“Why don’t you leave your hair out, mom? How come you never show it to anyone?”
Alfred’s mom looked at him, her face in the shadow beyond the starlight. Her eyes held a glow like that of the stars.
“If you’re not going to show it, why don’t you just cut it off?”
“Alfred, my hair is not important. I was just letting it dry.”
“But you always bundle it. You never show it to anyone.”
“Well, it’s long and, and it gets in the way of my work.”
“Yah, but you never go out. You never do that, you know, like other moms.”
She smiled and came forward to hug him. “I want to take care of you.”
Alfred stepped back. His mom hesitated and stood looking at him with caring but sad eyes.
“I just want you to be happy, mom.”
His mother then smiled with tears and hugged him. “I am happy, Alfred. I am so very happy. I am happy because I have a son, a smart strong son. I am happy because you are alive and growing and will one day be a man. You will live in peace and happiness. I know it.”
“Mom?” Alfred thought she was a little kooky.
She was swelling with tears. “I did this all for you.”
“Mom! I don’t want you to do this all for me! I want you to be happy too!”
“I am Alfred! I am.”
“You work so hard and never go out. All the other kids have two parents, a mom and a dad, or at least some have boyfriends or stepparents or whatever. But you, mom, you don’t have anything, and you don’t tell me anything, and I don’t know who my father is!”
“Was.” She stood back in the shadows.
“What?” Alfred immediately understood but felt disbelief. “What?”
“He is dead. He died before you were born.”
“What? Why? What did he die from?” Alfred’s heart sank. Though he rarely thought about it, somewhere inside him he always hoped that when he was old enough, he would meet his father. Suddenly this little bit of hope was dashed against a rock.
“He died fighting. He died in a war.” She seemed to be carefully choosing her words.
It took awhile for Alfred to recover. He had never known his father. But now, learning that he had been a warrior, intrigued him to no end. “My dad was a soldier!? Was he a big soldier? I mean was he a colonel or something?”
“Yes -- I mean no.” His mother seemed confused, trying to remember or figure out what to say to appease him.
“Yes? He was a colonel?” Alfred asked excitedly. “What war did he fight in? What happened? How long did you know him? Was he really a colonel!?”
“No, he was not a colonel. He was a warrior, I mean.” She shook her head, trying to think.
“A warrior? What kind of rank is that?” Alfred looked at her with suspicious eyes.
“No, no, not that, he wasn’t that. He was not like the others, I mean. I don’t know what I mean. He’s gone, and it’s not important.” With that, she suddenly blurted out, “I mean, it’s important but not right now, not here. Don’t ask me anymore! I can’t say anymore -- please, Alfred. We must not say anything more right now!” She seemed hysterical.
Alfred was astonished. He became angry. It was as if she was taking his father away from him again. He just learned something about his father, something very exciting, and then she became hysterical and wouldn't tell him more. “Mom! You have to tell me! I am going to find out one way or another!”
“No, Alfred, you will not. You will never find out! You cannot know! You will never know!” She gasped at what she said. She knew how hard it hit her son, how harsh those words were. Alfred looked as if an arrow had pierced his heart. He was a strong, smart boy who deserved better than this and ought to live in peace.
Alfred’s eyes swelled with tears. It was as if he had nothing, no past and now no future. His mother was the key to understanding who he was, and she was like a ghost – someone he could chase for the rest of his life but never catch.
Alfred went to his door and then turned to look at her shadowed face. “I don’t even know his name. I don’t know anything about him.”
“You can’t, Alfred. You must never know his name. It’s dangerous,” his mother said softly.
The weight of that was heavier than anything Alfred had ever felt. He leaned against his door, his emotions swelling into tears and anger. He looked at his mother, as if penetrating the dark, when something snapped in his mind.
“Bedenwulf.”
“What? What did you say?” His mother stepped from the shadows into the light of the window with strained grievous eyes.
