Aurelius and I Read online

  It wasn’t going to work though. I was so upset I felt as if I would surely punch Aurelius, or just burst into tears, or possibly both. I could feel my emotions building and building inside of me as if I was about to explode. And then it happened.

  Suddenly, all the pent up aggression and frustration seemed to release itself through my fingertips. I felt a strange tingling sensation coming up from my feet, along my spine, and out through my arms and my nostrils became filled with an inexplicable yet undeniable scent of cherry blossom. It was just like I had felt before. Only stronger, much stronger. Until the feeling abruptly disappeared and I felt myself falling to the floor and pulling Aurelius down with me as I grabbed hold of a velvet sleeve to try to help myself balance.

  I sat there on the rug in a state of shock, unable to move for what seemed like hours, but was probably only moments. Everything was still. I felt like I was in a sort of waking coma, one that the world had fallen into it with me. What brought me out of it was movement. And that movement came from the little squirrel with the broken leg. A little squirrel who was now running across the cottage floor and out of the window.

  Chapter 3

  Allow me be honest with you, dear reader. Whilst it is true that I was greatly surprised by the miraculous recovery of my furry friend at my own hands, the event was not nearly as shocking to me as it may have been to other people. Indeed, there was a part of me that openly accepted the fact that events occurred on a daily basis which could not be conventionally explained. In order for me to explain myself a little better, I think it’s time I told you about my grandmother.

  Every child should have a grandmother. Unfortunately not all are so lucky. I greatly pity such children. In my experience, grandmothers are a crucial part of childhood. On the one hand, they love you and care for your welfare, always ensuring that no harm comes to you. On the other, they are less concerned about the stuff you really shouldn’t do, but that is unlikely to kill you, such as burping and farting in polite company or drinking too much cherryade. Or at least mine wasn’t.

  Grandmothers have a refreshing honesty about them which is brought on by the wisdom of experience combined with a more relaxed attitude to life that seems to accompany old age. As a result, they are quite happy to tell you things that your parents would really rather you didn’t know about. These most usually consist of embarrassing tales of the time your father wet his pants in front of everyone in the school nativity play, or when your mother went on her first date with her dress tucked into her knickers. Occasionally however, they may consist of more useful practical knowledge about how the world works - knowledge that is usually kept secret from young ears. Such wisdom may include the fact that everybody always leaves it until the last possible moment before doing their homework (with varying levels of success, I feel I must stress), and that nobody in the history of the world has ever gotten square eyes from sitting too close to the television. For me though, the secrets revealed to me by my grandmother were not of the usual variety – they were far more important. My grandmother taught me about magic.

  The existence of magic had not been revealed to me as a greatly shocking revelation. Indeed, I cannot even remember the first time I had heard my grandmother mention the subject. She had simply always spoken of it, ever since I was born and almost certainly before. To my Grandmother, magic was simply fact. She believed in its existence in the same way other people believe in the existence of physics (which, incidentally, she was oddly suspicious of).

  You see, my grandmother was a Romany gypsy. You are probably wondering what exactly that means, well, so was I, so I’ll tell you what she told me. Apparently, the Romany are a group of people from Eastern Europe who travel around together, visiting many places without ever stopping somewhere to make their home (“Home is where the heart is, Charlie,” my grandmother would often tell me). Well, many years ago some very evil people invaded lots of the countries of which my grandmother had grown up in and had tried to murder all of the Romany gypsies (for what reason is something which I, to this day, have never been able to discern). In any case, without going into too much horrific detail and spoiling what has up until now been a relatively cheery tale, many of the Romany people were forced to flee and make their homes in new countries. My grandmother had come to England and, as much as she would hate to admit it, was surprised to discover that she preferred a more stationary, settled lifestyle where she could really get to know a place, and make friendships that lasted. She did, however, insist upon sticking to her Romany roots wherever possible; in fact she still lived in a caravan, although it was a modern one with running water, and a toilet and a TV, not one of those pretty wooden, horse-drawn ones you see on television. “You never know when you might need to take your home somewhere else, Charlie,” she would tell me. I never had the heart to point out that her caravan had no wheels, and that, in any case, she owned no car with which to tow it.

  Another, more important element of my grandmother’s Romany roots was the fact that she thought of herself as a very spiritual person. As such, she felt herself to be very in touch with the earth, or so she told me. In truth I never really understood what she meant by such things, except that it seemed to necessitate that she believed in almost all forms of myth and magic and was a very superstitious person in general. It should come as no surprise then that she was the first (and, until now, only) person I told about my bizarre experience with Aurelius and the squirrel.

  “And what did you do next?” she asked me once I had recited to her all that I told you in the previous two chapters, almost without taking a breath.

  “I ran,” I replied sheepishly. By now a day had passed, and in the safe, comfortable surroundings of my grandmother’s caravan’s tiny living room, faced with so many unanswered questions, I was beginning to regret my decision to flee.

