Aurelia and the Library of the Soul

by Gelia Dolcimascolo

  Mold the loaves to perfect size.

  Knead and shape our crusty bread.

  No sleep tonight — we’ll bake instead.

  And so we chant this potent spell

  To make our loved ones strong and well:

  Binkum, Bunkum, through the night,

  Till the morning brings us light.

  As the autumn leaves coated the earth, the Panades prepared the loaves, kneading and baking until they had enough for everyone.

  Finally finished, they tolled the village bell, summoning neighbors to the town square, where they doled out loaves to all who came.

  “One slice for each mouth daily,” they instructed. “Our ingredients will protect you for an entire year! And every year, we shall bake more.”

  And so, villagers and Gypsies alike ate their Heart-Tea Bread daily and became strong enough to ward off Promulgus’s poison. Once again, Candleborough returned to its peaceful state, the Gypsies traveled south — and the frustrated spirit returned to Yawning Cave to suffer his rage and conjure fresh revenge.

  From Astarte’s Diary

  On Your First Birthday

  Today you spoke your first word!

  Each morning before we open our bakery doors to the villagers, your Papa and I stand together at the kitchen window, one of us carrying you, where we watch the birds flutter from the trees to the little birdbath we have set out by the feeder.

  This morning, you pointed that tiny finger of yours each time a bird flew from feeder to bath. “Bird!” you said, again and again. On this, your first birthday, such a gift.

  As Aurelia grew, her mother lovingly plaited her daughter’s silken tresses with the same delicate touch she applied to the finest of breads. Thus, Astarte and Aurelia became known in the village as the lasses with the gold-streaked hair. Soon the villagers sang of Aurelia:

  Sunshine strands flow through her hair,

  A stream of gold tresses floating on air.

  She dances and skips down our cobblestone street

  With giggles and smiles for the people she meets.

  Although Aurelia’s joyful spirit continued to bloom, it was not to last. Promulgus had other plans. Furious that his powers had failed him, he vowed to vent his fury on the entire family.

  Goodsole’s Singular Shoes

  Mysteria Goodsole, Astarte’s twin sister, lived with her husband, Ivan, and their two young tow-headed sons next door to the bakery above their cobblery, GOODSOLE’S SINGULAR SHOES. Renowned for their meticulous craft, Ivan and Mysteria had mastered the key to fine shoemaking: A person’s left foot and right foot are never quite the same, and each shoe must fit its foot perfectly.

  People came from miles around for their annual fittings. The local villagers often left their shoes to be mended, then walked barefoot to the bakery next door, where the scent of cinnamon buns and hot apple cider mingled with the latest gossip.

  Each dawn, as the aroma of fresh-baked breads entered the Goodsole’s cobblery, Mysteria put aside her needles and leather to visit her sister. The two sat together, sipped hazelnut milk, and chatted until time to open for business.

  Promulgus Dances

  Many a day, at the drop of a needle, Mysteria led the villagers in spirited song and dance frolics. But Mysteria’s greatest gift was that she had the power to foresee the future, a talent that Promulgus coveted. From behind his favorite boulder, he sneered at her gyrations. Truth be told, her gaiety sent him into spasms of envy.

  “If I could only be like this woman, Mrs. Goodsole,” he whined. “Everyone adores her.”

  Changing powers come to me.

  Let me enter quietly.

  Make her lively spirits mine,

  If only for the briefest time.

  Help me transpose bad and good.

  Let me spoil her cheerful mood.

  When I slip inside her bones,

  Make of her a nasty crone.

  Promulgus spun a wicked dance of his own, croaking a new spell:

  Dancing bones, let me in!

  Make us both spin, spin, spin!

  Make us fly, never stop!

  Jump up high, hop, hop, hop!

  And so the invisible Promulgus entered Mysteria’s body. As the villagers watched their neighbor gyrate wildly, they asked one another if the woman had gone mad.

