He awoke in a desert. There was nothing about save for countless dunes that undulated like waves in every direction. The reddish sand was cold. In fact everything was cold despite the brightest sun that Jim had ever beheld.
It was well nigh white in luminosity. So ferocious was its radiance that he was forced to squint.
“Here the wrath of God descended.” Came a familiar voice.
Jim turned to see an unfamiliar face.
Or rather a mostly unfamiliar face. It took some time but the silver haired Wildman that stood before him was the very same specter that had rescued him from the granite.
“You stand upon ashes of the proud.”
Jim was dumbfounded.
“But it’s better to kneel…” Jim gathered before lightning pain crackled through his knees at the scythe swing of ghoul’s staff.
“Do not stand lest Abaddon be tempted. In this the place of desolation, the dwelling of wild animals, Jehovah has given the archangel charge.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jim ventured through gritted teeth.
“This was once Gomorrah.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“They were brought low. They who stood so high. Who counted themselves the equal of the most high. Who succumbed to the gifts of the stars, they whom the archer commands, it was their arrows that armed the citadels Sodom built up against the Lord. They inclined their towers towards the fallen. And so their towers fell forever. Do you not hear the howling of the Djinn?”
“Let me go…”
“Impossible. It is not I who holds you. Not I, but folly. You are a fool.”
“I don’t care if I’m the dumbest motherfucker on Earth. This ain’t right. Let me out…!”
“I cannot. It is not I who holds you. Not I, but folly. So cease to be a fool…and go.”
Jim’s eyes darted about wildly. Nothing, there was absolutely nothing but cold desolation and the shrieking wind.
“I…I…I can’t.”
“What’s that fool? You say you cannot cease your folly?”
“..Shu..sure.”
“Good.” Again, the lightning pain flashed this time on his neck as his face met the sand. “Then eat of the dead. It’ll keep that God damned mouth closed and those ears good and open, fool.”
Jim was powerless.
“Principalities and powers abound. They whom the Lord established and they who war. It is your duty to discern the true voice. But, not even I have done this. Not even our line…ranging to the very first pillars of Ur. Their cunning is great and we are inextricably bound to serve. For the most high hears the cry of all his creatures and even the most wicked are given their due. So through sin we have been cursed to guard the gate. We who propitiated Ammon in our madness must to this late day continue. For all must pass in its hour. So our duty is to turn the glass. And to turn aright one MUST READ.”
The sand filled his lungs utterly and Jim awoke coughing in the closet.
It was quiet for a spell. Jim had a week free of chirping and stealthy footfalls. He wondered if Dutch’s weird remedy had actually worked.
The thought made him laugh.
‘Of course they stopped stalking round. They’re part of the same Scooby Doo schtick. I dunno why they don’t just fess up and offer a deal.’
Jim was a stubborn man and held to the drug ring hypothesis with an almost religious zeal.
He’d considered calling the police. But, out here ‘…they’re probably in on it.’ He was no stranger to dirty cops. There were plenty of reasons to arrest him. But, the couple of times he’d actually been busted was a setup.
‘Luck of the Irish, my ass.’ He mused ruefully.
‘No use getting the feds involved either. This is way too boondocks for the suits.’
Besides, he didn’t want to be a rat. It must be hard to scrape out a living here.
Jim sighed and stretched himself out on the couch.
“This shit will figure itself out. It always does.”
He phased in and out of conscienceness as the fire crackled. Soon that pleasant sound was joined by the pitter patter of rain.
It was the perfect ambience for a blissfull sleep.
Except there was something off putting in the rhythm. Rain did not fall like that.
Jim’s eyes shot open and he listened.
‘Yea…rain generally doesn’t fall specifically on the windows.’ The realization sent a chill up his spine.
It wasn’t rain at all. It was tapping. Like dozens of fingers tap, tap, tapping at the window.
‘Do I fuckin’ look like Edgar Allan Poe.’
Slowly, gingerly, Jim sinewed his way snakelike onto the floor and shimmied to the window.
He lay just beneath it listening, considering his next step, and cursing the missed opportunity to take the shotgun.
Pitter…patter..pitter…patter…it was naseauting….he could almost feel the strange rustic fingers on his skin.
‘Gettin goosebumpy…’ Jim smirked at his cowardice in the darkness.
‘Sounds like more than one. Substantially more…’
‘Jesus, how long can they keep this up for?’ The sound had continued for at least an hour.
‘Do they know what room I’m in or they just trying some kinda general purpose fuckery….’
Then it occured to him to seek higher ground.
In the same slow, silent, serpentine fashion, he crept to the staircase and gingerly carefully tried to silence his crackling alcoholic joints.
After an agonizing aeon he found himself on the landing, then turning the knob with Chameleon circumspection he was in Hant’s bedroom.
Pitter…patter…pitter…patter….
‘How the fuck…’ Jim was incredolous.
There were no footholds in the harsh autistic symmetry of Hant’s cottage. The hybrid roof was to awkward for purchase.
The chill in his spine doubled.
He was frozen at the foot of the bed.
Jim didn’t know how long he lay there listening before his temper got the better of him and he shot up to his feet.
It was a brashness he instantly regreted.
Strange grey shapes with inky black eyes, strafed across his window, their impish passage revealing a bluish glow from the meadow beyond.
