Aurelius and I (11 page)

“Your grandfather insisted that Melvin had never been a bad chap, but simply greatly over-confident and in possession of a very short attention span. He was always more interested in learning the next trick than he was in mastering the last. He and Peronicous were constantly at loggerheads with each other, each believing the other owed them more respect than they were being shown. Asmodious would do his best to mediate between the two of them, but eventually things came to a head and Melvin walked out before his training was complete, vowing that he would find someone else who would teach him to become a better, more powerful wizard than Peronicous could ever have hoped to be.”

“And did he?”

“Yes Charlie, I’m afraid he did,” the old gypsy said gravely. “He was taught by some of the most powerful witches and wizards in all the world. Unfortunately they also happened to be some of the most evil, and while they taught him magic very well, they taught him morality very poorly.

“Your grandfather always claimed that it was their influence which had created the incredible evil that was The Professor. He always believed that somewhere, deep down, there was still Melvin, a boy who wanted to be good but who was easily overwhelmed by the power with which he had been blessed. It was for this reason that, after Bettina had told her story, your grandfather informed me that he was leaving.

“He said Melvin had to be stopped before any more blood was spilt and that he was the only man who could do it – whether he did so by forcing him to see reason, or by destroying him. He said that nobody else knew Melvin well enough to do either.

“I begged him not to go, of course. I cried, and I screamed, and I asked him what kind of man it was that would walk into unnecessary danger, leaving behind his wife and young child? He replied that it was the sort of man who wanted there to be a safe world for that child to grow up in, and when I looked into his eyes and saw the conviction behind them I realised that there was no point in arguing any longer. His mind was made up.

“He left that very night and I have never seen him since.

“Before he went he gave me the watch I give to you now. He said it was lucky, that it would protect me. Oh, how I wish I’d made him take it with him. Maybe then...” her voice trailed off as she fought back the tears.

“Don’t cry, Grandma,” I said, handing her a tissue. “I’m sure it wouldn’t have made that much difference, if Grandpa was as powerful as you say, what good would an old watch have been to him?”

“You’re probably right, Charlie. I must admit I’ve never found it to be particularly special. Well, other than the fact that it never needs to be wound, which is good as there is no knob by which to wind it.”

“Does it take batteries then?”

“Nope. It just sort of...works. I don’t know how.”

“What about when the clocks go back?” I asked.

“It simply adjusts itself, just as it does if you take it abroad. Don’t ask me how. It just seems to in some way
know
what the time is.”

“Cool!” I exclaimed, a great deal more excited about my gift already. “And what about the symbols on the side, what do they mean?”

“I have no idea, Charlie, nobody does. Even your grandfather didn’t know, nor did Peronicous, who gave him the watch as a graduation present. They are a total mystery. All anybody could say is that they, like the timepiece itself, are remnants of an ancient and forgotten time, possibly even a forgotten world.”

We sat quietly for a long time after my grandmother had finished her tale, nibbling fruitcake and listening to the birdsong. It was as though there were no longer any words that could be said that would not seem trivial and, for some unspoken, illogical reason, disrespectful after hearing such a heartbreaking tale. Sometimes, in the face of great tragedy, silence is our only option.

After a time, my grandmother was able to persuade me that she had overcome her dizzy spell and repressed her heartache enough that she could be left alone. When I protested, she stated that there could be no better legacy to my grandfather than for me to carry on in his work, protecting the innocent from harm, and that it would be an insult to his memory for me to have stayed. And so, reluctantly, I left. I never did win an argument with that woman.

For the second time in as many days I left my grandmother’s caravan armed with new and exciting information and headed straight for the woodland cottage of Aurelius-Octavius Jumbleberry-Jones. On this occassion however, I was determined not to divulge my new-found knowledge so easily.

Although I found myself warming to the flamboyant fernator, I remained unsure as to how far I could trust him. Despite the fact that he had never done anything to truly warrant my distrust, and had indeed treated me like a close friend from the moment he had met me, there was just something about him that provoked my suspicion.

Now, at this point, many of you are probably thinking there is obviously something suspicious about any grown man who lives in a forest full of monsters and seeks to befriend young children - and you would of course be quite correct in such an assertion - but my suspicions were based on more than the obvious. It was not Aurelius’s age that bothered me, nor his odd appearance, nor even his unusual choice of acquaintances – no, what made me question Aurelius’s sincerity was something deeper than any of that; it was simply a feeling - a deep-seated, unshakable feeling - that there was something the man who so loved to talk wasn’t telling me.

