272. Three Newcomers to Apple Island

 

272. Three Newcomers to Apple Island

“I want to help you,” I said to my uncle, “but I have to know what I am doing.”

“Your grandfather would ask if anyone does,” sighed Uncle Gentlerain, “but yes, you are right to ask. We have to at least think we know what we are doing.”

“If I just did what you wanted me to, I would at least  know I was helping you, and that would be trust,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, it´s just that-”

“You have to think for yourself. I understand because so do I.”

We were having breakfast with Mum and Dad in the late autumn garden. Heaps of leaves burning in  bronze stoves kept us warm. Uncle Gentlerain had just paid me for my services watching Alpin. This year it was in jade and moonstones.

“You both think too much,” said Mum. “Just go do it, Arley! Your uncle would never make you do anything bad.”

“Listen to your uncle and ruin your life,” said Dad.”Why can’t you just become a habitué of the first fairy ring and become a pandit on any mindly subject? Go charm the elite, kid. The highbrows will love to have you.”

Here in Apple Island there are different kinds of people. All are part of the force for good, but they have different lifestyles. The first fairy ring is frequented by people who live for arts and sciences. The second, for people who live for joy. Dance, sing, love. Do nothing else ever. The third is for those who can’t live without working. They make things function and when they need to rest, they enjoy themselves at the third ring, where the atmosphere is like that of a carnival or a state fair, and there is always beer and barbecued food. The fourth…they say that is where you can best find a stable partner. Of course, one can fly from one ring to another. Well, you get the general idea, I suppose.

“I don’t think I’m good enough to join the Bards’ Club or anything like that,” I said weakly.

“Don’t mislead him, Oberon,” said Mum. “He needs more than to admire art. And he’s going to help my new friend if he helps Gen. And you know how I always help my friends.”

“Or get someone else to do it for you. He’s going to ruin our son’s life,” insisted Dad, shaking his head as he eyed Gen contemptuously.

“I think it’s time Arley should go see who your new friend is,” said Uncle Gen to Mum, leaving his napkin neatly folded on the table. “That might help him make his mind up.”

“He’s going to grow up to be a hysterical preventer like your brother,” said Dad to Mum, glowering at Gen.

“He already is. Arley was born one, only we didn’t notice at first. And I love my brother. And you should too, because he’s also your little brother, and not just your brother-in-law, which would be reason enough for you to back him up too. But you were always jealous of him. And you still are. Because his life is more exciting than yours.”

“Blessed be boredom,” yawned Dad.

“Dolce far niente,” piped Angelmouse. “Mi piace.”

“Ah, but you are a clever little bat, lad,” said Dad, ruffling Angelmouse’s purple hair. “Do you play tennis, Mouse?”

Uncle Gen and I asked for leave from Mum and left the table and went for what I thought was a stroll in the gardens. But it turned out we were headed somewhere. He was silent all the while, and so was I, until we got to Mum’s tropical garden. As the chestnut trees gave way to banana trees, I suddenly saw the person I least expected to see standing glumly among the bunches of the yellow fruit. Not just glumly. The moment she saw us, Jane’s eyebrows clashed and her face became furious. As if it were our fault, whatever her unhappiness was about.

“Don’t say anything, Jane,” said Uncle Gen, “I will do the explaining.”

“Your uncle let a beast go! And it’s inside my boy!” she cried, pointing an accusing finger at Uncle Gen.

“Outside, actually. Remember how I let Garth the Pookah’s prisoners loose? How I turned the apples in his sinister tree back into whoever they were before? There was a mistaken identity in the list I made with the information Garth gave me. Jarjobolim was among the spirits there.”

“Who is that?” I asked. I wanted to know if I had to let my blood curdle. 

“You know how Jane’s children entered the chestnut grove when they shouldn’t have?”

“I had to hide them!” yelled Jane. “It’s your fault, not mine.”

“Good woman, please to remember I didn’t put Petey on the throne,” said Uncle Gen. “Nor did I give you leave to enter our world. So stop wagging your finger at me. It's rude.”

“Yes?” said Petey, peeping timidly from behind a banana tree upon hearing his name spoken.

“You keep out of this!” Jane shouted at him. “Get inside our hut!”

So she had already taken possession of Petey’s home, I thought.

“Why are you here, Jane?” I asked.

It was Uncle Gen who answered.

“Because she’s having trouble just like I predicted she would.”

“You! You cursed us, you!” she shouted at Uncle Gen.

“What one has to put up with,” sighed Uncle Gen softly. And to me he added, “You see why it is best not to become involved with mortals? I rue the day you and Alpin stepped into the web of  their unending squabbles.”

“We only wanted to help,” I tried to excuse myself.

