by Jeremy Craig
But despite all that, there we were pulling off a long bumpy road onto an even longer bumpy road lined with tall, old looking trees, huge rocks, and lakes until we finally pulled up to a spiky black iron gate that was almost buried beneath foliage and trees.
The gate was mounted into a pair of pillars topped with stone gargoyles (with strange dark eyes that seem to follow you a little too closely) and a tiny, rusted yellow security box you have to push a tiny button to speak into. There was a staticky, fuzzy, tense conversation between my dad and whoever was at the other end, and a moment later the gates creaked and groaned open and we drove up another long gravel path to Craggmore Lodge—my new home, whether I liked it or not.
The main building of the lodge is a long, single story, dark stained timber structure with a green shingled roof and shutters. A large stone chimney sat at each end and a cozy looking lantern lit roofed porch ran its entire length and was comfortably appointed with tables and chairs.
There are two other buildings, all pretty much of the same type and style, and they were interconnected by tidy stone walkways. One was a tiny cozy looking guest house, and the other a large workshop of some kind that looked like an old barn with a pair of massive doors at the front. Old rusted tools, wagon wheels, a pitted tractor tire, and such was piled and leaning against its roughhewn age worn sides.
My grandfather stood in a checkered red and black flannel, worn jeans, and a frayed barn coat, and he was sipping at an enameled mug of steaming coffee. A huge, watery eyed, and shaggy grey dog lay at his booted feet and watched us approach from the main building’s porch. His scruffy floppy eared head sat between its paws, panting and sniffing curiously at our station wagon as it crunched up the unpaved drive.
Grandfather gave us a melancholy little wave as we piled out of the car. Dad looked extremely awkward and uncomfortable lugging out my bags from the hatchback as my mom took my hand and shakily walked me to my grandfather (they hadn’t spoken two words to one another in the years after a mysterious and awful fight not a soul will talk about). Manx, the dog, sat up as we approached. His great pink droolly tongue lolled from his toothy jaws as he studied us, head cocked to the side and tail wagging.
I normally didn’t like dogs due to our other neighbor Mrs. Fletcher’s pack of nasty yipping chihuahuas that she shrilly called her babies and let swarm and poop all over our yard. They would chew, gang up, and pee on anything they liked including, at times, me. For some reason though I took a shine to Manx right away. He sniffed the air curiously, stood, stretched with a low whine, and immediately took up a station at my side, letting me scratch away at his head and leaning into me, continuing to happily pant away.
Grandfather eyed this with no small amount of surprise. He stroked at his scraggly grey beard thoughtfully with an arched brow as Dad struggled to bring all my bags up to the porch at once. For the sake of simplicity, I’m just going to refer to him as ‘Gramps’ from here on. It gives me no small amount of amusement that this will REALLY tick him off should he ever read this, as he hates nothing more than when I call him that.
He took a moment to look at his son like he wanted to say something but with a soft sigh seemed to think better of it. He watched him walk away grumbling about a bag he’d forgotten in the car. Gramps glanced down at Manx who was now licking at my hand, and his sour, distant, deeply troubled expression softened. If only a little bit.
“Manx never likes anyone, so it’s good he likes you. That gives me just a little bit of hope that you won’t be too much of a nuisance.” He grumbled down at me with a nod and crooked smile as he took another sip from his cup which was so chipped and scraped it appeared to be nearly as gritty and rough as him.
Most distressingly, his eyes seemed almost completely black as he studied me over the rim of his cup. He sighed, smacked his lips and with a pronounced shrug, and beckoned me in. “May as well get this over with, eh?”
“I really don’t want to,” I grumbled.
My grandfather eyed me dolefully. “There will be lots of things you don’t want to do, boy. Sooner or later you’re just going to have to learn what I did long ago. That you really don’t have a choice. So get over it and get in.”
He barked with a growl as he pointed sharply (with a bit of a greasy hand with rather busted up knuckles that looked like he’d been working something mechanical, and not quite successfully) into what it seemed would now be my home. Head hanging, I complied and slumped on in.