  “Probably a good idea,” she assured me in her unusual, yet comfortably familiar accent which hinted subtly at an exotic past. “And have you told your parents about what happened?”

  “No. I didn’t think they’d understand.”

  “Probably not, Charlie. Probably not,” the old woman agreed. “Nevertheless, you must be aware that there may well come a point when they shall have to be told – this Aurelius character isn’t just going to disappear you know, not after going to such trouble to find you.”

  “But he didn’t find me,” I protested. “We just sort of ran into one another. Both times.”

  It was only as the words left my mouth that I realised how silly they sounded, evidently so did my grandmother.

  “So you honestly think this all just happened randomly do you? Come on, Charlie, wake up and smell the cocoa. You have lived in one small town all your life and you have never once so much as noticed this tall, loud, man who dresses as though he were part of the circus, and then you just happen to run into him. Twice! In the space of just one week! I don’t think so.”

  I didn’t think so either. I was suddenly becoming very suspicious of Aurelius-Octavius Jumbleberry-Jones. Or maybe it was more a case of my attentions being drawn to suspicions I had already harboured somewhere inside myself.

  “But what would Aurelius want with me?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that for certain, Charlie. But I think I could hazard a pretty good guess.” She stopped, sighed, and took a sip of her coffee while she gathered her thoughts. When she began to speak again her voice was softer than it had been before and seemed tinged with sadness and regret.

  “Charlie, I am afraid that I have not always been entirely honest with you before now. Despite what I may have led you to believe, I have not told you all I know about magic. More importantly, I have not told you how I know what I know.” She stopped and sighed again before sitting silently for several moments. “Charlie, the truth is that I am a Protector. And I believe that you are one too.”

  ***

  And so dear reader, as promise
d, I shall now reveal to you what a protector is and why such a thing should matter. I shall try to explain it in the exact way that it was explained to me. I fully realise that such a concept will be much easier to believe for any of you who have healed sick animals with your bare hands or witnessed any other apparent miracles in the past. As for the rest of you, I have no doubt that the following information may appear to be fictional in nature, but I assure you that you only feel this way because that is what the world wants you to believe. All I ask of you is that you keep an open mind as you peruse the following pages.

  ***

  Of course, my first question to my Grandmother had been to ask what exactly a Protector was. Judging from the dramatic way she had released the information that I was one, I imagined it must be something important, and yet I had never heard the term used before – by anybody. She replied that, in order to properly answer my question she would first have to give me a little history lesson. According to my memory, it went something like this...

  “Many centuries ago,” the old woman began in her best storytelling voice, “when human beings had made their way out of the caves and had begun to read and write and to form civilisations, the existence of magic and magical creatures was merely an accepted part of life. People feared attacks from giant sea serpents in the same way that they feared severe storms. They worried about the threat of vampires just as much as that of lions or tigers. And there is no need for you to take my word on this, Charlie, tales of fearsome minotaurs and seductive mermaids fill the writings of the time.”

  “But, they’re just legends,” I interrupted.

  “Oh they are, are they?” she replied with a mischievously raised eyebrow. “Well then, if you’re so certain of that fact, perhaps you could answer me this; Why is it that a tale of ancient warriors battling the undead written two thousand years ago is labelled a myth or a legend, but a story about a king and his armies written two hundred years ago is labelled history?”

  “Well...” I began, but before my still developing mind could begin to formulate an answer I was cut off by further questions.

  “What makes Henry VIII and his six wives a fact, but Theseus’s defeat of the minotaur a fallacy? Were you present at either event? Was any living person? No. Was either event captured on film? I don’t think so. So what is it that makes one event history and the other legend?”

  “Well, er, I’m not sure,” I admitted nervously, while still privately remaining certain that a distinction did exist, even if I, being just eight years of age, was personally incapable of articulating what such a distinction may be.

  “No, well, I’ll tell you what the difference is, young man,” my Grandmother continued, her voice growing louder and her speech quicker as she became more and more impassioned. “Absolutely nothing, that’s what! The only difference between those histories that mention magic and those that do not is that the people in charge say it’s okay for you to learn about dull, human history, but seek to hide from the world the plain fact of magic and the supernatural.”

  “What people in charge?” I asked.

  “What people in charge!” the old gypsy exclaimed, louder than ever. “What do you mean what people in charge? The people in charge, of course! The Government.”

  “The government know about magic?”

  “Well of course they do – the government know about everything. You don’t seriously think that they could have all those spies, and cameras, and listening devices, and yet never detect any information pertaining to magic do you?”

  “Well, I suppose not,” I admitted reluctantly. I always found it difficult to argue with my Grandmother, she had a way of making her arguments appear immensely logical, no matter how loudly my instincts cried to me that they were wrong.

