AUNT SVARM
After his interrupted nap was completed Tim looked over old travel brochures from his grandfather’s time, when thousands of people visited Mountebank every year. They came to see the new Meagerscope bobbit factory and take home a sample hand-crafted bobbit. They climbed atop the sprawling muffle tree that stood in the town square -- sound did not travel inside the dusky green foliage. There were village festivals where all the girls dressed up in ribbons and lace and flimsy sarongs to dance alluringly around the biddy stone -- an ancient boulder that was said to give village girls the power to attract any man they wanted if they danced around it long enough. The village men held monthly jackanape races. The open air market offered vintage pimento wine, along with mellow cheepers that turned the tongue gold and left the stomach dazed and amazed. Children scurried from tourist to tourist selling paper bags full of the village’s famous blunt beans. When you held one up to your ear it shouted “Beat it, ya lousy vagabond!” or “Nerts to you, boodle brain!” Very entertaining.
Tim sighed as he put the brochures away. Would such good times ever come again to Mountebank? The lumdiddles had really put a wad in everyone’s spigot. There was enough to eat and sturdy clothes to wear and lots of firewood for the winter -- the Civic Warehouse was open to anyone for necessities at any time. But the whole village was getting seedier by the minute. Nobody repaired their broken shutters anymore. Cockleberry bushes had sprung up between the cobblestones on almost every street. And the pigeons wouldn’t even fly anymore -- they just slouched around the biddy stone waiting for handouts. Nobody seemed to care anymore how the village poked along. Except the Mayor, and she was a congenital screaming mimi.
Tim waited for Miss Poodle to find her purse and deliberately make her way to the Chamber exit before blowing out the candles and locking up. He was home a few minutes later -- he lived in his parent’s home just a few blocks away.
Aunt Svarm greeted him warmly at the front door. Her radiant smile made it almost unnecessary to have candles at all. Tim thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And all the tradesmen and merchants agreed with him. She ravaged everyone with her exceptional beauty.
Which was not unusual, considering she had once been the most powerful sorceress in the entire realm. The spells she weaved captured and destroyed marauding dragons. Her potions turned knock-kneed cowards into knightly heroes and cured hundreds of Mucous Pukous sufferers. Her amulets could charm grubs out of the greengage and strike terror into the hearts of ogres and snufflestinkers.
But she grew proud and scornful over her powers and set at naught the King’s request to make spinach taste like cinnamon buns. He in turn invoked a full Wizard’s Council, which banished the haughty Svarm to the podunkiest region of the kingdom -- in other words, Mountebank. Her spellcasting license was revoked and she is doomed to remain in Mountebank until the love of a confirmed bachelor redeems her. That is why she showed up at Tim’s doorstep the very same night, the terrible night, his parents went out for a walk and never came back. She told him she was his Aunt Svarm, on his mother’s side, and had come to take care of him. He was already nineteen years old, but did not fall under her beauteous spell in the least. In fact, above his bed hangs a pyrographic sign he made at the age of ten that reads: “Never Gully Girlies Unless Girlies Gully You!”
Some there were in the village that suspected Tim had made away with his parents so he could step into his father’s shoes as president of the Chamber of Merchants. Svarma’s sudden appearance did nothing to assuage their doubts. But as time went by it became apparent to even the most ignorant apple-knocker that Tim was ambition-challenged. He liked nothing better than to spend his days down at the River Glox, angling for snapping minnows. He had to be trussed up and physically taken to his hereditary office in the Chamber building to assume his new presidential duties. And told to stay there eight hours a day Monday through Friday or have his ears painted green.
Svarma thought that helping him succeed in his new duties would make him fall in love with her. But so far Tim has remained such a confirmed bachelor that he can sit all day on the biddy stone and never feel a twinge of desire. He classifies women with the lower phylum.
But that is not to say the other men in the village don’t appreciate Svarma’s charms. And this has worked to Tim’s unknowing advantage. The baker brings his freshest loaves to the kitchen door each morning in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Svarma in her apron. He always forgets to charge her for the bread. The grocer gives her the longest, stiffest carrots, and the biggest, firmest heads of cabbage for her stews and ragouts. He only thinks of her when it comes to big juicy melons. He also neglects to charge her anything. And the butcher himself, although he is so fat he hasn’t seen his own shoes in sixteen years, brings her his choicest cuts, huffing and puffing like an asthmatic pipe organ. He never, ever, asks for payment. So the money Tim gives to Svarm for the household bills just piles up in the kitchen drawer until it begins to overflow onto the floor. Then Svarm takes it to buy patches for all the children at the orphanage. They don’t need patches, since their clothes are always quite new and well maintained. But the orphanage overseer, a man in his late fifties who has a wife that snores, is deliriously happy to accept the patches personally from Svarm -- and sees to it that each orphan has a dozen or more patches sewn onto their Sunday best, no matter how much they whine.
Svarm is also an accomplished cook, even without spells. This evening she gives Tim a sizzling platter of bacon brocade with mounds of cheesed potatoes, and a greengage tart for dessert. But alas, although Casper the Conqueror once said that the way to a man’s loyalty is through his gullet, Tim remains unmoved by Svarm’s cookery.
After dinner Tim restlessly paces up and down the living room.
“How can I get rid of those awful lumdiddles or get the road crew working again?” he asks out loud. His brow furrows like corduroy.
Svarm slinks into the living room from the kitchen, with a hitch in her gitalong that would cause a mud turtle to do flip flops. Tim gives her a friendly smile. A friendly, avuncular smile. Romance is the last thing on his mind tonight. Same as every night.
“Thanks for that great meal, Aunt Svarm. I wonder why mom could never cook like that? Do you know?”
“Oh, she prefered to dig for mothballs and such like” replied Svarm evasively. Tim has never once questioned her conveniently showing up the same night his parents disappeared, or asked anything about the family -- thank goodness!
“Why don’t you concentrate on those lumdiddles instead of the New Road?” she says. “Those lazy villagers will never work an hour, especially since they are never getting paid.”
“Yes, but those little creatures are so menacing -- the way they hiss and click their pincers at everything. I wouldn’t go near one of ‘em for a king’s gold coin!”
Her eyes alight with memories of the old magic, Svarm mutters a thinking spell under her breath -- even though it won’t do a bit of good.
"I wish I could help you" she says. Then begins to joke with him. "Why don't you paint them all gold and try selling them?" She begins worrying when he stops in mid stride and gazes at her with his eyes popping out of his head.
“Wait!” he shouts. “I’ve got something -- something big!”
Going up to Svarm he takes her in his arms to waltz around the room. Svarm is delighted, and hopeful. Is he going to kiss her?
But no. He is just delirious with having thought up a plan. Which involves a bag of the king’s gold coins. When he lets her go, she droops and shuffles back into the kitchen to rinse out the wooden bowls and sand down the porcelain floor. She doesn’t hear him explain to her what his plan is all about. It’s hard to listen when you’re crying.
