Incubus

by Carol Goodman

  “I find the ritual of drinking tea puts my students at ease …” She tilted her head and narrowed her lovely golden eyes. “But it’s not working with you, is it? You are anxious about these questions you have for me.”

  I laughed, a little too shrilly, and plucked at the neck of my sweater even though I knew the mark was hidden. “Do you have a degree in psychology as well as Middle Eastern studies?” I asked. It came out sounding a little cattier than I meant it to. When I’m nervous I can sound a little … well, snooty. Sometimes I think I picked up the habit from my grandmother who became even more aloof whenever anything displeased her. But Soheila Lilly was too well-bred to take offense.

  “Yes, actually. I studied with Jung …”

  She faltered at my surprised expression. She’d have had to have been in her eighties to have studied with Carl Jung himself and even though Soheila’s eyes looked that old today, the rest of her certainly did not.

  “I mean, of course, that I studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich.”

  “How fascinating. I bet Jung had some interesting things to say about demon lovers.”

  “He did, but I don’t think you came here to talk about Jung.”

  “No, I guess not. You see, I’ve been trying to find a reference for that story you told about the demon lover who was kidnapped by the Fairy Queen … I think you called him Ganconer. It’s for a book I’m writing. I haven’t been able to find anything on that particular myth on the internet or in the library, which seems to have just about everything on folklore ever written. So I was wondering if you could tell me the source for the story, you told me.”

  “It was an oral source,” she replied. “I don’t think anything’s ever been written on it.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying not to sound as disappointed as I felt. No matter how keen their scholarly interest, academics usually don’t weep over missing sources. “That’s too bad … or maybe not …” I brightened. “It could be an opportunity for an article. We could collaborate. Are you still in contact with the source?”

  “No. He died years ago …” Her eyes clouded and she turned toward the window, although I had the feeling she was no longer seeing the green grass of the quad and the falling autumn leaves.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories. It’s really not important.” I started to get up but she turned back to me, pinning me with her suddenly focused stare.

  “But it is important to you, isn’t it? Why do you want to know about this demon in particular?”

  I sat back down again and tried to find an answer for her question that didn’t involve telling her that I thought the demon lover was real. No matter how sympathetic she seemed, I was sure she’d tell the dean that I needed psychiatric help if I did that. “Well, I’ve done a lot of research on demon lovers, but I’ve never come across a story like this one. It provides a history for the incubus – an explanation for why he seduces women. It makes him more … well more human. It’s like in Jane Eyre when we learn how Rochester was tricked into marrying Bertha, or when we find out that the Beast is under a curse. It explains their behavior and makes them …” I was going to say loveable, but instead I said, “redeemable.”

  “It seems you have all the fairy tale rationales you need,” she said, her voice, for the first time since I’d met her, cold.

  Stung, I retreated into the pose of a chilly academic. “But not a genuine folklore source for the phenomenon. Your Ganconer story could be a link between the incubi of folklore and the Byronic heroes of Gothic fiction. But if you don’t recall enough about the source …”

  “I remember everything,” she said, getting to her feet and shrugging the caramel shawl from her shoulders impatiently. She crossed the few feet to the door beside the filing cabinet and swung it open, revealing a walk-in closet lined with more oak cabinets. “Please,” she said, turning to me with a strained smile on her caramel-colored lips. “Drink your tea. This will only take a minute.”

  I heard her boot heels reverberating against hardwood as she vanished into the closet, which must have been much bigger than my puny office closet. I took a sip of the cooling tea and looked up at the bookshelf next to me. Many of the books were in Farsi, but there were also ones in German, French, Russian, and a few languages I couldn’t identify. One that caught my interest, however, was in English. Printed in gold lettering on its red leather binding was a single word: DEMONOLOGY.

  I slid it off the shelf, noting that the pages were tipped with gold leaf, and turned to the table of contents. My eyes fell on the title of chapter three: How to Invoke and Banish an Incubus. Exactly what I needed.

