270. Wedding Witnesses
Nobody wanted to be witness at Alpin’s
wedding. And without witnesses there is no wedding. Just a pact between a
couple. That is what weddings are like in the fay world. Nobody marries the
couple. They reach an agreement and promise each other to stick to it. And if there is no
one present aside from them when they reach this agreement, that is that, and
all there is. But if there are people witnessing the exchange of vows, then
there is a visible wedding.
Alpin was in a vile mood. He would have loved
to have a grandiose wedding that would have made Richie and Branna’s look like a
weekend brunch. But his mother had made his father promise that he would not
give Alpin a cent so he could celebrate. And Fiona had kicked him out of her
spa when he tried to get Santichu to promise to prepare a banquet at her own
cost. Alpin was no longer allowed entrance there, and she had actually turned her
dogs loose on him so he would have to leave. Darcy had vanished, leaving no
sign of where he was. He did leave a substitute, a stableboy called Baylad, in my
Mom’s stables. Baylad said Darcy hadn’t said where he was going, only to tell
folks who asked, not to ask. As for Rich and Branna, it was November, and they
were travelling somewhere in the worlds to celebrate their anniversary. And
Alpin didn’t want to wait for them to return.
He had reasons not to want to wait to marry.
He feared Betabel would change her mind or that someone would bust their
wedding plans. His mother had asked him to bring his girl to dinner, but this
was no concession. Aislene tried to disguise her dislike as she showed Betabel
a gold ring with not one but three forty carat diamonds and told her it would
be hers if she didn’t marry at once but instead allowed Aislene time to plan a
grandiose, beautiful, unforgettable wedding.
“I have never been able to organize a wedding
for anybody, not even for one of my children,” she said to Betabel in a sad voice. “Fiona didn’t want a
wedding.She didn't want to attract attention because she was the subject of cruel gossip then. Branna’s was hasty and pre-arranged for someone else. I wasn’t even able to be present. Darcy
cannot be persuaded to marry. No one can hook him. My only chance lies with you
and Alpin. If you just wait a little, I will give you the best wedding ever
heard of, and this ring will be your reward. Look how it shimmers! Try it on,
you’ll see how lovely it will look on your finger.”
What Aislene was seeking when she offered
Betabel this ring was to gain time so that Alpin would get bored with Betabel
and desist in his idea of marrying her. But Betabel wasn’t interest in luxury,
and she didn’t fall into Aislene’s trap. Then Mrs. Dullahan removed her mask
and went to Malrose’s Ait and made the earth shake there, and upset Sweet
Cicely so badly that the poor girl was ill for weeks. And Malrose got fed up
and invited poor Betabel to leave the island, saying she had already caused
more trouble than she was worth and that anyone normal could bear.
Betabel’s parents were, if possible, even
less pleased with this wedding to be than Aislene was. Her brothers and sisters
refused to even speak with her, and
Alpin and Betabel saw they were not going to find support among her kin either.
Then Betabel remembered a great aunt and a great uncle of hers who lived
isolated in the hills somewhere up north. These two never had the least notion
what was going on anywhere but up there and everyone had practically forgotten
them and they seemed to have even forgotten themselves. These would be the witnesses of her wedding. They and I. Mrs. Dullahan
had already threatened to be very, very disappointed in me if I allowed Alpin
to wed Betabel, but I couldn’t see how I could avoid this and please her. I had
to watch over Alpin, specially now that his family was spurning him, and it
looked that whether I wanted to or not, I would end up watching him marry
Betabel.
Betabel didn’t want to spend more time at her
parents’ home, and they didn’t seem to want her there either, but she had
nowhere to go, so she asked me to look in my crystal ball and find her relatives
in the hills. When I did, I realized that I was seeing something Alpin would
not like at all. I was about to tell him so, but he didn’t let me speak.
“Get them to name a day and we´ll go see them!”
“Listen, Alpin, these people-”
“Shut up and do as I say, Arley! Lately I’ve
been contradicted enough for a lifetime!” he yelled at me.
And I thought that maybe, if he saw these
people, he would break up with Betabel. Alpin hates people who scrimp and save on
food, and these people made Generoso and Dadivosa's grass soup look like a Roman emperor´s cuisine.
