Sorcerie

by Russell Gilwee

  About the fluttering, anyway.

  Statistics suggested she was wrong.

  That it was really just too early yet.

  Weeks before she should feel anything.

  Anything resembling movement.

  But there. There it was again.

  A soft butterfly-wing sensation.

  Fluttering there inside of her.

  As she gently caressed her belly, she noticed the village’s fuzzy street lamps turn on as the evening darkness fell, flickering like dull hazy candlelight amongst the cold spiraling drifts of snow.

  She could not see Oliver inside the pharmacy. He had become lost behind the front window display and the high shelves.

  Minutes slowly passed by.

  As those snow drifts danced.

  Turning into mini-little cyclones.

  And frosty spinning tumbleweeds.

  Before, strangely, the pharmacy went dreadfully dark. First the store sign, then the bank of fluorescent lights above all those high shelves. At first just dimming, that bank of fluorescent lights, then flickering briefly (not unlike more candlelight) before finally blinking-off for good, sliding down a curtain of heavy darkness, creating a dark cave populated with monstrous-looking black shadows that seemed to watch her from beyond the intervening glass.

  She pushed forward in her seat.

  With that heater blowing on her.

  Suddenly feeling altogether too warm.

  Too warm in her big heavy coat.

  With that flutter in her belly.

  Seeming to flutter even harder now.

  The car windows beginning to fog.

  Where was he? she wondered uneasily.

  As if he could somehow become lost.

  Lost inside all that horrible darkness.

  As if he could be swallowed and eaten.

  Beyond that dark front window display.

  Within that labyrinth of high shelves.

  In those monstrous black shadows.

  She reached for the door handle.

  Only to blink with amazement when the pharmacy front door opened and Oliver exited the darkness not only with her prescription in hand -- but with a very large dog on a thick leash.

  As Oliver and the strange beast passed through the fuzzy halo of a street lamp outside the pharmacy door, drifts of spiraling snow swirling about them, inspecting them curiously, most especially that strange animal, Abby could see, after wiping away the condensation from the window, growing thicker still with the sudden pant of her warm breath, the giant thing resembled a Greyhound breed, gracefully built, but rough-coated and far more muscular. It moved with ease through the cold as if immune to the weather. Its angular body rising easily past Oliver’s waist. Massive head and neck held high, regally so. Long tail lifted, too, sweeping back and forth like a metronome. Dark brown eyes soft and inquisitive and twinkling in the darkness as they eventually settled upon Abby inside the idling Q5, a broad black tongue lolling out in a companionable grin.

  Abby rolled down the window.

  The heat escaping the vehicle.

  Making a soft gasping noise.

  Or maybe it was just her. Gasping.

  “Forgive me,” Oliver said before she could find her voice. “I thought you could perhaps use a companion out there.”

  I thought you could perhaps use a companion out there.

  She would mull over that simple statement later. Turn it over and over in her mind. The idea her husband thought she could use a companion. And that she could use a companion in the context of out there. And she’d wonder, as she mulled this over, what her husband might mean by that peculiar phrasing of out there, anyway.

  He’d been drinking too much.

  Been drinking far too much lately.

  She knew that about him, of course.

  Despite his best efforts to hide it.

  And she knew he was afraid.

  Afraid for her. Afraid for them.

  For the thing growing inside of her now.

  She also knew he was lonely.

  And suspected her lonely, too.

  It was so difficult to speak of such things.

  To speak of such things out loud.

  Easier to just drift around each other.

  Like these spinning drifts of snow.

  Perhaps the dog was for him, too, then.

  Then again, perhaps companion--

  Implied something else entirely.

  A euphemism in place of a more nervy word.

  It was a very powerful-looking beast.

  With impressive black-gummed jaws.

  And rather monstrous canines.

  And she wondered if this had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, collecting this beast, or if it’d been a decision festering inside of him for a while. A desperate intuition of needing something out there, if not actually knowing what he needed until he saw it.