  Promulgus, however, had forgotten the rigors of such dancing. Moreover, Sour Spirits have difficulty being mortals. On top of this, he was, after all, no longer youthful at nearly 200 years old. With all the spinning and hopping, he became ill, tripping over his own feet, collapsing in the street, and losing his briefly won powers. Unable to remain inside Mysteria’s body for but a few minutes, he lay on the cobblestones, panting in miserable frustration.

  Meanwhile, Mysteria whirled joyously for the delighted villagers, who followed her measure and joined in, trampling over Promulgus as he lay there.

  Larissa giggled. “What happened next?”

  “On the one hand, the episode put Promulgus in his stone bed for a week and gave Candleborough a brief respite from him.”

  “But on the other hand . . .”

  The old man smiled at her. “You know me well, child. But on the other hand, it humiliated him so much he again vowed to get revenge. Plus, another challenge awaited him.”

  Kitchen Witches

  In every Candleborough home hung a good-fortune Kitchen Witch whose magic thus far not even Promulgus could dispel. Mysteria Goodsole had created the first of these dolls. When the villagers learned of their powers, they began helping her craft them. She stored the finished Witches in a shed behind the cobblery. Once a year, at the Summer Solstice Festival, she endowed them with Solstice magic by singing a lively chant as she danced with each doll.

  Lucky Witches, magic powers,

  Make us safe for many hours.

  Adorn our windows every day

  To send bad spirits far away.

  Lucky Witches, magic charms,

  Broomstick straws keep us from harm.

  Banish evils for a year,

  We’ll live our lives without a care.

  Newcomers to Candleborough received a magical Kitchen Witch on the day they moved into their homes. The village greeter knocked upon the door with this welcoming gift and a placard, which announced:

  Place me in your home today;

  I’ll chase bad spirits far away!

  Kitchen Witches guarded every kitchen hearth in the village, including the Cottage Bakery. In addition to protecting a home’s inhabitants, they prevented baking endeavors from going bad — cakes from burning, yeast dough from falling, soufflés from going flat. The Witches’ powers, however, lasted only four seasons and had to be replaced every Summer Solstice.

  Promulgus’s Revenge

  Promulgus smarted from his embarrassing failure to remain inside Mysteria’s body. Further confounded by the Kitchen Witches, he searched for a potion to counteract them. Once again, he pored through his Cook Book of Rare and One-Time Evils, where he kept his Snake Bread recipe.

  “Aha! This is it!” he exclaimed. “Kitchen-Itch Powder: A Potion to Deactivate Good Charms and Create Misery.”

  For seven days and nights, he searched for ingredients, eager to bring suffering to every Candleborough household. After gathering his utensils and ingredients, he returned to Yawning Cave and read the recipe:

  Kitchen-Itch Powder

  COMBINE:

  13 drops poison-ivy extract

  1 gallon apple-cider vinegar

  1 tablespoon mosquito venom

  1 pint flea blood

  BRING TO A HARD BOIL; ADD:

  1 cup ground chiggers

  1 cup shag-bark hickory scrapings

  1 tablespoon finely chopped bat hair

  1 pinch desiccated fir
eweed

  Simmer the ingredients in an iron cauldron for at least 24 hours, stirring every hour on the hour as the town bell chimes. Curse and spit in the liquid each time you stir, and make a vow over the cauldron. When the mixture is fully evaporated, place in a wooden mortar and pulverize to a fine powder with a wooden pestle. Mix with four cups fine black sand. Sprinkle on Kitchen Witches.

  Back in his cave, Promulgus danced around his bubbling cauldron, gleefully spitting and stirring. At last, in the wee morning hours of the festival day, the town bell chimed twice. He placed his malevolent mix in a wooden shaker and sneaked off to the shed behind the cobblery, where he flattened himself and slithered through a crack in the window. Once inside, he sang as he sprinkled Kitchen-Itch Powder over every Kitchen Witch.

  Kitchen Witches on the floor,

  Kitchen Witches by the door —

  Every cottage has its Witch,

  So I will make a nasty switch.

  Watch me cast my potent spell —

  Make the people itch and swell.

  The Kitchen Witches they love so

  Will make them scratch from head to toe.