I know what you’re thinking. Log cabin in the woods. Hunter. It’s got to look like a taxidermist and sporting goods store’s dream with dear and moose heads, bear rugs, and rifles over the mantle, right? Well if you’re thinking that, you would be wrong.
Sure, it was rustic in the Adirondack fashion. Fire crackling in the stone hearth and there were plenty of cushions and fleece blankets in checkered red and blacks and squishy comfortable looking brown leather sofas (this is Gramps’ doing. It’s his favorite pattern for some reason. Personally, I think it’s because he likes to annoy family—but we will get into that later). There were overstuffed chairs, seats, and even a log rocking chair but other than that things were tidy, clean and simple. There was even a huge iron and glass vase of fresh cut flowers on the long, polished log table. No animal heads or antlers though.
It took me a moment to realize that only Manx and I had followed him inside as I peered about curiously. I turned to them as Gramps went and sat his half empty cup on a coffee table strewn with what looked like scrolls and a huge leather book bound and locked closed with ornately worked but worn and age tarnished brass.
He glanced back at me sadly. His black, beetle-like eyes sparkled as he uncomfortably shook his head and let out a deep pain filled breath. I knew just by looking that my parents wouldn’t set foot in Gramps’ home, even to spend a last few moments with me before they walked out of my life.
That hurt more than I expected.
“Say your goodbyes, son. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t leave it like that. Don’t make my mistakes, boy, as sooner or later you will find it’s too late to fix them.” He nodded meaningfully to my mother who had her face in her hands and was obviously crying again while my father hugged her. Stroking at her hair, his forehead was pressed against hers, framed like a sad hallmark sympathies card illustration by the doorway.
I won’t bore you with details, but I will freely divulge that it was obviously an uncomfortable, gloomy, and weepy affair (sadly though I still hadn’t it in me to apologize for saying I hated them and everything else). We hugged, and I got more assurances that everything would be just fine that sounded hollow and just as bitter as what was brewing in my belly.
I felt betrayed, and when Gramps had finally shut the door after we watched them drive away and led me to the couch for our talk, I was left feeling confused, broken, cored out, empty, and numb.
Up to then, watching my parents walk dejectedly, hand in hand back to their station wagon and drive off, then hearing the door slam shut on the life I’d known had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to go through in my whole young life.
As I settled onto his sofa Gramps eyed the fireplace and tossed in another log. He jabbed at the fire with a poker until it was crackling, spitting, and popping. The flames hungrily starting to eat away at the wood he’d added with dancing abandon. Nodding he put the poker back on its hook and turned, hands on hips as he studied me shrewdly where I sat.
Even as tall as I was for my age at the time, I remember that my feet were several inches off the floor as I sunk into the sofa cushions. They reminded me of home and the sofas in our living room and all at once it hit me full force that this was my home now. A bitterness bubbled up and I felt a slow dread begin to build as I looked wearily about.
Manx grunted and made a HARUMPH noise as he slumped over onto the thick carpet by the couch. Tags and such jingled from his spiked collar as he made himself comfortable and was quickly asleep. It’s kind of his thing—letting you think he’s asleep but in actuality t
he crafty old hound is listening to everything as carefully as can be as he snores belly up on his favorite spot by the fire. His paws twitching like he’s dreaming of chasing a rabbit or squirrel through the woods.
“I’m sorry, boy.” Gramps shook his head and tisked as he tugged at his flannel, looking for all the world as uncomfortable with all this as I felt. From there we talked, meaning he told the tale of the Darklings (in far more detail than I did for you earlier) and let me know that this would now be my home as I trained with him as an apprentice. It was honestly a bit much for my thirteen-year-old self to swallow on top of everything else rattling around in my head.
“So, I can never go back?” I almost sobbed as everything he laid on me about our bloodline sank in, half of which I still didn’t believe (and really, who could blame me right?) and the other half just sounded like excuses as to why my parents didn’t want me in their home any more. Stupid thought now that I’ve got a little more life under my belt, but I was a child—albeit a bit of a thick one if I don’t say so myself.