  Abby now noticed a DOG AVAILABLE/INQUIRE WITHIN notice hanging in the dark pharmacy window. She only noticed it because someone in the darkness was taking it down before vanishing back into the heavy shadows and closing the blinds.

  She found her voice. Finally.

  Between the gasps of escaping heat.

  And all that bitter cold rushing in.

  “What is it, then?” she said.

  Oliver smiled, relieved. The beast just stared. Tongue lolling. “This, my dear, is Charlemagne. He’s an Irish wolfhound.”

  A wolfhound, she contemplated.

  She knew something of the breed.

  Things she’d read at one time, maybe.

  Or seen on the silly telly, perhaps.

  Once bred to be a ferocious hunter.

  When wolves still prowled on such isles.

  Capable of dispatching a wolf in one bite.

  Running it down and severing its spine.

  Or something to that effect, anyway.

  These giant Irish wolfhounds.

  “Oh, a relief, that,” she said, sighing. “I thought perhaps you’d bought a horse. --What, pray tell, then, does it eat?”

  She imagined it chasing down a terrified deer in a pool of pale moonlight. Dark eyes glimmering as it pounced. Monstrous canines gnashing and tearing. Bone cracking and blood foaming.

  Oliver grimaced. Sighed.

  Returned to the dark storefront.

  Knocking urgently.

  A quarter hour later they were moving through blustery snow flurries down the dark ribbon of the A4 away from the village with their mammoth horse-dog, hunter of hunters, sitting upright in the back seat behind them, the poor giant beast having to duck its massive head as Oliver had refused to open the sunroof, giant bags and pallets of large tin cans of dog food piled high behind it.

  Later that night, as Oliver and Abby finished washing and drying the dinner dishes, side by side, staring out at the swirling snow, Abby glanced about the front room behind her bathed in the warm flickering orange glow of the wood stove. And frowned.

  “Where is it?” she said.

  As if it might be stalking them.

  They found it in their bedroom. The giant beast. It had made itself quite at home, curling up on their bed, managing to wiggle beneath the bedsheets. From the foot of the bed, Oliver and Abby just stared at each other with disbelief. Charlemagne, for his own part, casually opened an eye. Lazily flicking his tail sticking out from beneath those bedsheets. If otherwise undeterred.

  Abby couldn’t help but smile.

  “Incorrigible,” she said.

  25.

  CHARLEMAGNE REMAINED on the bed for the entire night. Quite shamelessly, despite Oliver’s attempts to gently coax, then physically remove him to the floor. Leftover bits of beef stew briefly encouraged the Irish wolfhound to a throw rug at the foot of the bed only to see the giant beast gobble up the delicious treat, then leap right back into bed, placing his massive head on Oliver’s own pillow this time. Getting quite comfortable.

  Oliver tried pulling its tail.

  But Charlemagne hardly f
linched.

  In fact, he seemed humored.

  In the end, Oliver only managed to shove him into the middle of the bed where he sprawled out between Oliver and Abby.

  Snoring. The behemoth.

  Sawing logs. Farting. Burping.

  Oliver hanging off the bed.

  Abby chuckling beneath her breath.

  It was nice to see her amused.

  Perhaps even worth it.

  They were woken early the next morning to heavy knocks on the double stable doors. Oliver and beast woke to find themselves staring at each other. Mere inches apart. Nose to nose.

  “You might think about barking,” Oliver said to it. “Especially if you’re not going to be bothered to go answer the thing.”

  More heavy knocks.

  Then from down below--

  The sound of squeaky hinges.

  And an intruding voice:

  Raspy, the voice said: “Aye…?”

  Not long thereafter, after fueling himself with coffee, Oliver found himself unloading a homemade crib from the bed of Caleb’s rusted truck. Abby, yawning in a robe, watched with Fay from the front stoop, Charlemagne blinking sleepily between them.

  Oliver struggled. Grunting.

  The homemade crib quite heavy.

  His back hunching terribly.

  Thin arms trembling awfully.

  Boots slipping in muddy snow.