“And you are still being asked to do that. You will be enjoined forever. You see, nothing ever goes right for them and they never blame themselves for what goes wrong. It will always be your fault. Just for existing. Strife never ends for mortals.”

“Never?”

“Well, sometimes it ends when they are no longer mortals, and have turned into ghosts. Most of them are much improved by death. They see things another way then and forget their ridiculous quarrels. But a few don’t, and they keep trying to control the other mortals. Something tells me Jane will be one of those when she passes away. Which could have been yesterday, if our people hadn’t saved her.”

“I can tell she’s not here because she’s dead. She doesn’t look like a ghost.”

“No, only like a perturbed viper. She’s here because she’s been overthrown. But her overthrower has been overthrown too. And he is now about to find what he needs to return with a vengeance. And this is where you come in.”

Jane, as Uncle Gen once said she would most likely be, had been pushed off the throne of Sherbanania. About to be shot at dawn by her enemies, she had managed to reach the chestnut grove, where friendly spirits had pulled her in and taken her all the way to Petey, thinking Mum’s tropical garden was a haven for deposed Sherbananian leaders. But unlike Petey she did not suffer amnesia. She remembered and resented and wanted her deposer deposed. And she blamed Uncle Gen for not having done things right when he had instated her as leader of her people.

“You took him away and said you would take care of him! What kind of care was that?”

Uncle Gen shook his head in exasperation.

“As I remember it, he was about to have a stake plunged into his heart when you asked me to rescue him. I did, and believe me, I tried to make him change. Look how nicely your other kids are doing.”

“That’s no merit of yours. They are good children. But you haven’t transformed my difficult boy! He’s no better for knowing you!”

“Into a toad I should have changed that sinister brat. But I respect toads. Should I have had him lobotomized?”

“Are you speaking about Manolus?” I asked.

 “Who else?” sighed Uncle Gen. “But that’s enough for today. Tomorrow we’ll get on with this.”

Uncle Gen’s ears were deaf to Jane’s subsequent and loud accusations of procrastination.

“We'll see to that fool tomorrow. Today we are helping someone who deserves help. This will be about my mistake, just like Jane is about yours, but we both meant no harm. And there are those who can be helped.”

And he made us vanish from the tropical garden and appear before a yellow house whose exterior, with its grim little gargoyles crouching on the rooftop, was quite familiar to me.

“Nimbo di Limbo?” I asked. “Is that who we are going to help?”

“It’s high time these two moved to Apple Island,” he said. “My spell has kept them safe from pryers all these years. But there is no reason for them to remain in the mortal world. Gelsemine’s mortal relatives are all gone. And if any of their ghosts haunt the house, they can come too. They’ve never given any trouble.”

We had a second breakfast. This time it was hot chocolate and King Cake with Nimbo and his mother, who were delighted to see us. And Uncle Gen explained why we were there.

“Say you are no longer scared of us, Gelsemine,” said Uncle Gen. “You’ve seen there are good people among us, much unlike your kidnappers, who are out here, roaming the dangerous half mortal – half fay world and far from the bliss of Apple Island. No, gossip doesn’t matter. The mean tongues don’t dwell in the island. They will wag out here, but not for long, and it won’t matter to my wife, who is very sure of me and of herself, and it shouldn’t matter to you either. You’ve been locked up in the house for centuries. You deserve to be able to come out and stroll along the beach and have friends and party at the rings. We all have our peculiarities there. You won’t stand out for anything but your kindness to others. Now, I can do one of two things for you. I can take you and Nimbo to claim your ideal houses, or if you think the one you live in is just that, I can transport it to the island in an inkling. It will get there just as it is, having suffered no damage due to the trip. None of your knick-knacks will be broken in the process, I promise. And if you want to have this house freshly painted and updated, I can offer you the best of crews to do the job. Say you will come, Geli. Do it for yourself and your boy.”

And Gelsemine said she would come, with her old house. And we felt her house heave up and then down, gently and in a very straight line, and we and it were in Apple Island. Right next to the Auditorium. That easy. And Uncle Gen was smiling. It was the kind of smile that makes him look like my Mum, and therefore very nice to look at.

“Now, there’s another reason why I brought you here,” he said. “Arley is friends with a bat boy who was born in a Venetian belfry and has lived there for his two little years. His parents can’t tend to him and Arley has set him up in the attic of  my sister’s palace. Right now, he is playing tennis with Oberon, but he spends most of his time following Arley about. Arley is going on a dangerous mission tomorrow, and he can’t be distracted by this child while he is on it. If all goes well this won’t take long. It will be done in a finger’s snap. But while we are at it, I would like you to entertain the child. Take him to the Auditorium. He can sing like a divo, and they'll be pleased to hear him there. Don’t leave him on his own, Nimbo. Your mother knows well what can happen if a child roves alone.”