Leo Rex

I am the ugliest man ever to ascend to the Seat of St. Peter.
It is my ears: they explode from my head like gull’s wings, giving me the appearance of an aircraft coming in for a landing. This effect is not improved by the squatness of my nose, rudely hewn and plopped down like a potato under my watery grey eyes.
I have heard it said that appearance is destiny so my celibacy seemed like a foregone conclusion. After all, what woman would link the happiness of her future children to so homely a sire?
They call me Leo Rex, King Lion, and what a jungle I am lord over! The Vatican is dense, steamy and full of pitfalls and hungry carnivores. How did I come to be here?
I am here because of Cardinal Vicini. He knew that his many enemies would block his bid for the papacy, so he put all of his considerable guile and strength to plucking this little Carmelite abbot from obscurity and making me his candidate. Vicini is well-hated but then so were all of the other contenders for the triple-crown. I alone had no enemies. They say that a man without enemies is a man with only friends. So it proved, for when the white smoke streamed into the Vatican sky, it was this humble Carmelite who was anointed Pope.
Does this strike you as being an Ugly Duckling story? How I wish it were. How wonderful to see ugly Maximo transform into beautiful Leo and live happily ever after! Alas. My story is more like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, if Goldilocks had an iron grey tonsure and there were at least a thousand bears.
I hear you protest: but Maximo, you are il Papa, the Supreme Pontiff! Surely all must bow before your decrees! How can you call yourself a Goldilocks? I smile grimly at your assumption. You must be in my shoes to know how I must navigate this Latin swamp.
Vicini is chief of my bears. Imagine a bruin with silver hair, well-manicured claws, a dulcet growl and you have the illustrious Cardinal. He had hoped that bringing me to the throne would allow him to control its power. I’m afraid that he thought he would be Geppetto to my Pinocchio, pulling the strings and naming the tune that I would dance to. Sadly for Vicini, Pinocchio is turning out to be a real boy.
I am a man of prayer. Of course, it is assumed that all Popes must be devoted to divine intercourse, but Lord Acton’s words are reflected in most papal histories: absolute power corrupting absolutely. Popes of necessity become politicos.
No doubt, it was my books of meditation and prayer that attracted the Cardinal’s attention. Oho, thought he, a holy fool to make a papal puppet!
But I was and remain a man of prayer, thank God.
Of course, God himself is my biggest bear.
He has put it on my heart to take our Holy Church and put it into a rock tumbler. I am to deprive the Church of her celibate priesthood.
Oh, I know, I know! What is the Church without her abstentious leadership? Is it still the Holy Catholic Church? How then are we different than the Protestants or the Eastern Church? You don’t have to tell me.
And yet.
I was praying in my private chapel. Oh no, not that private chapel. Private? Moths pinned under glass have more privacy than the Holy Father at prayer. No, my chapel is a certain hillside near Siena, the grassy slopes where the trees mass together at the bottom like village women gathering at the well. This was my private place with God, my resting place.
My chauffeur, Antonio, longs to be a spy, working for the CIA or M16 perhaps. It is a wonderful for me to have a co-conspirator like him. He can whisk me away without any of my so-called servants knowing where their pope is. I don’t know how he does it, but no sooner do I give him my pleading sign than we are roaring down the road in a sporty Fiat toward the Tuscan hills.
Antonio stays with the smoking car while I walk through the golden grass and pray.
So it was last Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon on an almost warm day in early April. I was walking and listening. Listening? Was the Pope hearing voices? Was the homely Carmelite becoming a mystic like Francis or Teresa? Do not make me blush.
But God’s lambs hear his voice says John the Divine and this lamb was listening.
What does God sound like, you are wondering? He is never what you’d expect. He is always more stern and more loving, more joyous and more terrifying than the safely crucified Christ, pinned to his cross. Do I blaspheme? Please understand me, I am a lover of God, but my Jesus is not the meek Victorian schoolgirl painted by so many: the pale Jesus with haunted eyes and long blond hair. My Galilean is more of a whirlwind, a desert storm! When I walk with him, I am stirred, shaken, calmed and directed. I am not placated, spoiled or spoken down to. What is it you Americans say? Jesus is not my shrink.
I was walking on that fateful Tuesday and listening.
“What am I to do?” I prayed. I was full of concern for my poor benighted Church. I had heard rumours of yet another sexual scandal involving priests and children. My heart was torn with rage and anguish. I was desperate to receive some consolation, a ‘there, there Maximo’ from my Jesus.
“What should you do?” asked Jesus.
“What can I do?” I muttered.
“What did I do?” he asked.
I remembered the account of the Temple Cleansing. Jesus saw his Father’s house given over to money-changing and the sale of sacrificial animals. His lip did not tremble; his eyes did not tear up; he did not sigh with sorrow. No, Jesus took a whip and cleared the money-changers out. He physically removed those who adulterated the Temple. “My house shall be a house of prayer!’ he cried.
I was shaken. I pictured myself wielding a whip and driving the fallen priests out of the Holy Church.
“I will drive them all out of your house!” I promised.
“You are looking at fruit; I want you to deal with roots,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I pleaded.
But he had said all that he would. I was left to meditate over the whole affair. I pondered a priesthood that could hide pedophiles. Would a married priesthood be less of a haven for broken men? Was that what I needed to do?
I needed to talk to a wise counsellor, so I flagged down Antonio and directed him to drive to Napoli and the office of my spiritual director.
Catherine is the most beautiful woman I know, and she is as wise as she is lovely. Her nut brown skin is caught up in laughing wrinkles. She is textured and noble. She outweighs me by about fifty pounds and she laughs like a wave coming over the seashore.
“You want to do what?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I know!” I cried. “Tell me that I’m delusional! Tell me that I’m not a realist! But what can I do?”
“You really think that removing celibacy as a condition for the priesthood will make pedophiles choose another vocation?”
“I don’t know if it will,” I said more quietly. “I think that some choose the priesthood because they hope it will be a safe haven from the urges that tear them up and perhaps they reason that God will heal them if they prove themselves to him?”
“So you would change the requirement of celibacy to strain out a few offenders?”
“It takes only a little yeast to leaven the whole lump of dough.” I could quote Scripture with the best of them. But then so could the Devil. This was why I needed the wisdom of my director.
“Have you spoken with anybody else about this?” she asked.
“Good God, no.”
“That is well,” she said. “Maximo, you must make this a matter of urgent prayer and study. Consult with the best minds and stay malleable in God’s hands. Come back to me in two weeks and we will discuss it further.”
+++
What are you up to, Leo Rex, slippery feline that you are? What are you doing when my spies lose sight of you? Your dismissive answers to my questions fill me with the deepest of suspicions. You say you need privacy to pray? I wonder.
I don’t trust you. I cannot understand you or your motives. I should have been Pope! All my life, I was groomed for the supreme post. I would have made the Church glorious again. A true power such as the world has not seen since Innocent III! What have you accomplished? You refuse my advice, saying “Oh Vicini! Our call is to be in the world but not of it. You want to be the world!” What nonsense! How is it possible to be a governor without bearing the burden of governing: protecting your back, knowing your enemies, placating your allies?
I will speak with Antonio again. A simple man like him will not long keep secrets from one such as I. Brother Feo, my first confessor, always said that I would have made a better lawyer than a priest. He should know! His cross examinations were always a model of Jesuit fine-toothed combing. I seldom left his presence without a surfeit of penances.
So, Antonio, what was the Pope doing in Napoli?
+++
Herr Doktor Carlinus Tropp has blue eyes that twinkle when his mind is racing from thought to thought. When I was in St. Piex Seminary, I was lucky enough to have Linus as a room-mate and a chess adversary.
It was glorious to watch him pull out the professor’s presuppositions and smite them with Teutonic wrath during our philosophy of religion classes. His dogged determination to find the truth delighted half of our teachers and terrified the rest. Woe betide the instructor who tried to palm off Linus by pulling out such chestnuts as “But, that is what the Church teaches, so you must accept it as true, Tropp!”
Linus has an office in the University but I needed to find a solitary place to meet. We met in an apartment that Antonio rents for my private meetings. I fear his spy-games mindset is beginning to rub off on me.
“So Leo XIV will be known as the pope who did away with celibacy, eh?” said Linus, pausing to drain the rest of his Dunkel Weizen. When he looked up at me, I smiled to see that a bit of foam was clinging to his moustache.
“Why would you do such a thing, Maximo?”
“I don’t intend to do away with celibacy, per se, but only to remove it as a prerequisite for the priesthood.”
“But why?” he repeated.
I told him about my vision and watched him shrug his shoulders. “I am no mystic Maximo. If you are planning to do such a thing you must be prepared to debate!” This was the Linus that I needed.
“Teach me then, Herr Professor! Illuminate your pope.”
He put his fingers together in a steeple and I could see his eyes sparkle as he marshalled his soldiers in ranks.
“We start with our first Pope, St. Peter. Married. In fact, there was no requirement for celibacy until the 12th century. Are we saying that a millennium of priests were all heretics?” On went the good Doktor dissecting and examining the issues. He dealt cleanly with the Pauline dogma that an unattached believer is more free to serve God, and chewed over the interesting idea that an unmarried man would give excellent advice as a marriage counsellor to his parishioners. By the time he had summed up, I was even more certain that I needed to do the unthinkable.
He looked at me with concern. “Have you considered how your enemies will attack you Maximo?” he asked.
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“At the very least they will call you a hypocrite. ‘The Pope demands a married clergy but is unwilling to get a bride himself!’ they will say.”
“I told you already, I do not intend to foist marriage on my priests; I simply want to give them the choice!”
“You will still be called to practice what you preach, you know. If you remember your Church History, Luther fought priestly celibacy and his reward was a wife!”
“Can you imagine a woman near-sighted enough to marry me?” I laughed. He did not share in my mirth, instead he sighed. “You are making jokes? So might a chicken do as it is put in the stew pot.”
“This bird is tough enough, I assure you,” I said. He shrugged as if to say, we shall see.
+++
I only knew Dr. Althuis by her reputation. She was a clinical psychologist working with issues of sexual identity and imprinting. I needed to know how it was that people became pedophiliacs. We spoke of brain structure and past traumas, of alcohol and violence. I asked her whether removing celibacy as a condition of priesthood would keep them out of the priesthood.
“You misunderstand the nature of pedophilia if you think that marriage will offer a solution,” she said, her lips pressed tightly together. “Protestant ministers have pedophiliacs in their number too. It is a myth to think that only the unmarried can be offenders.”
“Is a cure hopeless then?” I asked, my heart leaden within me.
“Perhaps the solution lies with a different approach to screening potential priests,” she said. She had a haunted look in her eyes like one who has seen too much suffering. “The Church must do a better job of uncovering men who have a genuine vocation for the priesthood and those fleeing from their own torn psyches.”
I thanked her and made my way back to Antonio.
+++
It was clear that I had made a profoundly impulsive leap with not enough information. My assumption that all I had to do was to offer the option of marriage to discourage pedophiles from entering the priesthood was flawed. Perhaps that is why Jesus’ last words to me were about roots rather than fruit.
How could I make my Church safe? How could I ensure that pedophiles did not become priests? Unfortunately, there is no unified theory as to why men become child-abusers. Dr. Althuis was clear about this. Theories abounded: perhaps it was a problem with the brain chemistry, or a question of abuse, or could it be spiritual in nature. How could the Church screen this? Was it necessary to make every candidate take an MRI? I needed to confer with my director again.
