Aurelius and I

by Benjamin James Barnard

  “The paperwork’s important though. It might be boring but nothing would get done without it.”

  “Well, that’s true, Charlie. I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Indeed he had said it himself, many times, which is why I knew it would be the right way to ease into the question I had actually wanted to ask.

  “Are you working on anything to do with the redevelopment of Hanselwood Forest?” I ventured casually, trying hard to make the question seem off-handed and unimportant.

  “No, that’s not really my department,” he replied. “Hang on a minute, that’s still supposed to be a secret, where did you hear about that?”

  “Er, from June Carrick, her dad owns a building company so he knows all about those sort of things,” I said, thinking quickly before moving the conversation forward so as not to invite further probing. “So, do you really think it will happen then? Do you really think the council will let the entire forest be destroyed?”

  “I’m afraid it looks that way, Charlie. The town is very poor at the moment and the money would come in very handy, plus there would be lots of new jobs available at the new shopping centre.”

  “But what about all the creatures that live there?” I burst out a little too emotionally. “What will happen to them?”

  “Well, Son, I’m sure most of the larger ones – squirrels, and foxes and the like – will be able to make their homes elsewhere,” replied my father soothingly, blissfully ignorant to the true nature of my concerns. “As for the bugs and the other small creatures, I’m afraid that most won’t survive.”

  “But isn’t their anything that could stop it?” I asked desperately.

  “Well,...I suppose if enough people from the town protested then the council would have to keep the forest, but I’m afraid that’s just not going to happen, Charlie. I know that you love the forest, but you’re one of very few who does. Everyone else goes to Englethorpe Woods instead, they say that Hanselwood is haunted, that all manner of strange beings from ghosts to goblins live there. I’ve never heard anything so stupid in all my life, but you know how silly people can be.”

  “Yes, very silly,” I agreed, trying to suppress a smile. “And, unless people make a fuss, there’s no other possible way that the forest might survive?”

  “No. No I don’t think there is. You see, the problem is that it’s just a plain old forest. If there was anything of archaeological importance there, or if it were home to any rare or endangered species, then that would be a different matter. The council would have to keep it by law. But, I’m afraid that’s just not the case.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I suppose not.”

  I couldn’t believe the terrible irony of it all. If the forest could be proven to be a home for endangered species then it would be safe. The reason I was trying to save it was the fact that it was home to many thousands of very rare and extremely endangered creatures – but if anybody new that they would only become more endangered. It was all incredibly frustrating. I could think of no way of protecting both the forest and the secret of magic simultaneously, and, unfortunately, as a Protector, the secret of magic had to be my main concern.

  After my father left for work my mother thanked me for waking up early, saying he had been much cheerier when he left this morning than he had been for ages. I, on the other hand, was much more depressed. Not wanting to show this to my mother and bring her down or invite unwanted questions, I informed her that I was taking Baskerville to visit my grandmother and may not be back until much later. I was worried as to what response this might bring given my exploits the previous evening, but my mother appeared to have entirely forgotten the incident, merely providing her usual warning that I be careful with roads and did not talk to strangers. She even gave me twenty-pence to spend at the sweet shop, despite the fact that I had already had my pocket money for the week.

  And so, armed with a backpack of jam sandwiches, a flask of lemon squash, a bottle of water for Baskerville, and, most importantly, a quarter of wine gums, my hairy companion and I headed to my grandmother’s caravan in the hope that she may be of more help in my quest to save the forest than my father had been.

  Chapter 8

  “Did you see him? What did he say? You’re a Protector aren’t you? I was right, wasn’t I?”

  These were my grandmother’s first words to me upon opening the door to her caravan. She had not even been able to compose herself long enough to let through the door first, let alone say hello.

  “Nice to see you too, Grandma.”

  “I’m so sorry, child, where are my manners?” she said, the tension beginning to lift from her wrinkled face. “Come in, come in – yes, you too, Baskerville. Now, can I interest you in some home-made fruit cake and a tall glass of milk?”