I pondered my concerns as Baskerville and I turned onto the narrow and winding path that lead to the circular cottage. I was debating with myself whether the best course of action under the circumstances might not be to simply ask Aurelius straight out what it was that he was hiding, or if I might perhaps be better off not letting him know of my suspicions, thereby denying him the opportunity to disperse with them through yet more intricately worded deceptions and misdirections. This internal debate was quickly cut short the second the little white cottage with its little round windows, and bright red door came into view – for the little round windows were smashed and the little red door hung open, its hinges twisted and broken beyond repair.

I stopped in my tracks, staring gormlessly at the decimated building, unsure of what to do next. Should I simply turn and run? Should I wait here at a safe distance to see if anybody came out? Or perhaps I should simply run straight in? After all, Aurelius could be hurt in there.

Before I had the chance to properly think things through, my decision was made for me as Baskerville suddenly ran as fast as his four little legs would carry him toward the open doorway, barking all the way. With the element of surprise somewhat lost to us, I reluctantly followed my furry friend into the ransacked cottage.

Once my eyes had adjusted to the poor light inside the cottage, two things quickly became apparent; firstly, whoever had done the damage to the outside had thankfully already left, and secondly, their vandalism had not been confined to the building’s exterior.

All around me was carnage. It looked like my own bedroom would have done if my mother had ever allowed me to go more than a week without cleaning it. Only worse. Everything had was either broken beyond repair or carelessly strewn from its intended position, or both. The dining table was upside down next to the doorway, what was left of the book shelf lay face down in the kitchen sink. The floor was a carpet of glass shards born from smashed lightbulbs and the complete destruction of Aurelius’s makeshift vetinary surgery.

Not wanting him to hurt his paws, I gathered Baskerville up into my arms as I stood and assessed the situation. As far as I could see, although everything was broken, nothing was actually missing. Nothing, that was, except Aurelius.

“AURELIUS!”

I yelled my friends name as if doing so would magically draw him from a non-existent hiding place somewhere within his tiny, wreck of a home. Coming to my senses, I left the cottage and resumed my chanting outside.

‘AURELIUS! AURELIUS!’

There came no reply but the sound of my own cries echoing back off the trees. I span in a circle, searching for a broken branch, or a dropped handkerchief, some indication as to which path my friend had taken (or indeed, been taken on) through the dense forest. Detecting nothing about any one of the many natural walkways and openings among the trees to distinguish it from the rest, I was beginning to despair. Then Baskerville began to bark.

“What is it Bas? Can you smell Aurelius? Go find him boy!”

The wiry terrier merely looked at me, his mouth open, tongue drooping across his chin, creating the appearance of a vacant smile. There was nothing in his deep chocolate eyes that suggested he had even the slightest clue as to what I was saying, but I had no better plan, and so, with an unreasonable amount of hope in the small dog’s never previously demonstrated hunting abilities, I placed him on the ground in order to allow him to decide upon our next course of action.

At first, nothing happened. He merely sat, looking up at me as if waiting for me to throw a stick or provide him with a treat.

“Where’s Aurelius, boy?” I asked in the kind of high-pitched tone people reserve solely for babies and dogs, as if it somehow gives either one a better chance of understanding what is being said to them.

“Where is he, Bas? Can you find him for me?” Baskerville barked back at me in reply, giving no indication he had understood a single word I had said. It was useless.

I began to wonder whether I should fall back on the ever-reliable, scientifically-recognised practice of ‘Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Mo’ to select a path to take, or simply return home. After all, if somebody (or, as was more likely, some
thing
) had kidnapped a fully-grown fernator deemed strong enough to serve as guardian over an entire forest, what was I going to do to stop them? At that moment my thoughts were distracted by my hairy companion, who, on finally realising there was to be no gravy-bone forthcoming, had ceased his mindless staring and was now hot on the scent of something or other. Nose intently pressed to the ground, he sniffed and sniffed in ever increasing circles until he came to a path at the edge of the clearing, at which point his body went as stiff as a lightning rod. After a quick glance back over his shoulder as if to check for permission, the little terrier bolted off into the forest, barking all the way. With no idea as to whether his nostrils held the scent of Aurelius or merely a half-eaten sausage roll, I blindly followed my furry guide into the trees and hoped for the best.