+++
“I am the pope, Catherine. If I cannot find a way, how will my Church fare?” I jumped up from my chair and paced through her office, prodding her many leather bound books and fidgeting.
“You are not listening to me, Maximo. What was the last thing Jesus told you?” She remained as calm as ever.
“He told me to concern myself with roots not fruit.” I picked up a statue of St. John and began to polish it with my sleeve.
“And how do you interpret his command?” She took the statue from me and pointed to a chair.
“The fruits are abusive priests; the roots are the cause of this sin.” I sat down again, chastened.
“Very well then. Your task is not just to protect your Church but also to bring healing to its damaged members. The Shepherd bears not only a rod and staff but also oil for healing.”
+++
“Oh come, Antonio, surely you can tell me something more than that?” I said with what I hoped was a sad smile on my lips. A father pleading with his son to be a man and tell the truth.
“It is the truth, your Eminence,” he responded, his palms upturned in the classic Sicilian gesture of feigned truthfulness; a gesture which said ‘would I lie?’ and ‘can you prove it?’ simultaneously.
“You are saying that the Holy Father leaves the Vatican and pleasure drives? That he holidays? Now Antonio, you will forgive me if I am extremely doubtful?” Now my face wore the expression of an uncle who catches his beloved nephew in a bordello and is listening to a cock and bull story about being there by accident, a faulty road map perhaps.
“Oh, your Eminence,” says the Sicilian. “It is God’s own truth! The Holy Father needs to leave his responsibilities every so often. He gets so stressed.” Now his prayerful gesture is mean to illicit my pity and also to paint himself as devout and free of carnal subterfuge. Oh Antonio, you missed your calling; you should have become an actor.
I waved him away and went back to the papers cluttering my desk. At least, there was one man in the Vatican pulling his weight.
+++
I realized that if I was going to reform my priests that I would need to do some recruiting. My problem comes down to a bit of a Catch 22: those cardinals who most inclined to a call to holiness were precisely those who most identified with the most conservative point of view, whereas those cardinals who were inclined to reforming the church were most fixated on social reform. To them, holiness was all about feeding the poor and bringing in a Marxist heaven on earth.
Of course, now you are shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘But Maximo, you are the Pope! Surely all you need do is publish a bull from your lofty throne and all will obey you! Why this skulduggery and plotting?’
How little you know of life in the jungle. In such a sweeping reform, I cannot simply speak ex cathedra and say “thus sayeth the Lord.” I must create a climate for changing perceptions. I must speak with Vicini.
+++
“Holy Father! To what am I indebted for your august presence?” Vicini is at his charming best, a bear who shows you his beautiful smile with all of his teeth on display.
“Ah, Cardinal, you have always been such a support to me! I know that I can come to you with any problem and you will see solutions where all I see is confusion.”
“Please Father, you must sit down and tell me everything. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Thank you, Cardinal.” I continue to use his title to register a tiny protest against his deliberate switch in address from ‘Holy Father’ to ‘Father’.
“Tuscans are all rascals, but you cannot argue against their wine. It is always superb.” Vicini is from Milan and feels that all areas south of Lombardy are full of rogues and Mafiosi. Together we tasted our wine and nodded our approval.
I decided to grab the bear by his paws.
“Cardinal Vicini, I am called by God to reform our priesthood.” He said nothing but raised his eyebrows.
“We must make sure that all pedophiles are weeded out of the priesthood before they can do damage to our children,” I continued.
“How do you intend to do that?” he asked quietly, almost respectfully.
“I am unsure. I believe that we must screen potential priests more stringently...” I said.
“But already we lack enough priests to lead our congregations.” The Cardinal was on his feet pacing. “We are desperate to increase candidates not further limit them!”
“What if we were open to married priests?” I said. “What if we investigated allowing women to be priests?”
“You want me to help you cast Mother Church into chaos?” he said. “Our people would be appalled! They will leave the Church in droves. You will cause the conservative wing of the Church to split away! It will be another Babylonian captivity. You cannot be serious!” Vicini continued to pace around, thoroughly exercised. I was seeing the real man now, not the smooth politician.
“Sometimes it is necessary to go through pain to achieve healing,” I said. “Jesus said that he would shake everything that could be shaken.”
“So let the Christ shake his Church,” spat Vicini. “You are its Shepherd, not its cement mixer!”
“You will not help your Pope?”
“I am helping you, Your Holiness. I am giving you excellent advice: leave well enough alone!” With that, the bear stormed out of my room.
+++
So. Now I know. The poor misguided fool will throw my Church into a volcano. How could I have misjudged him so? How does a simple abbot become so dangerous? It’s too bad that the Borgia’s are no longer with us. One of them would surely have poisoned the fool by now.
But, I would never do such a thing, would I?
+++
“What are you talking about, Antonio?” I sat in what I hoped was a posture of complete unconcern. My chauffeur, on the other hand, was vibrating like a cheap alarm clock, his hands making rapid arabesques in the air around his head and heart.
“You listen to me, your Holiness! This Cardinal Vicini is no good! He has the heart of a rotten oak, beautiful on the outside but black inside. He means you harm, Holy Father! Please let me hire you some more muscle.”
“You are being ludicrous, Antonio! You would surround your pope with armed guards?” With a supreme effort, I softened the harshness of my voice and pleaded. “I’m supposed to be the solid rock on which the Church is built, you know.”
“You are a good and holy man, your Holiness,” said my guardian, in a tone that suggested ‘but not too terribly aware of the risks of the real world.’
“What am I going to do with you, Antonio?” I waved my hand in dismissal. He left the room shaking his head.
Alone, I slumped in my leather chair. What if he was right?
+++
“You heard me.” Vicini’s mouth was a hard line. He sat behind the large black desk as though he were carved there.
“I did hear you. I just don’t believe what I heard.” Don Francisco was not a religious man, but even he had limits. “You want me to poison the Pope?”
“I understand that you are a man who can get things done, Don Francisco. You aren’t squeamish, are you?” Well, this was nonsense. Don Francisco had made murder an art form. Squeamish? The Pit-Viper of Palermo?
“It’s a hell of a thing to ask a Catholic to do.”
“Trust me. If this man doesn’t die, he will destroy the Holy Catholic Church.” This, Vicini believed with all his heart. Leo Rex had to go.
+++
Antonio set up the tiny video camera. I marvelled that so small a thing could do what Antonio assured me it could do.
“All you got to do is look at the camera and talk, your Holiness. It does everything else for you.”
“Now, you understand my desire, Antonio?”
He sighed and recited my orders: “Do nothing while you are still alive. If you should die before your work is done, it goes on Youtube and every other social network immediately.”
“That’s right, Antonio.”
“You know what this is, Holy Father?”
“Tell me, Antonio.”
“This is fatalism. You know that that pig Vicini has it in for you and you don’t let me help you. It’s suicide, Holy Father, and that’s a sin.” He stood with his arms folded across his chest and his lower lip trembling just a bit. The nuns had done a good job catechizing him.
“Oh, Antonio. I know how you feel, but I am in God’s hands.”
He switched on the camera and I read a prepared statement.
+++
I picked up the paper and frowned at the respectful headline: “Pope Declares a New Reformation.” The journalist went on to delineate all that the Pope wanted to do to address the problem with our clergy: mandatory screening for candidates to the priesthood, opening a dialogue to bring married men and women into the priesthood, and ordering all current priests to attend counselling to determine their fitness to lead.
I crushed the paper in my hands and ground my teeth together. What was taking Don Francisco so long? I looked down at my mobile phone to see all of the buttons flashing in alarm. As a Cardinal, it would be my job to reassure the conservatives and keep a muzzle on the radicals. Octopi didn’t have enough arms to do that.
My secretary buzzed me.
“Your Eminence, it’s the Archbishop again.”
“I told you, already. The CDF does not get through to me. I need time to think.”
“Yes, Your Eminence. But as Prefect, you are the one who...”
“Are you telling me my job, brother?”
“No, Your Eminence.”
“I am in meetings. That is all.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
+++
I smiled as I read the headline. What a hornet’s nest I had stuck my ferula into. I could tell by Vicini’s face during my Wednesday morning audience that he was furious with me. So furious that he would hereafter leave me alone? That was unlikely. I am still the pope and men like Vicini cannot stay away from power for long. What other choice does he have than to dialogue with me? Even if only to talk me out of my plans.
A rap at my door. My secretary entered, bearing a cream envelope. I recognized Vicini’s crest and opened it eagerly. It was to the point. He wanted a private meeting at my convenience. I smiled at the last word; I could imagine Vicini saying it with acid in his mouth. I called his office and invited him to take coffee with me at eleven.
+++
“It is madness and you know it,” he sputtered.
“It is our only hope and you know it,” I riposted.
“Read the papers, Pope Leo, they predict a split in the Holy Church. If this happens, you will go down in infamy as the Pope who divided Rome! Even Luther could not say as much from his bed of suffering in Purgatory.”
“What would you do if you were Pope?” I asked, waving the meat in front of the bear.
“I would shore up the Church, not destroy her. I would concentrate on the many, many faithful priests who serve and ignore the tiny percentage who are unfit. I would not demoralize the many for the sins of a few. What sort of a message do you think you are sending your priests, forcing them all into counselling?”
“I cannot shore up a structure if I see that there is rot in the timbers, Vicini. Surely you can see that?”
“You do not have the freedom to be an idealist, your Holiness! Your task is to keep your Church whole.”
I lifted up my mug to give me time to consider his words; he hadn’t touched his espresso. The bitter taste seemed to clarify some things.
“The difference between you and me, Vicini? You would rather keep something cracked held together with a strong grip and pretend that it is whole. I would rather let it fall to pieces that something good can be built in its place. It is bitter and painful but ultimately the pain can usher in healing for our Church.” I spread out my hands to him in a gesture of pleading.
“I should never have lifted you from obscurity!” said Vicini bitterly. “You are unsuited to be Pope!”
“Probably,” I said, and I fled.
+++
I was walking through my private chapel by myself. How bright the sun was this morning! How blue the sky! It was as though April was taking a coffee break and July was filling in for her. Did I smell jasmine on the breeze? I looked down at the grass and it was all golden and dancing in the wind. I was surprised to see that I was walking barefoot. My feet glowed as though they were burnished copper. What unseasonable warmth! Was I dressed in a robe?
I heard singing in the distance, like all of Rome’s choirs singing all together. It was a Gloria unlike any that I’d ever heard before. I could feel tears filling my eyes and it felt like a huge load had been taken from my shoulders. I straightened my back from its usual slump and took a deep, deep breath. I began to run for the sheer joy of running. I flew through the tall grass.
A voice called out to me and I pulled up and turned around. It was Antonio, not the Antonio of the pursed lips and deeply etched frown, but a youthful Antonio, his face relaxed into a smile.
“Antonio? What are you doing here?”
“Where is ‘here’?” he said laughing. “I don’t think I was ever here before!”
“This isn’t Tuscany?”
He just laughed again and pointed at me. “You aren’t yourself, Holy Father!”
I touched my face where he was pointing and everything on it felt strange. I could feel no wrinkles, no wattles around my throat. That was when I really looked at Antonio. He was glowing like one of Caravaggio’s apostles. “You look like an angel, Antonio!” I gasped.
“Are we dead, Holy Father?” he asked. The thought struck me. Yes, that was it; we were dead. But piggybacking on that thought was another question.
“But why would we both be dead?” I asked. At this the beautiful Antonio almost blushed.
I understood perfectly. “You were tasting my food for poison!” He shrugged.
“It must have been a slow-working poison,” he admitted.
“And now we’re dead.”
“I don’t know about you, Your Holiness. But I’ve never felt more alive!”
And we ran together into the golden heights laughing like schoolboys.

