Aurelius and I (27 page)

I would like to be able to claim that it was Ophelia’s speech, or my own innate courage that led me to climb the rotten, timber stairs up to the fragile looking porch, but to do so would be to lie. In truth, there was one much stronger, more basic motivating factor in the making of my decision... hunger.

You see, for all I have focussed on the grimy look, and creepy feel of the mysterious wooden hut, the one thing I have thus far failed to inform you of is its smell. Contrary to what you may have expected, the crumbling cabin before us did not smell of damp, or of infestation, or of rotting bodies; instead the smell which emanated from every pore and crack in its timber shell was much more comforting. It was the smell of dark winter nights spent huddled around the dining table, of good, old-fashioned cooking, of home. It was the smell of shepherd’s pie.

And so I had hid my companions in my rucksack, took a deep breath, and marched up to the creepy hovel’s heavy front door. After thirty-six hours in a strange and dangerous world that had come to think of me as its saviour with only a few jam sandwiches for sustenance, the homely smell of meat and potato was powerful enough to inspire many greater acts of courage than simply asking for the charity of a stranger.

Despite this new-found courage however, as I knocked on the heavy wooden door I was filled with an immense sense of foreboding at the thought of whom, or indeed,
what
might answer.

My fears, it turned out, were wholly unfounded. The creature who answered the door was, in appearance at least, distinctly human. More reassuring than that, was the distinctly un-serial-killer-like appearance of the stooped, elderly, bespectacled gentleman with whom I found myself faced. Whilst it was true that his chosen location could reasonably be viewed as an indicator of somebody who was not altogether normal, his bushy beard, brown corduroy trousers and open-toed sandals pointed toward the kind of madness associated with harmless eccentricity rather than mindless bloodshed.

“I was wondering if you could help me,” I said in the most vulnerable-sounding voice I could muster. “I think I’m lost.”

There followed a long moment of silence, the old mans face displaying a battle across his conscience as he pondered whether I was to be trusted, before, finally, he spoke;

“I suppose you had better come inside.”

In contrast to the downtrodden and somewhat scary exterior, the inside of the cottage was actually surprisingly homely. Certainly it was no Buckingham palace; the ceilings were coated with cobwebs and the dirt on the windows was so thick that it was almost impossible to see out, but, somehow, the soft glow from the candles and the warmth of the fire provided the cluttered kitchen in which I sat with a comforting aura.

“My name is Oswald M. Romarticus,” my host informed me as I greedily tucked in to the plate of hot shepherd’s pie he had placed before me.

“Charlie,” I said, my mouth impolitely full as I tried desperately to cool the food that filled it to a temperature that could be deemed swallowable. “Charlie Crumplebum.”

“What an unusual name,” the old man smiled, having registered the embarrassment that had, as always, crossed my face as I uttered it. “Don’t tell anyone, but the ‘M’ in my own name stands for Millicent – I am the fifth of six boys and my mother had so desperately hoped for a girl. I’ve had some stick over that one more than once, let me tell you. Parents really can be terribly cruel can’t they? At least yours didn’t deliberately burden you with such a name.”

I smiled. I liked Mr Romarticus already. I don’t know if it was the food, or the shelter, or simply the human company, but I felt safer and more at home in that little hut than I had done for what seemed like a very long time. Grahndel, however, did not share my faith.

“This guy’s a psycho,” he hissed, his head poking out of the bag as he observed Mr Romarticus serve a specially reserved portion of shepherd’s pie to a long-dead potted bamboo. “We need to get out of here ASAP, before he chops us up and makes us his next dish.”

Thankfully Mr Romarticus was far too hard of hearing to have noticed the mysterious voices emanating from within my rucksack. Indeed, it was probably my host’s hearing difficulties that had lead to a great number of Grahndel’s worries regarding the old man’s mental health. When I had told him I was hungry, he had replied that he had never been there, but had heard it was a beautiful place, and when I had asked if he had any juice he had insisted that we follow tradition and eat dinner before pudding (I assumed he believed me to have requested mousse).