Whitish sparks, and glowing orbs, flitted in a void where a field had once been.
Jim scuttled away from the window like an overturned crab. Having secreted himself in Hant’s closet he promptly passed out.
There it was balanced just so on the couch’s arm. Everything was the same. Manila colored, red lettered, and all – it was Hant’s letter. The very correspondence he’d so recently consigned to the fire.
“No.” He said rising to his feet and reeling.
“No, no, no, no , no….”
‘They drugged me.’
‘Keep it together.’
He once again unfastened the pin.
“I know you are a fool…” That first familiar line struck him like a blow.
He tossed it onto the coffee table. Some of the topmost pages scattered.
“Shit.”
There was that poem.
“They dance and play,
They with silver skin,
Sleek in the twilight,
Far from the day,
Children of the black sun,
Spirits so bright,
See how they run,
In rings,
Round,
Though without wings,
Flit overhead,
Above all kings,
Twilight world,
That sprang all this,
Symmetry unfurled,
By a distant kiss,
Apollo, o Apollo, appeal, to the maze of Saturn’s weal,
And send them as a dance
To heal
From this morbid trance
For mid-summer,
For mid-summer,
Give a root,
For the runner,
For the runner,
Dangerous,
Just so,
But just so,
Be sure to do,
Only if you know,
The black sun,
O the black sun…”
‘Must be the way the page is weighted, or the way it’s stapled, for it to fall open like that.’ Jim frantically theorized as his fracturing psyche grasped for the convenient nepenthe of amnesia. The document’s recent destruction was forgotten. After all he did drink heavily. He may well have dreamed the whole thing.
He looked out his window at the early evening. There they were. Rings, those damned rings, spread concentric and overlapping, in a dizzying maze pregnant with suggestion.
Jim shook his head and looked away.
But, his ears were still open. The sounds that sauntered through them were not pleasing. Amidst the incessant buzz of cicadas there was an occasional chirping.
Jim considered scattering the hicks with the Mossberg. But last night’s ordeal or… nightmare had dampened his spirit. He put on the nearest record.
“Abasalom, Absalom, why do you not heed?” A familiar nordic lilt flitted through the mystic stillness.
Jim arrested the spin with his finger. There was a green apple there in the center. It was Abbey Road.
Jim was about to play the record again, to confirm that he hadn’t hallucinated the obviously dubbed-in intro, when he heard three steady knocks.
He grabbed the Mossberg left leaning on the couch.
“Who is it?” He asked fingering the trigger.
“Dutch.” Came the plain clear answer.
“What the hell are ya doin’ here Dutch? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I got somethin ya need.”
“I doubt it.”
“Ya really wanna disappear into the Earth?” Dutch asked coldly.
Normally Jim would have written this off, and told him to go fuck himself but too much had happened in too quick a succession.
As the giant entered Jim was overwhelmed by a strong chemical odor.
“Ya smell like a fuckin’ janitor…what the hell is up man?”
“Hant’s way is better, but this should work for ye… for a time.” Dutch said in a concerned tone.
“Huh?”
“Hold on.”
The giant leaned through the still open door and wrestled in an enormous metal barrel that wobbled and came to rest with a liquid thud.
“The fuck is that?” Jim demanded pinching his nose at the pungent present.
“Clorox.”
“….Clorox…do I look like a maid…isn’t this place clean enough?”
“It’s for them.”
“Them?”
“The goblins.”
Jim laughed. “I thought they were fairies.”
“Goblins, faeries, demons, it don’t matter. They love this stuff. Gets em drunker than a striplin ater his first moonshine.”
“Uhuh…” Jim laughed. This he could handle. It was actually amusing. Even if his immideate suspicion regarding illicit drug manufacture were true. The story was adorable.
‘Drunk fuckin goblins…’ He continued to chuckle.
“Ja, they love the smell of it. I left trails n cups o the stuff all through the wood. Keep em distracted till ya do yer homework.”
“Uhuh…” Jim said glancing at the letter.
“Mmmhmm, I’d suggest ya read that real careful like. Gonna take ye a bit to digest. In the meantime do like I did put this out in tins or whatever. Spray it in trails. They got a nose for it. For as smart as they are they’re kinda like bugs…it’ll send em in a tizzy. Kinda funny to watch em run ater it.”
“Ok.” Jim said smirking.
“Ye don’t believe now. But ye will. Ye’ll make real good use of this.”
“I’m sure.” Jim said.
The giant gave him an appraising look.
“Ya want a drink buddy?” Jim asked good naturedly. The story had amused him and he didn’t want solitude to bring fresh worries.
Dutch shook his massive head slowly.
“Nah, I must get goin’. Gotta look after Ma.”
“Ok…then…”
“Afore I go…we need to put this in the basement. Otherwise this’ll just bring em here.”
“Ok.” Jim said. He had no complaints about removing the eye watering cleaning product as far from his living spaces as possible.
Jim nearly fell as he and Dutch double-teamed the unwieldy demon booze down the steep stairs.
He really wasn’t keen on being alone despite the rise in spirit that the comical redneck lore had caused.
“Ya sure ya don’t want a drink?” Jim said pointing to the mantel.
Dutch simply shook his head and departed in that charecteriscally efficient manner.