“I’m sorry, but no… Our kind live apart.” Gramps sighed, as if looking back to his own childhood, his dark eyes full of regret. “It’s the cost of our gifts.”
“What if I don’t want these stupid gifts?” I snapped, and he eyed me sharply as if I’d ripped open an old wound and then took a heavy and obvious effort to stem a tirade of his own that seemed to be brewing as he stared at me as if Id spontaneously sprouted a big toe from my forehead.
“Trust me, Ben,” he finally answered in a voice barely more than a whisper. “You have them, you’re stuck with them, so buck up, boy. It’s a part of who you are—like an arm or a leg. Tell me, would you cut of your arm to go back home?”
“Maybe…” I replied though I really thought that was a bit of an extreme example as I refused to look at him as we sat in silence for a long movement. I took up my brooding again as I sulked into the fire’s dancing flames and just tried to breathe as bit by bit everything I knew or wanted to be before then crumbled to ash around me.
Gramps studied me almost pityingly (mumbling something about how I was just like my father), then went on a little more about our kind’s history and responsibilities and what was expected of me, stressing the honor of it and the adventure while I thought how little I cared about any of that lunacy and wondered if he was slightly mad or not for thinking I should, and believing it himself.
After our talk I was walked down the hall to my room. It wasn’t large, but it had a nice view of the forest from the curtained window. Pushed against the center of my new room’s far wall was a modest twin sized log bed made over with sheets and a colorful, warm looking quilt waited.
On the wall over the bed’s headboard was a crookedly hung but fine, ornate gold framed painting of a pristine forested mountain lake where a festive looking trio picnicked and celebrated at the shore beneath a huge tree. Something about it was melancholy, but it was a lovely picture that seemed to suit my mood just fine.
One of those wooden, loudly ticking clocks with swaying pendulums and roman numerals and moon phases you wind with a key was mounted on the far wall above the dresser. An empty bookshelf and a pair of nightstands, both set with a moose patterned shaded lamp, were the room’s only other bits of furniture.
It was nice, and for some reason I felt at home, even though I found the strange patterns carved into the doorframe, door, and window (in my room and all over the house) to be a bit odd.
I suppose I must have just reasoned that it was an “Adirondack thing” at the time. It wasn’t until a few weeks or so later that I found out what they really were and it was a thrilling and frightening experience, I assure you. But we’ll get to that nightmare a little later. And I apologize in advance, as it’s not a tale that’s conducive to pleasant dreams.
That night we had savory beef stew. I’d never had stew before. McDonald’s happy meals, pizza, burgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, spaghetti, sure, but never stew. Both Manx and I enjoyed the thick, rich, gravy, chopped beef, and vegetables at the table.
Despite being warned not to overfeed him, I snuck the hound more than a few mouthfuls whenever I thought I could get away with it, and Gramps tactfully pretended not to notice. This pretty much became the norm at Craggmore from then on. Gramps often complained about how fat and lazy his old companion was becoming. Which was an unfair exaggeration at best that Manx seemed to take deep offence to whenever it was brought up.
At times Manx would take out his displeasure on Gramps’ possessions. More than once after loudly admonishing the unnervingly vindictive dog on his begging, idleness, and gluttony one of Gramps’ boots, a sock or glove was discovered by the fireplace sopping with slobber and terribly mangled.
We mopped up the gravy from our bowls with fresh baked bread as Gramps went on about when he had found out about his curse and had been brought to a castle in a horse and wagon, ages and ages back in “the old country” as he put it. From what I could gather between mouthfuls of bread and stew was that I was lucky things were so easy now a days, and that this perceived change may not necessarily be an improvement from Gramps’ perspective.