“That’s his name, mom, isn’t it? You said it the other day when you were delirious, when it seemed you were crazy. That’s his name! Bedenwulf!” Alfred shouted at her.
She seemed to grow in stature as she walked up to him. Then she slapped him with such force that it knocked him aside. As his eyes filled with tears, hers began glancing to and fro in the darkness. To Alfred she looked frightened, as if some monster was about to appear. Finally she stopped looking about and gazed at him. As if this crazy behavior wasn’t enough, her voice was terrifying. “Do not say that name again, ever!” She delivered the words as if speaking a curse or foretelling doom.
Alfred walked backward into his bedroom and shut the door in her face. Locking it, he wept.
That night, bundled in his bed, he could think only of that name, Bedenwulf.
Chapter Four: The Ghost
Though Alfred tried to sleep, he was wide awake with heightened senses. He could hear every sound outside his window, see every dust particle that floated by, and feel the temperature in his room.
In a big city, cars drove by late in the night. He was used to this. The headlights shone through his blinds causing bright lines to race across his wall. The headlights came in a pattern. Every few moments the bright lines would appear, forming at one side. When a car passed, the lines of light would zip across his wall to the corner, then bend along the other side, glide by the window and disappear.
Alfred was mesmerized by the repeated sound of the coming cars and the glowing lines of light as they crossed the walls. While watching this, he wondered about his father. He tried to think of which war he could have been in eleven years ago. What war did his country fight that his father could have been a soldier in? Hmmm… He realized that he was not familiar with most modern wars or even the current struggles going on around the world. He could think only of medieval wars, of knights and men-at-arms, of barbarians and monsters.
“Bedenwulf,” Alfred whispered. He imagined his father as a knight, a great knight in shining armour charging with his lance and impaling a great beast. Then he imagined him fighting other beasts. And, of course, there was always the dark beast, the great unclean dragon. He imagined that his father was killed by this fire breathing dragon. It was a creature so dark and mysterious that it seemed to melt in shadows. It had long ghostly talons and left wisps of darkness, trails of inky clouds, when it passed.
He saw his father as a knight fighting the dark beast. He could hear his mother crying and screaming in fear. He sat up in his bed.
“Bedenwulf!?”
Alfred wasn’t sure if he had nodded off and dreamed. He saw the headlights again, moving slowly across the wall. They glided along to the corner and then raced along the back wall up to the window and zipped out.
Another car went by, but as Alfred watched the lines of light this time, something was different. The lines slowly glided to the corner, but instead of dashing along the wall they seemed to undulate along a bumpy surface and then race out. Alfred was confused. He looked again as more lines appeared from another passing car. They went to the corner and, as before, undulated. He realized that they were not racing along the smooth wall but passing over someone standing in the room, right there in the darkness.
Alfred immediately jumped from his bed, his heart racing. Someone was in the corner! He picked up an old plastic baseball bat he had st
anding in the corner and raised it to strike.
“Do not be frightened, my boy! Do not be frightened.” It was an old raspy voice.
“Who are you!?” With the bat in his hands, Alfred felt strong.
The man came forward. He was an old man bent over with a long white beard and long white hair. He was wearing a white robe that began to glow, not bright like the sun but dim, like distant stars.
“Who are you?” Alfred had never held a bat in defense, but it felt right.
The strange old man paused and thought for a moment. “I, I don’t remember.” He looked genuinely perplexed. “I don’t remember my name. I don’t remember anything. I have no memory.”
“Well, how did you get in here?”
The man was tall but bent over and frail. With eyes that seemed worn, he blinked and looked about confused.
“I don’t remember that either.”
“Well, do you live here in the building? There’s a lot of old people here. Wait! You don’t remember that either, right?”
The old man nodded and smiled. “Yes, yes, I don’t remember. I have no memory. I have no memory, and I feel that I have awakened from a long sleep.”