Jim shook his head. “Where the hell do ya get a barell of fuckin Clorox…Boy, am I gonna have stories to tell…”
Jim did not see. His return to the cottage was not accompanied by a deepend reverence. Quite the opposite, his recklessness increased.
“This is all bullshit.” He said as he tossed his uncle’s letter into the fire.
Whenever he heard the chirping he’d run out like a wildman, Mossberg in hand, and fire wildly at the trees. Wooping profanities that would put any sailor to shame.
“I can always get more shells, cocksuckers!”
It did seem to work.
“Goblins my ass…hicks with whistles aren’t about to make a heel outta Jim Cleary.”
He actually considered burning the wood. His life had not been easy and, once kindled, his nihilistic rage was capable of profound wickedness. He wasn’t unfamiliar with a cellblock nor much afraid of returning to one.
But the pay was good. And despite Lizzy’s warnings it had not ceased.
He kept finding those strange heel-less tracks. But remained unphased. Figuring it was just another trick.
It was weeks since the ordeal that had found him on the shores of Luckadoo’s lake that denial began to grow impossible.
First, his temper finally began to subside, allowing for a touch of introspection. He felt bad for consigning crazy Hant’s ramblings to the flame. It was like sucker punching his spirit in the gut. The old nut meant well.
It did not help that Jim received a sudden fortune. A turn of luck that explained everything and could only mean one thing.
On his return from the post office, bank statement in hand, he heard an inhuman wailing.
It made his heart sink to the very depths of his stomach.
Lizzy was at the stump doubled over and shreiking into the evening. Her long gray locks hung in ragged clumps completely obscuring her face.
A twig snapped as Jim approached to comfort her. She gazed up. And he turned to go.
All the fire was gone from her eyes. The spry twiggy motions had given way to shivers and sobs. He could not bear it and fled into the wood.
He sat by the cold stones a long time. Staring at the bit of paper that informed him that he was a sevenfold millionaire. It gave him a stomach ache. He actually felt naseaus.
He’d done nothing but surreptriously mock the old man his whole life. To reveive such a kindness after burning the last bit of spirit that Hant had passed on was flooring. Jim lay on the cold granite, too callous for weeping, too penitent for comfort.
The heavens that peaked through the swaying trees were agonizingly bright. With a cheerful beauty that mocked the mercenary hideousness of his soul. Sagitarius with his bow was hypnotic.
He did not know how long he lay there staring till thirst took hold. He tried to rise but to his horror found himself unable to move at all.
It was then that he realized it was absolutely silent.
The buzz of the cicada had ceased. No more did he hear the song of the owl and whippoorwill. Not even the strange chirping could be heard. Normally he would have been greatful for this fact. Especially given his current handicap. But, the damnable sound was replaced by something worse. It was a low and subtle sort of hum accompanied on occasion by light stealthy footsteps. As if a troop of children were playing hide and seek. Except the gait suggested by the footfalls was all wrong.
Jim could not move his head. But his eyes rolled freely. He gazed left at the sound of a snapping twig and beheld a silver head. A small bald thing was bobbing in his direction with several more in tow.
They stopped just beyond his line of sight and began to sway rhythmically. To his horror he found himself sinking into the stone. He tried to cry out but his dry constricted throat failed to produce so much as a chortle. Slowly, agonizingly, he felt himself becoming one with the granite.
Then quite suddenly a booming voice burst through the nightmare. “Fool!”
It was Hant’s voice. But the figure he glimpsed was not Hant. It was not the clean cut rustic but a wild bearded silver haired apparation.
The wicked dwarves scattered before the cold grey light of the wizard.
“I hope ye choke on drink. All that I gave ye..may you drink up…to the dregs…you fool.”
Jim felt a vicious kick in his rib.
But the pain was soon replaced by pleasure as he realized he could move again. He raced homeward not heeding the briars. Collapsing on the soft leather of the couch Jim fell into the deepest sleep of his life.
Stone, oak, leather, and mahogany gave the lodge a Victorian feel. Jim wasn’t sure if this was whimsy or the place was truly that ancient. Everything was well kept and tidy. Maybe it was the real deal. With enough care something a hundred years old could be kept new.
He looked at the calendar, ‘1986 …more like 1886.’
A bell chimed and the host indicated it was time to leave the smoking room.
The household consisted of Jonas, Elsa, Mrs. Luckadoo, two servants, a silent old man in a wheelchair, and a large hound.
Mrs. Luckadoo was a petite blonde from Nice. The two made a comical pair at the head of a table surrounded by highbacked chairs.
Jim sat beside Elsa. A fact that he found thrilling. Especially since every time he was passed a victual, he caught a glimpse of thigh protruding from an almost modest dotted dress. The only female contact he’d had was his aunt. So, despite being pleasant it was also somewhat unwelcome since it made conversation difficult.
Fortunately, it seemed that the greater part of conversing was meant to take place after dinner. Elsa and the help were the most loquacious. That is comparatively. They did not talk much but compared to the stoic silence of the other diners their occasional banter was downright giddy.
While he was by no means comfortable Jim felt grateful. Especially for the bathing and bandaging of his mutilated feet. An expertly executed service by Mrs. Bostridge the wife of the butler who’d been a nurse in WWII.
She had an easy manner and one of those pleasantly plain and open English faces. It was a welcome contrast to her husband’s hawk nose and arrogant air.