  Old man Caleb, for his own part, despite that intemperate leg and his advanced age, appeared to barely exert himself, ferrying his half of the crib into the small stone cottage and right up the narrow stairs into the spare bedroom as if it weighed almost nothing at all. They placed it (Oliver still grunting and huffing and puffing embarrassingly) in the corner just beyond the double-hung window. Abby remained hesitant in the hall outside the bedroom door while Caleb and Fay, he in that oatmeal-colored Irish wool fisherman cap and mud-stained waders and boots, and she in her rugged gray raincoat and comfy two-tone brown country walking shoes, quietly admired the homemade crib in the otherwise empty hollow space.

  Empty save for that antique mirror.

  With its large ornate silver frame.

  And congregation of angelic cherubs.

  Chubby-cheeked. Dewy-eyed.

  Silently watching them.

  Oliver shook out his arms, returning the blood flow, and softly whistled at the crib. Feeling it was the neighborly thing to do. To properly acknowledge this unexpected handsome gift.

  “Quite something, this,” he said.

  “‘tis made of ash,” Caleb said.

  Fay beamed. Proud.

  “Ash seedpods were often used for divination,” she said, flat pale gray eyes smiling. “And the wood to ward off fairies.”

  “Thought fairies were good,” Oliver said.

  “Not always,” she hushed.

  Abby’s right hand fell protectively over her pregnant abdomen as she stood in the hall corridor outside the bedroom door.

  Charlemagne sitting beside her.

  Long back rigid. Head high.

  Ears perked. Dark eyes glimmering.

  Fay, sensing Abby’s apprehension, though perhaps mistaking it for the homemade crib itself, stepped beside her in the short hall, placing an arm gently around Abby’s waist. Abby’s slippers seemed to move by Fay’s will alone, shuffling into the bedroom.

  For the first time in weeks.

  If not months, frankly.

  The room dusty. Damp-smelling.

  Unattended. Moldering.

  The dog shuffled in beside her.

  Sniffing at the musty air.

  Snorting quietly. Disagreeably.

  Oliver, meanwhile, peered more closely at the crib headboard. At faint carvings in the wood beneath a dark wood stain.

  And heard himself exhale softly.

  At what he saw carved there.

  Faintly. But deliberately.

  The moon. In its four stages.

  Waxing. Full. Waning. Dark.

  “In ancient tradition,” Fay began, providing an explanation, her flat pale gray eyes smiling more brightly than ever, “the lunar phases symbolized not only a woman’s reproductive cycle, but the human lifespan. The waxing moon, childhood. The full moon, adulthood. The waning moon, old age. And the dark moon--”

  “--death,” Oliver murmured.

  “End of life,” Fay amended.

  As if there were a distinction.

  “And this?” Oliver said.

  The moon in its four stages were encircled by a much larger moon. The dull gray morning sunlight filtering through the dirty double-hung window revealed it to be tinted in a faint reddish hue.

  It was Caleb who answered him:

  “A blood moon,” he said matter-of-factly.

  A blood moon. Of course, it was.

  Abby visibly shuddered.

  Hand back over her womb.

  Assuming it had ever moved.

  More protective than ever.

  Her other hand falling in space.

  Falling onto the dog’s large head.

  Charlemagne. Steadying herself.

  The animal already leaning in to her.

  As if anticipating such a need.

  “Aye,” Fay agreed, practically hugging herself now, reminding Oliver of the night he’d met her. Abby holding that tin of cookies and the warm light of that farmhouse spilling out from behind Fay as she swayed back and forth, the all of her seeming to twinkle as if the old woman were suffused with a tiny beam of light and not just backlit by that warm light spilling out through the farmhouse door. “Your child-- It will be born during a significant event of the Gaelic calendar,” she revealed, as she practically hugged herself, swaying back and forth, the all of her seeming to shimmer now in the dull gray morning sunlight filtering through the dirty double-hung window. “Midsummer’s Eve. In the month of a blood moon.”

  “A blood moon,” Oliver said.