+++The End+++

"A Witch By Any Other Name"

Once upon a time,there lived a ravishing maid named Clarice. Clarice fancied herself a real aristocrat, having been favoured with milky skin, shimmering black hair and lips the colour of rubies. It is possible that she may have been somewhat proud and disinclined toward a life of labour that her circumstanced demanded.
Clarice might have had all of the accouterments of aristocracy but the painful truth was that she was born the third daughter of a poor cobbler.
Now it would be nice to say that for all her poverty, the radiant beauty that Clarice had was matched by humility and inner loveliness but sadly that was not quite true, for Clarice was filled with self-importance, willfulness and self-centeredness just like a real aristocrat!
One day, when she should have been gathering wood for the fire like her hard-working sisters, Clarice was lollygagging by the stream and day-dreaming of a better life. Perhaps a prince would come by, fall deeply in love with her and take her to his castle to be his queen. Ah yes, a life of luxury and ease. Days filled with wine and roses, to say nothing of chocolate covered caviar!
While she was fantasizing, along came the Magician, Tim fabled in story and song. Tim was just starting out in the magician’s game, having apprenticed until recently with the powerful and deadly Monsieur Nightshade the Malevolent.
Tim was whistling a carefree tune and wondering how he would choose a place to set up his practice.
“Ahoy lackey!” cried out Clarice. “You wouldn’t happen to be a prince would you?”
Tim shrugged and decided to go along with her as a gag. “You may be very sure that I am,” he said, giving her a sweeping bow. “And you, my pretty biscuit, would you happen to be a princess?”
“Oh well, I suppose if you married me I would be,” she riposted cleverly.
“Why should I marry you?” asked Tim, curious to see what the maiden would say.
“You ask me why? Obviously, because I would make an extraordinary queen someday. Did you notice my flawless complexion, my raven tresses and full lips?”
“Oh, but my dear queen-in-waiting. What about a sovereign’s other attributes? Do you have a quick spirit, ready intelligence, compassion and perception?”
“What are those compared to radiant beauty and glowing skin?” asked Clarice haughtily.
“You make a strong case,” said Tim. “I will marry you, but first you must prove yourself to be worthy of my throne.”
“What must I do?” she asked. “Do you not see that I am worthy of your throne? Need I point out my flawless carriage, my alluring dimples and my sparkling teeth?”
“These are very appealing attributes,” said Tim. “But a queen must do more than look queenly, she must also act the part! Thus, you must prove yourself.”
“Oh very well,” sighed Clarice. “What must I do?”
Tim thought for a moment and then something delightful occurred to him: the girl needed a lesson and he needed a job!
“You must prove your intelligence and your creativity!” he announced. “You must dress yourself as an ugly, old woman and your disguise must be so convincing that not even your own mother would recognize you!”
“That doesn’t sound very queenly to me,” complained the maiden.
“Oh, I’m not finished yet,” said the magician. “You must convince the villagers that you are a witch!”
“A witch? But…”
“Don’t interrupt, you must convince the village that you intend to destroy them all.”
“But…”
“You do want to marry me, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do!”
“Then snap to it!”
Clarice snapped to it. She stole rags from the scarecrow in the cornfield, made her nose long and sharp with candlewax and and darkened her teeth with soot from an oil lantern. She ground her fingernails to a ragged edge and pushed her hair under a ragged scarf. When she was done, she had transformed herself into a filthy, horrid-looking hag.
“You must do something about your posture,” complained Tim. “You need to practice walking all stooped over!”
Finally, Tim gave her his seal of approval. “That will do very well. Now take this gnarled stick and go to the village. Tell them that you are Gruzella the Witch and that you have decided to put them all under a spell of suffering and anguish. Then cackle a bit and walk into the forest. If you can fool the village, I will know that I have found my bride.”
Gruzella, the pseudo-witch did as she had been instructed and the village was in a complete state of uproar when Tim strolled onto the scene.
“Good villagers, what troubles you?” he cried.
The village elders surrounded Tim and all began talking at the same time. They explained that a witch had taken it upon herself to curse them and what would they do now?
“You problem is really very easy to solve,” he said grandly. “You need a magician. It so happens that I am rather skilled in the dark arts and for a small consideration, I will submit my not trifling skills on your behalf against this foul witch!”
“You want gold?” asked one of the sharper elders.
“Not at all!” he responded. “I want the witch as a wife!”
“You must be mad!” said the elder. “Why would you want to marry a witch?”
“I am a magician. I need a wife who understands the stresses of supernatural living.”
“But why do you need our permission?” asked the stupefied elder.
“Do we have a deal?” said Tim, ignoring the inconvenient question.
“Yes! Yes!” cried all of the other villagers.
“Right then, I will need some certain magical substances to defuse this crisis,” he announced.
“You shall have whatever you need!” cried the villagers. This thought was most appealing to Tim and he rather let himself go a bit.
“First, I must have roast fowl, served with dumplings and bit of cheese, well aged but not too well aged! (It had been some time since his last good meal.) Also a bottle of red wine, but it doesn’t have to be a Grand Cru.”
“But that’s not magical!” protested the villagers.
“Who’s the magician here?” thundered Tim and all of them raced off to prepare his meal.
Meanwhile, the lovely Clarice was hiding in the forest until she had more instructions from Tim. Being a girl of spirit, she soon chafed at being left alone. She was used to the mooning stares of the village men and the jealous sniffs of their wives. She was not accustomed to being ignored.
“Where is he?” she wondered. “What’s taking him so long?” She was half tempted (perhaps even three-quarters) to just go back to the village without her disguise to see what was up. Once the thought occurred to her, it was well nigh impossible to ignore. Finally, after three minutes of inner debate, she rose, scrubbed off her disguise and stalked to the village. She would give the magician a generous serving of her mind!
When Clarice reached the village, she met her own sister Gertruda racing to fetch some cheese and breadsticks for Tim’s feast.
“What’s going on?” asked Clarice.
“Can’t stop to chat,” puffed then full-figured Gertruda, “Magical business!”
“What magical business?” shouted Clarice, but Gertruda was gone.
She stormed into the town centre to see Tim seated at a table, working his way through a roast duck.
“What’s going on?” she hissed.
“Patience, patience, my little princess,” mumbled Tim, wiping the grease from his moustache.
“I was patient half a day ago, now I’m ticked off,” she growled.
“Have some duck,” he said, noting how she looked pointedly at the carcass.
Just then the village cobbler, Clarice’s father, appeared on the scene.
“Clarice! What are you doing with our magician?”
“Nothing Father,” she said curtseying.
“Well, you best be off to help your mother with the dumplings!” he said. “You should not be disturbing our village’s savior,” and at this he tugged a soiled forelock and dragged her home.
Clarice wanted to shriek at her father and beat him with her fists, but the cobbler had a grip like iron and a short temper besides. Tim just smiled and went back to his duck.
The village gathered together watching Tim as he picked his teeth and belched.
“Don’t you need anything more magical than food?” asked the elder.
“A meal like that was magical!” said Tim grandly. “But yes, I need some specific things: a spool, a thimble, and some scarlet silk thread. Also, I will need a colander, an egg whisk and a white rabbit. It would be very helpful if you had two goose eggs and a cup of dandelion tisane.”
The villagers put their heads together and divided up the list among themselves while Tim sipped a glass of wine. If he played his cards right, it might take the villagers the rest of the day to gather his wish list!
Just then, Clarice hissed at him from a nearby bush. “I want to know your plan!”
“What are you doing in that bush?” asked Tim.
“Hiding, you fool! What do you think I’m doing?”
“Why are you hiding?” wondered Tim.
“Because my father will beat me if he catches me talking to you!”
“Well, never mind all that, you need to get your costume on in case I need to throw another scare into the village.”
“Now, wait a minute!” snarled Clarice. “I think I have fulfilled my half of the bargain. I have proven to you that I am resourceful and intelligent!”
“That you have, my dear,” said Tim in a placating tone. “But another appearance of Witch Gruzella will seal the deal! Off you go!”
Grumbling, she went back to the woods to resume her disguise. (And who could blame her? This was vexatious behavior indeed!) No sooner had she gotten all of her hideous make-up on then Clarice heard a savage voice.
“Ha!” said the savage voice, “Competition!” It was a terrifically unpleasant-looking old woman. Clarice was not the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer, but even she could tell that this old hag was a real witch.
“I am not your competition,” cried Clarice, falling on her knees before the real witch and hoping that she would not be turned into a newt.
“What do ye mean?” growled the real witch. “You’re a witch, ain’t ye?”
“Not at all!” said Clarice, averting her eyes. “I’m just dressed like one!”
“Why does a pretty gel like you want to dress like a Witch. Tis not Carnival, and sure, tis not Venice!” The Witch barked with dry laughter and hawked up a mass of rheumy phlegm.
“I’d better tell you the whole story,” said Clarice.
“Ye’d be wise to,” nodded the Witch.
When Clarice had finished her tale the Witch nodded and chuckled in a mean sort of way. “Yer not terrifically bright, er ye? Well, no mind, my child, I have a plan to will take your friend the prince down a few notches.” The Witch rubbed her knotty hands together cracking her knuckles and cackling, “Ha! That gives me a nasty ideer!”
And so say, the hideous hag transformed herself into the most beautiful maiden that the world would ever see. Her nose would have put Cleopatra’s to shame and as for her comely shape, the Greeks would have ignored Helen of Troy if she was around!
“Why you’re beautiful!” gasped Clarice.
“Ah ‘tis but surface, no?” said the Witch.
“But what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Come and watch!” suggested the Witch.
Clarice hid herself in the bushes and watched the Witch enter the village square. (It would not do for her father to find her out of the house being a busybody.)
Tim rose to his feet with a gasp of amazement. “My lady, you are very welcome here! But, if I may ask, why are you so far from the glorious courts of the Capital, for there in no doubt that you are a princess of a most profound noble house.
But the princess merely smiled. “Are you a worthy man?” she asked the magician.
“Well, I hate to brag, but I am fairly worthy. I am a powerful magician!”
“How thrilling for you!” said the princess in a delightful silvery voice. Tim blushed with pleasure and he had a strong inclination to impress her with his artistry.
“Look to that bird flying over the village green,” said Tim. He raised his left hand and spoke a loud spell. Suddenly the unlucky bird found itself vanish in a puff of smoke.
“Very impressive,” smiled the princess. “But destructive spells are so very simple and not very interesting.”
“Oh, I can construct as well, your majesty,” bowed Tim, a bit perturbed that his exploding bird bit went over so poorly. Tim picked up a smooth white pebble and rubbed it on his forehead while chanting a spell. He set down the rock and it quickly grew to the size of a small cottage.
The princess clapped her hands together and cried for delight. “What a wonderful spell. I do believe that I have found my soulmate!”
“You have?” grinned Tim, not believing his ears. “You want to marry me?”
“If you’ll have me,” simpered the princess.
“I will! Shall we travel to the Court and tell your father now?” asked Tim.
“I cannot wait!” declared the princess. “Let us summon the village priest and commit ourselves this very day!”
In the bushes, Clarice began (very slowly) to realize that her prince was nothing more than a shady magician. Well, he would get his comeuppance, marrying a hideous witch! Serve him right. But meanwhile, what about her? Would she ever find true happiness?
The princess and her magician quickly found the priest who agreed to pronounce the banns that very day.
It was a shocking honeymoon for poor Tim. But in time he learned to appreciate the witch’s magical skills and they became an excellent team. And every so often, for special dates, the Witch would again transform herself into the princess that so captured her husband’s dark heart.