Due to Jim’s recent travails the aristocratic repast left him hungry. But he refrained from complaining. ‘Lost losers can’t be choosers.’
After the Tarte Tatin, a desert that Jim found only served to make him hungrier, the help gathered the plates and Elsa wheeled away the strange old man.
The host approached Jim’s chair and laid a massive hand on his shoulder.
“I take it a man of your size is still hungry.”
Jim nodded.
“Charlotte likes to cook but unfortunately her portions while exquisite are as tiny as she is.”
“It is not good to be piggish.” She retorted from her seat.
“It is if you’re a pig.” Jonas said patting his stomach.
Mrs. Luckadoo rolled her eyes and departed.
“Speaking of pigs, I have an excellent boar butchered and hanging in the smokehouse. I was going to save it till my brother arrived. But I suspect I’ll be able to outwit another one before the week is up…So, what say you and I roast it on the pit?”
“I say right on.”
First, they visited the smokehouse. It was amply stocked with game. Jonas unhooked the ribs, rear hams, and a backstrap wrapping each in some paper. Jim helped him place their hefty after dinner snack in a wheelbarrow and the pair departed for the garden.
“The meat is not yet cured. But it should still have some of that smoky savor. We’ll cook the rest here.” He said tapping the pile of stone and brick with his foot.
The sound of the owl and whippoorwill were interrupted by that chillingly pleasant chirping. Jim was glad for the garden walls.
“Seems they’ve followed you.”
Jim nearly spit out his cigarette. “They!?”
“So, you haven’t seen them?”
“Them?”
“The mine fairies.” Elsa’s answer almost caused Jim to topple over as she approached with a tray of beer.
As Jim recovered and the contents of her answer registered, he burst out laughing.
“You’re fucking with me…did you say fairies?”
“Ja.”
Jim howled with laughter.
“I guess he really did not see zem.” She said without a hint of mirth as she placed the tray on a metal table.
“Yes, but I’m sure he has heard them.”
“Hmm…” Elsa said leaning back in the chair she’d just claimed and sipping a beer. She crossed her legs.
‘Jesus, that was intentional.’ Jim said staring.
The brunette smiled cynically, “Maybe naught. There are so many dingz that a make a man go deaf.”
Jim was too horny to be witty, so he helped himself to a beer and thought of Sister Beatrice, the old nun that had beat the shit out of him at St. Joseph’s. It worked. Even the briefest recollection of that stern scowl and garlic breath could nuke his libido from orbit.
“Nah,” he said as he regained his composure. “Old Hant might fall for that sorta thing…and I might not be the most educated guy…but fukin fairies…get wrecked.”
“Education largely consists of just enough information to make a man useful. Especially since we adopted the Prussian model.”
“Prussian model…?”
“Never mind that. It’s a bit beyond you. But that cheery sound you hear. It has everything to do with you.”
“You mean that fuckin’ chirping?”
“Yes.” Jonas said as he lit the spit he’d been preparing. “Sit, make yourself comfortable, this is going to take some time.”
Elsa drummed her fingers on the chair beside her. Jim plopped down awkwardly almost spilling the stein and very nearly choking on his cigarette. She laughed.
“Be nice.” Jonas said. “Your old habits aren’t proper. Besides, you don’t want to arouse the passions of a hermit.”
“Hey, I’m not a fuckin’ hermit. And it’s not like I haven’t had pussy before.”
Jonas chuckled. “Yes before…I take it you’ve been round Reed long enough to disobey. So, you should be good and bothered by now. God knows I would be. There’s nothing shameful about being a man. And nothing good about being a tease.”
Elsa stuck out her tongue.
Again, Jim almost didn’t catch the weird detail among the banter. “Disobey?”
“You’re a Cronin boy, aren’t you? I believe you told me as much.”
“Well…yea…on my mother’s side.”
“Your uncle and my father met during the war. They were both occultists.”
Jim laughed again. “No fukin way…my mom used to call the guy reverend. He makes Cotton Mather look like a heathen.”
“Occult simply means hidden. And your uncle became the keeper of secret things hereditarily. Just as I came into this land. Just as you will come into the ways.”
“Oh, Christ…you’re one of them.”
“Them?”
“You’re just like Dutch and Lizzy. With the ways and all that crazy hick bullshit.”
Jonas shook his head. “The world is not as plain as my brothers would have you believe.”
“Your brothers?”
“Again, that is beyond you. But, let me ask you a question…”
“Ok shoot.”
“How do you suppose Von Braun got it off the ground?”
“Von what…it…?”
“The flying disk. The one near the camp that my father’s regiment liberated. The camp where your captured uncle was made an officer…”
Jim was beside himself with laughter.
“Ok…brother…shit…I don’t remember much from history class…but I think you just told me old Hant was a fuckin’ Nazi.”
“Conscription doesn’t make a man fascist any more than a Janissary is a Turk.”
“Man, this is some bogus shit…what the hell are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m trying to tell you that there are certain covenants that had best be honored. Covenants that are passed by blood. Things that can only be officiated by the offspring of a particular alchemical marriage. It’s why your uncle was snatched up by German intelligence. At the behest of Himmler himself.”
“I’m not drunk enough for this.” Jim said reaching for another beer.