  “Yes please,” I replied eagerly. Baskerville barked his appreciation at such a suggestion.

  “I’m afraid it will be watered down milk and dog biscuits for you, Baskerville,” she said with a smile, before turning to me and adding; “You must never give dogs currants you know, Charlie, for they are like poison to them.”

  “I know, Grandma,” I assured her. And I did know, for it was the six-hundred-and-seventy-first time that she had told me.

  “Now,” she said. “While I prepare your treats you can put me out of my misery and tell me exactly what happened with you and this Aurelius character yesterday.”

  And so I did. I told her about all the different creatures that Aurelius had told me about, the ones I had never really believed existed. I told her all about the Barry and Rain, the two Alundri who I had actually met (aside from Aurelius, of course). I even told her about the jumble-berry pie and sherbet-filled Yorkshire puddings. Looking back, I think that I enjoyed telling the tale even more than she enjoyed listening to it. It felt so good to be able to get it all off my chest and talk to someone about it without the worry that they would accuse me of being a liar or a mad-man (well, mad-boy). It somehow made it all seem so much more real.

  I had just begun to tell her about The Professor, Captain Blackheart, and their plan to destroy Hanselwood Forest when I noticed that something was wrong. My attention was drawn by my grandmother’s sudden silence, followed by the clattering of china. I looked up to find her clinging to the work surface, trying desperately to keep herself from falling.

  My body went cold all over. I was at least ten times more frightened at that moment than I had been when faced with a howling ogre the day before. I ran across the caravan and placed my arm around my grandmother’s tiny frame, guiding her into her armchair, fearing with each step that I would be unable to support her weight and that we would both end up in a sprawling heap on the floor.

  “I’m calling, mum,” I said, tears forming behind my eyes. “She’ll know what to do.”

  “No, Charlie, I’ll be fine,” my grandmother insisted in as commanding a voice as she was able to muster. “Just get me a glass of water please.” I did as I was told, but I wasn’t happy about it.

  “Are you sure, I shouldn’t call mum?” I asked, handing her the water, “or maybe an ambulance?”

  “Don’t be silly, Charlie. I’m okay, I promise, I just had a bit of a shock, that’s all,” she replied in between sips of water, her voice a little firmer now, and the colour beginning to return to her cheeks. “Now, tell me again about this Professor, and be sure not to miss a single detail.”

  And so I told her. I told her everything Aurelius had told me, and, although she never once interrupted me, her sighs and moans, and the whisper of tears in the corners of her eyes told me that it was a story with which she was already at least partly familiar.

  She was silent for a long time after I had finished. I got the feeling she was composing herself, trying to find both the words she needed to express what she wanted to say, and the strength to utter them. When she did finally speak, her words were not those I had expected.

 
“Charlie, inside the drawer to my bedside table is a small wooden box, bring it to me please.”

  I did as I was asked. The box was no bigger than the old fashioned tobacco tins that people so commonly carried throughout my childhood, and was made of a beautiful dark wood, the likes of which I had never seen before. Its lid was covered in intricate carvings of warriors and dragons and other strange beasts, so lifelike they appeared to dance whenever viewed from the corner of the eye.

  I handed the box to my grandmother who opened it gingerly, as if its contents were fashioned of the rarest and most delicate of china, liable to smash into a million pieces at so much as a loud noise. But as she turned the box to face me I saw that the box did not contain china at all, but, in fact, a none-too delicate looking watch.

  “Charlie, this is for you,” said my grandmother, removing the ancient-looking timepiece from the deep purple velvet casing of its container and handing it to me.

  “Seriously?” I asked, already trying it on for size. “But, it’s not my birthday for months.” I was a little bewildered as to what I had done to warrant such a wondrous present and why she had chosen now to bestow it upon me.