  Those who touch the sandy dust

  Will jump and scratch because they must;

  For when they touch a Kitchen Witch,

  They’ll suffer from the Kitchen Itch!

  Soon every villager who touched a Kitchen Witch suffered miserably from the Kitchen Itch. Astarte, who had helped during the festival, soon discovered the prickly scarlet rash all over her hands and arms.

  The Antidote

  Astarte showed her arms to her sister, Mysteria, who fortunately was wise about remedies for such ailments. She had learned of the power of the “touch-me-not” — the perfect antidote for Kitchen Itch — from their own mother.

  “You know what Mother told us,” Mysteria said. “Let’s find some jewelweed right away!”

  “That’s right!” Astarte exclaimed. “I forgot. It is growing right behind the bakery, climbing up the poplar tree — the vine with those gold-and-red trumpet blossoms.”

  The two sisters scrambled outside to the stand of trees behind the Cottage Bakery. Mysteria tore off a section of vine with leaves and golden blossoms with ruby centers. She chewed the leaves, spat them out and rubbed the herb-and-saliva paste on her sister’s arms. Within seconds, the raw hives disappeared.

  “We must share our cure with the villagers,” Astarte said to Mysteria. “We’ll tie the jewelweed strands in bundles and send them along with a pound of oatmeal for bathing. Let’s deliver our ‘healing presents’ today so our neighbors will not suffer.”

  With pounds of oatmeal from the bakery and a never-ending supply of jewelweed in the forest, Candleborough newcomers would be safe from the Kitchen Itch.

  Once again, Promulgus’s nasty plot was foiled.

  And that was when Promulgus Morphus performed his most dastardly deed.

  Promulgus Persists

  Angrier than ever at the sisters, and jealous of the bond the twins enjoyed, Promulgus once again set his sights on Mysteria, returning to his recipe collection to find some truly nasty potions.

  Back in Yawning Cave, he pored through his Cook Book of Rare and One-Time Evils, looking under “Sleeping Potions,” “Potions for Amnesia,” and “Potent Brews.” There! Just what he needed. Both must sleep, but one would get an extra twist of evil.

  Cloaked under the dark of the new moon, he searched the forest for his ingredients: Snails for potency. Poisonwood for deep sleep. Bat’s blood for amnesia. Bitterroot for female fertility. Something for everyone. Satisfied, he carted them off to his cave, where he lit a fire under his blackened iron kettles and hovered over his sanguine brews, stirring and stewing.

  As the liquors bubbled, he muttered, “Now I shall avenge myself.” He inhaled the vapors and placed a drop of snail soup on his tongue.

  “Ahhhh.” The soup’s acrid aroma and gruesome flavor stirred his evil passions. “Mmmm.” The poisonwood vapors sent him into a euphoric sleep in which he dreamed of a charcoal-black steam cloud. The cloud morphed into a face.

  “The twin sister. The cobbler-woman, Mysteria Goodsole! Goodsole, indeed! Mysteria Goodprey! I’ll give the woman a mystery. And all the while, her husband will lie fast asleep by her side.” He filled his flask with the mix, singing:

  Woman, dream a dream so sweet.

  Let me perform my greatest feat.

  We shall dance a maudlin dance.

  All I need is but one chance

  To snatch a child your dream will seed

  And thus complete my noxious deed.

  The very next day, as twilight descended over Candleborough, Promulgus slipped out of the cave with his flasks of wicked potion, continuing his song:

  While you sleep, that’s when I’ll go.

  A mystery I’ll surely sow:

  You’ll never see this child’s dark eyes —

  I’ll whisk her off through darkened skies,

  Then hide her far away from you.

  Come drink my tasty, potent brew.

  Mysteria had tucked their two rambunctious towheaded sons into bed. As the Goodsoles were preparing for sleep, Promulgus swooped down their kitchen chimney, barely missing the dying embers in the fireplace. He landed by the breakfast table. When he poured the brews into the couple’s night cups, the entire cottage shuddered.

  “What was that?” asked Ivan, already comfortable under the feathered quilt.

  “It must be the wind,” his wife replied.