Whatever the reason, I shared none of the fears of my demonic companion. In fact I had quickly grown fond of both Mr Romarticus an his tumbledown abode. So much so that I knew if I stayed there very much longer I would never want to leave. And so, deciding that this kind, but fragile old man could be of little further help in my quest than providing me with a hot meal, I resolved to make my escape at the earliest available opportunity. When, however, I tried to make my excuses and leave after my third cup of after-dinner tea, I was met with determined protest.

“But I can’t let you go out there into the forest all by yourself,” said the old man in a voice that spoke far more of kind concern than attempted imprisonment.

“But I have to go, I need to get home before it gets dark, and you said yourself that you are not well enough to accompany me and that you do not have a phone for me to contact anybody to come and get me.”

“But, you can’t...” he protested.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, heading for the door. “If I follow the directions you gave me I should be home in no time, there really is nothing to worry about.”

“But you don’t understand, Charlie, you don’t know what’s out there.”

His last words stopped me in my tracks.

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning to face him.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’d think I was just some crazy old man who’d lost his mind from living all alone in the woods for so long. Everybody else does.”

“Perhaps I’m not like everybody else,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. “Why don’t you try me?”

For a long moment he looked right back at me, each of us attempting to assess whether or not the other was in possession of the same, implausible secret. Eventually the old man turned and walked across the room and unlocked a door which I had incorrectly presumed would lead to his bedroom.

“You had better come and have a look at this.”

It is odd how quickly one’s interpretation can change based upon the knowledge they gain and the perspective with which this provides them. Just weeks earlier the view that met my eyes upon the opening of that door would have created within me of intense excitement and ecstatic disbelief. To my naïve, uneducated eye I would have been presented with the laboratory of a scientist of unique genius. A man on the cusp of history who was destined to be remembered forever as the great thinker who proved once and for all the existence of magic. Viewed through my newly-opened eyes however, the room before me was not the laboratory of a scientist, but the torture chamber of a murderer.

As the Mr Romarticus stared at me proudly from the heart of his life’s work, I could only look back in horror. Every wall was adorned with the chemically-preserved corpses of creatures I had come to think of as human, if not in terms of their physiology, then at least in terms of their capability to reason and to feel. As an animal lover, I have never been a fan of taxidermy in any case, to me it had always seemed a barbaric and distasteful hobby to stuff the corpses of the creatures one had slaughtered and adorn one’s house with them as though they were trophies to be proud of. This though, was something else. The fairies wired up in cases as though they were butterflies and the mounted heads of ogres and trolls were more than simply distasteful to me, they sickened me to my very soul. To me it was as if my classmates from school were hanging there lifeless. Worse even.

“Told you this guy was a psycho,” gasped the dragnor from inside the backpack which once again rested upon my shoulders. Ophelia said nothing. The warrior princess had been reduced to silent tears.

“What do you think?” asked Mr Romarticus with an oblivious smile.

“Er, very impressive,” I said, gulping back my disgust.

“You don’t sound impressed.”

“I don’t?” I ventured nervously, not wanting to appear antagonistic toward a man whom I now found difficult to view as harmless – I was part wizard after all.

“No. Most kids your age would be amazed by all this, but you’re different aren’t you, Charlie?”

“Well, er...”

“You can’t fool me. I might be old, but I’m not daft. There’s only one reason you wouldn’t be impressed by all this.”

“And what’s that?” I asked nervously, glancing back over my shoulder to check I still had a clear exit. I felt certain that he somehow knew I was magical too and I had no intention of becoming his next trophy.

“Why you’ve seen it all before, of course!” he laughed.

“That must be it,” I agreed, laughing nervously along with him as a wave of relief rushed over me.

This really hadn’t been worth a plate of shepherd’s pie. I was aware that, far from advancing our mission, the unscheduled visit to this stranger’s home could end up ending it if he found out the truth about my companions and I. I had to think of a way of getting us out of there. And fast.

“You see? You see?” yelled the little man, unable to stay still with excitement, his eyes squinting and twitching more than ever, “I told them magic was real, and nobody believed me. None of them. But they’ll have to believe me now, won’t they? I’ll be famous”

“I suppose they will,” I agreed, trying desperately to stay on Romarticus’s good side. So why haven’t you gone public with this already? I mean, surely there’s enough stuff here?”