Betabel would feel hurt at first if Alpin dropped her, but she would see this was
for the best in good time, just like Aunt Nekutarin kept telling me.
Well, we were now three possible witnesses, if
there was to be a wedding. There was a fourth possible witness too, though only
I had him in account. This was Angelmouse Belfry Grigio, the son of Batty
Belfry, Aislene’s friend. And what does such a fellow have to do with all this?
That you may ask me.
I acquired this friend at Michael O’Toora’s
Halloween party, where the scandal of the evening was about Aislene’s
behaviour. Madly obsessed, she went from one group of people to another in
search of someone who could and would stop her son’s wedding, and when everyone fled from
her because they didn’t care a fig what Alpin or Betabel did, she began to act
up spectacularly. I won’t go into details, but it was a good thing Alpin had
left the fourth fairy circle in a rage to go find Betabel, or the spectacle
would have been even more grotesque. And a lot of people were really unsettled
by all this.
Well, poor Angelmouse was two years old and
he had had to leave the belfry he lived in because after over a hundred years
of being unused, the owners of the church this belfry was part of had decided
to repair the huge, cracked bell that hung there and use it even to tell the
time. Angelmouse was about to turn deaf and would have if he hadn’t decided to
move. Now, most bat fairies don’t easily turn deaf, unless they have been cursed
or something, but Angelmouse was not normal. His problem was similar to mine
with pollen. Not normal, but existent. He had left his daddy’s home to live there, because his daddy was an Italian
gigolo who didn’t like to be seen with a kid, and so Angelmouse decided to try to live
with his mum, but he didn’t fit in with her lifestyle either and it had ocurred
to her that if Alpin was marrying, I would lose my sidekick and that Angelmouse
could be a good substitute for Alpin. To this end she cornered me at Michael’s
party, and tried to talk me into taking Angelmouse under my wing, while the
poor creature smiled at me shyly from a distance, waiting to see if he would be given permission to approach me or not.
The last thing I needed was a pathetic brat
on my hands. And I couldn’t foist him on my parents, because I had burdened
them with Melisa only too recently. Now that place was choke full of people,
and I could have raised my voice and yelled there was a distraught homeless kid
present, and would anyone there care to take him in. But this plan offered no
guaranties, for there was no knowing who might offer to have him, and then,
poor Angelmouse might feel ashamed to be the subject of such a show. So I
agreed to try to find him lodgings somewhere and said he could follow me about
until I did. And he said, “Mi piace,” and did just that.
So now it is as if I have three and not just
two shadows. I must admit he hasn’t been much trouble. When we got home it was
almost dawn, and I pointed at the second bed in my bedroom and told him he could
sleep there till we got up at noon. But he removed his tiny shoes and produced
even tinier feet with teensy claws on their toes and flew to the lamp in the
ceiling and clung there upside down and dropped off. I don’t mean that he
literally crashed to the ground as if he had been electrocuted, I mean he fell
fast asleep. But I was uneasy and I woke him and told him he had to use the bed
and he clung to the canopy, again upsidedown, and again fell sound asleep.
Now my parents’ palace has no towers. But it has
one very last top top floor that is only used to store stuff in. And the next
day I took Angelmouse there and starting from next to a large window enclosed a
space and turned that into a rather well-funished apartment for him and asked
him if he liked it. “Mi piace,” he nodded, so I said it was his and he could
come down and have dinner with my brothers and me on Friday nights, at
Thymian’s basement. But he didn’t wait till Friday. He kept following me
around. Fortunately, when I introduced him to my parents, they said they liked
him much better than Alpin and from then on he had all his wee meals with us.
He had no trouble with the rest of the people who lived there either, because I
was quick to introduce him to everyone so nobody would chase him away with a
broom. Not that we chase bats away with brooms in Apple Island, but just in
case someone might.
What does Angelmouse look like besides
pitiful? Well, like a very wee kid who can turn himself into a bat when he
chooses to. And most of the time he stays half transformed, keeping his huge
bat ears and the little claws on his hands and feet.
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