  “But why do the government need to keep magic a secret?” I asked. “Why don’t they just tell people that it exists? And, how come they have to, if magic used to be just an accepted fact, why isn’t it any more? What changed?”

  “We did, Charlie. Humans changed.” She paused for a moment and took a few sips of her funny-smelling tea before continuing.

  “You see, Charlie, human beings have always been afraid of what they don’t understand. Don’t ask me why - it just seems to be in our genes. The more humans began to learn about the workings of the natural world, the more suspicious they became of anything they could not understand or control. As a result, magical beings, many of whom had held important roles in the founding of the early civilisations, were gradually ostracised from societies and labelled as monsters or daemons. They were forced to move away from human communities, out in the wilderness where they could live out there lives without fear of persecution.

  “As time went on however, populations grew, cities expanded, and it became less and less possible for magical beings to remain free from the random attacks of angry villagers eager to find a scapegoat for a bad harvest or an outbreak of disease. Eventually, and, in the main, reluctantly, the magical creatures decided that, if they were to survive, they would need to unite and defend themselves against the attacks of the ignorant humans - by force if necessary.

  “A war raged for centuries between the magical beings (who were known to each other as ‘The Alundri’, an elfin term meaning ‘the gifted’) and the humans. There was extensive and senseless bloodshed on both sides; the humans would try to rid the entire world of dragons, the dragons would respond by causing great fires destroying crops, farms, and even entire cities (how do you think the great fire of London really began?); when the humans began burning witches at the stake, the witches brought great plagues down upon humanity, decimating populations.

  “After hundreds of years and millions of lives had fallen by the wayside, a few respected individuals in both communities began to realise that peace and co-existence were the only possible ways of once again achieving safe and happy lives for their members. As a result, The Council Of The Secret Of Magic was formed. This consisted of a conglomerate of the most powerful members of all the human and Alundri communities. After many years of difficult negotiation, it was decided that the best way for the two communities to live together side by side was if the ordinary human population were convinced that the Alundri had all been wiped out (and later that they had never existed at all), and for the Alundri to do all that was in their power to support the belief in such an idea.

  “Of course, this idea did not sit well with many of the Alundri, who felt that the humans were the ones in the wrong and should therefore be the ones making any sacrifices. Eventually though, even those most opposed to what they saw as surrendering to human needs agreed that going into hiding was the best option available to them, even if they just saw it as a time to regroup and plan a larger, more devastating attack on humanity.

  “In any case, it was quickly realised by The Council that there were becoming fewer and fewer locations in the world that were remote enough to avoid contact with humans – a problem that was only likely to get worse in the future as the human population continued to rise exponentially. The solution they came up with was to hide those magical creatures which posed no threat to humans in plain sight. Some, like witches and wizards would be able to do this simply by pretending that they were human beings and living normal human lives. Others, such as fairies and goblins would have to try to use their magic and their cunning in order to avoid detection.

  “In order to facilitate those creatures that were to live within human communities, it was decided amongst those on The Council that certain human beings who were known to be sympathetic to the plight of the Alundri should be assigned the role of Protectors. These chosen individuals were to be responsible for helping to ensure that the realm of magic continued to hold only mythical status within their own community and to protect magical beings from coming to harm at the hands of other humans. It was decided that these Protectors would have to be imbued with certain magical powers if their task was t
o be rendered possible.”

  “And you really think that I’m a Protector? That I might have magical powers?”

  “Yes, Charlie, I do. At least, I can think of no other reasonable explanation as to why you should be able to heal broken bones with your bare hands.”

  “But, why me?” I asked, my brain still desperately trying to digest the wealth strange new information it had just received.

  “No reason really, it’s genetic that’s all.”

  “So you’re telling me that you were a Protector?” I asked, my view of the frail old woman before me being suddenly and radically challenged.

  “I still am. I’m just waiting to be called upon if needed.”

  “What about mum?”

  “Her too I suspect, though she hasn’t been called upon yet, poor love.”

  “When am I going to be called upon?” I asked. “And what will I be called upon for?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not the person to be able to give you an answer to either of those questions, Charlie, though I have a suspicion you will be needed sooner rather than later. I’m afraid I’ve told you all I know now. I imagine your new friend will be able to tell you more; I suggest you go and find him. But be careful who you trust, Charlie, there are those who would seek to use your ability for their own gain.”

  And that, dear reader, has hopefully explained to you what I mean when I say that I am a protector, just as I promised I would do when we began our tale. I realise that there is a strong possibility that, at this point in our narrative, you still believe me to be weaving you a fictional yarn; that all that I am telling you is coming from my imagination rather than from my memory. Well, so be it. I am merely optimistic that a few of you at least are believers in the truth of my tale (and therefore believers also in the truth of magic), and that the rest of you will allow me to continue with my story in the hope that I may yet convince you of its validity.