We had been walking for about twenty minutes before Baskerville finally located the discarded sausage roll – a sausage roll which he consumed in about five seconds, before sitting and looking up at me with a clear sense of pride at his qualifications as a bloodhound.

I stared back in disbelief; disbelief which was, of course, wholly unjustified. What had I been thinking? Why had I trusted that a dog who couldn’t even locate a tennis ball in our tiny garden on request would be able to locate a single person in an enormous forest? And, above all, why, knowing that Baskerville’s searching abilities were wholly limited to meat-based snack products, had I held such faith that the ever-winding path he had lead me on was the right one that I had paid absolutely no attention to the way we had come, and so now found myself with equally little idea as to how to get back?

With no obvious answers to any of these questions, I had to face the facts;

• I was lost in the middle of an enormous forest
  
• It was a forest that contained all manner of strange, magical and potentially dangerous beings
  
• Nobody knew where I was
  
• Baskerville was not likely to be of any use in locating a way out
  
• It would soon be dark
  
•  
  

In an effort to suppress the panic rising up inside of me like a tsunami at the thought of my current plight, I tried to decide upon the best course of action to escape it. The plan I arrived at after just a few minutes consideration seemed childishly simple, even to an eight-year-old, but it was all I could think of, and my grandmother had always told me that the best plans were simple plans. It consisted of choosing a direction and walking in that direction in a straight line until I came out of the forest and could find a telephone box from which I could call my parents so that they and their car could come to our rescue.

Satisfied that my plan made logical sense (and that it was the only plan I had) I set about choosing a direction to go in. Back the way we had come seemed to be a logical starting point.

“Come on, Baskerville, this way. Don’t worry, we’ll soon find our way home,” I said, more for my own reassurance than the dog’s. I waited for him to come tearing past me to lead the way.

He didn’t.

“Come on, boy, there’s no more food here.”

I turned, expecting to see him still sniffing around the sausage roll wrapper, but he was not. Nor was he chasing the butterflies that inhabited the neighbouring bush. Indeed, he was nowhere to be seen at all. Baskerville had vanished.

‘BASKERVILLE!’ I yelled, panic rising within me once more.

‘BAASSS!!!’

I stood silent, eager for the patter of tiny paws racing through the undergrowth towards me, but my ears were met only with silence.

‘BASKERVILLE!!!’ I screamed in despair, immensely more frightened now than I had been moments before – being lost in the forest was one thing, being lost and alone was quite another.

All thoughts of my previous plan to escape from the forest were instantly forgotten, instantly replaced by an all-consuming need to find my dog, a need that left no room for logic and practical thinking. He was my best friend in the whole world, I could never return home without him. What would my parents say? Well, actually, I knew what they’d say; my mum would blame my dad for letting me walk the dog alone at such a young age, my dad would blame himself, but, even though they would never admit it, deep-down, they would both blame me. No, returning home without Baskerville was not an option. Finding him was now my only priority.

I had no idea which direction the little terrier had run off in, but I did know he couldn’t have gone far and so I simply picked the most negotiable path and started running.

After about five minutes the brambles along the path I had chosen became so dense that I could no longer run and was forced to carefully wade my way though them instead. I had been doing this for some time before it occurred to me that Baskerville simply wouldn’t have been able to. I was wasting my time. And so I waded my way back out again and returned to the spot where I had lost him ( a spot which was helpfully marked out by the empty sausage roll wrapper) and selected a second path. This time I had run for much longer before giving up, for, although the second path lacked the obvious blockage to my progress that the third had done, I concluded that, if I had come this far, yelling Baskerville’s name all the way without response, I had probably selected the incorrect route once again.

My third selection once again ended in a dead end when I found my path blocked by a small stream. I could easily have leapt over it, but, again, Baskerville could not have, and, knowing his fear of water, I concluded that he would not have come this way either.

My panic was fast replaced by despair. I had been searching for so long now that even if I finally picked the right direction I might never catch up with my little friend, especially given that the so-called “paths” I had been following were little more than trails of trampled weeds which often petered out into nothing and provided me with no assurances that Baskerville had stuck to any of them. The fact was that he could have been anywhere.

Gloomily, I stalked sluggishly back toward the sausage roll wrapper, only to discover that I no longer had the slightest idea where it was. I was completely lost. Completely lost and completely alone. My heart thumping in my chest from exhaustion, I allowed my tired legs to collapse from under me. Slumped against the nearest tree, I placed my head in between my knees and began to cry.

“Are you okay, mister?”

