Long Reads – The Fractal Journal

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The fire was already blazing. Its warmth and the presence of people gave the austere cottage a homey feel. Jim was surprised by the party that had gathered. There were four guests. Which to his accustomed isolation qualified as a crowd.

Elsa was stoking the flame in front of the wheelchair bound cipher he’d glimpsed the other evening. The elder was as still and silent as before. Jim was annoyed by the familiarity with which Luckadoo folded his unwieldy frame into a recliner as Lizzy disappeared into the kitchen.

“So, should I get used to surprise parties?” He queried ruefully.

“You’re gonna start to miss us real soon.” Jonas replied.

“I’ve never been much of a social butterfly…”

“Good news is that you can go back to being an introvert. Since, we’re going to be leaving the valley in a matter of days. The bad news is you’re going to continue to have company.”

“As long as they knock…I’m not bothered.”

Jonas gave a low chuckle.

“I think you already know that your new friends aren’t much accustomed to such niceties.”

Jim was tempted to make a joke at Lizzy’s expense but he was cut off by the unpleasant recollection of those eyes.

There was a brief moment of uneasy silence. It felt like Jonas was letting the fear set in.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna get myself a drink.”

Luckadoo spread his arms in an expansive motion. It was annoying. Jim got the impression that he was being invited to his own home. He crossed the floor to the mantel with as masterful an air as he could muster and poured a tumbler full of Johnny Walker Red.

Plopping on the couch he shot his legs up on the coffee table. “So, ya got somethin’ to tell me?”

Jonas nodded.

“Well…?”

“I’m almost certain you’re hungry.”

It was true. Jim was hungry. It kept him from exploding in rage at the commandeering of his kitchen.

“Don’t worry,” Luckadoo grinned wryly. “Lizzy’s portions are heartier than Charlotte’s.”

“Well, good.” Was the pithy reply as Jim downed the whiskey and poured himself a second in a single motion.

In his efforts to establish dominance he hadn’t noticed that Elsa and the old man had taken their leave.

“So, who’s the old timer?”

Jonas exhaled smoke and allowed for a moment of silence.

“He’s an uncle of mine. Though I’m not sure he’s actually blood. His name is Germain and he is a Norman.”

“Ok…”

“I think that you’re going to be very interested in what he has to say.”

“He doesn’t seem to have very much to say at all.”

Jonas laughed. “As far as I understood that’s a habit he’s had since youth. He’s always been taciturn. It’s part of the reason you’re going to find his speech especially useful. Germain focuses most of his energies on inner work and thus is quite the adept at dealing with the El.”

“Now when you say the El…you mean those goblin things?”

“Yes…after a manner…that is to say…they are a manifestation of the El.”

“Uh…huh…” Jim’s eyes glazed over.

Jonas decided not to dignify that particular bit of snark with a response.

“So…since everybody and their uncle seems to know so much more about all this weird ass voodoo bullshit how come it’s all my fuckin’ responsibility.”

“You are bound by blood.”

“Well, that’s not very fucking fair is it. Had no part in any of these shenanigans.”

“If you understood it…which I’m hoping you very shortly will…you’d realize that it was indeed fair. You didn’t spring out of a vacuum Jimmy boy, none of this did.” The giant said outsretching his arms again to indicate the world.

“Ok…”

But, Jim didn’t have time for a witty repartee as Lizzy’s piercing voice penetrated every wall of the cottage. “Dinners reddy…kom n git it!”

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Though Hant’s circumspection had proved to be a help round morning. It became a hindrance as noon began to roll on into evening.

Jim wanted one thing.

Fire.

To establish a hearth was to establish a heartbeat. The instinct for flame was as primordial as the fear of that which lurked beyond its perimeter.

He needed fuel. There were trees a plenty but where was the chainsaw? Where was the axe. Why were there no split logs? Why were there no splinters. Why were there no stumps?

He’d run through the grounds. He’d run through the house. He was exhausted.

As he slumped down at the kitchen table his eye fell on an irregularity in the wall.

It was a door.

A door so similar to the wall in which its wooden handle sat that he’d have missed it had his subconscious not called his pupils to sentry.

Nearly leaping from the chair, he traversed the space to the mysterious threshold.

As hinges creaked and the aperture swung inward, he beheld stairs leading down into inky blackness.

“The basement! Thank fuck.”

He fumbled for a switch. There was none.

So, he procured the lantern from the porch.

The stairs led deeper than he expected. To a depth that was nearly as tall as the cabin itself.

‘God I can’t imagine digging this out with just a shovel.’

But that must have been the way Hant did it. What did they helicopter in a tractor?

Jim recalled the iron in his uncle’s grip. Iron that had remained even on the sick bed. He felt a surge of waxing respect.

His surprise at the dimensions of the place dissipated.

There were fluorescent lights above him. Or at least there seemed to be.

He raised his lantern. Yes. There were those long tubes hanging seven or so feet above.

Jim smacked himself.

He trotted back up the stairs. And sure, enough the switch he was looking for was in the kitchen. It was almost as adeptly disguised as the door itself.

‘What is the fuckin point of a camo door?’ Jim cursed internally. ‘And a camo switch…’

But his annoyance turned to joy. For in the large rectangular cellar beside a set of stairs on the opposite corner was at least a month’s supply of logs.

The cellar seemed to serve as a sort of hybrid toolshed and storage space. Naturally, everything was fastidiously arranged.

There was also a worktable. On which many oak branches were carved into fantastic patterns and implements.

‘No wonder Lizzy is cranky. Old Hant must be one lousy lay if he pours this much energy into craftin knik knacks.’

Jim laughed out loud and began the happy work of conveying the logs to the fireplace.

Where they had come from, he did not know. He’d searched several miles of the nearby forest and found no stump.

Maybe they’d been ATV’d or horsed in from Reed.

These thoughts while interesting were merely background.

He’d looked up the chimney and found it clear. Clear enough to sully with the happy tickling tongue of flame and the warm breath of smoke.

O yes.

All the doors had been fastened. The windows shuttered. The .38 test fired and fully loaded.

Soon these assurances would be joined by warmth.

There were plenty of kerosene vessels about.

So it was that a flick of a half-finished cigarette started the heartbeat of Jim Cleary’s new home.

Though he was still a touch distressed by the clammy grip of isolation he’d begun to wriggle free.

The soft strange song of the Whippoorwill and Owl was a soothing lullaby. The warm crackle of the fireplace and the warmer glide of whiskey were a blanket that lulled him back to deep strange dreams.