Book Review of "The Unlikely Alchemist" by Brad Jersak.

Nearly two decades in the works, John Van Vloten’s The Unlikely Alchemist has finally hit bookshelves. In short, this is a very well written piece of children’s fantasy literature. Readers who watch for quality work in the genre of Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe should be delighted.

The Unlikely Alchemist includes some essentials in Christian fantasy literature—a self-consistent alternate world, the mysterious means of arriving there, a fellowship-style quest and of course, strong character development in the child antiheroes and their seemingly unbeatable nemesis.

Happily, the book is also full of surprising and strange new creatures that take us beyond standard elf, dwarf and fairy remakes. Moreover, readers will feel invited to their own character growth as they track with the emotional and spiritual journey of Bartholomew, the main protagonist. The story provides a colorful venue for important childhood development themes as characters are led by an array of challenges and mentors from childish self-centeredness and sibling conflicts into self-giving love, redemption and reconciliation.

Van Vloten navigates the key risks of the genre superbly. Will the book be child-friendly and yet engaging for adult parents or teachers who enjoy reading to their youngsters? Can the author introduce encounters with God without blundering into the minefield of Evangelical kitsch? Does the story draw anything fresh from the well of this literary style? YES on all counts, in my opinion.

Beyond the typical solutions to fantasy crises (i.e. overcoming or rescue) or transformation (i.e. endurance or discovery), the author treats us to another possibility—transfiguration—an important element of Christian life that warrants rediscovery in the West. 2 Corinthians 3:18 came to mind, where Paul says, “And all of us, who behold the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being (lit.) transfigured into his image with an ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

At the cosmetic level, The Unlikely Alchemist is hardbound with an attractive, full-colored cover (art by Pat Jaster), making it a family keeper and perfect gift book. Don’t wait for a cheaper paperback version (none forthcoming)—do watch for the next book in the trilogy, due out next year.

How to order "The Unlikely Alchemist"

If you live in Abbotsford, your first option is to go to the House of James on Emerson. If you are outside the area, you may send a cheque for 25 dollars to cover shipping and handling to John van Vloten 34820 Cassiar Ct. Abbotsford BC V2S 7G9 (Don't forget to include your address!)or use the easy PayPal option! (Coming soon!)

ABOUT MY BOOK, "The Unlikely Alchemist"

I started writing “The Unlikely Alchemist” in 1984. I was underemployed and sitting at my desk musing. As I pondered, a name popped into my head: Bartholomew Straightwaist Creedance. I smiled and wrote the name down. What kind of a person has a name like that? I thought and I started to write. I wrote about a hundred pages and then work started to pour in. I put my manuscript away.
A few years later, when my daughter Kristin was about eight, I had run out of Narnia Chronicles to read to her and for a lark, I started to read her the beginning of my book. We read until the story came to its abrupt ending. She asked me:
“What happens next?”
“I don’t know, darling. I never finished it.”
“But Daddy, you HAVE to finish it!”

She would not stop bugging me until I agreed to start writing again. Years later, when it was time to edit this book prior to publishing, I realized that the one person I wanted to work on my book was my daughter. She is literally my first audience and my final editor.
What kind of a book is “The Unlikely Alchemist”? Obviously, it’s a fantasy for a young audience, but like all good children’s books, it must also appeal to an adult reader. I wrote the book to entertain myself not just my children.
It is a story about a boy and his sister and their quest in the land of Polymorph. They are in Polymorph as the result of a chemistry experiment gone horribly awry, or are they? Bart discovers that in this new land, he has powers that he cannot predict or understand and he is treated as a special person, an Alchemist.
I people my story with all sorts of creatures that appeal to me: talking animals, Giants, Vardays (huge, violent and stupid), Pensaurs (sarcastic, brilliant lizard-men, and others.
It is a story that I revelled in reading to my three children when they were young. I hope you and your children will enjoy it too.

"Unbreakable"

Once upon a time, there was a Stallion named Simony. Simony was the toughest bronco around and had never been successfully broken. Not that the cowboys didn’t try, mind you! But Simony was smart, determined and violently unpredictable. No cowboy lasted for more than a few seconds on his back before the Stallion gave them an exciting flight into the dirt!
One day, a new cowboy came to the Circle-Bar ranch. Just a tenderfoot, really, named Jeremy. A real greenhorn from back East. All the older cowboys snorted when he announced that he would undertake the breaking of the stubborn Stallion.
“Yeah, that’s right kid!” said Slim. “Yew go right ahead and break the Stallion. Show us how they do it back East!” ‘East’ was said with such a tone of mocking derision that Jeremy’s face turned white and then red. But he said nothing, and settled into the life of the ranch, mending fencing, riding the range, and studying the Stallion.
Jeremy may have been a neophyte but he was given to an intense capacity for understanding and probing. He realized without any instruction that the choice in breaking a horse came down to fear and control or something that was a lot like love. None of the other cowboys could conceive of such a choice. For them, it was breaking a horse not patting it or giving it hugs. They would have laughed such an idea to scorn.
So Jeremy set himself the task of befriending the Stallion. He would come to Simony with bunches of sweet grass and speak softly to the horse. Simony, unsure of this approach, did what he always did: he flattened his ears and showed his teeth at the young cowboy. Jeremy was patient and unafraid. This confused the Stallion, who was accustomed to swearing, whipping and fearful cowboys. A calm cowboy with whistling lips and a smile was a vexation and bedevilment. What was the lad up to?
The other perplexing thing about the young cowboy was that he spoke to the Stallion as a friend. He would come over to the corral with sugar or apples and tell the horse how a city-slicker wound up in Montana. He would tell the Stallion how much he admired his ornery streak and his sense of independence. In short, he removed himself as a threat while presenting himself as a possible accomplice. It was enough to make the Stallion’s ears flinch.
Simony decided to discuss the matter with his only friend, the disreputable Shadow, a dog of low cunning and expressive ears, a cur with a heart of gold to belie his questionable looks.
Simony found Shadow at his usual post snoozing in the hay loft.
“Hey Shad, you got a minute?”
The dog pulled himself to his feet and stretched languidly. “Yeah sure, Simon….just give me a se-e-econd (one more stretch).”
“What do you think of that new slicker?” asked the Stallion.
“What, you mean that kid with the bad facial hair and them coke bottle specs?” yawned the dog.
“Yeah, that’s the one…what do you think of him?”
“Geez, I don’t know…seems to be a nice enough sort. Why do you ask?”
“Cause he’s not acting like he’s supposed to.”
“How you mean?”
Simony explained the suspicious behavior of the tenderfoot, underlining how underhanded his actions seemed to be. The dog tried to understand the Stallion but he was confused.
“So this dude treats you well, and you think he’s not trustworthy?”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it…”
“You are a moron, you know that?”
The Stallion showed his teeth and stomped his left hoof into the floor.
“No, I mean it, Simon,” said the dog carefully. “You’re looking a gift horse in the mouth, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
“It’s easy for you to talk,” sneered Simony. “All you have to do is lick a human’s hand, and he’s your friend for life. But me? All they can do is whip me, stab me with spurs, and almost break my neck trying to ride me. And you know what they call it? They call it ‘Breaking’! I just don’t trust humans!”
“Okay, okay,” said the dog in what he hoped was a placating manner. “But this human just might be different.”
“That’s a mighty big might.”
“How you gonna know, if you don’t try?”
“Oh shut up, Shad, you’re not helping at all.”
“Have it your way, Simo, but I think you might be making a mistake…”
The Stallion tossed his head and went in search of oats. There was Jeremy waiting by the feed trough with a goofy grin on his face and a big carrot.
“Hey, there you are big fella,” said Jeremy holding out the root. What was the Stallion to do. He gently removed the carrot and munched it. Then Jeremy touched his fingers to his hat brim in a salute and left the Stallion to feed. Simony shook his head. He did not understand this human at all.
“Well, you sure pegged that human right,” laughed Shadow. “Purely suspicious, offering you carrots and such, and did you notice that he didn’t even try to ride you?”
“I don’t trust him!” snorted the horse. “He’s got some kind of ulterior motive.”
“What’s an onion motor?” asked the dog.
“It means, he’s up to something, I just don’t know what.”
“Have it your own way, Simo. If you need me, I’ll just be with the humans just a-loving ‘em and maybe getting a hand-out from Cookie,” said the incorrigible mutt, heading for the cooktent.
It was the day of the big cattle drive and all of the hands were on horse urging the longhorns into an orderly procession east. Simony, the unbreakable, was left in his stall and Jeremy as the tenderest foot was stuck behind to make sure that the ranch was still there when the drive was over.
Finally, all of the steers were rounded up and the drive was underway. Long columns raised a huge cloud of dust. Jeremy sighed and looked for something useful to do. He picked up a broken flintlock and started taking it apart. His attitude was, if it’s broken, find out why and fix it. It didn’t matter if he’d never seen a mechanism before; he had a feel for how things were meant to work. He wiped the sweat off of his brow (giving him a nice smudge across the bridge of his nose) and he muttered: “Uh, let’s see…the flint looks okay…”Steadily, he broke the gun into its constituent parts, occasionally stopping to clean and oil and ponder. Working with the gun caused him to think of the big unbroken stallion again.
He didn’t tell anyone why he wanted to tame Simony in the first place. The truth was that the stallion reminded him of himself: wild and unloved. If he could get the horse to trust him and even (dare he hope?) love him, maybe he could believe that he was lovable himself.
There was this girl back in New Bedford that he’d trusted with his heart. He shook his head angrily, he would not think about her.
He sighed. What would it take for the big horse to trust him? He lifted the flintlock and it shone in the morning sun. It was as good as new. Mechanisms were easy: find the broken part and fix it. Hearts were more difficult by far. “You gotta be patient, boy,” he counseled himself. “One step at a time, just one careful step at a time.” It was becoming his new mantra for the horse as well as his own heart.
He sat on the split rail fence and pondered. What was holding up the horse? He had shown him nothing but kindness, asking nothing in return, but the stallion still greeted him with suspicion. Where was the reciprocity, the warmth that he hungered for?
“One little step, one careful step,” he reminded himself. Wasn’t that the way it was with Lucy? He had courted her with gentleness and infinite patience, recognizing a look in her eyes that made him think of a deer suddenly aware of danger.
He thought he’d done everything right but at the penultimate moment, as he stood waiting in the front of the little white church, she’d not come at all. Instead, it was her father who came in her stead to try and explain. The old man had stammered and mumbled that she just wasn’t ready. The subtext was plain to him, perhaps she never would be ready.
So Jeremy had fled in bind rage and grief, running as far west as his meager funds would take him. The rage blew out of him like a prairie rainstorm, leaving an emptiness that demanded filling, something new and untried to wash the flavor of rejection out of his mouth. He would stay in Montana, a territory of new beginnings and re-invention.
When he first saw Simony, he asked a cowhand why nobody ever rode the Stallion. The hand, a taciturn man just grinned and said, “Help yourself.” He soon found himself pounding the dust out of his clothes as he unsteadily rose to his feet again. He’d lasted only a heartbeat in the saddle before the horse went berserk and pitched him off. He was intrigued, to say the least. The thought shaped itself in his mind, perhaps taming the stallion could be a first step in reclaiming his sense of who he was.
So he talked to the other hands, discovering how he would not approach Simony, he would not use the tactics of fear and punishment; he would not try to crush the horse’s spirit, he would try to win his trust. He was in no rush, he decided. He had all the time in the world. He would see if love would accomplish what fear could not.
Shadow came up to him sitting on the fence and nuzzled him with his generous muzzle. “Hey boy,” Jeremy responded, scratching him around his ears. “Let me ask you for your advice.” The dog looked up at him worshipfully. “I mean, how would a scholar like yourself, go about taming that big horse?” Shadow just wagged his tail and settled his disheveled head onto Jeremy’s lap for more delightful scratching. What could he tell him? Shadow doubted that Simo would ever submit to a human, even to one as nice as this one. He nosed Jeremy’s pocket where he usually keep little treats. Jeremy smiled and pulled out a scrap of jerky.
It was shaping up to be the hottest day of an already hellish Montana summer. Jeremy felt like he was swimming in his own sweat as he pounded a new post into the ground. Shadow watched mournfully from his patch of shade and pitied the young man. Imagine having to do hard physical work in such an inferno! Shadow shuddered and then fell asleep.
“Come on boy. It’s quitting time!” said Jeremy. Shadow’s eyes opened a crack and he yawned ponderously. The sun was already touching the edges of the Bitteroots. It was time to eat! They headed for the mess tent and Jeremy fried a sizable steak. Shadow fixed his food-sharing beam on the young man and cranked it to ten. Jeremy laughed at the guilelessness of the mongrel and gave him a hunk of fat.
After dinner, he checked on the stallion making sure that he had enough oats. He pulled a lump of sugar out of his pocket and held it out to Simony. The stallion sniffed it and pulled it in with a delicate tongue. “Goodnight, you noble steed, you glorious beast,” he whispered. Simony’s ears did not go flat which Jeremy saw as a good sign.
The sky was a deep black full of stars. Jeremy sighed with contentment; it really was a big sky he was under. He leaned up against a withered pine and tried to identify the constellations. There was Orion’s belt and the Dippers, big and small, but where was Pleiades? He breathed deeply in the relative cool of the night taking in the aromas of sage and ponderosa pine. It was rich like turkey stuffing in his Ma’s Christmas turkey. He sniffed deeply but here was a different smell, something oily and smoky.
He got to his feet, something was burning. He ran to the hill just south of the ranchhouse his own private look-out. To the east he could see a running tongue of brightness running along the plain: a grassfire! To his horror, the grassfire flew into the forest at the base of the mountains and the pines exploded into flame.
He had to get back to the Circle-Bar and get Simony out of his stall! He raced back to the barn and threw open the door. “Quick!” he yelled to the dog. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He ran to the stallion’s stall and wrenched open the door. Simony, panicked by the smoke he smelt drove his hooves into the door and knocked Jeremy off of his feet. He fell in a heap.
“You knocked him out, you big fool!” barked Shadow, who ran to Jeremy and tried to pull him out of the smoldering barn. The stallion knelt down beside the dog. “Here, pull him onto my back, I’ll get him out of here. Shadow pulled the unconscious man onto the horse’s back and then they ran out of the barn.
“The canyon! We can shelter there!” barked the dog.
“Where is it?”
“Follow me!”
They pelted across the ranchland and into the narrow entrance of the box canyon. Down to the creek they ran, Simony carefully running so as not to lose the unconscious human on his back. They were not alone in the water. Every manner of animal was already there or arriving quickly: deer, rabbits, and even a couple of black bears. They all hunkered down in the quickly flowing water and waited.
When Jeremy came to, he was dazed and disoriented. Where was he? Why was he wet? Was he on a horse? He could see Simony’s heaving flank right in his face. He tried to pull himself up but he was too weak. He felt boneless.
“What are you doing with that human?” asked a buck.
“Mind your own beeswax!” growled Simony.
“Forget him!” yelped Shadow. “Come on, let’s get further into the canyon, we’re still too close to the flames!”
The canyon was mostly rock with cliffs towering over their heads. There was a creek that was still running in mid-summer and all of the animals were crowded in its safe embrace.
______________
The oldest hand, a wizened reprobate named Slim was chewing tobacco and sending a steady stream of juice into the makeshift spittoon of an old boot beside the fence. He and Jeremy were whittling companionably now that the work of branding was done and there was a lull in the work. Slim was creating an entirely unconvincing model of a horse, while Jeremy was trying to make a recorder or at least a whistle.
“Say, dija ever actually git on that Stallion’s back, junior?” drawled Slim.
“Nah, that stallion’s unbreakable!” said Jeremy.