“Because, my dear boy, I am a scientist. All you see before you is just a collection, a mere collage of magical objectd’Art. I don’t want to be just a collector, I want to be a scientist. I want to
learn
. I want to
understand.
”

“Understand what?”

“Why, magic of course! I’ve dissected and boiled and fermented and inflated, but all I ever discover is boring old biology. I’ve learned everything there is to learn about how these creatures bodies’ work, more than enough that I could quite easily become the world’s first vetinarian for enchanted creatures, but what I cannot begin to grasp is where it is that the magic comes from. There seems to be no gland for it, no extra organ for producing spells, no spectacularly unusual addition to the brain’s construction. No matter what I do, I just can’t find the magic, and if I don’t have the magic, I don’t have the proof.”

“But what about all this?” I asked, gesturing at the house of horrors that surrounding me. “Surely this is proof enough?”

The old man laughed a laugh that was more threatening than eccentric. “You really are young aren’t you? I’m afraid, my dear boy, that as you get older you will discover that people, especially people in positions of power, are afraid of what’s different. If I present them with a bunch of dead fairies and goblins they’ll deny everything. They’ll insist that I made them myself in my workshop. They’ll claim that I’m a fake and a liar. No, without magic, I’ll be a laughing stock...but with it I will be king of the world. They’ll have to listen. You see, Charlie, you can’t deny magic.”

“So how exactly do you plan on getting to understand magic? I mean, you’ve killed a lot of alun...er, magical creatures, so far, without much success.”

“Killed? Killed? What do you mean killed? I have never killed anything in my life. I’m a scientist, not a monster.”

I stared blankly at the old man in a state of utter confusion.

“But then what happened to all these creatures?” I asked, gesturing at the display cases that filed the room.

“Why I found them of course. There are plenty of little bodies available around this forest if you know where to look. And I have to know where to look – you don’t seriously think an old man like me could catch something with the size and dexterity of a goblin if it were alive, do you?”

“Er, well...”

“Of course I wouldn’t, as I said before, I’m simply a collector, nothing less, nothing more. I would never seek to harm any of these creatures, they’re too magnificent for that, I simply seek to discover more about them from their bodies after they have passed, just as predecessors did when they sought to discover the secrets of the human anatomy centuries before me.”

“And that’s the problem? That’s why you can’t find the magic in the creatures? Because it dies with them?”

“For a long time I thought so, but then, about a year ago... Well, it’s probably easier if I just show you.”

As the old man hobbled excitedly across the room, a twinkle of inspiration in his eye, I couldn’t help but feel warm towards him. Sure I found the way he had decorated his laboratory a little distasteful, but he seemed ultimately to be a kind enough fellow who simply did not understand the alundri well enough to give them the respect they deserved, and why would he, he couldn’t speak their language. And even if he had been able to, none of his subjects would have been able to communicate. No, he was a smart man, if he was ever faced with a living magical being he would treat it with the respect it deserved, I was sure of it.

I was wrong.

With all the pizzazz and pride of a magician unveiling his greatest trick, Mr Romarticus whipped the tablecloth from over the secrets it covered. Underneath was a large, old-fashioned birdcage of rusted iron, complete with water bowl and perch. Lying inside on its dirt-ridden floor were two very unhealthy looking fairies. The startled gasp of horror from over my shoulder confirmed to me what I already knew; Ophelia’s parents were alive. Barely.

I stood and observed the battered and broken royal couple while Mr Romarticus retold, with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning, the tale of how he had come to discover ‘the male’ while fishing by the river one day, and, thinking he was dead, packed him up and brought him home to experiment on. It had only been as he was about to begin dissection that he had realised his subject was in fact still alive, at which point he had placed the near mortally-injured fairy in the cage and attempted to nurse him back to health.

For weeks the tiny king had eaten nothing and drunk only the smallest amounts of water and Romarticus had been certain he would die, but then, a miracle happened. The eccentric scientist had awoken one morning to find a second, female fairy waiting outside the cage. Though also frail in appearance, her very presence had seemed to greatly improve the health of her partner. On discovering this the old man had quickly bundled the second fairy into the cage in order that they might further aid each others recoveries, thus enabling him time to study them and learn of their magical ways.