The voice had seemed to come from somewhere close by. My head shot up, and I looked all around me in search of its owner, but there was nobody to be seen.

“Who’s there?” I demanded through my tears. “Who said that?”

“Only little old me,” the voice came again. I span around, desperately searching for its source, angry that someone could be cruel enough to play a joke on me when I was already so upset.

“Down here, mister; next to your bag.”

I looked again, and at first I still saw nothing, but then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement.

I could barely believe what I was seeing; there, balanced upon the edge on the leaf of a small fern as though it were a diving board, was a tiny little woman. A tiny little woman dressed in a skirt of woven grass with bright blue and pink streaks running through her white hair. A tiny little woman who was waving at me.

“Hello there, my name is Ophelia,” said the little woman, “what’s yours?”

“Er, I, I’m Charlie,” I stuttered, still unable to trust my eyes. “What are you?”

“Why, I’m a fairy, of course! What else could I be?” she asked, gesturing at herself. “And what might you be?”

For a moment or two I simply stared, open-mouthed. I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I was face to face with a real live fairy, and this, combined with the immense speed at which she uttered her words so that they seemed to form a single, enormous sentence, meant that it took time for me to comprehend what was being said.

“Er,...I’m a human.”

“Really?” said the little fairy, raising an eyebrow in suspicion, “you don’t smell like a human. I’m not supposed to talk to humans. My grandfather says they’re nothing but trouble. Are you quite sure you’re not a Lesser-Bearded Dwarf? Or a Malatropian Snot-Wrangler?”

“Pretty sure, yes.”

“Right, well I suppose I should be off then, what with humans being maniacal, tree-murdering fairy-munchers and all.”

“No, wait...Have you seen a dog come by here?”

“A what?”

“A dog,” I repeated. The little fairy just looked back at me blankly. “You know, a dog. Four legs, one head, one tail, about as tall as that leaf you’re sitting on, covered in fur, makes a kind of ‘woof’ sound?”

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “You mean a giant carpet dragon!”

“A what?”

“A giant carpet dragon,” she repeated. “Four legs, one head, one tail, as tall as a tree-top village, covered in fairy carpet, makes a ‘woof’ or a ‘meow’ sound when it roars, floods you and your home in a stream of unpleasant smelling yellow liquid if you displease the fairy gods?”

“Er, yes, that’s the one,” I said, privately wondering if this particular fairy wasn’t a little crazy. “So have you seen one?”

“Yep.”

“Brilliant! When did you see him?”

“Hmmm, let me think... I guess it would have been about fifty moons ago now, I was searching for ingredients for potions out by the great lake...”

“Have you seen one today?!” I sighed.

“Today?” she repeated before bursting into laughter. “Today? I think I’d be just a little more scared than I am now if I’d seen a carpet dragon today, don’t you?”

I hung my head between my knees in despair. I was never going to find Baskerville.

“Sorry, Charlie. I wish I could be more helpful. I’m afraid I really should be going though; if I don’t get these acorns back by supper time there’ll be hell to pay. Are you going to be alright?”

For the first time I noticed a tiny sack filled with about eight acorns that lay on the floor below where Ophelia was sitting, I say it was tiny, but then, so was she, so to her it would not have seemed tiny at all, in fact it must have been akin to most of her bodyweight.

“I thought only squirrels ate acorns,” I sniffed. “I didn’t realise fairies liked them too. Do you really need so many? You don’t look as if you have a very big appetite.”

“Don’t be so foolish, only evil creatures eat acorns; goblins, and hobbits and such, I thought everybody knew that.”

“What about squirrels?” I asked. “Surely you’re not trying to tell me squirrels are evil too?”

“No, of course not,” she replied in a voice that suggested she thought I was stupid to have even asked the question. “Well, not
real
squirrels that is.”

“What do you mean,
real
squirrels?”

“I mean that only red squirrels were originally squirrels, grey squirrels are actually The Professor’s demon spies.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous!”

“It’s true! They’re creatures of the darkness who’ve sinned against their master and have been changed into tiny, vulnerable animals as a punishment. There only chance of survival is to act as informants for the Tundrala, hoping that they will be able to use any information they gather as spies in order to bargain for their freedom.”