Alfred was unsure what he meant but thought of things like amnesia or senility. This old man looked strange. His clothing, a robe or gown, looked as if it would go well in a mental hospital or carnival. As he looked at it more carefully, it seemed to sparkle. The garment had ornate embroidery all around it, faintly colored in gold and silver. It looked like it came from a well-funded mental hospital.
“Let me go wake my mom, and we can help you.”
“No! Do not wake your mother! I have come here for you. You have called me. You have summoned me, and I need to take you with me!”
Alfred cringed.
“You cannot tell your mother. This I know… I mean I feel. I don’t know because I have no memory. So whatever it was that I did know, I now know, I do not know. You see, very simply, I can’t explain a thing because I have no memory to explain why I feel the way I feel, but I do feel that you must come with me in these desperate times!”
“Come with you? Where to? An old folks home?”
“Old folks home? Hmmm, I wonder if I can remember that… old folks home? I don’t think I know this Old Folk? Or at least not now. Not now, now that I don’t know ...anything.”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy? Mental?” Alfred kept holding his bat, just in case.
“Hmm? Me? Well? Possibly. I certainly feel crazy... a bit. I feel impatient. I feel I must take you with me, to show you what you must do and to help in any way I can, though I do not remember what it was or what it is you must do.”
“Well, I don’t think I can go with you, and I think I should get my mother.” Alfred went to the door.
The old man sprang between Alfred and the door and then leaned on it, waving Alfred off. He was waving his hands frantically, putting his finger to his lip to try to remember, rolling his eyes as if searching in his empty brain for something to say.
Alfred’s lip curled.
“No, no, do not wake her. Do not bid her to come. For I know, or rather feel, that she has the power to dismiss me. She has the power to end our last hope, which is you, my dear boy. You are our last hope. We need you. I don’t know who we is, but I feel, still, that I am a part of we, whoever we are? Please! I need you!” The old man wrung his feeble hands.
“My mom?” Alfred was about to call for her out loud.
“The Queen! I think? Or feel or fear? I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!?” The old man beat his own head, albeit gently of course.
Saying the word queen softly, Alfred remembered her long hair, her soft song, her embroidered robe – the image of her standing there at the window singing while gazing at the stars. He thought there was something more to her.
“Is she a queen?” the old man asked, looking up from his gentle self battering.
“My mom? No!”
“All I know, or feel or what have you, is that I need your help. I have finally come. Something has brought me here, and I have come, and now it is time. It is time for… It is time for you! Will you help me? Ah us? Me?”
Alfred was a bit taken by the sudden movements, the desperate cajoling, and the emotional pleading.
“I feel I have come because you are of age! That must be it! You are eighteen years old!? A man!” The old man posed proudly motioning to Alfred.
“I’m eleven years old.”
“Oh, eleven? Ooohhh… a bit young, isn’t it? Oh well, it will have to do, I suppose – I have no idea!” The old man raised his arms to the ceiling. “Still, I’m here. You are here. We must go anyway!”
Alfred nodded a reluctant okay.
“Good, good, thank you.”
“Why don’t you want to tell my mom? What power does she have over you?” Alfred crossed his arms with the bat still gripped tightly, of course.
The old man suddenly braced against the door as if it were going to crash in from gushing water. He seemed positively out of control. “I told you I don’t remember. I don’t know. I but feel what I must and feel that I need you and feel that your mother, the woman on the other side of this door cannot know, not now.”
“Why?” Alfred stood firm, bat re-raised.
“Because... there is a great sadness in her. I can feel it.”
Alfred stepped back, his stern look lessened. There was something interesting about his robe. It looked similar to his mother’s, yet very, very different. Her robe was an earthy green with gold embroidery. His looked more like a snowy hill with twinkling snowflakes on a brisk moonlit night.
The old man closed his eyes as if concentrating on the other side of the door. “She loves you with all her heart. She is willing to sacrifice… everything… for you. She knows the dangers that lie ahead. She won’t take the risks, not any more. But you will, my boy, won’t you?”