  I looked toward the closet door, but Soheila was still invisible. I could hear a file drawer opening. I looked back at the book in my lap. It lay on top of my book bag. It only took the slightest motion to slide it inside.

  “Here it is,” Soheila said, coming out of the closet holding a small blue envelope. “It’s my only copy, so please don’t lose it.”

  “I’ll take very good care of it,” I said, sliding the envelope into my bag in between the pages of the stolen book. I got to my feet, anxious to be gone before Soheila noticed the gap on her bookshelf. “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re very welcome. I hope it helps,” she said. “The source paid dearly for the information there. Use it wisely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I WALKED HOME quickly, expecting every moment to be stopped by campus security demanding I return Professor Lilly’s property. I was relieved when I left the campus, but unhappy to see Diana Hart hailing me from her driveway. She was standing next to a bright yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser, which must belong to a guest. Even if Diana did drive I didn’t think she’d ever buy so flashy a vehicle.

  “Callie, do you have a minute? I was just telling this young woman from the city about you.”

  All I could see of the “young woman from the city” was a toned bottom sticking out of the hatchback. Yoga bum, Annie would have said appreciatively. The woman undoubtedly did do yoga; she was showing off its fruits in snug leggings emblazoned with the Sanskrit symbol for Namaste. When she turned around I saw that every inch of her was toned and encased in skin-tight Lycra and fleece. Even her long black braid, which she flipped back over her shoulder, looked muscular. Just standing two feet from her made me miss six a.m. Jaivamukti practice and soy chai lattes … made me miss the city. I’d only been up here for three months and already I had turned into a crazy wiccan lady casting spells and wearing baggy sweats … okay, I wasn’t actually wearing baggy sweats, but next to this woman’s tights – and after the weight I’d lost – my jeans did feel baggy.

  “Cheers,” Miss Yoga Bum said in a gravelly Australian accent. “Diana told me you wrote that book on sexy vampires, which I thought was totally brilliant. I do some freelance for the Times style section and I thought maybe you could give me an interview. Jen Davies, by the way.” She held out a hand and I shook it, not at all surprised to encounter a grip as tight as a Moola Bandha lock. I was already beaming at her, though, as always turned to putty at the thought that a total stranger had read and liked my book.

  “Sure,” I replied. “Are you up for the holiday visiting family?”

  “Nah, my family’s all on the other side of the globe. Just thought I’d take some pics of the local flora and fauna.” She held up an expensive and complicated-looking camera.

  “Jen’s planning on hiking in the woods behind your house,” Diana said in a strained chipper voice. I noticed now that something about this guest had gotten her wound up. I thought I knew what it was. Diana had counted on all her guests for the holiday having plans for Thanksgiving dinner. She must be worried about abandoning this one to come to my house tomorrow. Maybe I could help out there. While Diana nervously told Jen about how I’d fallen in the woods, I mentally counted out table places. If we scrunched up a bit …

  “… and you can get lost in there. Tell her, Callie,” Diana concluded, her voice eve
n more high pitched than usual.

  “The woods are overgrown,” I said mildly to Jen. She was wearing Timberland hiking books and had a small compass attached to the zipper of her fleece vest; she looked like she could take care of herself. “And you can’t spend the whole day hiking. Why don’t you come have Thanksgiving with us? No family, just colleagues and new friends.”

  Jen put her hands together in prayer position and bowed her head Namaste-style. “That’s very kind of you,” she said with a dazzling toothy smile. “I’d love to.”

  I hurried across the street hoping that news of the extra guest would throw Phoenix into enough of a panic that she’d be too busy to notice me disappearing upstairs. I needn’t have worried. Phoenix was passed out on the library couch snoring loudly. In the kitchen I found three punch bowls filled with three different types of punch. I dipped a mug into one and took a sip. It burned my throat going down but spread an agreeable warmth in my belly. I took some more and sat down at the kitchen table with the purloined book. If the spell required anything esoteric – eye of newt, for instance – I’d be out of luck. I almost hoped it would. I’d grabbed the book on impulse and had been too busy worrying I’d get caught to really think about what I was going to do with it until now. Was I really planning to invoke a demon? Because the chapter title I’d glimpsed in Soheila’s office suggested you had to invoke one before banishing one.