  “A total lunar eclipse,” Caleb agreed.

  Abby had become rather pale.

  Charlemagne stiffening beneath her.

  As if now taking all her weight.

  The muscles in his neck taut.

  Not unlike thick cords of steel.

  Oliver sighed. And wondered:

  Feeling a need to clarify:

  “‘tis a good thing?”

  Oliver wasn’t certain he ever got an answer to that question as he silently ruminated on it later that morning as he sat on the front stoop beneath a muddy gray sky and before an endless landscape of muddy gray snow while smoking cigars with Caleb, falling cigar ash in lieu of an ashtray clumping in Caleb’s frowsy beard, as Abby and Fay busied themselves with organizing the nursery upstairs.

  Shipping boxes could be heard.

  Opening and unpacking.

  Bubble wrap popping.

  Items being sorted.

  “Fay is a godsend,” Oliver said, blowing out a plume of bluish gray cigar smoke, watching the winter wind grab it and then pull it apart. “I’ve been trying to convince my wife to begin on the nursery for weeks. Months. She’s been having things delivered for much too long now only to stuff them into dark closets after all.”

  Caleb absently nodded.

  As if already suspecting such things.

  The cigar smoke swirling about him.

  The smoke half-concealing him.

  But for those large rheumy eyes.

  Thoughtful today. Those eyes.

  And patient. So very patient.

  As if somehow also suspecting--

  Suspecting what Oliver might say.

  Even before Oliver actually said it.

  Even before he even knew he would.

  Perhaps this was the reason Oliver finally found himself stubbing out his cigar. Standing. And rather pensively soliciting:

  “May I show you something?”

  He led Caleb back into the small stone cottage and, only after making certain the women were still well-occupied upstairs, led the old man down into the cellar. With the
too-dim light of that naked bulb buzzing softly over that old rickety staircase behind them, and with the thick black cast iron boiler popping and hissing contently in the corner, its red gleaming eyes watching them, pleased, Oliver pulled the stacked moving boxes from the far stone column.

  Revealing the moon cycles.

  The giant thorn tree carving.

  The cryptic Gaelic runes.

  Caleb seemed to suck in air.

  Those large rheumy eyes dilating.

  Dark moons in the gloom.

  Intrigued. Fascinated. Beguiled.

  When Oliver finally spoke, he did so in a hushed voice as if he were speaking in a church. “Can you translate it?” he said.

  This was met with silence.

  A rather long dramatic silence.

  Before Caleb sighed and said:

  “These are Theban runes.”

  The naked bulb hanging from the low slanted ceiling over the old rickety staircase blinked listlessly in rapid succession.

  As if with dull revelation.

  Caleb glanced at it briefly.

  Muttered beneath his breath.

  Then turned back to the runes.

  Timeworn. Barely legible.

  He slowly moved closer.

  Removing his fisherman cap.

  Placing it at his chest.

  “Theban runes are necromancy symbols,” he said, those dark moon-like pupils growing larger still. “A substitution cipher, aye, to keep its meaning secret. You only need exchange the runes for the alphabet they represent, assuming you have the cipher.”

  He leaned forward. Squinting.

  A thick finger reaching out.

  Thickly padded with callouses.

  Nearly touching the faint runes.

  Even as he resisted touching them.

  The boiler popping and hissing.

  The naked bulb seeming to sway now.

  Throwing its too-dim light here. There.

  Making the cellar feel lopsided.

  Topsy-turvy and rather unbalanced.

  With a familiar cold draft stirring.

  Stirring out from the darkest corners.

  Chilling Oliver through his coat.

  The winter wind whispering, too.

  Whispering in the aged foundation.

  Finding those odd little cracks.

  Speaking in a foreign tongue today.

  Encouraging them, perhaps.

  Or, perhaps, the opposite.

  “These would appear quite old,” Caleb said, this old man with that fisherman cap pushed to his chest. “A piece of antiquity. Folklore. You must be tickled, Oliver. A student of history.”