  “I am not giving it to you because you deserve a gift, I am giving it to you because you need it,” she said with a grave seriousness which was further emphasised by the long pause that followed her words.

  “Sit for a moment, Charlie... it is time I told you about your grandfather.”

  I pulled up a chair from the dining table and waited for her to begin with a terrible sense of foreboding. I already knew that my grandfather had been killed during the war for no good reason whatsoever, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any of the gruesome details that I feared might follow judging by the hint of distress which was already present in my grandmother’s voice. Her next sentence though, caught me completely off guard.

  “Charlie, I can think of no subtle way to put this, so I’m not going to try; your grandfather was a wizard.” She paused, as if awaiting a response, but when the only one she received consisted of shocked silence she continued with her tale.

  “He was not a soldier, or a shoemaker, as I have previously led you to believe, but a wizard. And not just any wizard. Your grandfather was one of the most powerful wizards in all of Eastern Europe. He could turn a man into a steaming pile of Elk dung with a click of his fingers.

  “Only he never would have.

  “You see, Charlie, the only quality your grandfather had in greater abundance than power was kindness. He was a wonderful, gentle man, who would do everything he could to help others – and not just other magical creatures, humans too. He had always believed that the only way for everybody to have peace and happiness was for the humans and the Alundri to live together, side by side. And that is exactly what he did. At the age of twenty-two he went out and bought himself a caravan and travelled all over Europe with a group of Romany gypsies. Of course, the Romany, being such a spiritual people, were much more accepting of his unusual ways than most other humans would have been, but even among his own group there were many who feared him for no better reason than the fact that he was different. Theysort to have him removed from the community, and that, as it turned out, was how your grandfather and I fell in love.

  “Your grandfather was an exceptionally handsome man with hair so blonde it was almost white, just like your own, and, on top of this, he was the perfect gentleman. And I don’t mean that in an off-handed, clichéd way. No, my dear Asmodious was so polite, so kind, and so gentlemanly that he stuck out as old-fashioned even back then. There was rarely a time when you would see him when he wasn’t holding open a door for a young woman, or carrying the groceries of the elderly. He was truly a wonder. A man from an age so bygone that it was difficult to believe it had ever existed outside of books and movie theatres.

  “Of course, all the young, single women fancied him – some of the older, married ones too I dare say – and the men were very jealous of your grandfather as a result. They didn’t like this powerful, clever, handsome stranger who had suddenly entered their lives and whom they could neither outwit, outcharm, nor outfight. And so they did their level best to make his life difficult. At first this merely consisted of generally ignoring him; excluding him from their manly bonding activities such as drinking and gambling, and the like. But, gradually, when this caused Asmodius no visible upset, things began to escalate.

  “Your grandfather would awake to find that his caravan had been painted with derogatory slogans such as ‘Alundri Scum’, and ‘Sorcerer go home’. After a time these slogans stopped appearing on his caravan and were instead delivered on pieces of paper attached to rocks which were hurled through his windows. Things just seemed to go from bad to worse for my dear old Asmodious, and, though retaliation and retribution never crossed his mind, he began to fear that he would have to leave the community he had grown to love, for he felt his presence there to be too divisive.

  “And then, one day, everything came to a head.

  “It was a hot August afternoon, and we had set up camp in a little clearing just outside of a small town in Hungary, about two hours ride from Budapest. Although I had never had what you might call a conversation with your grandfather at that point, I had always admired him from afar, and in the preceding weeks, afar had become closer and closer. You see, I had decided that I wanted to get to know Asmodious a little better – courting we used to call it in those days - but the trouble was that, at that time, it was considered inappropriate for a woman to make the first move – women had to wait and hope that men noticed them and asked them out. Anyway, after many months of fluttering my eyelids with little response, I had decided that I needed to step things up a notch if I was ever going to know how he truly felt about me, and so I had taken to leaving more obvious hints. I would watch and wait until he went out, before slipping a love letter under his door, or a single red rose with a note attached through an open window. While I never signed these letters, I always tried to leave enough clues as to my identity for a smart man like your grandfather to figure out, in the hope that he would one day announce to me that he felt the same way.