Alfred smiled and nodded, “Yeah. What danger? What risk?”
The old man thought for a split second. “Uh... I don’t know.”
Alfred still kept his bat ready but not as high and obvious. He carefully watched the muttering old man. “You can feel?”
The old man nodded, waving his affirmative finger.
“But you have no memory?” Alfred asked.
“Yes, I believe that is right.”
“Did someone take your memory?”
The old man froze, “Yes! At least I think so. Though I’m not sure I can think so. I just know I feel so.”
“Do you remember how you got here?”
The old man raised a finger in ponderous excitement of having known something, but then said… “No.”
“Then how do you know me?” Alfred asked.
“Know you? I don’t know you. I feel. I mean I can feel that you are the one destined to come with me.” The old man gently poked Alfred's shoulder. “You are the one I need, the one the land needs. I do not belong here, nor do you.”
“What? I do not belong here? You mean in this city and country?” Alfred asked.
“No, I mean HERE!” The old man waved his arms about.
“Here as in where?”
“Oh! How can I explain if I don’t have any memory…huh?” the old man said.
“Well, if you don’t have any memory, how will you take me wherever it is that you want to take me?”
“Good question. I have no idea.”
“Where did you want to take me?”
The old man got excited. He opened his mouth to tell wonderful stories about a wonderful place, but then his faced strained in puzzlement. He obviously could not remember a thing about those wonderful places or the wonderful stories. “I can’t remember. I have a task. This I feel, and it involves you. This I felt when I heard the name, and now I am here.”
“Name? What name? What did you hear?”
“It was… I don’t remember. At least I don't remember while I was asleep or gone or what have you.” The old man closed h
is eyes.
“Was it Bedenwulf?”
“Bedenwulf!” the old man’s quivering lips finally said. “Bedenwulf?” He stared into the void before him. “It was that name that called me back from my doom – that name that I have waited for all these years, to be summoned, to be awakened!”
Alfred was a bit scared and taken aback by this old man who looked so strange yet acted so familiar. The man looked intently at Alfred, a gaze more focused than before.
“You are the son of Bedenwulf! He was a great... something… I can’t remember. I feel very strongly that he was my friend. And he was doomed.”
“Was he a great knight?” Alfred asked.
The old man’s eyes twitched as he glanced about. Then he gasped for air as if remembering things or at least trying to remember. “Yes! He was a great knight!”
“Wait! Don't we mean a soldier? Right?”
“No, not a soldier who is paid by lords. He was a knight – a great one, one of the greatest! Or so I feel. And you are his son. You must return with me to the land of… of… oh, I can’t remember! A terrible curse has been cast upon me! At least, I feel it were so. Something has been taken from me!”
“Your memory?”
“Yes, my memory!” the old man said.
Alfred looked at the way the old man with his long white beard and long white hair stood. Above him there was a shadow against the wall in the shape of a triangle. It was pointing upward like a cone. The old man stood as if he were leaning on something. He leaned against the wall where a shadowy line went down to the floor. Yes! It looked as if the old man had a coned hat and was holding a staff.
Alfred tilted his head to get that image juxtaposed just right. “Are you a wizard!?”
The old man suddenly stood straight with the wonderful thought. “A wizard? Yes. Why yes! That is what I am! It’s all coming back to me now!” He danced around the room. “A wizard! That’s what I am! I’m remembering! My memory is coming back!”
“And you appeared right there, out of nowhere?” Alfred recalled the man’s magical arrival. He most certainly did not come through the door or window. He had to have come magically, somehow. Alfred put down his bat and stepped around the frolicking figure to have a closer look at the corner of the room. Was there a magical portal? Alfred stared intently as the old man did some remarkable dance moves.
Alfred: The Boy Who Would Be King (Alfred the Boy King Book 1) Page 4