02. So that you would miss me, so that you would think of me from time to time.
「To my dear and beloved Aunt Marilyn.
Do you remember Uncle Dylan?
He’s the erudite reader who was the Lord’s cousin.
He knew everything from the history of empires and kingdoms to ancient mythology, the old songs of troubadours, the legends of the forest, and all sorts of formulas needed to decipher magic books.
I always found it amazing. How much would one have to study to know everything like that? How many books would he have read to be able to spill out so much knowledge so effortlessly?
But once, there was a time when he did not show his face for several days. Since everyone in town liked and respected Uncle Dylan, they worried like crazy.
Eventually, my mother, Uncle Samson, and Brother Willow went to his house together and found Uncle Dylan collapsed in the kitchen.
Mother had Brother Willow hurriedly bring a healing sorcerer. We all worried enormously that Uncle Dylan might have been suffering from some serious illness.
But the healing sorcerer said this:
He had simply not eaten enough.
There was a gap even in that perfectly intellectual Uncle Dylan. He behaved as though he did not know one thing about having meals, moving his body for his own well-being, or living healthily.
Sister Primrose said at that time,
“There is no perfect person in this world.”
…Now, you must have been grumbling, ‘Hyacinth, dear, what nonsense are you spouting again?’ right?
You had ordered me to skip the weather talk, the inquiries about your well-being, and the business of calling out ‘my dear aunt,’ and just get straight to the point—filling the paper only with that wizard story. You must have thought your ungrateful niece was not listening again and was merely spinning airy nonsense.
But, Aunt, I really wanted to start the story like this.
Because our wizard was exactly like Uncle Dylan.
Of course, our wizard did not know all the knowledge in the world like Uncle Dylan did. Also, unlike bald Uncle Dylan, he had plenty of hair, long and gleaming. Plus, he was someone who could wield the most extraordinary magic in the world.
So why did I say ‘someone like Uncle Dylan’?
Because he was, indeed, someone who did not know how to properly live his life, just like Uncle Dylan.
I did not mean that he failed to plan his meals or move his body at the right times like Uncle Dylan did.
Our wizard was even worse. He truly was someone who did not know how to do anything.
Whenever I said that, Sister Primrose immediately objected.
She said he was the one who had created the western forest, that he knew how to drive out winter, so what more did he need?
After that magical incident last time, Sister entirely opened her heart to him. Perhaps she had already forgotten how she had once doubted and feared him, talking as sharply as a spruce leaf.
But as for me, then and now, I had been seeing the entire situation more clearly than she did.
Think about it, Aunt. He was someone who had hidden an entire forest. Was it not absurd that he was flustered, unable to build a single cabin in a small clearing of the forest he himself had created?
Why could our wizard, who confined the seasons and moved time, not split a single log?
For him, who had never once chopped firewood, Brother Leon and Sister Primrose were busily teaching a crash course on cabin-building. It was called a course, but those two were basically doing almost everything themselves.
Whenever our wizard, full of excitement, said he wanted to build a house like this, Brother Leon would split the wood with his sturdy arms. Sister Primrose would skillfully carry it. Then, before we knew it, the sun would be setting. The silver moon would cast a pretty shadow on our wizard’s golden hair.
Aunt Marilyn, had you not been curious about where he stayed through those dark nights, given that he had no house?
I worried so much about that that I asked him if he slipped into a gap in time to find a soft bed for sleep. He opened his eyes wide and said,
“I do not have such a trick, my lady. I was just going to sleep right here.”
…he said that, pointing at the grass with his long, delicate fingers like a princess.
Even I, who had only just turned thirteen, knew that the forest night felt as cool as winter even in summer. He said that the people of Reutlingen were strong against the cold, so it was fine.
So how did things turn out, you ask? There was an incident where Leon, who was also from Reutlingen and was big-hearted enough to rarely get angry, ended up raising his voice. Leon asked the wizard,
“Are you crazy?”
“Well, I do not know. Depending on what the word ‘crazy’ means and where you place the standard for insanity, one might see it that way….”
Hearing that nonsense, Sister Primrose and I persuaded our wizard that, by any standard, planning to spend the night on the bare ground of the forest amounted to madness either way.
Leon confirmed that the wizard was definitely insane and kindly decided to help the madman without a moment’s hesitation. He diligently cut down trees. He quickly dug into the ground and buried the wooden pillars deep in the earth.
Meanwhile, Sister Primrose and I dug a trench to channel water, and we also prepared to build a bonfire out front. We did it so the wizard would not freeze to death.
I was thirteen and knew that sleeping on the floor would bring up moisture and cause big trouble, so I did not forget to grumble, wondering why the wizard did not know that.