"The Dung Beetle's Wedding"

“What a wonderful story!” enthused Death.
“It was okay,” said the stallion dismissively. “But now what we need is a story with guts!”
“And I imagine that you have such a story?” said Goldie.
“You bet, it’s time for ‘The Dung-Beetle’s Wedding’!”
“How many times do we have to tell you that we don’t want to hear such a crass story?” asked Death.
“It’s different now!” crowed the stallion.
“How is it different?” asked Goldie.
“I re-wrote it so it rhymes! You mares love that kind of classy crap, right?”
“Oh Hoss, it’s not the lack of rhyme in your stories, it’s the lack of a coherent sense of morality,” sniffed Death.
But Hoss drew a deep, druidic breath and began to declaim:

There once was a Dung Beetle, name of Moe
Who loved the fair Charissa and followed her where ever she’d go
Her father, the Dung Beetle king, noticed the romance but stomped his foot “Nay!”
“You can’t marry her, unless your worthiness you can display!”

“Hoss, it really doesn’t need to rhyme to be a classy story!” said Death. “You just need to include some moral lesson or something redemptive.”
“You just listen, then,” said the stallion proudly. “This story will blow you away! Anyway, where was I?”
So Moe and the King of the Dung Beetles had to find a way for Moe to prove himself worthy of the fair Charissa.
“You seem like a nice beetle,” said the King, “but my daughter needs a beetle of resourcefulness and strength; are you that beetle?”
“I sure am!” said Moe. “Just give me a challenge!”
The King mulled it over and then issued the following challenge: “You will accumulate a ball of dung one thousand times your own size and deliver it to me within the fortnight.”
“Uh, but how am I supposed to roll the damn thing?” asked Moe.
“That’s part of the challenge,” smiled the King rubbing his belly in anticipation.
Poor Moe stalked away muttering to himself. How in the world was he supposed to find so much manure? And if he should find it, how to deliver it? There was only one who could help the poor dung beetle: the awesome wizard, Sid!
Sid (if you’ve been following his history) had been an apprentice to a wizard, a goblin, and a vampire, but eventually he tired of being the number two man and he set out on his own. He lived in a little white cottage surrounded by magic trees and animals in the midst of the Very Dark Woods. It wasn’t much of a living because very few people ever dared to enter such a forbidding area but Sid was content. Fortunately for Moe, dung beetles know no fear and soon he was knocking at the wizard’s door.
Sid opened the door and looked around. He shrugged and shut the door. Moe knocked on the door again and this time he yelled, “Down here, you numbskull!”
Hearing the piping voice, Sid looked down with a bemused look on his face.
“Well, well, a dung beetle! How can I help you little one?”
“You’ve got to help me, O Wizard, my king says that I need to gather a dung ball a thousand times my size or he won’t let me marry his daughter!”
“The beautiful Charissa? My, your king certainly drives a hard bargain,” said Sid shaking his head.
“Can you help me?” asked Moe.
“Of course, how about if I shrink you to one thousandth of your present size, then a relatively small dung ball would suffice to get you the king’s daughter plus you could trick the king into the bargain.”
“But my king is not known for his sense of humour. I think he’d just eat me.”
“Then we must increase you a thousand times. Then both the gathering and the delivering of the monster ball of dung would be easy.’
“What do you want in return?” asked Moe.
“Evil Sir Rodney hired me to drive all of his peasants off of his land so he can enclose it and raise sheep. I imagine that they’ll gladly leave when a massive dung beetle starts terrorizing their village!” Sid chuckled.
“That’s pretty evil,” said Moe mournfully.
“I sure is,” said Sid happily. “Will you do it?”
“I guess I’ll have to,” said Moe.
And with that, Sid spoke the magic spell of extreme increase and suddenly Moe shot up to fairly Godzilla-esque proportions.
“Wow!” said Sid. “I am amazingly talented.”
The monster dung beetle just sighed and ambled off to terrorize the poor peasants.
How the villagers screamed and howled when they saw Moe! How they ran, crying and moaning as Moe stomped on a few huts for effect. It was then that he saw a little girl with blond ringlets tied up in a blue ribbon. She was standing frozen to the spot in front of her house. “Why are you doing this?” she cried. Moe felt so ashamed.
“I don’t really know,” he confessed to the little girl.
“Then why don’t you stop?”
Moe sighed deeply and nodded his massive head, “Yeah, I’ll do that. I’m so sorry…”
Back at Sid’s place, Moe hung his head while Sid berated him.
“You call yourself a monster? This kind of soft-heartedness could get me thrown out of the Wizard’s Guild. You stopped because a cute little girl asked you to? Now, I’ve heard everything!”
“Did I mention her ringlets?” asked Moe diffidently.
“Never mind her ringlets! What am I going to tell Evil Sir Rodney? He’s already bought a herd of sheep!”
“You’re the wizard,” said Moe. “Can’t you think of something clever?”
“I did think of something clever,” bellowed Sid. “but you didn’t follow through!”
“I meant something else.”
“Let me put my thinking cap on,” said Sid, reaching for his thinking cap. (It’s one of his most useful inventions; everyone should have one.)
“Got it!” said Sid, after a couple of seconds. “You terrorize Evil Sir Rodney instead! He’ll be too afraid to ask for his money back and all of those panicking sheep should produce more than enough dung for your needs!”
“That’s brilliant!” said Moe, in a voice of awe.
“Yes it is!” agreed the Wizard. “Now get out there and terrorize like you’ve never terrorized before!”
“Well, I haven’t really terrorized at all yet…” started Moe.
“Agh! It’s an expression, you numbskull! Get a move on!”
So Moe trundled off to Sir Rodney’s vast acreage. He was going to pause to help the poor peasants repair the huts that he had pushed over, but they shrieked so much to see him coming that he thought the better of his plan.
Sir Rodney’s castle was surrounded by a very deep moat, but fortunately the drawbridge was down, so Moe went into the keep and started doing things that struck him as being terrifying: ripping up bits of wall and throwing things around in a messy manner until the sobbing Rodney begged him to leave him in peace. Moe left him with a copy of Sid’s bill and set out to terrorize the sheep.
The sheep bleated and bellowed in most satisfactory manner leaving masses of freshly deposited dung that the happy beetle rolled up and out of the field. Pushing the steaming manure in front of him, Moe reflected what an extraordinarily good day I was having. He whistled a cheery tune as he rolled the massive orb of manure to the King’s habitation.
“Well,” said the King with a hushed voice, “That is one monstrous ball of dung.”
“It certainly is,” said Moe, “When shall we have the wedding?”
The king rubbed his hands together (or whatever dung beetles have instead of hands) and began to whimper, “How can I allow my daughter to marry such a huge beetle as you? You’d crush her on her honeymoon!”
“Oh! Of course,” said Moe smacking his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll get the wizard to change me back.”
“Yeah, you do that,” said the King.
______________
“You gave Evil Sir Rodney the bill?” asked Sid.
“I sure did,” nodded Moe. “Now if you could switch me back?”
“Of course I will,” smiled Sid in a rather nasty manner. “But for another difficult magic act I will expect some recompense…”
The dung beetle sighed, fighting the temptation to rip the Wizard into little bits and shrugged, “What do you want me to do?”
“Oh, nothing too stretching for you. I need you to go to Xanadu, to the stately pleasure dome of the Great Emperor. He has something that belongs to me.”
“What?”
“A golden ring.”
“How does the Emperor come to have your golden ring?”
“Let’s just say that he’s not as dumb as he looks.”
“But…”
“Look, never mind how he comes to have my ring. I want it back! If you ever want to get hitched you’ll do what I tell you!” Moe sighed deeply.
“How do I get to this pleasure dome and once I get there how am I supposed to sneak in?” asked Moe.
“Here is a map, just follow the sacred river, Alph. It shouldn’t take you very long with your long legs! And take this vial of magic dust. Once you are in sight of Xanadu, just sprinkle yourself with it and you’ll be transformed!”
“Transformed into what?” asked Moe, fearing the worst.
“You’ll be one of the eagle men of Xanadu; you’ll totally fit in and you’ll be able to fly.”
“Can’t you change me into an eagle man now?”
“The dust has a short shelf life. You’ll only get to be an eagle man for an hour or so…”
“How will I know your ring, assuming that I’m not captured and tortured instead?”
“It has certain markings on the inside.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“No, now beat it before I turn you into a gopher or something.”
“That would be an improvement,” grumbled Moe to himself.