  Skimming the chapter I found that the ingredients necessary for casting the spell were all readily available in the house. I gathered them all into one of the decorative baskets Phoenix had bought at Pier 1 and, adding an electric water kettle, and an empty covered sugar bowl, went upstairs to my bedroom.

  The demonology book said to summon the demon to a place “where it was wont to appear.” Well, it was wont to appear in my bedroom – in my bed, actually, but I didn’t want to do this in my bed. Aside from the risk of setting the sheets on fire, I thought it sent the wrong message. Just looking at the bed reminded me of the long nights of lovemaking … the way he kissed my breasts, the way he looked at me as he slid inside me …

  No, I should definitely stay away from the bed. I wasn’t invoking the demon lover to have sex, nor was I inviting him to stay. As I arranged a circle of candles on the floor I said aloud what it was I wanted to do. Set your intention, my yoga teacher always told us at the beginning of class. If there were ever a time to be clear about my intentions this was it.

  “I’m calling him to tell him to go away and leave me alone,” I said, plugging the kettle into a wall socket. “Because I don’t want him,” I said, pouring a circle of salt outside the circle of candles. A pang of longing shot through me. The spiral brand on my breast tingled.

  “Okay, maybe I want him, but don’t want to want him.”

  I sprinkled cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon into the sugar bowl and set it by the kettle. I needed one more object to take with me into the circle. The demonology book said to have a “gift” for the demon – some object that meant something to the invoker of the spell. I went to my desk and began opening up the little drawers … I had put it in one of them …. When I found the object I was looking for I slipped it into my pocket along with a book of matches from Sapphire, Paul’s favorite restaurant in L.A.

  Paul. I hadn’t forgotten he was coming. He was the main reason I had to do this now. I had a feeling that Paul might not be safe in the house with the demon lover still lurking about. Once I had banished the incubus, I’d be ready to be with Paul again fully. At least that’s what I was hoping.

  I looked at my watch. It was 4:20, ten minutes to sunset according to timeanddate.com; 1:20 in California. Paul would still be at home. He was taking the red eye to JFK after his last class tonight and then driving here tomorrow morning. I took out my cell phone and hit his number.

  “Hey,” he said, “I was just packing. According to my weather app it’s in the fifties in Binghamton – that’s about the same weather as you, right?”

  “Uh, actually we’re about ten degrees colder,” I told him. In truth, Fairwick was in an oddly cold pocket that was about twenty degrees colder than any of the surrounding upstate cities on any weather map, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that.

  “Sheesh, sure you don’t want to come here? It’s eighty-three and sunny today.”

  I knew he was only kidding, but for a moment I considered his question seriously. Was I sure that I’d be able to banish the demon lover once I summoned it? If I couldn’t, might it feel threatened by Paul? But the idea of the creature I’d encountered in my bed being threatened by Paul was more ridiculous than the notion that he existed in the first place.

  “If it’s really cold we can just stay in bed the whole time,” I said, making my voice sultry.

  “Sure,” Paul replied coolly, “while your dean is downstairs eating Thanksgiving dinner. Well, at least the weather forecast is clear. No storms in sight. I shouldn’t have any trouble flying.”

  “No,” I said, looking out my bedroom window. “Not a cloud in the sky here.” The mountains to the east were sharply etched against a clear blue horizon. Not a breeze stirred the tips of the pines or the bare branches of the maples and the oaks. I suddenly found myself wishing for dark rain clouds and gusty winds, rain and sleet and snow – anything to keep Paul from coming. What if I got the invoking part of the spell right, but not the banishing part? Paul could be in danger here. I was about to warn him not to come, but he was saying he had to get to class.