  “This had been going on for some time when, on that particular afternoon, I was coming back from a walk in the countryside, armed with a fresh bouquet of wild flowers for my dear Asmodious, when I saw his legs poking out from underneath the caravan of Natalia, an elderly widow who travelled with the group, whose wheel-axel he was kindly fixing. Seeing my chance to make my daily deposit unnoticed, I quickly wrote a little note – some sort of childish love poem about tulips which didn’t quite rhyme as I remember – and made my way over to your grandfather’s caravan. On approaching however, I saw something very strange.

  “Felix, a rude and unattractive young man who had tried and failed to win the affections of myself and just about every other unattached female in the group and who, for some unknown reason, blamed your grandfather for his own failings, was climbing out of the window of Asmodious’s caravan. I didn’t know what to do, and so I stayed quiet and ducked behind another caravan and waited for him to leave.

  As I waited a million questions raced through my mind. What had he been up to? Should I go and investigate myself and risk being caught in somebody else’s caravan? Should I tell somebody? If so, who? Who would believe me? Why would I say I was alone, watching Asmodious’s caravan? And what exactly would I be accusing Felix of? He hadn’t clearly stolen anything, unless it was small enough to carry in his pocket, which would have made it all the easier to hide. I was completely torn over what course of action was best.

  “Then, something entirely unexpected happened; Felix returned. And this time he was not alone. He had with him several of the important elders from the group, including the most important of all, Uri the oldest and wisest of our group and unofficially recognised by all as its leader. The men opened the door to the caravan, which was unlocked and went inside. There then came much unintelligib
le shouting, before they emerged baring very serious looks and marching purposefully away in Asmodious’s direction. I stood there for a moment, observing the scene, wondering what all the fuss was about, what the men could have discovered to cause them such concern, and then I saw it. There, in the hand of one of the men, hung a black cockerel. Its throat had been slit.

  “You see, Charlie, to sacrifice a black cockerel was said to be a sign of great evil, of devil worship and black magic. People were more superstitious back then, and such a thing would have caused quite a stir in most communities at the time, but among the Romany it was just about the worst thing a person could do.

  “My poor Asmodious was taken immediately to Uri’s caravan, and all the men in the group were called to convene a meeting to decide what to do with him. I pleaded with my father to listen to me about what had happened, but he simply asked me where my proof was, and I was forced to concede that I had none. Not only did I lack physical evidence, but I had not actually seen Felix enter the caravan with the cockerel, even though I knew deep down in my heart that he had done so. Nevertheless I made my father promise to at least question Felix over the issue in front of everybody else, to see what excuse he had for being in the caravan in the first place. Whether he did so or not I will never know, but the result was the same; your grandfather was convicted of devil worship and of practicing black magic and was extradited from the group.”

  “They threw him out? Without proof?” I asked, incredulously.

  “Yes, Charlie, they did. And he was lucky. Had he been a normal man, and not a wizard whose power everybody feared, they would surely have hung him for his crime. The cockerel was all the proof they needed. That was how justice worked within Romany communities.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “I would never want to live in a community like that.”

  “Neither did I, Charlie. Neither did I. And so, that evening, just before sunset, I had an enormous row with my father about how, for the first and only time in my life, I was ashamed to call myself a Romany. He told me that if I was ashamed of my heritage, then maybe I should just leave. I replied that I would, that there was nothing anyone could do could convince me to live among such a horrible group of liars and bigots. My mother cried and begged me not to go, begged my father to make me stay, but we were each as stubborn as the other, and neither of us was willing to back down. And so, late that evening, just as the sun was setting, I left the camp for what I thought would be the final time, all my worldly possessions wrapped in a sheet that I carried over my shoulder.