a minute. True, the cider poured, but so did the rain. 

“That’s not what we heard. We heard he emptied his wine cellars.”

“Hasn't it ocurred to you that he probably had good reasons to do that? He probably did that so a flood would not spoil his supplies. He must have moved the stuff somewhere safe. Or maybe the cellars are empty because everything was actually ruined.” I had to find excuses for Uncle Rich even if they were lies. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, and it would be unfair if Uncle Rich were to be blamed for having helped Betabel save face. He had only been lending his brother a hand.

“That’s not what we heard. We heard he spent a whole week partying with a bunch of  pleasantly plump women.”

“No!” I said. “I was in contact with him all the time. He was helping. More than anyone else. He probably gave the booze away because it is  like medicine. When you don’t have any other kind of alcohol, you use drinking alcohol to disinfect wounds, sterilize medical instruments, cure colds, as a substitute for chloroform,  for a million things, Alpin!”

“Yeah, right!” said Alpin. “Things like sporting with  women the least you can call is voluptuous.”

“I assure you he was helping. Everything he did, he did to help. He was doing what Grandpa suggested we should do all along. I’m willing to swear to this.”

 “He’s lucky my sister thinks he is so nice to her when he is with her that she forgives him anything he does when he’s not with her.”

“He is nice to everybody. And to her especially so, of course. Look here, Alpin. I’m still helping. I’ve come to the plantation to ask you if you want to help me build a shrine on Thirteenth Hill.”

“Whaaat?”

“My grandfather said I should. And I will. Are you coming with me, or aren’t you?”

“Why would I want to do that? And you can’t go anywhere. You have to tend to me right here.”

“Uncle Gen got the water out of your parents’ home’s basement, Alpin. And it’s newly painted and all, and looking better than it ever did. I’m on leave due to emergency. And still, I’ve come here to fetch you. Are you coming or not?”

He came, grumbling, but he came. When we got to Malrose’s, we found my sisters Heather and Thistle were there too.

“We’re here to help,” said the girls in one voice. “Mylor came to see us last night to tell us Grandpa said we should. He gave us minute instructions on what the temple should look like. It has to have a very femenine touch. He says you can paint graffiti on it, but girls’ graffiti, because of Betabel, so she will like the shrine. We want to do a picture of her, but she won’t let us. She’s too shy to want her portrait on a wall in her own shrine. So we’ll paint a large betabel or something to represent her.”

“Mylor?” asked Alpin.

“Barnaby,” I said. “You met him under the name of Barnaby. His name is Mylor, but Grandpa calls him Barnaby. That’s his butler. His sort of secretary too. His voice, I would say. Grandpa rarely speaks with anyone personally, but when he wants to tell someone something, Barnaby makes a call. Or he does the explaining when people come to see Grandpa and Grandpa tells him to shoo them away. That is the way it is. `You do the speaking, because if I do, nobody will ever speak to me again,’ Grandpa says to Mylor. And it is Mylor that speaks.”

“I love your Grandpa,” said Alpin. “He  can snub  anybody and everyone is afraid of him. I hope to be like him one day.”

“No. He’s not like that. He’s too smart to be understood, but he isn’t bad. Well, the case is, I have a book I got from Earl and Ludovica back when I had my name day party. It teaches one how to build cottages, cabins, dollhouses, small pyramids, sukkahs, igloos, bridges over fish ponds and such. Small constructions. It is a talking book. You open it at a certain page and it gives you instructions out loud and step by step. It corrects you if you do anything wrong. I thought to use that.”

“Fine,” said the girls. “We´re to turn the Short Tower into a tiny shop and find or make things to sell in it too. The building will go right next to it. And we’re to have a fountain. With water from both rivers. Blended. Do you know how to make one?”

I didn’t, but Malrose said he would help us with that.  

And there we were, digging at the top of the hill to start with the foundations, when I spotted someone waving at me from above one of the angel’s wings trees. The end of the rainbow itself was shinning resplendently on the tree, and what a rainbow it was!

“Not again!” I thought. But no. It wasn’t Aunt Jocosa or any of her mocking followers. It was Grandma Divina who was glittering spectacularly as she descended from the sky. I dropped my spade and went to her.

“Arley, what does AEternus have to do with the flood? It was his idea, wasn’t it?That’s the way this troglodyte solves his problems.”

“Don’t do this to me, Grandma. I don’t want to find myself in a squabble between you.”

“That means yes. And he promised he would never flood anything again. Not even his bathtub. He’s going to hear my voice.”

“All those involved were only trying to keep Betabel from feeling bad. We had good intentions, and we are going to leave everything much more beautiful than it was.”

“Like Nero when he burnt Rome.”

“Grandpa didn’t start this. And this isn’t the mortal world, Grandma. When something like this happens here, our people only get a temporary fright. No one passes away or is maimed forever. Gradpa says Betabel's followers  were asking for some excitement and that is what they got. Now it´s over, and everything will look better than it did before.”

And then I was seeing things behind the mystic trees again. At the end of the second rainbow, someone pink and rosy was trying to hide. Ah, we almost always have two rainbows here in Apple Island, so the first won’t feel lonely.

