Uncle Cheroot

by Alan Jansen

  Anyway, to cut a long story short, Uncle’s stay was unremarkable, at least in the beginning. There were no adventures, no womanizing, and absolutely nothing of interest, until the ball started to roll heralding some of the most stupendous events I have ever experienced. We were attacked by a lone wolf that had somehow made its way into our front garden. The wolf was first spotted by Inky and Gobble, the animals raising the alarm at the arrival of the creature. I hurried over from our living room into the garden to see what the ruckus was all about, with Uncle following at my heels. The wolf had succeeded in throwing Inky away so violently that my dear beautiful dog had struck his head on a nearby rock and lay motionless on the ground, while Gobble, not sure whether to take the attack to the wolf, stood over Inky’s still figure, nudging him quietly to wake up. Uncle rushed at the wolf at an inhuman speed and grappled with it, while I rushed over to Inky, but then I must have fainted, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the living room couch, a worried Mom hovering over me with frightened eyes. Inky lay on the carpet, his head swathed in bandages. He was alive but had suffered a bad concussion. The vet, Dr Darcy, had been sent for. Inky tried to get up a couple of times but kept falling down, not quite able to manage it all. Uncle was also injured, although he didn’t appear seriously worse for wear. There was a change in his demeanour, though. For the first time that visit, I saw the worried look in his face gone, his old cavalier countenance back in place instead. It was as though a load had lifted from his mind. Uncle was wounded in several places, probably by engaging the wolf in combat, and also bled from his mouth from time to time.

  An hour passed before Darcy, the village vet, came along. After examining Inky, he treated a small wound on the dog’s head, re-bandaged him up, and sedated him powerfully so that he could lie almost still without attempting to get up and walk about or run. As a final touch, the vet covered Inky’s neck with a restrictive cone collar to prevent him from scratching the bandage off. Darcy came over twice a day after that, repeating Inky’s sedative until five days had passed, whereupon he proclaimed that it was safe to stop the sedatives. Inky recovered quite fast after that and was soon back to his normal self again.

  Uncle dressed his own wounds with Mom’s help. His chest was wrapped in a tight bandage, a blood patch showing prominently near the right side. He changed his dressing himself later on after Mom’s incipient dressing and did not allow Mom to see his wounds or how they were progressing. Uncle took to sleeping by himself for two weeks afterwards, explaining his absence from Mom’s bedroom by saying he was still weak after the wolf attack. Later on, when he had resumed physical relations with Mom, I heard her saying to him one day, ‘Completely healed, Cheroot. Barely a scratch! You had a real nasty gash, and it did bleed a lot. How come that wound healed so quickly?’ Mom exclaimed perplexedly, ‘You must have the most wonderful metabolism for a wound like that to heal so fast!’

  ‘Aw, Julia, don’t get carried away. That wolf merely caught me with a claw. It wasn’t a deep scratch; it’s just that I have a medical condition that causes me to bleed more than other people. That’s why there was so much blood.’

  ‘But you had blood coming out of your mouth as well, Cheroot. Where did that come from?’

  ‘Ah, my dear! You see, I do have some experience with wolves. When that animal rushed at me, I turned my head to one side and sank my own teeth in its neck. That’s where the blood came from.’

  ‘How blooming awful, Cheroot! Biting wolves indeed! Whatever next? You’ll be telling me that you drank its blood as well! Why the devil didn’t you wait until Jim had that creature in his sights to take a clear shot at him? Jim was afraid to shoot because you were entangled with the creature. He was scared he would hit you!’

  ‘Bah! It’s all over now, Julia. What’s the point of talking about it? But wolves in this area are uncommon. I wonder where the devil that animal came from?’ Uncle had a faraway look in his eyes when he spoke thus of the marauding wolf’s origins, as if though lost in a world of his own.