“It’s going to get worse if you don’t listen. The time has not yet come for them to cross the threshold. Though they are eager. Though they ply the weak among us with gifts.”
Jim just sipped his beer and rolled his eyes. “I still have no fuckin’ idea what you’re trying to tell me.”
“I’m telling you that you’re a druid.”
Jim spit. “Uh-uh…no way…that’s that Wicca bloodletting shit that crazy bitch Heather was into.”
“This is far from childish pretense. You have priestly duties.”
“I got yer duty right here.” Jim said letting out a fart.
“In front of a lady…” Elsa said disdainfully.
“That’ right toots. HAH! Toots…”
Jonas shook his head.
“Anyhow, I thought it best to tell you plainly. To warn you. Since you were almost taken. They are cautious by necessity. The gulf is difficult to cross. But they are old and clever.”
“They…?”
“The Coblynau.”
Jim sighed. “Look, I might not be religious but I ain’t into that pagan shit either. Grew up Catholic and Irish enough to know what kinda fuckery the druids got upto. And I get it. Ya got yerselves some weird cult out here in bumfuk Kentucky. Probably some kinda cover for a drug operation. I bet she’s your honeypot…” Jim pointed to Elsa.
Jonas shook his head again.
“I’m trying to make all of this easier on you. The rites no longer include human sacrifice. That covenant has thankfully been renegotiated. Thanks in part to the efforts of your family.”
“Uh-huh.” Jim said facetiously.
“Why deed that funny man naught have a son. This boy is blot. Wee’ll be neck deep in zem at this rate.”
“He’s sterile I’m afraid. Result of the radiation from the disk.”
“We’re fucked.” Elsa cursed for the first time since Jim had arrived.
It stung his pride a bit.
“Now hold on…if I can help…but…umm…NAH…you’re both full of shit. I’m not smuggling moonshine god damn it.”
Jonas laughed. “It’s alright. You’ll either see or you won’t. I think that the fact that you lasted this long means you got a good chance of surviving.”
“Surviving!”
“Yes, but don’t worry about that for now. For now, let’s just enjoy the evening.”
It was Jim’s turn to shake his head.
“See…why couldn’t we have done that before the crazy story.”
Jim blinked away the shock as the thrill of escape settled to a bitter-sweet sensation. He was simultaneously glad to have escaped the abyss and worried by the dawning realization that he was still lost.
There was no way that he had entered this way. Else, he would have recognized something.
‘How many miles did I go?’
He risked the water. It tasted sweet.
To his left was a hill. To the right a limitless wood. He sighed.
There was nothing in his pocket except a soggy pack of Pall Malls.
The only comfort was the fact that the Zippo miraculously still worked.
‘Well, I don’t think that I went that far. There’s really no way.
He looked in the direction from where he had emerged.
The mouth of the cave that the stream fed into was set into a hillock. He guessed that his best bet was to retrace the steps he took belowground, aboveground.
This took him the most part of what he guessed was afternoon. He wished that he had drunk more because he was very dehydrated.
Slumping against a pine he tried to keep panic at bay. Reed, Kentucky was in the middle of nowhere. It may as well be a ranger station in a national park. There really was nothing to do except walk. Jim may have had street-smarts but he was no survivalist. The best that he could hope for was rain.
After the span of a half hour he rose and trudged further into the unknow.
Evening was setting in. He considered the benefits of a nap. But, decided against it. At least until it was so dark as to render the forest unnavigable.
This decision was soon rewarded by a welcome sight. There was another stream. This one wider and more robust than the one that had guided him out the cave. He dipped his hand greedily and lapped the refreshment with gusto.
‘This one probably feeds that little one… If not outright than through some underground channel.’
It was a thought that filled him with hope. He could follow a stream even in the dark. As the arresting thrill of discovery subsided, and his atheist hymn of thanksgiving tickled Jehovah’s bemused ear, he embarked.
The going was rocky and rough. At times thick bushes grew right down to the shore. He cursed every time he had to work his way round one. Jim walked on for a long time. Long enough for the ambience to shift.
Right as the first twinkling of starlight, heralded the approach of the actual night, something strange caught his eye. ‘That is the weirdest damned track I’ve ever seen.’
He flicked on the Zippo.
It was human looking but strange. So strange, in fact, that there was no way it could have been human. First, there was the size. It was too small. Then there was the absence of a heel. To add to the mystery the thing presented only four toes. With no big toe in sight.
‘What in the hell?’ Jim shrugged. He didn’t really have time to worry about it. Even if it was a predator his priority was to keep moving.
Jim had enough Daniel Boone in him to know that rivers always led to civilization. Or for what passes for civilization out in Bumfuck, Kentucky. So, he soldiered on through yet more of the same arduous terrain.
It must have been two or three hours since the sun had set that the song of the owl and the whippoorwill was joined by that damnably sweet chirping.
‘No bird makes that sound…’ Jim lamented. It was a suspicion bordering on fear. A suspicion that drove him on despite the immense fatigue and overwhelming desire to lay down and sleep.
A quarter hour more of the dogged march found the trees thinning. He probably had nerve damage because his feet combined with the adrenaline of expectation made it possible to run.
“Hooooly…shiiiiiit….” He cried out as he threw himself backward grabbing whatever hold he could.
In his haste for comfort he’d grown nearly deaf. So, he did not hear the thundering rush of water as it fell into a sleepy mountain lake.