  “See you tomorrow morning. I lo—” The connection broke before we could exchange “I love yous.” The words might have become commonplaces lately, but I still missed them. I could only hope that after I banished the demon lover forever I’d be able to say them to Paul and mean them again.

  The water had come to a rolling boil in the electric kettle. I poured it into the sugar bowl over the spices and then covered it. Then, with the demonology book tucked under my arm, holding the warm bowl in two hands, I stepped into the circle and sat down cross-legged in the center. I placed the sugar bowl in front of me and opened the demonology book to the chapter on invoking and banishing incubi, which I’d marked with the envelope that Soheila had given me. I hesitated for a moment, anxious to start the spell, but if Soheila’s “source” had anything useful to tell me about this creature I’d better find out now. I opened the envelope and took out the folded pages. They were the thin blue paper that people used to use for airmail letters in the days before faxes and emails. My mother had had a trove of letters on this stationery – “from the olden days,” she had told me when I’d found the ribbon-bound packet of letters. I’d been eleven at the time, an age when most girls gave up fairy tales for teen romances, but I, still bewitched by the fairy tales my parents told me every night, believed she meant from the days of the knights and dragons and fairy princesses, not just the 1970s when she and my father had corresponded the summer after they met at St Andrews College.

  “He courted me by letter,” I still recalled my mother saying. “Just like in an old romantic novel.”

  I sometimes wondered if my future love of romantic novels hadn’t come from that one chance comment.

  The sound of the paper crackling as I opened it reminded me of her, but the contents of the letter soon had my undivided attention.

  “My dearest Soheila,” it read in a slanting script that leaned toward the right margin of the page as if in a hurry to get to the end of each line.

  “I write to tell you one last story – you were always my best listener! – the story of the Ganconer. I came here to this country to find him – to track him down to his roots, so to speak, but I am afraid now that instead of me tracking him down, he has been pursuing me all along – since my childhood.

  When I was but a boy of twelve my sister Katy fell ill with a wasting disease that the village doctor could not name or stop. She, who had been a lively, beautiful girl, grew pale and then so weak that she could not leave her bedroom. The village doctor said it must be cons
umption, although she didn’t cough or have fever, and urged my family to take her away to the mountains for a change of air, but when the idea was broached to Katy she grew hysterical and shrieked that she would die if made to leave her bed. My mother said we should carry her out of the house kicking and screaming if need be, but my father, always tender of heart where Katy was concerned, couldn’t bear to do it. And so we stayed and Katy grew thinner and paler with each day.

  One night I heard her cry out and, thinking she needed something, I crept into her room. When I opened the door I thought I must still be asleep and dreaming. The room was flooded with moonlight, but the moonlight was in the shape of a white horse and on that horse rode a man cloaked in shadow. I stood speechless in the doorway – in shadow myself – as I watched Katy rise from her bed and go to the man. He reached down his hand, and that’s when I saw that he was made out of shadow himself. He was no more substantial than the shadow branches that fell across the floor, but I watched my sister take his hand and be pulled up onto the back of the moonlight horse. I watched my sister wrap her arms around the shadow man and rest her head upon his shadow back. Her face was glowing in the moonlight, a smile on her lips, but I saw, too, that she was falling into the shadow, being eaten alive by it. I tried to cry out then, but I couldn’t. It was like a hand had reached out – a shadow hand – and squeezed my throat. I felt cold all over and deathly afraid, but I knew that if I didn’t cry out I’d lose my sister forever. To this day I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I summoned the will to speak.

  “Leave her!” I cried.

  The shadow man turned to face me then, only he wasn’t a shadow man anymore, he was gaining flesh – pale white flesh as though the moonlight was pouring into a mold and making something whole. But his eyes … his terrible eyes! … were still wells of shadow, and when I looked into them an immense sadness came over me, a sadness that felled me to my knees and dragged me into the dark.

  I woke in the morning on the cold floor to the sound of my mother’s cries. She was holding the lifeless body of my sister, who lay on the floor beside me.