  News of the wolf attack spread around quickly, thanks to Pop’s and Ben’s babbling to anyone who would listen, and became subsequently much talked about by the entire neighbourhood. Little did we know it, but that attack, disturbing as it was to us on the farm, was just a prelude to the horrifying event that would come in its wake …

  Pop always went out armed with his rifle for days after the attack, even taking it when escorting Mom to the orchard and elsewhere on the farm, looking very important and secretly relishing his role as ‘high sheriff’. Ben and I were allowed outside only in Pop’s or Uncle’s company. A week after the wolf attack, a corpse of a wolf was discovered close by the village near the turnoff to the highway leading to Rothwell. Everybody heaved a sigh of relief at what probably was a genuine roadkill. … Wolves were suspected of roaming the countryside by the Cotswold Hills, although nobody had seen a wolf in our village for decades. Foxes, badgers, and even birds of prey were seen quite often, but never wolves …

  Uncle had taken to writing in his old diary that he always carried with him. It was the same diary I had found and read when he was here in my twelfth year. It seemed that he maintained that particular diary just to record all the events that took place at the farm whenever he came to visit. Why he maintained the diary I really didn’t know, and I still don’t know to this day, although I have my suspicions. I knew he would record the incident of the wolf attack and was itching to read what he had written.

  One night after Uncle had resumed sexual relations with Mom and was safely spending the night in her room, I tiptoed to his own room, found the diary, and easily read the entry of the wolf attack. I was terribly afraid, of course, that Uncle would somehow learn of my surreptitious and sneaky ‘hijacking’ of his private diary, but my curiosity overcame my fear. I wasn’t disappointed by what I read. It was so amazing and out of this world that I had to pinch myself at intervals to see if I wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming. In truth, it beggared all description. … At last, after so many eventful years and sneak-reading his diary, I really got to know this man whom I called Uncle, if man indeed he was. As I read on to the parts where he described his survival of the Great Plague and the consequences of a meeting with some mystical figure in the woods, I knew he wasn’t a mortal human being. The entry read as follows:

  I’ve known for some years now that my mortal enemy Drakenwund, a fellow Druid but a blood-moon Druid and predator, has been following me around, waiting for the right moment to strike. I knew he was closing in on me. My chateau in France wasn’t safe. He had far too many advantages there despite the precautions I had taken. I’ve always felt safer on the farm, where there are no thick forests around which the beast could hide in by day. The wolf attack was his doing – a sort of warning of things to come. He himself couldn’t strike during the day, because being a predator Druid he was weak when the sun was up, but dusk and night found him at the zenith of his powers. I usually don’t stay at people’s houses, the instances I’ve lived on Jim and Julia’s farm being a rare exception – my reason not only to make love to Julia but also to ‘change’ her for good. While I am at the farm, the great oak by the front gate protects me. Of course, I have an abundance of oaks on my lands in France, but Julia’s oak by the gate is extra special. I’ve sensed this before and knew instinctively that powerful Druids had used the tree in earlier times for ceremonies and sacrifices. Though centuries had passed, I could sense the power of these powerful ones emanating from the massive tree, as though they still lived on in some kind of time bubble. Oaks are sacred trees to us guardian Druids, and the tree just outside the farm would often speak to me to warn of danger, but even at times to strike up a casual conversation. I also knew for certain that the tree had the power to ward off blood-moon Druids, even having the power to kill them at will from a close distance. I know that while I am at the farm, the magnificent tree would protect me and everyone else. It is useless writing here the detail
s of my quarrel with Drakenwund, enough to say it was over a beautiful woman, long since dead, whom I must shamefully say I wooed away from my enemy. Women and sexual conquest have always been my Achilles heel, and there have been many times in my past when I’ve stolen away women from their lawful partners through unfair methods like hypnotism and suggestion. In Drakenwund’s case, however, I won over his woman fair and square, my only trespass being that I knew she was married to Drakenwund and that common decency should have stopped me from seducing her. Drakenwund never forgave me and had sworn revenge.