_______________
Xanadu sparkled in the summer sun. The pleasure dome had a thousand diamond windows to catch and refract the sun so it hurt Moe’s eagle eyes to look on it. The sky was full of other eagle men and women, dipping into the thermals and gliding over the mountains that rimmed in the fabled land.
Moe tipped the vial carefully above his head and shivered as the dust did its work. Best not to use all of the precious dust at one go. He could feel his back throb where wings were pushing through, and a feeling like being kicking in the gut hit him as his beetle shell softened and turned a golden color. He wiggled his shoulders and saw silvery wings dipping to and fro. Moe laughed and walked along a path that was pebbled with emeralds. Where should he look first? If the Emperor’s valuables were anywhere, they would be in the dome, thought Moe.
He wandered through a ruby portal, nodding confidently (he hoped) to the door keeper. Inside the dome, he walked past fruit trees laden with fruit and weeping shrubs heavy with flowers. There was so many pleasurable smells that Moe felt quite dizzy; the mingled scents of sandalwood, jasmine, quince and orange blossoms filled the air. He made his way to the great palace at the centre of the dome. It was made completely of a golden crystal. Moe walked through a great portal and there on a throne was the Emperor himself.
“Hail, Dung Beetle!” said the Emperor lifting his hand in greeting.
“Um,” said Moe, quite tongue-tied.
“You have come for this ring?” said the Emperor displaying it on his hand.
“Uh well…” What was the use of lies with one who obviously knew everything? He nodded.
“Did the Wizard tell you how I come to have his ring?” asked the Emperor.
“He wouldn’t say,” said Moe.
“He lost it in a game of chance. He came here filled with desire for riches and believed that I was a ‘good mark.’ He attempted to cheat me at a game he called mumbojumbo. Obviously, he did not realize that I can see the invisible and can hear the unspoken.”
“So, really, you cheated him?” asked Moe.
The Emperor sighed. “Yes, I did and I have been somewhat ashamed of my actions for all this time! I just wanted to teach him a lesson, you see.” Hmm, thought Moe to himself, this was sounding a bit like rationalization.
“Well, if you want to make amends, I can take his ring back to him.”
“That would be best, except for one thing…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t really want to give it up!”
“Oh…but how can you make amends if you don’t?”
“It is a perplexing problem,” admitted the Emperor.
“What is the big deal with the ring anyway? It looks like something you can buy at any caravan on the Silk Road.”
“It has the power to make its wearer invisible,” said the Emperor. “You have no idea how handy it is to be able to walk around Xanadu and hear what my people are really saying about me, not just the flattery they give me to my face.”
“You saw me transform into an eagle man?”
“Of course! And I thought to myself, ‘Hmmm… a giant beetle suddenly becomes an eagle-man. This can be the work of none other than Sid!”
“Is there a way that I can somehow earn the ring?” asked Moe, with a feeling of doom. “I need to return the ring to Sid or I will never be my right self again and I’ll never marry the lovely Charissa!”
“Hmmm, I see your point,” nodded the Emperor. “Do you, by any chance play mumbojumbo?”
“I’m a dung beetle,” said Moe. “Cards are not what we do.”
“You’ll find it delightfully easy to learn!” said the Emperor with gusto.
“I also don’t have any money,” said Moe.
“Oh,” said the Emperor, disappointment on every line of his face. But then he brightened, “Surely you have something worth betting? A pin? A baseball card? Some first editions?”
“I’m a dung beetle,” said Moe. “All we possess is dung!”
“Very well then,” said the Emperor (who was desperately addicted to gambling). “Bring me a mound of dung and you can play for the ring of power!”
“This is nuts…” said Moe to himself but he wandered off to find some fresh dung. He waited until the magic dust wore off and he became a beetle once more. He stuck his head up in the wind and sniffed. Ah fresh dung! He trundled off until he came to a large barn full of every conceivable horse. There were bays, appaloosas, palominos and chestnuts. There were quarter horses and thoroughbreds, Arabian chargers and Morgans. What a wonderful smell!
Moe started in one corner and in no time he had amassed a sizeable ball of dung. Whistling happily (how wonderful fresh dung is!) he rolled the steaming globe out of the stable, down the emerald paths and into the royal enclosure.
The Emperor sat at a large ebony table restlessly shuffling a deck of cards. His eyes lit up to see the dung beetle. He lay down the cards and pretended to evaluate the dung.
“That is a fine mound! It should be worth twenty golden coins!” He handed the dung beetle some lovely ivory chips. “Please sit down and I will tell you how to play,” he said, perspiration beginning to dot his forehead. The Emperor’s hands trembled as he dealt the cards.
“Now the point of the game is to collect the greatest proportion of face cards with the minimum number of cards that show the eagle’s wings. We gamble on which type of card gets turned up next. Is that clear?”
“As mud,” grumbled the beetle, but he played his first hand.
“Oo,” said the Emperor, “A unified deuce! Are you sure you’ve never played before?”
“I’m a dung beetle,” Moe said. “Does this mean I win?”
“Obviously!” said the Emperor tartly, dealing again and wiping sweat from his wrinkled brow.
Moe picked up another card. It was the Duke of Dorking surrounded by angels. He laid it down. “This is a face card, right?”
“My heavens: an undisputed trump-meister!” said the Emperor hollowly. “And right after a unified deuce! Do you know the odds of that?”
“I’m a dung beetle,” Moe reminded him. “So I win again?”
The Emperor started to shuffle again and a drop of sweat rolled off of his nose onto the table. Moe started to whistle again. The Emperor glared at him so Moe stopped.
The moaning Emperor dealt fresh cards. Moe noticed that his cards had an interesting balance of green and blue just like the cards that the Emperor laid down from the deck. They were a perfect match, so Moe laid them down.
“Hey, this is that match you talked about, right?”
“A flawless flip-over? How did you do it?” babbled the poor sweating monarch. “Either you are the luckiest dung beetle ever to walk the planet or you are a foul cheater! Be frank, Beetle! Did Sid work his magic over you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Moe crisply. “You brought up the card game not me!”
“Yes, yes…I can see it now. You’ve both played me like a fool!” thundered the trembling man. “I will throw you into the deepest dungeon! I will roast you in a fire! I’ll freeze you in a mountain of ice!”
“You are the worst loser I’ve ever met,” said Moe disgustedly.
“What did you say?” shrieked the Emperor, droll flying from his mouth.
“I said: you are the absolute worst loser that I have ever had the displeasure to meet!” roared Moe.
And then, the old man deflated like a beach ball at a porcupine convention. His head felt to his hands and he sobbed like a schoolgirl.
“You’re right! I am the worst loser ever!” cried the old man, snot oozing from his nose.
“Uh well…listen, I’m sorry for being critical…” said Moe.
“No, no, you were quite right. I have a monumental problem. I need help!” said the Emperor brokenly.
“So you’ll give me the ring?” asked Moe, striking while the iron was hot.
“Of course, I will,” said the Emperor, handing over the ring. “And what’s more, I promise now, on my word of honour, never ever to gamble again! From now on it’s a life of recovery for me!”
“Well, that’s great,” said Moe, picking up the ring quickly before the Emperor could change his fragile mind. “Uh, good luck with that recovery thing!”
Moe upended the rest of the vial over his head and became once more an eagle man. Why not fly home? He gripped Sid’s ring tightly and flew for the cottage. He alighted on the fringe of the forest and waited for the effect of the dust to fade away.
A beetle once more, Moe slipped the ring over one of his enormous legs and disappeared. He tiptoed into the Wizard’s cottage.
“Ah, you did it,” said Sid brightly. He was seated in front of a fire wearing a pair of rose-coloured spectacles.
“You can see me?” asked Moe stupidly.
“I’m wearing my special specs,” he said grandly. “They see the molecules of air that you are displacing…”
“Say what?”
“Yes, I can see you,” sighed Sid. “Now, how about my ring?”
“First you have to transform me back into my regular size and promise not to make me do anything like that again!” said Moe.
“I said I would, didn’t I?” demanded the wizard, testily.
“Your sense of honour could use a little work,” suggested the dung beetle.
“Etiquette tips from a dung beetle? Now I’ve heard everything,” said Sid, but he reached for his book of spells anyway. He said the incantation and soon Moe was back to normal.
“The ring, if you please?” asked Sid.
“With pleasure,” said the dung beetle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must see the king about his daughter.