All the wizard personally did was bring over some branches and straw to spread on the wooden boards. Auntie, you knew it too. Even a ten-year-old could have done as much.
How did a person like that arrive safely in this forest without dying? Maybe, like the old stories the minstrels sang for children, a squirrel or bird that had fallen for his beauty gathered leaves and covered him like a blanket?
Every night, the three of us—me, my sister, and Brother Leon—gathered to badmouth him, but the wizard stayed endlessly happy, unaware of it.
As the weather was warm, he plopped down in a house of leaves without any cloth covering and said, “Wow, I can see the stars from hereee. Hyacinth, come over here, how can the sky be this beautifulll.” He laughed so innocently.
When watching that laugh, our complaints about how he never realized you could not sleep on bare ground or how he had never split even a single log melted away.
Sister Primrose and Brother Leon tried to guess the reason, saying perhaps he had grown up cherished as the famous prodigy wizard of the Magic Tower, which was why he acted like that.
Well, I’m not sure. He did not behave as capriciously as those noble lords who grew up pampered. He ate anything given to him without complaint. He even liked a house that looked like a hovel, saying it was pretty.
I thought the reason he could not do anything might just be that he was naturally childlike and pure. He was a bit scatterbrained from birth.
Honestly, when I first heard him explain time magic, he talked in all sorts of difficult terms about travel distance, speed, and formulas, so I thought, “Wow, I picked such a meticulous, calculating person as my first love.”
But it turned out there was no one who lived so haphazardly without any plan in such a sloppy way.
Aunt Marilyn, you mentioned it in your last letter as well. You had never heard of a wizard who built barriers in the western forest, rewound time, and imprisoned the seasons. You said that if someone important had found him instead of children like us, the kingdom or empire would have captured him and kept him locked up. You told us not to spread such tales anywhere, too.
I could not help admiring Auntie’s sharpness. My sister and I had not thought that far. Well, we both instinctively agreed it would be better to keep meeting the wizard a secret, though.
Naturally, Primrose, who had fallen in love, insisted we had to tell Leon. I did not disagree. Leon seemed to keep his mouth shut pretty well.
Oh, did I tell you the story of the day Leon and the wizard first met? Leon roughly heard the story from Primrose, went to the edge of the western forest, and offered to shake hands with him. Then Leon asked:
“By the way, what is your name….”
The wizard obviously rolled his eyes and answered:
“Sel… Le… Ne?”
His gaze remained fixed on the tapestry on Leon’s right arm. When Primrose asked if he had anything to spread on the ground while sitting on the grass, Leon had brought out that old tapestry embroidered with the image of the moon goddess Selene.
Leon looked a bit flustered and asked:
“Um, Selene is a woman’s name, isn’t it?”
I did not like seeing the wizard in a tight spot, so I butted in for no good reason: “Didn’t you just say ‘Celine’? Many boys use the name Celine too, right?”
Fortunately, the wizard was not entirely clueless and quickly nodded.
Leon was so kind that he had no idea people sometimes told lies. He grinned and said, “Oh, I see, Celine. Wizard Celine.” Then he asked if there was anything he could do to help.
My sister sure chose a boyfriend wisely. Since she was very young, her ideal type had always been someone simple, kind, with thick arms and a sturdy body.
As someone who found her perfect ideal, she talked about Leon every single day. Especially at lunchtime when Leon was away working at the forge.
All that time, I had grown deaf to her endless talk about Leon, so I hardly listened anymore. Then she started looking for a new target to latch onto, which was, of course, the wizard.
“Leon Felix. Doesn’t that name sound grand, like an ancient knight? Like he’d kill every monster with an axe? Come on, tell me quickly. Is ‘Leon’ a common name in Reutlingen? Are all boys named Leon that awesome?”
Then the wizard gladly humored her every time.
“Let’s seeee. Felix was the name of a cat I used to raise when I was young….”
“Was that cat as cute as Leon?”
“Uuumm, not quite that muscular. Felix… uuum, meant ‘luck’ in the ancient tongue. I named him that on purpose so he would live a long timeee. Since Leon has the brave lion’s name combined with luck, it’s certainly cool. Right, it’s a very fine name.”
Then Primrose would exclaim, “He’s ‘luck,’ luck. My man is the brave, lucky one. Even his name might be perfect!” and go crazy with excitement.
Aunt Marilyn, is this what people called love? Feeling like even someone’s name was special.
Strangely enough, I started to empathize with Primrose’s fussiness. I truly liked the fake name ‘Celine’ that the wizard had given, too.
The fragile moon goddess Selene, who radiated a pale silver light.
She really seemed like him. The magic he showed felt as faint as moonlight, vanishing at any moment, and the world he created felt as soft as a full-moon night.
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