He’d saved himself some serious injury, and possible death, but just barely. This was the fact that bore itself into his brain as he looked at the craggy doom some forty feet below.
Panting he worked his way down to the shore of the lake. He looked around and was dismayed. There were no piers, no boats, no cabins. Just a vast lake amidst foreboding mountains. It was too much, and Jim didn’t even try to get another sip of water before he fell fast asleep.
Why must they be so cryptic? There was too much room for interpretation. Nothing fell into place. Or rather the places that it fell were too fantastic to be seriously entertained.
Maybe he should read after all.
But what would he read?
More cryptic hints at the illimitable…
Towards what end?
He watched the drops gather and slide. Such a natural symbiosis with gravity. Yes, it was such a simple thing. And Jim wished very much, o so very much, to be as simple.
But it was not possible.
So, he opened the envelope.
He read. Or rather he tried to read.
His eye was draw to a thin column a quarter way down the seventh page.
“They dance and play,
They with silver skin,
Sleek in the twilight,
Far from the day,
Children of the black sun,
Spirits so bright,
See how they run,
In rings,
Round,
Though without wings,
Flit overhead,
Above all kings,
Twilight world,
That sprang all this,
Symmetry unfurled,
By a distant kiss,
Apollo, o Apollo, appeal, to the maze of Saturn’s weal,
And send them as a dance
To heal
From this morbid trance
For mid-summer,
For mid-summer,
Give a root,
For the runner,
For the runner,
Dangerous,
Just so,
But just so,
Be sure to do,
Only if you know,
The black sun,
O the black sun…”
“See,” Jim mused aloud. “That…that is not helpful at all.”
He tossed the stack onto the coffee table and poured another whiskey.
Staring into the fire he found that it offered no comfort.
He felt colder than he had ever felt before. The world was old.
Before, he felt himself separate from it.
Yet now he too felt old.
Hanging there in the abyss by a slowly dying star.
A fire whose fuel was as febrile and dwindling as that which crumpled so steady before his gaze.
“Where would we go?” He muttered.
How would he keep the warmth from sapping out his bones into the inky night? How would they? How would we?
He removed his shoes, then his socks.
He let the cold wood panel seep into the balls of his feet, up his ankles, femurs and find its rest in the base of his spine.
He began to dance. Frantic and drunk he hooped and he hollered in the isolation.
Placing the revolver by his head he pondered.
Faint suggestions flickered through his conscious.
Jim felt very small. He imagined that he was the proportion of the reflection in the brass of the poker. He felt himself to be his own homunculus.
He dropped the gun and ventured unshod into the black old night.
Standing in the middle of the meadow he beheld a heaven so close and bright that he could taste it. Again, he began to dance. He twirled among the rings. He danced in rings among rings within rings.
And with each step a strange awareness took hold. It was as if his feet were eyes and he were reading things writ long ago. So long ago that were he not in motion to counteract…the dizziness of age…of dimension he would surely fall.
It was narcosis. It was rapture. It was a deep read.
For he beheld the passage of odd teardrops towards a green-blue orb.
“We are locusts.” He said and began to eat the grass.
Yes, this sudden Nebuchadnezzar was profound aware of the vanity of kingship.
But why?
He was drunk on abandon. Absolutely floored by possibility, utterly drowned by eternity, he could do nothing but dance.
His feet bled. Yet he danced on heedless of the pain of prickling grasses and wild litter.
The fire, that very fire of mortal displeasure, sent him forward, launched him like an arrow towards the granite arcade.
There was a sound as if something were in flight. Intermittent static, strange gurgling, and rasping titters sent quick sharp almost painful shivers up his spine. Jim felt nauseous.
Then like waking from a bad dream he heard the first bars of “Something.”
“What in the actual… holy fuck was that?” He muttered.
The cheery mellow romance of the sixties soothed too abruptly. Cosmic horror was cleanly cut from his psyche. And it left him reeling.
He released the needle and picked up the record mid-spin. It appeared normal.
He made it play again.
Within seconds he heard, “Something in the way she moves…”
“That’s it…I’m losing my fuckin’ mind.” He thought.
But why would he imagine something like that? He wasn’t given to nightmares. Even here in this weird lonely place those dreams that he could recall were pleasant.
“Keep it together Jim.” He mumbled attempting to regain his nerve.
“Ye best be keepin’ the ways.”
He wheeled round so fast he almost fell.
There in the center of the parlor was that blasted scarecrow of a woman.
“How…”
That same perfectly intact smile broke out of her wrinkled face like sunshine through a tattered curtain. She lifted a hand with an extended finger on which hung a ring of keys.
“Didn’t think that the closest thing yer kind had to a wife has wifely privilege?” The grandame chuckled.
“That’s not right.”
“Neither is being a Philistine in Rome.”
“Huh?”
“Haven’t ye heard da old sayin?”
“Heard loads but that don’t excuse this. I’m guessin’ ya never had sons cause burstin’ in like this…well ya might see thigns ya rather didn’t.”
“I don’t care bout yer piggishness. That’s afore ye and God what I care is that you’re in Rome and ye do not do as the Romans.”
“Well, good. Cause I heard that Rome fell.”
“Smart…very smart..fool…I see that you’re very much after the new way.”
“Huh?”