  She left to check the two sleeping boys. Not a peep from them. She tiptoed into the kitchen, fetched the filled night cups, and joined Ivan in the bedroom. “Funny, I don’t remember pouring our tisanes,” she said. The couple sipped their tea, blew out the candle flames, climbed into bed, and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile, Promulgus lay in wait, listening for their snores.

  That night, Mysteria Goodsole dreamt of a beautiful baby girl — the daughter she had never borne. She was humming a lullaby to the tiny babe asleep in her arms. All of a sudden, the dream turned into a nightmare. Promulgus, hovering above, reached into her dream, snatched the baby, and whisked the infant away. Mysteria awoke in a pool of sweat, sat upright, and shouted, “No!” Her husband’s snores brought her back to reality. It was only a dream, she said to herself — or was it?

  Meanwhile, Promulgus roared with triumph as he reached Yawning Cave with his new child. “Welcome to our home, little one. I shall name you . . . hmmm . . . Maudlin? Little Maude? No. You shall be called Maudline!” And thus, as the cock crowed that morning, Maudline Morphus entered his dark world.

  At Yawning Cave: Maudline Morphus

  Having succeeded in creating his offspring, Promulgus spent the next year at Yawning Cave trying to care for this baby Maudline, whose hair grew wild and dark with a silver streak running through but whose face was sallow as whey. Little did he know how much trouble she would cause him, from having to feed and provide for her most basic needs to hearing her nearly constant wailing.

  One day, in order to get her to eat, Promulgus stuffed himself so full of porridge he almost burst. Another time, he got so frustrated with Maudline’s wails he started crying like a baby himself. The two of them sat there in the cave, wailing away.

  Over time, and sheerly through devious persistence and wicked wit, Promulgus managed to keep her alive and healthy, if not happy. At least his preoccupation with Maudline allowed the people of Candleborough respite from his mad deeds. And so, several years passed quite peacefully in the village and in the valley, with the annual migration and return of the Gypsies as predictable as flights of snow geese.

  Meanwhile, the Panades saw Aurelia blossom into a bubbly little girl who enjoyed playing with her boy-cousins and the other village children, who adored her.

  Back at Promulgus’s lair, though, Maudline Morph
us knew only her crotchety father for a parent and the forest animals for playmates.

  The Sour Spirits

  Larissa gripped her grandfather’s arm. “Poor Maudline. Tell me again, what made Promulgus so mean to the Panades and the Goodsoles?”

  The old man caressed her smooth hand. “For one thing, some spirits are simply born dark. For another, Promulgus had no friends or kindred spirits. You recall, he was the last of the clan of Sour Spirits. His evil deeds and his breath kept others away; thus, he was lonely and jealous of happy mortals. Also, each of us has deep fears, my child. Even evil spirits. Promulgus’s worst fear was that he would become visible and thus vulnerable to attack when outside Yawning Cave.

  “Although no living person could see him, he knew the Panade family possessed unique gifts which passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Aurelia’s maternal grandmother had received from her own grandmother the talent of seeing evil forces. Remember, as each gifted eldest girl-child turned six, this power would emerge. And so, Promulgus knew he must deal with Aurelia — and everyone who cared for her.”

  “So he tried to — ”

  “Patience, sweet child. One step at a time. Maudline, who was younger than Aurelia, was a handful — and terribly lonely. To keep his daughter company, Promulgus decided to bring Aurelia to Yawning Cave and hide her there before she could reveal his whereabouts to the villagers.”

  Aurelia’s Birthday

  For Aurelia’s sixth birthday, her mother sewed her daughter a dress with a black-velvet bodice, gold-and-black puffed taffeta sleeves, and a ribbon-sash to match. Aurelia’s Uncle Ivan and Aunt Mysteria crafted a pair of shoes to complete her outfit. With leftover scraps of leather and ribbon from the sash, the Goodsoles fashioned the first ribbon-shoes in the land.

  Aurelia found the new clothes and shoes on the kitchen table on her birthday morning. When she slipped them on, she felt like a princess.