‘And you never did, er, do it again?’
‘No, I didn’t dare; I haven’t dared since. There are worse things, Love, than being walked through a window! And if George hates me still as much as he might…
‘But I’ve often wanted to do it again. George has two children, you know?’
I nodded an affirmation: ‘Yes, I’ve heard mother mention them. Joe and Doreen?’
‘That’s right,’ she nodded. ‘They’re hardly children any more, but I think of them that way. They’ll be in their twenties now, your cousins. George’s wife wrote to me once many years ago. I’ve no idea how she got my address. She did it behind George’s back, I imagine. Said how sorry she was that there was “trouble in the family”. She sent me photographs of the kids. They were beautiful. For all I know there may have been other children later—even grandchildren.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I told her. ‘I think I would have known. They’re still pretty reserved, my folks, but I would have learned that much, I’m sure. But tell me: how is it that you and mother aren’t closer? I mean, she never talks about you, my mother, and yet you are her sister.’
‘Your mother is two years younger than George and me,’ my aunt informed me. ‘She went to live with her grandparents down South when she was thirteen. Sis, you see, was the brilliant one. George was a bit dim; I was clever enough; but Sis, she was really clever. Our parents sent Sis off to live with Granny, where she could attend a school worthy of her intelligence. She stayed with Gran from then on. We simply drifted apart…
‘Mind you, we’d never been what you might call close, not for sisters. Anyhow, we didn’t come together again until she married and came back up here to live, by which time George must have written to her and told her one or two things. I don’t know what or how much he told her, but—well, she never bothered with me—and anyway I was working by then and had a flat of my own.
‘Years passed, I hardly ever saw Sis, her little boy came along—you, Love—I fell in with a spiritualist group, making real friends for the first time in my life; and, well, that was that. My interest in spiritualism, various other ways of mine that didn’t quite fit the accepted pattern, the unspoken thing I had done to George… we drifted apart. You understand?’
I nodded. I felt sorry for her, but of course I could not say so. Instead I laughed awkwardly and shrugged my shoulders. ‘Who needs people?’
She looked shocked. ‘We all do, Love!’ Then for a while she was quiet, staring into the fire.
‘I’ll make a brew of tea,’ she suddenly said, then looked at me and smiled in a fashion I well remembered. ‘Or should we have cocoa?’
‘Cocoa!’ I instinctively laughed, relieved at the change of subject.
She went into the kitchen and I lit a cigarette. Idle, for the moment, I looked about me, taking up the loose sheets of paper that Aunt Hester had left on her occasional table. I saw at once that many of her jottings were concerned with extracts from exotic books. I passed over the piece she had read out to me and glanced at another sheet. Immediately my interest was caught; the three passages were all from the Holy Bible:
“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them.” Lev. 19:31.
“Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.” I Sam. 28:6,7.
“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men.” Acts 19.19.
The third sheet contained a quote from Today’s Christian:
“To dabble in matters such as these is to reach within demoniac circles, and it is by no means rare to discover scorn and scepticism transformed to hysterical possession in persons whose curiosity has led them merely to attend so-called ‘spiritual séances’. These things of which I speak are of a nature as serious as any in the world today, and I am only one among many to utter a solemn warning against any intercourse with ‘spirit forces’ or the like, whereby the unutterable evil of demonic possession could well be the horrific outcome.”
Finally, before she returned with a steaming jug of cocoa and two mugs, I read another of Aunt Hester’s extracts, this one again from Feery’s Notes on the Necronomicon:
“Yea, & I discovered how one might, be he an Adept & his familiar Spirits powerful enough, control the Wanderings or Migration of his Essence into all manner of Beings & Person—even from beyond the Grave of Sod or the Door of the Stone Sepulchre…”
I was still pondering this last extract an hour later, as I walked Harden’s night streets towards my lodgings at the home of my friend.
Three evenings later, when by arrangement I returned to my aunt’s cottage in old Castle-Ilden, she was nervously waiting for me at the gate and whisked me breathlessly inside. She sat me down, seated herself opposite and clasped her hands in her lap almost in the attitude of an excited young girl.
‘Peter, Love, I’ve had an idea—such a simple idea that it amazes me I never thought of it before.’
‘An idea? How do you mean, Aunt Hester—what sort of idea? Does it involve me?’