The Dutchess of Bedlam

Julie gazed at the stars. Even at her young age, she recognized some of the constellations from her tutor’s description. That had to be the Big Dipper up there but where was the Little Dipper? A sudden wind came up and Julie realized that she was feeling chilled. She huddled her mother’s fur coat around her narrow shoulders and shivered. She brushed her cheeks and felt the cooling tears there. She sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. In spite of herself, she almost smiled. Her Governess, Miss Rupert, would glare at her for such unladylike behavior.
She tried to sing so she wouldn’t feel so lonely, but she choked on the words to the lullaby and it made her feel even worse. She continued to search the sky for the Little Dipper, but to no avail. She noticed that the North Star on the Big Dipper was shining especially brightly. Brighter and brighter, bigger and bigger until it’s light seemed to swallow up the roof top. Julie was frightened and scrunched her eyes tight.
Behind her closed lids, she could see the bright pink fade away and she chanced a little peek. In front of her was a tiny women dressed all in fluttering feathers or streamers or something.
“Who are you,” choked Julie. “What are you?”
“You may call me Solemnity, my dear,” said the woman, “but as to what I am that is a mystery, a riddle.”
“What is the riddle?”
“The riddle? It is this: what is bigger than the Universe, yet smaller than a pinhead? What is as far away as East is from the West but closer than your own heart?”
“I don’t know,” said Julie, her lip trembling.
“Ah, my little darling, you will know someday.”
“Why have you come to me?” asked Julie.
“I heard you crying. Why are you weeping, darling?”
“Because my mother just died…”
“Oh my dear one, your mother is not dead.”
“But they told me she died…she was closed up in her room for the longest time. They wouldn’t let me see her because they said she was contagious. This afternoon, they told me that she had finally died of it.”
“I’m sorry, dearest, but they are all lying to you,” said Solemnity primly.
“Then what is the truth?” said Julie, in a very small voice.
“Your mother is very sick, Julie. She is cloaked in a great sorrow that no one could lift, a blackness that would admit no light. Your father is powerless to break through her torment. Finally, his advisors told him that it was his duty to put her away and seek a new consort.”
“Where is my mother?”
“She is in Bethlem Hospital, the home of sorrows.”
“Is it a real place?”
“My darling girl, it is too real a place.”
“Then I must rescue her!”
“How will you do this, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know,” said Julie, twisting tendrils of hair in her index finger. “Will you help me?”
“I will,” said the woman, “but you must know that you will be the only one to see or hear me.”
“Why?”
“It’s the Rules, dear heart and we must obey them.”
“I don’t always obey Governess’ rules,” said Julie in a wheedling voice.
“Her rules are fussy and largely culturally determined, and yet, the habit of obedience is worth cultivating, you know, my child.”
“How shall we rescue Mother?” asked Julie.
“My dear girl, I don’t have all of the answers…first we must go to Bethlem and see what we shall see.”
Julie and the woman ran quickly through the back garden and dodged the sentries at the gate. They got to the High Road and started walking for London. A farmer with a wagonload of corn saw the little girl walking and offered her a lift into the city. The two hopped onto the load of corn and drifted through Bishopsgate into the heart of the city. She thanked the farmer profusely. He doffed his cap with a smile and drove off.
“Where is Bethlem?” Julie asked the old woman.
“Hmm,” said the woman, consulting a small book she pulled from her purse. “It should be here…dear me, dear me…” At that moment, an elderly female beggar came up to Julie and asked her for alms. Julie pulled a penny from her small bag and dropped it into the woman’s tin cup.
“Ah bless ye, darlin’. May God show ye favour for yer kindness,” cackled the old woman.
“What is your name, Ma’am?”
“Och, the darling girl calls me ‘Ma’am’, sure, ye can just call me old Sally!”
“Sally, then, can you tell me how to find Bethlem Hospital?”
Sally pointed to a tin badge on her sleeve. “I were a Bedlamite, ‘for they let out. Why does a charmer like ye want to know where such an awful place is?”
“Please Sally, you must tell me where it is!”
“They moved Bedlam to the Moorfields to Finsbury Circus. Why would quality like ye want to go there?” asked Sally insistently. “Ye don’t look like one of those society women who pays a penny just to gawk at the inmates or poke ‘em with poles to watch ‘em cry!”
“What a horrid idea!” cried Julie. “You can’t be serious!”
“It’s the God’s truth, milady. Ye pays a penny and they gives ye a peek, cept for the first Tuesday when it is free admission.”
“How can the tormented be treated so?” asked Julie.
“Well, they say as how the inmates brung it on themselves for wicked lives…”
“Such folly,” whispered Solemnity to Julie.
“But I were a good woman and still I was confined to Bedlam…” muttered Sally.
“Would you show me how to get to Moorfields?” asked Julie.
“Och no, ye cannot ask it of me…I don’t dare go back there!” and Sally erupted into loud tears. Julie was tongue-tied and tried to pat Sally on the back but the little woman shook her head and took Julie by the arm.
“We must go, dear one,” she said. “It will take us the better part of a day to walk to Finsbury Circus.”
_____________________
They call me the Duchess for that is what I am: the Duchess of Bedlam.
My butler, Bellamy, opened the shades and wished me a good morning. I may have to replace him; he is entirely too forward for one of his class. He is always telling me to prepare myself for society visits all the livelong day. Have I given so many invitations to tea? My memory is not what it once was. I suppose I must depend on Bellamy in spite of his lack of good manners.
I could not leave my bed. I was somehow restrained. I looked at my legs. Were they fixed to the bed frame? Was I once again in Purgatory? I could feel a shriek of torment building up in my chest and then out it came tumbling, tumbling, tumbling…
“Now, listen to me Duchess, you’ll do no good crying out like that. You must wait for the visitors to come. They’ll give you a reason to howl!” It was Beelzebub, himself, the dark lord of Purgatory! Sometimes it was Bellamy and sometimes Beelzebub. I get confused. I get confused. I get confused.
____________
“Is that it?” asked Julie. The old woman consulted her book and nodded.
“It looks like a prison,” said Julie fearfully.
“It does,” nodded the old woman. “Are you determined to go through with your plan?”
Julie just nodded, her lips pursed into a bloodless line. Together they passed down a tree-lined boulevard, past twin statues of madmen, naked and enchained, and approached the massive front door. A fat man guarded the door collect pennies in a polished wooden box. We joined the line of people waiting to gain admission. I shuddered to look at the faces of those in front of me, all dressed up for an outing. I could hear their refined voices discussing what they would likely see.
“They say the loonies are most base,” said a well dressed lady to her companion.
“They are under the judgment of God for their moral turpitude,” said her companion wisely, sniffing a pinch of snuff. “Really, milady, what can you expect?”
“Hope we see a good fight,” said a beetle-browed man, “I brought a stick to stir ‘em up!” He brandished a stout staff of ash.
“Disgusting,” said Solemnity to Julie who only squeezed her eyes shut.
Eventually, Julie dropped in her penny and passed with the woman into the building.
______________
Bellamy takes reasonably good care of me. He takes care to announce visitors in respectful tones, never forgetting their titles and addresses. He brought me two ladies just now, the Countess of Albany and the Marquise of Kent. It is curious that I have never met them before. They are full of questions about my summer home here and the delicious doings of the fashionable set back in London. They prattle on about balls and teas, receptions and garden parties. I cannot read their faces; they almost seem to be mocking me…no, that is foolish. They are becoming very quickly members of my inner circle, my confidants. It is to them that I share my dissatisfaction with the help here and how one can never seem to find a capable cook!
Their faces are beginning to leer, again…oh God, they are demons in disguise! Once again, the room is spinning and I see the world the way it really is: I am in the third circle of Hell, the smoke and sparks of Purgatory, and these are but demons with mocking faces and cutting words. I am damned, damned…I have committed the unforgivable sin, I know that I have! I struggle against my restraints, hoping to strike at the cruel demons. They are laughing now and feign fear. I will kill them! No, I will kill myself. No, I am already dead. My thoughts are so confused. So confused. So confused.
______________
Julie saw her mother lying in a bed with manacles securing her arms to the side of the bed. She was being observed by two well-dressed ladies.
“Courage, dear heart…” counseled Solenmity. “She may not know you.”
“She will!” said Julie, but in her heart she was not so sure.
She walked up to her mother, pushing past the tittering old harpies, and then stopped. Her mother looked at her but her eyes were vacant. Then at once, her eyes changed, becoming wild and fevered. She burst into a raving diatribe: “I know you! You are one of the imps, come to torment me! Begone, you evil creature! I’ll kill you!”
“Oh dear,” said one of the overstuffed harpies, “The Duchess of Bedlam is venomous today! Hark at her; she wants to kill everybody!”
Julie’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth and she slumped with weariness and shock. Solemnity came to her side, an invisible presence of peace. Julie took heart and swallowed raggedly.
“Mother! Don’t you know me?” she cried.
“Julie?” said the Duchess, her eyes momentarily focusing. “Julie, is that you? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you home, Mother.”
“How did you get to Purgatory?” said her mother, in a different voice: a grey, leaden voice.
“Mother, this is not Purgatory; you aren’t dead!” cried Julie.
“Not in Purgatory? Not dead?” asked the Duchess, her voice rising in a scream, “How do you explain those demons? The stench of brimstone and ashes? Who are you really?”
“Mother! It’s really me, Julie! You have to think clearly!” Solemnity gently pressed her shoulder and drew her away from the shrieking woman in the bed. Julie walked out of Bedlam silently weeping.
“Don’t despair, dear one,” counseled the old woman. “Your mother has fallen under a curse, but not an irreversible one.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I saw her upon her bed, I noticed that she had a mark on the side of her neck. It looked to me to be the tooth marks of a Raver.”
“A raver? What is that?”
“Ravers are the dark servants of powerful wizards. Someone has paid a wizard to put your mother under a curse!” said the old woman grimly.
“What can we do?” cried Julie.
“We must find out which wizard is behind this and see if we can persuade him to counteract the spell.”
“How can we find out?”
“We must put on our thinking caps, my little one. Think carefully, who would possibly want to harm your mother?”
“My mother is a wonderful woman,” wept Julie. “Nobody could possibly hate her!”
“Your father then? Does he have enemies?”
Julie sniffed and thought. Her father was a powerful man and powerful men tend to pick up enemies. “I think he does…” she said.
“Very good, my dear. If we find your father’s enemies, we find the wizard!” said the old woman grimly.
“But how can we do that?” asked Julie.
“We must find someone with loose lips back at your estate,” nodded the old woman.
“My father’s friend, Lord Ashleigh, has always been very fond of me,” said Julie, thinking cap firmly on her head.
“Let us go speak with him, then,” said the old woman.
______________
Lord Ashleigh lived quite near Julie’s home and he was delighted to see her.
“Ah Julie, m’dear girl, how goes it with your father?” Julie noticed that he didn’t inquire about her mother; he must know that she was in Bedlam.
“He’s well enough, sir,” she said politely. “But I think he’s worried…”
“Worried, eh? Well, no doubt he has much to think about.”
“Does my father have enemies, Lord Ashleigh?” asked Julie.
“Who does not have enemies, m’dear?” sighed Ashleigh.
“Who is his greatest enemy, would you say?”
“That would be the Baron D’Arcy, a vile man, for all his title!” grunted Ashleigh.