  Secretive and enigmatic, my Druid ancestors made woodlands and thick forests their natural home. Powerful Druids are capable of running with a wolf pack, are able to speak with most trees, especially oaks, and are even able to sense and do many other things that normal people cannot. We project an outward calm, and do not boast or predicate, although we possess the knowledge of centuries. I knew that that wolf had been commanded to attack me by none other than my enemy Drakenwund. The rogue Druid’s intentions were to make it known that he was closing in on me. He knew I could easily overpower the wolf, but had sent the beast as a pre-warning that he was around in the vicinity and would be making his move soon. I really felt sorry for the wolf – noble animal, quite innocent in his mad attack. Drakenwund had commanded the animal to attack me – its death later on probably the result of the injuries I had caused the poor fellow. Despite my sexual weakness and depravity, I am a guardian Druid, a sort of protector of humankind, animals, and trees. Drakenwund had become a predator Druid, a total anarchist who wouldn’t hesitate to do any dark deed. Drakenwund had, through some spell or other, metamorphosed into an Aglaeca – a permanent metamorphosis as I understand. He had become a child of the blood-red moon, the stalking wolf pack, and the bared fang. Not all Druids metamorphose into other forms, but I have known of a few who have done so using powerful ancient spells that only Merlin and a handful of ancient Druids knew of. What made Drakenwund abandon his human likeness permanently I don’t know, but it could even have been accidental due to a spell he had cast that had gone horribly wrong.

  Drakenwund may have looked a bit like a dragon, but he walked erect and had a passable human face with Druid blood flowing in his veins. It’s hard for any human today to envisage the power of Druid magic. Roman imperialism and the invasions and occupations of Britain by Caesar Julius and later on Claudius had pushed Druids into hiding. Even with all our magic and powers, we were helpless against the efficient Roman war machine. Romans nearly destroyed our kind, but we survived somehow. Modern Druids do not find ourselves battling the armed forces of a conquering state anymore. We belong to no specific country, and can find ourselves on both sides of political forces and normal human conflicts, or remain neutral, content to sit on the fence. It’s not likely that anyone will be marching upon on us any time soon to destroy our kind in a mass witch-hunt. Even during the days of the Inquisition or the Hitler Expansion, we were hardly known at all to the broader world. Our policy today is to live and let live, not interfere much in the lives of people, and if we are confronted with an enemy, Druid or otherwise, we try our best to avoid physical battles. Faced with an enemy holding a modern machine gun, there is nothing much we can do – spells or no spells. Modern Druids are with a few exceptions (like Drakenwund) benevolent Druids; we do not fight many physical battles these days. We have taken to pens, rather than swords, to fight human rights abuses, animal cruelty, injustices of many kinds, or any matter that perverts justice, although we still do possess great magical powers. I myself was made during the Great Plague that swept the country destroying all the inhabitants of my village, wiping out my entire family – father, mother, and two brothers. The curse had started in London, wiping out thousands and causing the King to flee to Oxford with his entire court. I found myself a sole survivor, a lad of just sixteen, trembling with fear amidst the rotting corpses of family and friends, barely noticing the miasmatic stench of the dead around me. Unable to stand it all, I fled to the woods and lay down in a clearing, fully intent to die alone if I too was infected. I waited in the woods for three days, but no sign of infection appeared on my body. On the eve of the fourth day, an old man with a long flowing white beard and frayed white robes made his presence known to me. I was starving, hadn’t eaten for three days, just drinking from puddles of rainwater. In my weak state, I thought the figure was an illusion. I thought that I was dying and that God was before me to pass judgement. I really don’t recollect much of what happened next, but I distinctly remember the old man clawing his right wrist and forcing my mouth to his wound. I remember the man’s words very well even though it was all centuries ago …

  ‘Drink, chosen one. Drink from the fountain of life, and later I will drink from you, and again you will drink from me. Your line has the Druid blood of Merlin, but even so, few are chosen. The hand of death that manifests itself in this plague could not harm you. The great ones spoke to me from their vast abodes beyond this world, commanding that you be given the gift. The great ones wished it, and I am their servant. Do not search for me once you awake. I will watch over you and your progress from a vast distance – a dimension you cannot reach as yet. Use your new powers wisely.’