‘Yes, I’d rather it were you than any other. After all, you know the story now…’
I frowned as an oddly foreboding shadow darkened latent areas of my consciousness. Her words had been innocuous enough as of yet, and there seemed no reason why I should suddenly feel so—uncomfortable, but—
‘The story?’ I finally repeated her. ‘You mean this idea of yours concerns—Uncle George?’
‘Yes, I do!’ she answered. ‘Oh, Love, I can see them; if only for a brief moment or two, I can see my nephew and niece. You’ll help me? I know you will.’
The shadow thickened darkly, growing in me, spreading from hidden to more truly conscious regions of my mind. ‘Help you? You mean you intend to—’ I paused, then started to speak again as I saw for sure what she was getting at and realized that she meant it: ‘But haven’t you said that this stuff was too dangerous? The last time you—’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ she impatiently argued, cutting me off. ‘But now, well, it’s different. I won’t stay more than a moment or two—just long enough to see the children—and then I’ll get straight back… here. And there’ll be precautions. It can’t fail, you’ll see.’
‘Precautions?’ Despite myself I was interested.
‘Yes,’ she began to talk faster, growing more excited with each passing moment. ‘The way I’ve worked it out, it’s perfectly safe. To start with, George will be asleep—he won’t know anything about it. When his sleeping mind moves into my body, why, it will simply stay asleep! On the other hand, when my mind moves into his body, then I’ll be able to move about and—’
‘And use your brother as a keyhole!’ I blurted, surprising even myself. She frowned, then turned her face away. What she planned was wrong. I knew it and so did she, but if my outburst had shamed her it certainly had not deterred her—not for long.
When she looked at me again her eyes were almost pleading. ‘I know how it must look to you, Love, but it’s not so. And I know that I must seem to be a selfish woman, but that’s not quite true either. Isn’t it natural that I should want to see my family? They are mine, you know. George, my brother; his wife, my sister-in-law; their children, my nephew and niece. Just a—yes—a “peep”, if that’s the way you see it. But, Love, I need that peep. I’ll only have a few moments, and I’ll have to make them last me for the rest of my life.’
I began to weaken. ‘How will you go about it?’
‘First, a glance,’ she eagerly answered, again reminding me of a young girl. ‘Nothing more, a mere glance. Even if he’s awake he won’t ever know I was there; he’ll think his mind wandered for the merest second. If he is asleep, though, then I’ll be able to, well, “wake him up”, see his wife—and, if the children are still at home, why, I’ll be able to see them too. Just
a glance.’
‘But suppose something does go wrong?’ I asked bluntly, coming back to earth ‘Why, you might come back and find your head in the gas oven! What’s to stop him from slashing your wrists? That only takes a second, you know.’
‘That’s where you come in, Love.’ She stood up and patted me on the cheek, smiling cleverly…’ You’ll be right here to see that nothing goes wrong.’
‘But—’
‘And to be doubly sure,’ she cut me off, ‘why, I’ll be tied in my chair! You can’t walk through windows when tied down, now can you?’
Half an hour later, still suffering inwardly from that as yet unspecified foreboding, I had done as Aunt Hester directed me to do, tying her wrists to the arms of her cane chair with soft but fairly strong bandages from her medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
She had it all worked out, reasoning that it would be very early morning in Australia and that her brother would still be sleeping. As soon as she was comfortable, without another word, she closed her eyes and let her head fall slowly forward onto her chest. Outside, the sun still had some way to go to setting; inside, the room was still warm—yet I shuddered oddly with a deep, nervous chilling of my blood.
It was then that I tried to bring the thing to a halt, calling her name and shaking her shoulder, but she only brushed my hand away and hushed me. I went back to my chair and watched her anxiously.
As the shadows seemed visibly to lengthen in the room and my skin cooled, her head sank even deeper onto her chest, so that I began to think she had fallen asleep.
Then she settled herself more comfortably yet and I saw that she was still awake, merely preparing her body for her brother’s slumbering mind.
In another moment I knew that something had changed.
Her position was as it had been; the shadows crept slowly still; the ancient clock on the wall ticked its regular chronological message; but I had grown inexplicably colder, and there was this feeling that, something had changed…
Suddenly there flashed before my mind’s eye certain of those warning jottings I had read only a few nights earlier, and there and then I was determined that this thing should go no further. Oh, she had warned me not to do anything to frighten or disturb her, but this was different. Somehow I knew that if I didn’t act now—
‘Hester! Aunt Hester!’ I jumped up and moved toward her, my throat dry and my words cracked and unnatural-sounding. And she lifted her head and opened her eyes.
