Folklore. Tickled. A student of history.
“But can you translate it?” Oliver said.
“Aye,” Caleb finally acknowledged.
Oliver was surprised by this.
And yet was not surprised at all.
“‘tis a warning,” Caleb said.
Oliver’s stomach sank.
“A warning,” Oliver said.
“Aye,” Caleb agreed.
“What kind of warning?”
Those rheumy eyes found Oliver and turned baleful as before. As they had in the farmhouse on the other side of those dark woods with his strawberry-haired twin granddaughters at rapt attention, the dancing firelight playing on his grizzled face, droplets of blood-like apple brandy foaming in the thick gray mustache of that beard, his raspy voice suddenly deep and hypnotic -- a natural storyteller. Unblinking, those rheumy eyes turning baleful again now, Caleb said: “These are instructions for the proper burial of a witch.”
Oliver’s stomach sank even deeper.
A nauseous sort of feeling.
Like gravity no longer meant a thing.
Like he was suddenly just floating.
Just floating untethered in the gloom.
No longer knowing up from down.
Disoriented. Stomach acid in his throat.
Caleb turned back to the runes.
Traced that thick finger over them.
That finger thickly padded with callouses.
Traced the runes without touching them.
Perhaps respecting their antiquity.
Perhaps respecting something else.
Something else altogether.
“It commands her charred remains be buried twelve feet deep below ground without coffin or shroud,” he translated.
As that thick finger floated along.
Sliding down now to the next stanza.
“To hammer down those charred remains with thirteen nails so that she may not rise from the dead,” he went on. “And then to hammer seven nails into her jaw and shove a stone deep into her throat so that she may never again utter any conjurations.”
A pause. Before settling on the final stanza.
His thick finger hovering over the faint characters.
“To bury her in cold darkness,” he solemnly revealed, “where nothing will ever grow again save that of a thorn tree.”
Caleb fell quiet, but his words seemed to echo in the cramped environs afterward. Rising and falling with that winter wind whispering in the odd little cracks of the aged foundation.
Oliver studied the old man.
Those large rheumy baleful eyes.
The meditation of his expression.
In the dank and cold dimness.
And slowly, if very slowly, he felt the angst dulling inside him, gradually replaced by a rather desperate, if quite hopeful grin yanking hard at the dry corners of his mouth. A grin he could not very well see, of course, but could very well feel as if it were the machinations of an invisible puppeteer and the corners of his dry mouth hooked with invisible puppet strings and he reduced to little more than a simple hollow marionette. Perhaps his voice was also very well no longer his own, either, he considered grimly, as that grin yanked wider, making his cheeks hurt as he heard himself accuse:
“You’re having some fun with me, aren’t you? Of course, you are. The poor city slicker undone in the hinterland.”
Caleb offered him an indecipherable shrug in the dimness and said: “‘tis said there is the greed of seven parsons in a man without children, and the greed of seven farmers in every parson.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Oliver said.
“There is also no man so deaf as he who will not hear,” Caleb added, as if one riddle might somehow explain another.
Oliver found himself stepping back.
That silly grin pulling wider still.
Yanking even harder on his cheeks.
Making them quite truly burn.
As if his face were being torn apart.
“Heavens--” he choked out with a dry chortle. “You want me to dig, don’t you? You are having some fun with me, then.”
The naked buzzing bulb hanging from the low slanted ceiling rafters above the staircase leading back to the kitchen behind them again blinked. A heavy blink this time. Then blinked out.
Leaving the men in inky shadows.
Oliver, in that moment, as those inky shadows crept over him, had the sudden terrible idea the kitchen door would suddenly close, too, trapping them in a pitch blackness and that the monstrous oil-fired boiler would rise from its crouched position in the corner. Its fiery red eyes nictitating. Its own red toothy grin widening.
Internal flames leaping. Spitting.
As it came for them in the darkness.
The wind rising to a deafening howl.
As long-buried things rose from the dead.
But, of course, none of this happened.
Merely a voice from above. Fay.
“Oops, many apologies,” she tee-heed from the slim rectangle of kitchen light. “We didn’t realize anyone was down there.”
A flick of a switch was heard.
And the naked bulb buzzed back on.
Throwing out its halo of too-dim light.
Pushing against the inky shadows.
But just before the inky tenebrous shadows retreated back into their dark corners, Oliver thought just maybe he read on Caleb’s own countenance a momentary flicker of sober disquietude.
26.
THE NIGHTMARES PLAGUING Oliver’s pregnant wife continued to haunt her through the winter, causing Abby to toss and turn, moan and cry out in the darkness. He learned over time not to wake her, embracing the unholy myth about waking a sleepwalker, less his wife scream out hollowly into that darkness and lash out in her disorientation, injuring him or herself.
Or suffer something far worse.
A heart attack or brain damage, maybe.
Born of that terrible shock of being woken.
Instead, Oliver, over time, learned to gently rock his pregnant wife in her fitful sleep until she fell quiet without waking.