“Ye think this is all just some kinda game. Believe that everythins’ plain and tidy. That this great thing with it’s stars and the way that Cronin blood plays through yer veins it’s all just so…just cause…it’s gotta be…cause it is…right?”
It took Jim a minute to process all that.
“Yea…makes about as much sense as anythin can.”
She smiled again.
Jim leapt back.
What stood before him was not Lizzy Jennings but a beautiful youth with dirty blonde braids and radiant skin.
At least that’s what he thought he saw. Because just as quick as the satanic vesper had melded into psychedelic rock the old crone was again before him.
Though now he noticed something in her eyes. Something keen and vital in the icy blue. Playful or perhaps tricky that twinkle was unsettling. He’d seen it before in some Union guys. They were young but possessed by something…older…something wiser and that combination of vigor and insight was formidable. It was off putting.
“Why da ya jump bout like a frightened bunny? If the world is just so?”
Jim sighed.
“Look could you please promise me that ye won’t just bust on in here without knockin?”
“So long as ye can promise to keep the ways.”
“Fine!”
“You’re lyin’.”
Jim sighed again and began to protest.
But Lizzy held up a finger. “It don’t matter. Ye can’t convince me ‘gainst what I know. The Lord can see into the heart. And from time to time he even let’s sinner see the heart’s o others. This is why we know ye are a fool. Why we have halved your pay till ye comply.”
Jim pondered for a bit.
“No! I won’t be able to make rent…Barragan will fuckin’ skin me. It don’t matter if I’m on the moon. He’ll fuckin’ skin me.”
Lizzy laughed. “Now if only ye were as afraid of them that could destroy the soul same as them that can destroy the body.”
“I don’t take kindly to folk trying to scare me.” Jim said coldly.
Lizzy shook her head and muttered, “Folk,” with a wry disdain.
Jim stamped his foot.
Lizzy sighed.
“I’m afraid there’s nothin’ I can do about it. Ye may live…I suppose…but even if ya do…you might not find livin’ as pleasant.”
“Is that a threat?”
“If I wanted to harm ye,” she said dangling the keys again. “I coulda done it a dozen times over.”
Jim stared.
“Frankly, I don’t much care about ye. Too brash too removed from worship…”
“There’s that religion shit again.” Jim shook his head.
“Nah…ain’t no religion…this is older magic than Abraham…than order…than yer new England tidiness…that factory faith o yers…no….”
“That sounds real religious…”
“No I don’t care for ye…but I do care for keepin things untangled…and as that bastird faith would have it…only a fool can untie the knot.”
She turned and headed for the door.
Pausing at the threshold she said. “I only wanted to save ye some trouble. But ye have the heart of Absalom. The heart of a fool.”
Jim was at a loss as the door shut calmly behind her.
The muffled sound of hooves on grassland reached his ears and he headed for the liquor.
Afternoon found him stiff limbed and groggy. Jim reengaged the safety and set the twelve gauge gingerly on the wood panel floor.
It was stupid to sleep with a loaded and ready weapon. It hurt a bit. He could stand to be a fool but not an all-out idiot. For better or for worse, the sting of self-criticism was short-lived.
Soon his mind recalled the reason for this folly. It replayed the strange melodic chirping, the peculiar pitter patter of flesh on shingle, and Jim shuddered.
He shuddered at the possibility of the unknown. What if his tidy theory was wrong? Most frightening of all, was the idea that for the first time in his quarter century of living, he was out of his depths.
So, Jim was silent as he methodically went about his morning ablutions.
He recalled Kenny’s advice. “Listen ya little shit. You think you’re real smooth. Which is why one day you are guaranteed to fuck up. Sooner or later something always throws us off balance. Let me tell you an old corpsman’s trick. Act natural, act ritual, keep tidy, shave every morning even if you don’t ever shave. Keep your sideburns trimmed. Floss those pearly whites. Gain as much control of the close and minor as possible. The rest will follow. This is the rule of momentum.”
Jim brought his chin to a porcelain smooth polish. His sideburns were soon impeccable. Tucking in his shirt he went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast with a determined circumspection.
Soon his brain produced another theory.
‘They’re tryin’ to spook me into their game. They want me to be a link in the chain. To be a little messenger boy at the safe house. Without even knowing it. That’s why they were up there playin monster. They want me to believe in voodoo rather than let me into the money. Outsiders are too much of a liability even if they’re kin. I know this gangland shit.’
His habitual calm returned. Though only for the span it took to cross his threshold.
The brilliant noonday sun revealed a once familiar meadow crisscrossed by a gridlock pattern of circles within circles.
‘If this is a ruse. It’s god damned elaborate!’ He mused as the chill tendrils of doubt once again crept into his psyche.
Where there is doubt, there is the unknown, where there is the unknown there is fear.
“No.” Jim said aloud.
‘I refuse to be fucked with. I don’t care what sort of Scooby Doo shenanigans these fuckers throw at me. I’m not gonna lose my shit over eccentric landscaping.’
He strode out into the peculiar mist that was so strange for midday. Save for it and the weird circles everything seemed normal.
Birds twittered and insects sang. Wind rustled and trees swayed. He focused on the normal.
‘Yes, in fact everything is normal. There’s nothing abnormal about mischief. Especially from locals to an outsider.’