I sighed. I no longer knew what to believe or who to trust. Aurelius had made me use my powers to heal a grey squirrel, and now this fairy was telling me that they were evil. But that didn’t make Aurelius evil too, I told myself; he might not know about the grey squirrels, and even if he did, that didn’t mean he should leave one in pain. There was also the fact that Ophelia may be lying to consider; a very real possibility. After all, I had only known her for about three minutes and had no reason to trust her at all. Indeed, when I thought about it, I had very little reason to trust anybody. It really was all very confusing.

“Yes, well I suppose you would, thank you anyway,” I replied, getting to my feet and turning to leave.

“Wait,” Ophelia called out after me. “I suppose we could always ask at the village, somebody might have seen one there.”

“Brilliant,” I said, a smile returning to my face. “Where is this village?”

“Oh, it is many hours flight to the east of here, especially when carrying the weight of so many acorns, and I still have to fill my sack before we can begin our journey... Hey! Wait! What are you doing?”

Ignoring her protestations I picked up the little fairy and her tiny sack of acorns and placed her in my shirt pocket. Having done this I scooped two handfuls of acorns into my rucksack.

“Now, which way is east?” I asked. In reply, Ophelia merely pointed, open-mouthed; for the first time since I had met her she had nothing to say, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.

It turned out that, contrary to the stories I had been read in my younger years, fairies flew a great deal slower than humans walked – even small, eight year old humans. As a result we arrived at the apparently distant fairy village in about twenty-five minutes (and we know doubt would have gotten there sooner had it not been for Ophelia’s poor directions, which she blamed on never having previously viewed the route from such a height).

The village itself was an amazing spectacle. Set well away from any recognisable path, in a sparsely populated area of otherwise heavy foliage, the entire thing was no more than three feet square and would be virtually undetectable to anybody who was not already aware of its location. But its tiny scale did nothing to diminish the intricacy of the miniscule metropolis or the number of inhabitants it housed; there must have been more than a hundred different buildings, of widely varying shapes, sizes and purposes, each one raised up on stilts to sit around twelve inches off the ground, each connected to the next by a series of intricate wooden walkways forged from stripped-down twigs. It was an amazing architectural feat, and surprisingly advanced; the roofs were lined with foil crisp packets which attracted heat and kept out the rain, and an enormous discarded drinks container from a fast food restaurant was used to collect rain water for the town to drink.

It was immediately apparent that we had arrived at an important time, for the village was a hive of activity. Fairies were rushing in every direction, closing down the hatches to tiny shops and restaurants, tucking children away into tiny beds, and putting out tiny lights. At ground level I noticed a not so tiny pile of several hundred acorns sitting in the middle of what appeared to be the village square, to which final contributions were being hurriedly added by bigger, stronger, uniformed fairies.

After a moment or two one of them appeared to feel my eyes upon him and turned to see me looking down at the little village. He immediately blew a whistle which hung around his surprisingly muscled neck and panic quickly ensued. A gong was rung from the top of a watch tower (which, I could only assume was manned by a very short-sighted fairy given than she had not noticed the arrival of a boy who stood more than twice the height of her own village) and all of the fairies ran (or, more accurately, fluttered) screaming to their homes. All that is, except the uniformed ones, who, lead by the fairy with the massive neck and marginally better eyesight, drew their weapons and flew towards me.

“I am Brutas,” he yelled, hovering just in front of my face and waving a tiny sword which looked to have been fashioned from a piece of flint, “turn and run now beast and I may spare your life.”

Upon receiving such a threat from a creature who could have comfortably fit into the palm of my hand, surrounded by other equally angry looking fairies armed with tiny pebbles and discarded lolly sticks, I could not help but let out a little chuckle. Needless to say this did little to soothe muscle-neck’s anger.

“Die petulant swine!” he yelled, flying at me with his sword outstretched.

“No, Brutas, wait!” screamed Ophelia, causing the angry little fellow to stop in his tracks.

“Princess? Everybody back off, he has taken Princess Ophelia hostage!” There was an audible cry of panic from around the village as the group of soldiers began slowly backing away.

“Hostage?” Ophelia moaned from her place in my pocket. “I’m no hostage you fool! I have brought this giant to help us with our offering to the dragnor. Show them Charlie.”

“You what?” I asked, completely bemused as to what she could possibly be referring to. “What’s a dragnor?”

“Just tip out the acorns,” she whispered as if I was some sort of idiot.

Disgruntled, I took off my rucksack and began grumpily adding my acorns to the already established pile. I couldn’t be bothered with all this. All I wanted was to find Baskerville, I couldn’t care less about acorns and dragnors - whatever a dragnor might be.