The Book Man, Chapters 42-43 (Revised)

42 THE GARDEN GNOMES

The horse’s ears swiveled in their direction. It whinnied. They all turned to look as something rustled in the bushes.

“What is it now?” Liza asked.

Christian picked up a bucket, ready to swing it at whatever might appear, but the next moment a frightened garden gnome waddled out into the open. The one in the wagon squeaked with joy.

“Just a garden gnome,” said Mr. Catcher, massaging his chest. “Thank heavens. My poor heart can’t take much more excitement.”

Aurelia and Carina stood in front of the new garden gnome, listening and nodding as it squeaked at them through its painted-on mouth.

“He wants to stay with us,” Aurelia said after several minutes of this. “He saw you come through the gardens, but he couldn’t keep up. He thinks you’re all so big that nothing would dare attack you.”

Her eyes lingered on Mr. Catcher’s rumpled suit, the scratches on Liza and Christian’s faces, the smudges of dirt on their clothes.

“I take it he didn’t see those damn birds,” Liza said.

“Of course he can stay,” Christian said. “But—”

He stopped, not wanting to frighten the garden gnome further. He picked it up and deposited it into the wagon beside the first one, which jumped up and down, squeaking happily, and hugged it.

“Do they have names?” Christian asked. Aurelia shook her head.

“They have no use for them.” She flitted up and landed on his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” Christian said. “Ready for what?”

Aurelia’s enormous golden eyes blinked at him. “Ready to journey to the Otherworld, of course. To find the Rover.”

“To find—” Morrow, the Rover king? He had forgotten she had asked him this once before. Then he had said no, seeing no reason why he should go. Now she seemed certain he had prepared for it. So casual, “go to the Otherworld.”

“I can’t leave Minerva,” he said.

“Is that not why you returned with friends?” Aurelia asked patiently. “They will, of course, care for her in your absence. Is this not as it was planned by the Guardian?”

“I don’t understand,” Christian said. “Why me? Why can’t you go find Morrow yourselves?”

The fairies hung their heads in shame.

“We are forbidden from the Otherworld,” Aurelia said.

“Why?” asked Christian, so she told him.

43 AURELIA’S TALE

A long time ago, long before Earth was habitable or humans even thought of, the fairies lived in the Otherworld, though of course that was not its name. The fairies had their own name for it in their language that sounded like wind stirring in the leaves, but they had now been on Earth so long that it was forgotten.

They had lived in a beautiful part of the world called the Sunforest, where the sun slanted through the trees and soft breezes blew. Many other strange and lovely creatures also lived there, and throughout the world, creatures with which the fairies were great friends.

“Of course, we did not get along with all of them,” Aurelia said. “The marsh-witches in particular hated us, but we did not trouble about them.”

In the Otherworld there also lived Goblin. He was a hideous creature who hated the world’s other inhabitants and so caused much destruction. The fairies worked to keep him out of the Sunforest, but soon they were given a much larger responsibility.

“In time Goblin’s tricks went too far,” Aurelia said. “One day, he destroyed Neva’s palace, killing his mother.”

“Who is Neva?” Christian asked.

“I think your kind would call him an angel,” Aurelia said. “He was angry with Goblin, and so he imprisoned him in a tree in our forest and told us to keep him there.”

For centuries Goblin remained imprisoned in the tree, but, even in his confinement, his power was so great he was able to call other ugly and evil creatures to him: hellhounds and banshees and nightmares, imps and crows, spiders and hags and furies and werewolves. These creatures carried on his work, destroyed villages and laid waste to field and forest, and the fairies were hard-pressed to stop them.

Then Earth was discovered.

Goblin became restless in his prison. Neva told the fairies to strengthen their spells and increase their guard, for he believed, with another world in sight, Goblin would try to escape and hide from his jailers.

At first the fairies were diligent in their watch. Aurelia, in particular, was careful to keep an eye on Goblin, but as time went by she began to talk to him in his prison. Though she had always heard he hated all lovely creatures in his ugliness, he seemed to warm to her friendship.

“I became lax in my guard,” Aurelia said sadly. “I believed my friendship would be enough to make him stay.”

For a while it seemed so. Goblin’s army of creatures were hunted down and killed, and he called no new beasts to him. He seemed as content in his prison as anyone could be. But then, one night, he broke loose.

“We were taken by surprise,” Aurelia said twisting her golden hands together. “Many of our sisters were destroyed then, as he ripped free of his prison and howled through the Sunforest to the portal. Neva was furious.”

As punishment for allowing Goblin to escape, the fairies were banished from the Otherworld until such time as he was defeated once and for all. They had come to love Earth and its residents, but they had not forgotten their home nor begun to long any less to return to it. But when the battle between them and Goblin was over, he was not destroyed. Morrow had trapped him, restrained him in such a way none could approach him, covered over the seat of Goblin’s power and surrounded it with goodness and light so his allies would be kept away—but not killed him.

“And so we are still here,” Aurelia said. “And we must remain here until Goblin is destroyed. That is why you must go.”