But as old man winter became long in the tooth, and the dark and cold nights became somehow even darker and colder, even this remedy was gradually denied to him by Charlemagne.
The Irish wolfhound gradually, over time, came to sleep more closely beside her, snuggling right-up against her, growling softly in the darkness if Oliver even dared attempt to touch her.
Meanwhile, on other nights, nights that became really creepy-crawly beneath his skin (skittering, slithering, wriggling), turning his blood cold, he’d wake from what was becoming more like a strange state of suspended animation than actual sleep in the cold blackness to find that giant beast scratching at the nursery door.
The door across the hall.
The former spare bedroom.
A door his wife now kept closed.
A door his wife now kept locked.
Once again. As she’d done once before, not so long ago. And no longer pretending she’d simply misplaced the silly key.
The nursery hiding behind it.
As if a thing not to be spoken of.
For now. If only, hopefully, for now.
And Oliver reluctant to have any conversations with her about it, desperately assuming the safe healthy arrival of their child would eventually dissuade these most terrible misgivings. And, until then, simply allowing Abby, his wife, these misgivings. Paranoias.
As her belly grew. Rounding.
Rounding more and more.
Becoming more pronounced.
He ignored most everything else.
Even as he perhaps knew better.
Including weird noises beyond it.
Beyond that door across the hall.
Kept steadfastly closed and locked.
Things he heard in the night.
And suspected his wife heard, too.
Things that pricked the dog’s ears.
Cha
rlemagne. The giant beast.
And had it scratching at its door.
In the dark and in the cold.
In the dead hours before dawn.
Scratching impatiently.
Whining softly.
27.
THE WINTER SNOW soon thereafter turned back to rain as old man winter began to offer his retreat. A cold wet rain that all too quickly disappeared the last of the muddy snow, leaving in its wake only the foul-stinking mud. Cold wet days creating a black and white waterlogged world. A rather miserable black and white waterlogged world that had one feeling much like a cold damp rag. It was on such a rather miserable mid-week morning, the cold wet rain having mercifully paused for a brief spell, Oliver took the opportunity to abandon the stifling teacher’s lounge where he generally took his lunch to settle at a picnic table fronting the playground, shivering in his parka, the very same parka that had somehow managed him through the long winter but was now suddenly unable to protect him from this cold and wet. Perhaps he was getting sick, he considered. He just didn’t feel himself these days. Regardless, there was a remedy and he discreetly poured whiskey from a small tin flask into a thermos and took a healthy gulp.
It felt warm sliding down his throat.
Numbing his insides. His belly.
Making fuzzy his head, too.
If unable to numb his cold thoughts.
For despite his most honest efforts, or what he deemed to be his most honest efforts, he had yet to shake, after all these many months, the persistent and terrible feeling he still just didn’t belong here and that he, most very likely, never truly would in the end. A persistent and terrible feeling still inherent to those polite, if blank-eyed, friendly smiles of his fellow faculty and in the eager-to-please, if mute stares of his students. Sure, he still received the occasional invitation to the pub for pints and darts. And the children still dutifully raised their hands and participated in class. This was all true, but this truth only seemed to hide a quite more nefarious truth secreting beneath the surface. A quite more nefarious truth that told him this newcomer’s disease he felt was not just temporary like the pause in the cold wet rain. That there would always exist this divide between him and them. These odd people. This place.
Even now, the children on recess with their steady cacophony of shouts and tinny laughter and little running feet, it all somehow seemed manufactured. An attempt to suggest play.
Children pretending to be children.
Perhaps for his own sake.
And he imagined his own child here amongst them. Would they politely ostracize his child, too, or would his child be one of them, having been born of this place? If so, would he ever truly know his child? Or would his own child be as strange to him as these strange children of this dark isle who never seemed to squabble as children were wont to do everywhere else. Never seemed to scuff a knee or become ill or cry. And never seemed to feel the cold or wet.
These strange little creatures.
Taciturn. Unblinking.
Case in point, wearing only their loose royal blue wool cardigans as if it were a warm and sunny day, Caleb’s granddaughters, the strawberry-haired twins, were on the swing set, swinging in a counter-unison. Staring at Oliver. Staring out at him silently.
With their taciturn unblinking eyes.
The thick swing chains rattling.
As the strawberry-haired girls swung.
Swung in their counter-unison.
One coming, the other going.
Making Oliver rather dizzy, frankly.
Threatening to hypnotize him.
If not for Charlotte suddenly coming between him and them. Offering her prim simpering smile. Those dimpled cheeks.
“Hm. Looks like you could use a friend,” she said.
Sitting down at the picnic table.
Helping herself to his lunch.
First just the odd apple slice.
Slightly brown from the cold air.
Then half a cheese sandwich.
“How is your Abby?” she wanted to know, munching, making a face like the cheese sandwich didn’t agree with her, setting it aside after only the single bite. “How’s she feeling? Any strange cravings, yet? My sister-in-law would dip pickled eggs in mustard.”