The conversation wandered between helpings of stew and between gulps of his coffee. Gramps even got to telling me a bit about Manx, who was far from a normal dog. He had been given to him as an unexpected wedding present by a dear old friend (who he refused to talk about). Ever since, the two had been on the hunt together and were incredibly close, neigh onto inseparable. Or “bonded” as he put it.
Gramps had wistfully divulged between ladling another helping of stew into my bowl that in the beginning, such companions were found at the side of every Darkling. But sadly, those days were done, and faithful old Manx was the last of his kind to serve.
Moreover, the huge curly tailed dog is a demon, specifically a Witchound. Don’t let that alarm you though, as he’s only dangerous when he needs to be. Nevertheless, on those occasions when that side of him is loosed, you’d best hope you aren’t what he happens to be chasing. And if you are, praying, fighting, and running won’t do you a lick of good.
I was told to trust Manx. As despite the good natured, nap loving, food thieving exterior, the Witchound was really an uncommonly intelligent, stalwart, and fiercely loyal protector with impeccable instincts and otherworldly abilities. Gramps alluded that the huge other worldly dog had saved his life more than once in their years together.
Gramps went on to assure me that the powerful, scruffy demon would protect us both with his life if necessary. Manx, having drifted off to sleep under the table at my feet with a belly full of bread and warm clumps of gravy laden beef several minutes before, added his own emphasis to that sentiment with a loud pronounced snore.
I found myself at this point believing him somehow as he told his stories and pointed out this and that memento of old adventures or silver framed pictures (I noted sadly that there were none of my parents and suddenly regretted not packing one before we all rushed here to dump me off) on shelves and such as he laughed at his own jokes and tried to distract me from what he seemed to know I was feeling.
Making an honest (and a bit over the top) effort to cheer me up that actually half worked, and just like that I started liking the tough as nails looking, kind of grumpy (and a little bit weird) old man far more than I wanted to admit as we sat there sharing our first meal together.
After supper Gramps told me to wash up and when I was ready for bed, he brought me back to my room and sternly gave me three especially important rules to follow in his home.
The first was that never under any conditions was I to go into his room. Especially at night.
He insisted that if it were absolutely essential that he was needed I was instructed to knock on his door and was promised that Manx would wake him.
The second was that I was to never, ever, leave the house without him at night. Ever. In fact, he made me promise to never even open the front door for anyone after nightfall. Even if they
were pounding at it and screaming for help. The door, he explained, was plenty strong and would definitely hold, even against a battering ram, he boasted. He outlined that if help was needed and he wasn’t there, I was to call the emergency number on the phone.
No more, no less.
The third rule was that under no circumstances was I to invite anyone into the lodge, in any way. Especially after dark. Further explaining that the gates should keep the worst mostly off his property, but if the unexpected happened and anything ever did make it through to knock, I was to keep with rule two.
Admittedly none of this inspired much in the way of confidence. It all sounded very alarming. And I knew by Gramps’ serious tone that this was no joking matter. Which I will tell you didn’t exactly leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about what may be lurking about the grounds trying to get in.
He seemed to sense this (I suppose my wide-eyed pale face was a dead giveaway) and with a good natured and slightly roguish smile that made him look decades younger chuckled, vowed, and swore up and down there was nothing to worry about. That it was all just him taking precautions.
That said, he turned the lamps off with a click, tousled my mop of unruly hair, and with Manx at his heels, shut my bedroom door behind him. Part of me wishes I had listened and abided by that second rule a little closer, while another part is happy I didn’t.
But once again, we’ll get to that later.
Chapter Two
Bacon, pancakes, and a side of blood feud
The next morning “bright and early” as he put it, Gramps sent Manx in to wake me. Which of course the big Witchound took to mean, “jump up with the small human and lick his face and paw and cold snout him until he surrenders to the inevitable and gets up out of bed so I can go outside.”
I freely divulge that the massive demonic dog has a gleeful talent with this that borders on wicked. I remember that I woke up with a headache, a bit hungry, and utterly confused as to where I was as I blinked up at the bedroom ceiling. I was wondering why my vision wasn’t blurry and tried to put things back together.