“Can I interview you, Divina?” asked Patty Intrepida coming out a little ways from behind the trees. “I couldn’t help overhearing-”

“No, sweetie, no,” Grandma called out to Patty. “You haven’t overheard a thing. You have a lot of stuff to cover right now. More than enough to entertain yourself and your followers with, dear. Call the causes natural, will you? That’s what they really are.”

 And Grandma whispered to me, “That’s what your grandfather is. A natural born idiot.” And she asked me to tell him so from her. We are all rather rustic here in fayland, even the most sophisticated, but still, to tell Grandpa he was a boor and a bumpkin was not something I cared to be asked to do.

“I’m leaving, gorgeous kids. Pretty Patty, why don’t you help my grandchildren with whatever they are builiding?” suggested Grandma. “A shrine you say it is? There’s a sweet idea, now! At least, there will be that to be gotten out of this mess! I can’t believe the old grouch thought of this.”

“Is that what you are doing?” Patty asked me. And she stayed to help.

“Let me call Photographer Phil will you? I want him to film the building of the shrine if that’s right with you.”

I gave Patty a spade and resumed the digging. Betabel came shyly out of Malrose’s house to watch and to my surprise Alpin asked me for a spade and began to dig too. My guidebook  was very clear on how to proceed and in no time we were placing one brick on top of another, holding all that together with its own weight and a few magic words that gave the little building a soul of its own. It looked just like Grandpa’s original design, and my sisters said it was the cat’s meow cute. My brother-in-law, Large Peter, who is a carpenter and was visiting, sent for benches and chairs from his workshop and filled the inside with them so people could sit there and meditate.

The girls and Alpin and I painted frescos of Betabel and her sheep. We also painted the aliens delivering their message, but we didn’t make them look like weird green creatures. We made them look like sugar angels on a beautifully frosted white cake. Betabel had liked what she was seeing so much that she finally allowed us to paint her, nodding her head a little in consent. Curiously, it was Alpin who got her to give her consent. He spoke to her more kindly than I have ever heard him speak to anyone. I never thought he could speak that kindly. I had never heard him do this at all before. Patty painted the words Semper Paratus in uncial writing on the largest wall, saying one had to be ready for anything unexpected, like having visions or braving a storm, and that this was the lesson Betabel had taught us.  Photographer Phil took some pictures of the frescoes and the buidings and said he would make fine copies for us to sell as postcards and such in the shop. That would be his contribution to the shrine. Malrose finished the fountain and Patty helped my sisters create exquisite glass bottles to be sold in the shop so visitors could fill them with water from the fount themselves.

It took us all day, but when our job was done, we all stood before what we had built together proudly, all including Phil, who set his camera to shoot by itself so he could be in the official builders’ team picture too.

When the time came for us to part and go each our way, I felt tired but happy. We said goodbye, knowing we were all pleased to have worked together on such a pretty project, that this was making us feel an inner peace, and also that we would miss each other. But the bittersweet parting feeling I felt soon gave way to another, far different sensation. And I was my usual worried self again.

“Have you noticed I haven’t asked for a bite to eat all day?” Alpin asked me.

That was true. We hadn’t even thought to eat. Not even Alpin.

“Where do you want to eat now? My home or yours?”

 Alpin shook his head.

“I’m in love,” Alpin said. “Do you know what Betabel’s favorite flower is? My brother-in-law says the first thing a bloke has to do when in love is send flowers.”

“No, Alpin,” I said. “Choose someone else. Someone who can defend herself.”

“Why? Someone who can defend herself will shoo me off.” 

“Betabel has gone through a lot these days. I don’t think she will be ready to enter into a difficult relationship just now.”

“Look here, Arley. We’re going to your place and you are going to give me a sheet and an envelope of that wondrous paper Mr. Momo San gifted you with. And since your writing is clearer andyour wrist firmer than mine though you are left-handed, you will be my scribe and write down what I tell you to. I shan’t eat a measly crumb until my proposal is written down . And you know how mean I can get when hungry.”

I was curious to know what Alpin had to say to Betabel, so when we got home I gave him a sheet of my mother’s violet and lavender scented paper and said I was ready to write whatever he had to say on it, with green ink and a swan’s feather pen.

“Highly esteemed Betabel,  it has not escaped my notice that you resemble my acolyte Arley’s sister Heather. I have always fancied Heather, but she has a mean sister who always advises her against having me and to whom she listens wisely. Having seen you today, it has occurred to me that you could be to my liking too, because of this resemblance. To Heather, not to the mean sister. You and Heathie are both pretty, pink-haired and sweet-tempered. You are so good and think so well of everyone that I know you would be capable of showing some affection for me and would make an aceptable substitute for Heather. Please listen to my plea for your love as naively as  you listened to those terrifying aliens, and take me as seriously as you did them.  Signed, your soon to be beloved Alpin. P.S. Can you cook? You'll have to learn if not.”

Alpin then asked me what I thought of his letter.

I swallowed and said, “I don’t think anyone will accuse you of not being transparent.” 

That was the best I could say.    

Dear reader, you do understand why I was worried again, don’t you?