  I was so hungry that I lapped up the lovely red blood that gushed from the strange man’s wound in an orgy of greed whenever he let me. He drank from me too, now and then, in a ritual of sorts. I must have fainted afterwards, for when I awoke, the old man had disappeared. I felt strangely elevated – almost overwhelmingly powerful – and I did not fear the plague or anything else anymore …

  After the events relating to the wolf attack, matters finally came to an end, revealing to me, at least, all the more who Uncle Cheroot probably was.

  Pop had one day taken it upon himself to trim the great oak that stood majestically near the front gate. Unbeknownst to any of us, he had gotten up earlier than usual that fateful morning and, with the help of a tall ladder, had sawn off the limbs of the tree, leaving only a few small stubs projecting from the main trunk. The whole tree was given a terrible mauling. By the time he had finished, the old oak stood smaller and forlorn, shed of most of its tall limbs and leaves. It looked naked and bare. Of course it would grow out again, but years would pass by before it returned to its original size and splendour. We were all surprised, sad, and angry upon seeing the sorry spectacle when we got up that morning. While our feelings were more of surprise than anything else, Uncle went positively white, a look of perplexed frustration upon his face. He went absolutely berserk – bonkers, really – descending into a never before seen fit of rage and ranting, and almost coming to blows with Pop.

  ‘You stupid bloody brainless imbecile!’ he screamed at Pop, his eyes wide and protuberant. ‘You goddamn bugger! You! You! You bloody useless wretch! What have you gone and done, man? What on earth did you mutilate the tree for? What harm did the tree do, you bloody fool? It was growing peacefully, undisturbed for more than a century, and here you go cutting off nearly all its limbs and almost killing it. And for what? What have you gained, eh? Wanted to test some bloody new axe of yours, was it? Or what? You are a bloody murderer. A damn tree murderer, you old goat.’

  Uncle was apoplectic with anger, so much so that I feared he would lash out and strike Pop at any moment. He came eye to eye with Pop and looked at him so threateningly that I thought he would indeed hit my father, but he restrained himself at the last moment. Needless to say, Pop was taken aback, extremely chafed at Uncle’s behaviour. After all, all he had done was to ‘trim’ the tree, as he later on put it. We had all seen examples of Uncle’s great strength from time to time, and I shudder to think what would have happened if Pop had felt the might of Uncle’s great physical power.

  Uncle fretted and soliloquized the whole day, pacing up and down in the garden lost in his own thoughts, at times throwing his hands upwards and sideways in abject dismay. He made a brief visit to the farmhouse to rummage through his things to look for something.
I followed him stealthily to his room and was just in time to see him put on a necklace (it looked like a solid gold necklace), with a fairly large pendant dangling on it (the very same I had seen him drinking from or kissing on his very first visit to us) before he departed to the farm entrance by the now desolate oak tree. He didn’t come into the farmhouse the whole day after that, despite Mom’s many pleas, but remained by the gate and the mutilated tree. From time to time he would address the tree fervently as though in conversation – even hugging the trunk as though consoling it in some way. Dusk fell and then night began, Uncle keeping a lone vigil by the gate. Mom had by this time given up all her attempts to lure him into the house and had set about making our dinner instead. It was just before we ate when the frightening events of that evening started. An entity from heaven knows where manifested itself, frightening the living daylights of Pop, Mom, Ben, and yours truly, who stared at it through the living room windows scarcely believing our eyes. We didn’t waste a second in rushing out into the garden to try to protect Uncle as best as we could.