“Why does he hate my father?” asked Julie.
“They were both rivals for your mother’s affections long ago,” he said, with a smile of reminiscence on his ruddy face. “Those were younger days, m’dear girl…”
“Thank you, Lord Ashleigh…”
“Whatever for, dear thing?” But Julie just kissed him on his grizzled cheek and scampered out of the room.
_______________
“How do we find Baron D’Arcy?” asked Julie.
“Your father would know,” said the old woman.
“He’ll want to know why I want to know,” said Julie thoughtfully.
“Then you’ll have to be very subtle, won’t you,” said the old woman tartly.
In the end, Julie waited until her father was full of good wine at his lonely table and got him to speak of the old days, when he first met her mother. D’Arcy came up and Julie babbled on about how much better her Daddy was than the nasty Baron. After a very draining evening of her father’s stories, tears and recriminations, Julie had the information that she needed: D’Arcy was to be found on the fringes of the Dark Wood of Blethley, near the river Bibbo.
The next morning with her horse saddled and a believable lie in the ear of her father, Julie and the old woman rode for Blethley.
The Baron turned out to be tall, dark, handsome and utterly charming. Julie was astounded. She had expected someone much less attractive. The Baron was honest (or seemed so to Julie’s innocent ears.)
“Yes, I remember your mother, the lovely Helen. Gad, what a fine woman, what a fine figure of a woman…a veritable Aphrodite! Oh, but I am embarrassing you! Now, what can I do for you?”
“So you didn’t pay a wizard to attack her with a Raver?”
“What? No, good heavens no! How could you think such a thing true of a nobleman like I? Look carefully into my eyes,” he said holding her shoulders gently. His voice was like silk pulled over the strings of a violin. “I would never hurt your mother…I would never hurt your father. Could you really think that I would do such a thing?”
Julie saw that the Baron could never have…
“He’s lying,” whispered the old woman to Julie. Julie shook her head. How could he be lying? He was a noble, handsome man, with nothing but sincerity on his face. She shook her head again. Was he hypnotizing her?
“You’re…lying,” she managed to choke out. The baron’s eyes flashed. “Fine! I’m lying! So what? What can you do about it?” His face was hard and turning ugly.
“I came here to beg you to reverse the spell! Please Baron D’Arcy, I’ll do anything you like, just remove my mother’s madness!”
“Anything I like? Hmmm.” He looked at Julie in a very nasty way. “Will you stay with me and be my servant until I tire of you?”
“Y…yes…”she said with a shaky voice.
“Right!” said D’Arcy. He went into another room and when he came back he had a vial of black liquid. “Take this and give it to your mother. It will counteract the Raver’s bite. When you’ve finished, I will expect you back here. Do you understand?”
“Yes…”
“And don’t dawdle on the way, there are pots to scrub and cinders to sweep! If you’re not here within the fortnight, I’ll set a Raver on you!”
_____________
The imp is back to torture me! I struggle with my hellish chains but it is to no avail. She is holding a vile liquid to my lips and forcing me to drink. I choke on the tar and brimstone and spit it back in its face but the imp is tickling my throat so I cannot help but swallow. I am dying, not I am already dead, no…where, where am I?
“Where am I?” asked Helen, blinking her eyes. “Julie, is that you?”
“Oh mamma,” sobbed the little girl hugging her mother as best she could. “I’ve come to take you home!”
And she did. Julie rejoiced to see her father’s eyes light up when her mother entered her home again. That night, they celebrated with music, song and dancing and much feasting. Julie’s heart felt like a lump of lead. She knew that within the fortnight she must find her way back to the evil Baron.
Finally, the dreaded day arrived. Julie gathered together her most prized possessions and then slid out of the palace onto the High Road again. The old woman greeted her with a smile and together they walked to D’Arcy’s castle.
That night, after a joyless banquet, the Baron was deep in his cups.
“You know, girlie, I was not always the man you see now. Once I was good! I was a goodie-goodie without equal. Thas right!”
“You’re drunk,” said Julie, with accuracy and judgment intertwined in her pursed lips.
“I sure am!” agreed the Baron. “But tha’ doesn’t mean tha’I’m not tellin’ the trush!”
“What is the truth?” asked Julie.
“I’m unner a shpell too!” announced the Baron with a flourish.
“Hmmm,” said Julie.
“Ish true! I’m unner a curse. Joo think I wanted to put yer Musher under a ravening shpell? I loved her!”
“Nice way to show it,” whispered Julie.
“Y’see, when I was young, I used to hang ‘round wish this Wizard, ‘Tonius…and when I tried to make him stop, y’know, doin’ wicked shings, he got mad an’ put me unner a curse. Tha’s why I’m sho evil.”
“So you say you’re under a curse for being good?” asked Julie.
“I’m tellin’ you the truth, girlie-girl…”
The old woman leaned to speak in Julie’s ear, “He’s telling the truth, my dear…”
“Is there any way to break the spell?” asked Julie.
“Ish impossible. ‘tonius’ shpell ish a triple improbability shpell!”
“What is a triple improbability spell?”
“Y’can only break it by doing three impossible things.”
“Impossible or improbable?” asked Julie, who was really rather a brilliant girl. But the Baron had fallen into a boozy slumber.
The next morning at breakfast, Julie decided to help the evil Baron.
“Last night, you said…”
“Could you hold your chatter, little girl? I have a deuce of a headache today…” moaned the Baron.
“I’m going to help you break the curse,” said Julie. The Baron laughed mirthlessly and then massaged his sodden scalp.
“Impossible to break the spell. Antonius is too good a wizard for that…”
“What are the three improbable tasks?” asked Julie.
“All I have to do is fill the Bottomless Bucket, untangle the Tapestry of Insanity and reweave it as Clarity, and overcome the Completely Black Pit. A piece of cake really!” said the Baron with a flash of anger.
“Have you ever tried to do these three things?” asked Julie.
“No, because I really enjoy being evil,” said the Baron with understandable sarcasm. “Of course I tried, but I always failed. They are deeds that can’t be done.”
“Where is the Bottomless Bucket?” asked Julie.
“Antonius hung it in the center of my fields so I could look on it every day and despair!” said the Baron in a toneless voice.
Julie tiptoed out of the dining room to see what she could do.
“What do you think?” she asked the old woman. The bucket was hung on a gilded post in the very center of a grassy field.
“Hmm…” muttered the old woman. “How does one fill a bottomless container?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Julie.
“I would suggest putting a bottom on,” said the old woman.
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” asked Julie.
“I didn’t know that evil Wizards were governed by rules, per se,” said the old woman tartly.
They took the bucket to a blacksmith, where a new bottom was installed.
“There!” said the old woman. “That should hold water!”
“You’re sure this isn’t cheating?” asked Julie.
“Sometimes the great solutions are the simple ones,” said the old woman sagely, neatly sidestepping her objections.
The Baron was delighted. “You put on a bottom. Yes, of course, you did! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because, it’s cheating?” asked Julie, not willing to let go of her concerns.
“Cheating, schmeating,” snorted the Baron. “Well done, little girl. Now the Tapestry! Shall I show it to you?” And so saying, he drew her up to a high tower where on the wall was affixed the most dreadful, warped, tormented tapestry that Julie had ever seen.
“What do you think?” asked the Baron.
“Um…”
“How will you fix it?”
“Um,” said Julie again. “I’ll go and think about it…”
Outside, Julie had a conference with the old woman.
“Did you see it?” asked Julie. The old woman nodded.
“How will we fix it?”
“No idea,” said the old woman shrugging her shoulders. “I enjoy perfect clarity of thought; that tapestry is utterly beyond my ken…”
“My mother!” shouted Julie.
“Eh?”
“My mother would understand it; she knows what it is to be insane…but…”
“But?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be dreadful for her to have to see it, after all she’s been through?”
“It would,” said the old woman gravely.
“I can ask her,” said Julie.
_____________________
“This is exactly what madness is like,” said Helen, looking at the tapestry. “Look how the purples clash with the oranges here?” she said, pointing and shuddering.
“Can you fix it, Mum?” asked Julie.
“I can,” she said serenely.
Helen took apart almost every part of the tapestry but kept a corner that seemed to depict a few threads of sanity. It was on this corner that Helen built, extending the color scheme and adding subtle woven blends to indicate deliverance and sanity. The whole work was now shot through with compassion and healing, using even the pain from the previous tapestry to illustrate redemptive suffering.
“It is done,” said Helen triumphantly, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“It’s beautiful,” said Julie, her eyes moist.
__________
“How did you do it?” asked D’Arcy.
“I had an understanding helper,” she said.
“The last task is the most difficult,” warned the Baron.
“Where is this Completely Black Pit?” asked Julie.
“It is in the depths of the Hopeless Despair Forest, up against the cliffs of Self-Loathing, one week’s walk to the west. It is a grim place!”
“Hmm,” said Julie on her way out. “Did you hear?” she asked the old woman.
“I did,” she said calmly.
“What do we do?”
“Let’s go and see what we may see,” she said.
They finally reached the forest late at night. It was bleak, just as advertised.
“Brrr,” said Julie. “Let’s sleep out here in the open!”
“I completely agree,” said the old woman.
Next morning, the sun shone with vigour and the birds sang with great joy. Easy for them, they didn’t have to go into the forest. In the light of day, it was still horrible to gaze on. The dark trees seemed to such the life out of Julie and all she could feel was despair and hopelessness.
“This is crazy,” she murmured. “We’ll never be able to deal with the Pit if we can’t even go into the forest!”
“Ask for help,” counseled the old woman.
“Ask who?” wondered Julie.
“Just ask!”
“Well, alright, ummm…help somebody, help us get into the forest and fix the pit!”
At that moment, the old woman began to glow along the folds of her garment. Her dull, grey hair began to shine and turn a fiery red colour. And then the hair flamed into fire. Her skin, once wrinkled and pale began to turn silvery and then golden as though all of the impurities in her were being caught up in a refining fire.
“Wow!” said Julie in a hushed voice.
The old woman stood before Julie as an angel of flame.
“Now let us go into the forest and find this pit,” laughed the angel. Together they walked along the forest and where ever the angel walked the dreariness and failure faded before her. Soon the very shadows were illuminated and the trees danced with light, like slaves suddenly released. The birds followed the two into the forest, reclaiming the trees and singing as though their tiny hearts would burst.
And there was the pit:a dark malevolent depression reeking of fear and doubt.
“What now?” asked Julie, her hope still fragile within her.
“You must throw me in!” said the angel.
“What? No, I can’t!”
“You must,” smiled the angel.
“I’m afraid…” said Julie.
“Perfect love knows no fear,” said the angel and walked to the edge of the pit.
“My love must not be very perfect,” said Julie in a tiny voice.
“Mine is,” said the angel. “This is my part.” Julie pushed her gently and down she fell. A shrieking came from the pit, but it wasn’t the angel because Julie could hear her laughing as she fell. An explosion of light came from the depth and living water rose to the surface. Julie blinked her eyes as the pit became a quiet pool full of peaceful waters.
“The spell is broken, now go and be full of joy,” said a voice on the breeze that blew through the transformed forest.
Julie went back to see D’Arcy before she went home. He was a man transformed: all of the cynicism and brutality was gone and his eyes were bright and lively.
“How can I repay you?” he asked.
“It’s not me you’d have to repay,” she said quietly.
_______________
They say that if you follow the river Bibbo, you will find the formerly dark forest and if you follow the forest path to the center of the wood that you can still see the pool. If you sit and look into the depths, perhaps you’ll see eyes looking back at you.