Unfortunately things had not gone exactly to plan, and over the coming weeks the condition of both fairies had deteriorated slowly but steadily. Romarticus claimed to have considered releasing them but said that he had been worried that they would not have survived out in the woods in such a state. In addition to this fact, he was also scientifically unwilling to part with the royal fairies which represented his last best hope for the recognition he so craved.

Of course, the maniacal, misled scientist went into a great deal more detail than I have done, but, in truth, I struggled to pay attention. Though I did my best to appear engaged by Mr Romarticus’s enthusiastically explained tale, my thoughts laid largely elsewhere.

Part of me was paralysed by the horror that my understanding of the suffering of the creatures before me brought with it, and knowing that I held the ability to put an end to it were I not so scared of ending up inhabiting a cage in the laboratory-come-torture-chamber myself.

Another part was horrified on behalf of Ophelia. I wished that she had never had to see her parents like this. I feared that at any moment she would cry out in anger or anguish and, in doing so, end up joining them. I needed to come up with a way of healing the royal couple without Mr Romarticus knowing that I had done so. And I needed to do it quickly.

Just as I was certain my juvenile brain would overload before I was able to reach a solution to my problem, Romarticus gave me the opportunity I had been waiting for.

“Pretty impressive aren’t they? Bet you’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”

“No I haven’t, well, not since the last time I went to the toy shop that is,” I replied in the most spiteful, sarcastic voice I was able to muster.

“What do you mean?” asked the old man, the smug smile falling from his face.

“What I mean is that they’re clearly fakes. Good fakes I’ll admit, but fakes nonetheless. I mean you don’t seriously expect me to believe that I’m looking at real fairies do you? These are obviously robots. Just prototypes for the latest toy to hit the market. It wouldn’t be hard to do with all this equipment,” I said, gesturing to the lab around me. “I’ll bet they’d start spitting sparks the minute they got a little water tipped over them.”

“How impertinent! I cannot believe you would call me a liar in my own house! Robots indeed. I’ll show you what happens when you pour a glass of water over them!” he yelled before storming off into the other room to the sink... just as I had hoped he would.

“Quickly,” I said to the king and queen as soon as he had gone, pushing my fingers between the narrow bars as far as they would fit. “Touch my hand, we haven’t much time.”

“What do you mean touch your hand?” asked he queen angrily. “Who on earth are you?”

“There’s no time for that now, all you need to know is that I’m here to help you. Now touch my hand before he gets back.”

“I shall do no such thing,” she insisted indignantly.

“Please do it Mother, it’s the only way,” came a little voice from over my shoulder.

“Ophelia!” both fairies cried at once, their faces instantly overcome with shocked delight as they were reunited with the daughter they had thought they would never see again.

“However did you find us?” asked the jubilant king.

“There’s no time to explain. You just have to trust me...”

The touching reunion was rudely interrupted by the heavy slamming of a door. Ophelia scrambled from my shoulder to my shirt pocket. I turned to discover Mr Romarticus, water in hand, staring angrily toward me.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Oh nothing,” I answered with all the calmness and composure I could muster. “I was just stealing your fairies.”

“I beg your pardon?” exclaimed Mr Romarticus, his anger returning after a few seconds of stunned silence.

“What are you doing, Charlie?” hissed Ophelia from inside my rucksack.

“Getting us all killed is what he’s doing,” answered the dragnor in hushed tones. “The boy’s gone crazy.”

“Just go with it, I have a plan,” I whispered to my companions with all the ventriloquism skills I could muster, before adding more loudly to Mr Romarticus; “I said that I was stealing your fairies.”

“How dare you!” he cried as though his moral compass had been greatly offended, a somewhat strange reaction to witness upon somebody who happily spends their days imprisoning living creatures. “I invited you into my home, fed you, showed you my wonderful secret, and this is the thanks I get? Get out!”

“Come now,” I answered with a calm confidence I did not truly hold. “There’s no need to be like that. I apologise for my greed, but my desire to own such rare creatures within my own collection overwhelmed me. Surely you can understand that?”