The odd twins continued to swing.
One coming, the other going.
Back and forth. Chains rattling.
Perhaps it was all that coming and going, their thin legs folded under the swing seats on the descent, shooting straight forward for the abrupt climb. Perhaps it was simply the way they were staring at him. As if staring at him and staring right through him.
What did they see? These odd little girls?
Staring right through him like that.
Could they see something he could not?
Something hidden from himself?
Hidden deep inside himself?
Meanwhile, seemingly apropos of nothing, and yet apropos of everything, Oliver heard himself ask Charlotte: “Do you know anything about the family who lived previously in my house?”
Something he had been wanting to ask her and not wanting to ask her for weeks. For maybe months now even.
Her smile seemed to falter at the edges.
That most prim simpering smile.
Her hollow dimples fading.
“The Ludlows,” he clarified.
As if it needed any clarification.
“You look spooked,” she eventually said.
It seemed a funny thing to say and Oliver noticed her amber-colored eyes briefly twinkle. Like someone with a secret. Or perhaps an inside joke of some sort. Reminding him of Fay.
A revelation that surprised him.
Even as it did not surprise him at all.
Did Fay have a secret? Did Charlotte?
Was the secret obvious to everyone but him?
Is that what the twins were staring at?
Staring at right through him?
He subsequently heard Ethan’s voice:
Whispering drearily in his head:
A lot of history ‘round here.
And quite a bit of it unpleasant.
Charlotte’s eyes twinkled again.
As if she could read his mind.
As if she could hear poor Ethan.
And was amused by his admonition.
As if it were all just a morbid joke.
John, its father, was a devout man.
Came to believe the child a cursed thing.
Drowned it in the bog in the woods.
In the woods behind the house.
Polly was undone. Settled upon him with a cleaver.
Seems likely he never defended himself, aye.
She was found at the bottom of the cliff.
She must have thrown herself.
Charlotte touched Oliver’s hand.
He was wearing silly mittens.
She was not. Charlotte.
And neither were the twins.
Nor the other children.
Been empty for years now.
The estate is selling.
For it was afflicted, you see.
She sighed. A resigned sound.
Tossed her thick mahogany hair.
And then confessed to him: “A trio of priests were brought in from the mainland afterward.” Correctly assuming he had the basic information, and quite seemingly not surprised by it. Perhaps even having been told in a town this small that he’d been poking about, asking the queer questions. “To banish all damned spirits and every evil eye in the name of the holy son of god, amen,” she said.
She sighed again. A snort of a sound.
At the thought of an exorcism.
Of the small stone cottage.
Beside that cold gray sea.
Then added with a rueful shake of the head: “And just in case that was insufficient to the task, the house was subsequently inhabited with a small flock of sheep for three consecutive nights.”
“Sheep. In the house.”
�
��Made quite a mess.”
She winked at the absurdity.
The absurdity of the superstition.
But the twinkle was now gone.
Gone from her golden eyes.
She grabbed another apple slice.
Ate it. A mushy one.
“You really shouldn’t bother with all that nonsense,” she finally scolded him, staring at him. Perhaps even through him.
Oliver felt as if he were fading.
“Quite unproductive, it ‘tis,” she said.
Fading. Not unlike the muddy snow.
Leaving behind something altogether oozy.
Something altogether foul-stinking.
“This place. This isle,” she said. And lifted his thermos before he could think to stop her. As is he could stop her. As if she would allow such a thing. Sniffing at it. Offering him a reproachful frown. Before placing it back on the table and completing her thought: “A lot of things have happened over the years. Centuries.”
“And quite a bit of it unpleasant, aye?” he said.
Her smile returned. Prim. Simpering.
She then counseled in a playful whisper, quoting: “Things without all remedy should be done without regard: what’s done is done.”
“Tolstoy?” he attempted clumsily.
“Macbeth,” she corrected him.
He silently absorbed the literary reference as Charlotte winked at him a final time, then took her leave, carefully hiking around the muddiest bits before securing the safety of a sidewalk. Macbeth. A tale of witches. Misguided ambition. Evil. And madness.
In the meanwhile, Oliver realized--
The strawberry-haired twins were gone.
Though their swings were still moving.
One coming, the other going.
As if they were still being ridden.
By ghostly figures unseen.
28.
AS WINTER’S WANING nights grew ever shorter and the days gradually longer and comparably warmer, spring slowly revealed itself, blooming on the dark isle in the middle of the cold gray sea. The native Manx Loaghtan sheep, with their distinctive sets of curved horns and dark curious eyes and dark brown wool made thick, nearly black, from their long winter nap, returned to lush grassy fields populated with yellow poppies and white elderflowers. The beech trees over at fairy bridge along the A4 stretched lazily up toward flat blue skies, rousing sleepily from their own winter slumber. Green leaves and small yellowish-green flowers.
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