Still, he figured it wise to stick with his original plan and lay low for a bit.
He considered setting more traps. But there was no way to tell if he was being watched. There were at least half a dozen intruders as far as he could recollect. Any of the tens of thousands of trees could hide them. They could be watching even now.
Jim offered up a double bird salute and went inside to think.
The cottage was strange and silent. It did not creak. It was so perfect still. He felt as if he inhabited a hermetically sealed box.
He didn’t know why it hadn’t bothered him till now. The silence was deafening. He could not stomach it.
Jim took quick efficient strides to the record player.
While he wasn’t particularly keen on the Beatles he figured ‘any port in a storm.’ So, it was that the needle found Abbey Road.
Yet, no music played. Jim leaned forward to try to see what went wrong.
Before he could complete the troubleshooting a crisp clear voice with a Nordic lilt broke through the speakers.
Lizzy might be right in calling him a fool. But he wasn’t stupid.
He was not about to venture into the yawning depths. The fact that the Maglite beam was consumed by darkness, that it did not find a wall. This fact advertised the folly of his lust for knowledge.
“Fuck that shit.” He said aloud as he turned to face the steep hillside he’d shot down like a bobsled.
“And fuck this shit.” He cursed again at the prospect of ascending that slick, leafy, twig strewn mess.
He looked left and he looked right. There were no alternatives.
Jim thought of the approaching evening. Though he no longer feared the woods. He was not stupid. Getting turned around in a thousand miles of tree littered mountainside was a pain best avoided.
This and the call of the warm caress of whiskey stirred his battered frame to action.
He cracked a thick branch in half and sharpened it with Hant’s buck knife.
Jim dug in his heels and thrust the spear into the rich, black, soil. Soil that was aromatic with the memory of a million rotted generations. In this fashion he ascended the three or so hundred feet to the crest of the hill.
The position of the sun hinted at what his watch confirmed. It was now late afternoon. A condition that would soon turn to evening.
He took haste to find the ribbons that he’d left.
They were bright Tiffany green same as the curtains from which they had been cut. Not ideal in a verdant summer wood but useful enough against the browns and greys of tree trunks.
Which is why he was so surprised at being unable to locate any.
The rock formation was its own compass. It had enough idiosyncrasies that he knew on which side the last marker should lie.
Yet it was missing.
He even remembered the tree where it should hang. Not only because it was a peculiar sort of oak but also on account of the fact that he’d etched a giant B for Bruins into the mighty trunk. Most trees simply got a notch, but he’d felt the need to fashion a herald for his nation.
Sure enough, there, right at eye level sat the evidence of his patriotism.
‘Maybe it got blown away.’ He mused even though he found it unlikely. Since he’d tied it like the rest firmly in double-knots round a sturdy branch.
It kind of gave him the creeps. But he didn’t have time for that.
So, he sang a tune he’d picked up when Kenny his best friends older brother returned from Beirut.
“Don’t let yer dingle dangle…
Dangle in the dirt!
Pick it up…
And brush it off…
And stick it up her skirt!”
He was glad that he’d inherited some of the circumspection that plagued old Hant.
“Don’t let yer dingle dangle…
Dangle in the river!
Pick it up…
And brush it off…
And stick it in her Beaver!”
Because the second, the third, the fourth tree and so on had lost their ribbons. The only indication he had that his sense of direction was working were the notches he’d etched.
“Don’t let your dingle dangle…
Dangle on the floor!
Pick it up…
And brush it off…
And stick it in a whore!”
Eventually, after the span of a couple of miles or so, he saw the familiar garish green.
He halted.
“DUTCH! Ya crazy overgrown hick summabitch…is that you fuckin’ with me!”
There was no response. Only the cautious return of bird song and insect ballad.
“Lizzy! Ya old fuckin bitch!” He yelled hoping his filthy tongue would stir enough ire in the grandame to give up her position.
No response.
As the sound of fauna returned again, he grew concerned.
It was most likely hillbillys fucking with him. But, still…there was something he didn’t like in that pleasant chirping.
“Nah..never heard a bird like that.” He whispered under his breath as he double timed the last three miles to the cottage.
When he burst into the meadow he again cried out.
“Hey! Hey you hillbilly schmuck!” He yelled at the figure that melded into an adjacent line of trees some thousand yards ahead.
‘Is that a fucking kid…’ Jim shook his head.
As he did so a bizarre circle of darkened grass caught his eyes.
“Nope.” He said out loud drawing his .38 and firing into the ground, the air, the trunks of trees.
“You do not want to fuck with Jim Cleary! I guarantee it! You inbred fucking son of a bitch!” His father’s temper flared through him. He considered giving chase to the midget hick.
But his wits soon returned, and he began to chuckle as he kicked at the strange discolored circle of grass.
“You think this gangland shit is new to me!” He cried in the direction of his prankster.
“You know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go jerk off and take a nap. No thugshit is gonna scare me off what’s mine.”
He retrieved a kerosene can from the supply closet and poured the liquid fuel into the shape of a B. After half a cigarette he smirked with self-satisfaction of a Bruins logo adorning the middle of the circle of hick mischief.
He pissed on it for good measure.
“Southie piss n’ southie pride!”
He could not be bothered to give any more of a shit than that to prevent a forest fire and retired for the evening.
The Fractal Journal 