Wish you were here

My gardener and his shears (actually mine) are in action in my garden. If I can call this desert around my house a garden. This noise was getting on my nerves. Went through the window, even with the window shut. It came through everything and annoyed the hell out of me. He had said he'd come three times a week, but I thought he had revised his goals.

Dreamed about Renan and Andrés last night. They'd fight even in my dreams. I still struggled to understand the line between dream and reality in Taurinos. The boys and master Danilo tried in vain to convince there was none. Not that I was in position of not believing or disagreeing from what they said. Were I like one of these little creatures, it'd be easier. But the little creatures are not easy. Sometimes I think they don't even have the words to explain that to me. But then again, who does after all?

And this plant in front of me, a perfect sphinx. I dream about it in between other dreams, its spiral, as a curl of hair. What is behind this plant in the end? Or at the spot it is? What's the great mystery behind all this madness?

At dusk, master Danilo dropped by for some coffee and as usual found me staring at the plant. He told me of weird encounters at night. I asked him if the man had gone to this house to ask for cigarettes. Master Danilo said he had, but not to ask for cigarettes.

"God, what did he do then?", I was scared.

"He was calling me from a distance using your voice."

"My voice???"

"Yes, he uses whatever voice we know, especially one of a friend."

"That's why he used Anderson's in the bush yesterday."

"True. If he used his, you'd probably have a heart attack or at the very least would understand no word he said. He seemed to be calling me from a point on the dirt road, what you'd never do. Another point is that if something is calling you insistently outside it is because it cannot come in. So the remedy is to stay where you are."

"But will he appear again and again? Won't the Police…"

"The Police has nothing to do with this, only deals with outsiders, basilisks. This entity is from here, so it cannot be touched by the Police. Maybe this was why he used Anderson's voice. Seems to be a very playful entity. But to answer your question, I don't know if he's finished or is going to keep showing up. I thought I was free from him, but am not going to that part of the forest anymore."

I commented that all around us was impregnated of nature everywhere, forests, sanctuaries, plants, forest entities, the Celestial Gardener. Master Danilo asked me not to comment with Anderson that the entity had used his voice.

"Why?"

"Because Anderson is afraid of these things and might think it'd turn on him too."

"You kidding, the only active Obscure Police member at the moment is afraid of these things?"

He laughed.

"You see a little haunt afraid of a big haunt. But what a little haunt he is, eh?", and he laughed again.

He was serious and asked me if I had been to the farm Taurinos. Said it was Andrés' birthday today. His family had thought of celebrating, but it was before the incident came about; now celebrate what with the kid trapped in the Sanctuary?

We went to the farm Taurinos to find Aparecida in her husband's arms. Adriano was sitting in the room too, eyes fixed at the window, distant eyes. Aparecida wept, "I miss him so, wish he were here. I was going to make a strawberry cake, his favorite. O my King Star, he is in the forest with that other child at this time… Only Mithra knows when they'll be able to get out of that maze. You do need to help us, D. Stella…"

She clutched to me in desperation and I felt I had a debt with that poor woman. I felt guilty for simply being there when I should be fanatically looking into that beautiful and silly plant.

They told us they were going with the Teixeiras to take some things that the two kids really liked to eat and throw a little birthday party in the night forest. They couldn't put up tents in the Sanctuary as the two kids, but could stay there for as long as they wished.

At home, I and master Danilo were talking about what I had already noticed. Master Danilo agreed with the idea that Arthur put me in a delicate situation among people I knew well in the community: Aparecida, Duílio, Donana and "sêo" Octávio.

"He rewarded the good with the evil", I said and he replied that was my conception of good and evil and it might not be the Celestial Gardener's idea necessarily. But he admitted that his help brought me more harm than mine brought him.

I said I was sad for the fact that a family had to go into a forest to celebrate their child's birthday, a child that cannot get out of the forest. He said that it might be sad, but it was also beautiful to see parents mobilize like that to take a bit of comfort to their children in a critical situation like that. I had to agree. He said he himself would be going there to celebrate too in some more minutes. I was happy to learn he would and encouraged him to.