For a moment I thought that everything was all right—then…
She cried out and stood up, ripped bandages falling in tatters from strangely strong wrists. She mouthed again, staggering and patently disorientated. I fell back in dumb horror, knowing that something was very wrong and yet unable to put my finger on the trouble.
My aunt’s eyes were wide now and bulging, and for the first time she seemed to see me, stumbling toward me with slack jaw and tongue protruding horribly between long teeth and drawn-back lips. It was then that I knew what was wrong, that this frightful thing before me was not my aunt, and I was driven backward before its stumbling approach, warding it off with waving arms and barely articulate cries.
Finally, stumbling more frenziedly now, clawing at empty air inches in front of my face, she—it—spoke: ‘No !’ the awful voice gurgled over its wriggling tongue. ‘No, Hester, you… you fool! I warned you…’
And in that same instant I saw not an old woman, but the horribly alien figure of a man in a woman’s form!
More grotesque than any drag artist, the thing pirouetted in grim, constricting agony, its strange eyes glazing even as I stared in a paralysis of horror. Then it was all over and the frail scarecrow of flesh, purple tongue still protruding from frothing lips, fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.
That’s it, that’s the story—not a tale I’ve told before, for there would have been too many questions, and it’s more than possible that my version would not be believed. Let’s face it, who would believe me? No, I realized this as soon as the thing was done, and so I simply got rid of the torn bandages and called in a doctor. Aunt Hester died of a heart attack, or so I’m told, and perhaps she did—straining to do that which, even with her powers, should never have been possible.
During this last fortnight or so since it happened, I’ve been trying to convince myself that the doctor was right (which I was quite willing enough to believe at the time), but I’ve been telling myself lies. I think I’ve known the real truth ever since my parents got the letter from Australia. And lately, reinforcing that truth, there have been the dreams and the daydreams—or are they?
This morning I woke up to a lightless void—a numb, black, silent void—wherein I was incapable of even the smallest movement, and I was horribly, hideously frightened. It lasted for only a moment, that’s all, but in that moment it seemed to me that I was dead—or that the living me inhabited a dead body!
Again and again I find myself thinking back on the mad Arab’s words as reported by Joachim Feery : “…even from beyond the Grave of Sod…” And in the end I know that this is indeed the answer.
That is why I’m flying tomorrow to Australia. Ostensibly I’m visiting my uncle’s wife, my Australian aunt; but really I’m only interested in him, in Uncle George himself. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do, or even if there is anything I can do. My efforts may well be completely useless, and yet I must try to do something.
I must try, for I know now that it’s that or find myself once again, perhaps permanently, locked in that hellish, nighted—place?—of black oblivion and insensate silence. In the dead and rotting body of my Uncle George, already buried three weeks when Aunt Hester put her mind in his body—the body she’s now trying to vacate in favour of mine!
A PENTAGRAM FOR CENAIDE by Eddy C. Bertin
JACK MORGAN WAS a painter, or at least that was what he always said, and his close friends—those whose judgment he cared about—agreed with him on that point, so it hardly mattered what the critics said about his work, whenever they did take the trouble to say something. His life had always been a very calm and peaceful one, he liked drinking, but not much more than anyone else, and he had tried a few mild drugs too, and had stayed away from them after a severe headache. He had an exceptional ear for music, and always claimed that he could get high on hearing music, so why spend hard cash for ersatz? He had known, and loved, and hated a few women in. his life, and had left them all behind, or they had left him behind depending on what viewpoint one takes. Time had come for a marriage, which never realized, and time had gone past that point too. Jack also liked laughing, and simple fun as well as enjoy reading Sartre. He had many friends who liked him very much until he needed them, when they always seemed to be just out of reach, but always eager to return when he didn’t need, or didn’t want their help anymore.
He read a lot, from crime novels to Wodehouse, and from the classics to science-fiction, and had a healthy distaste for ladies’ novels, until he fell right into one himself, and gradually discovered that there was no way out. The newly arisen dilemma, which had been there for a long time already if he had only seen it, embittered him at first, and angered him. It came in the way of his work, and in his own way he was a straightforward man who hated dilemmas, which couldn’t be solved, but he also prided himself in this fact, and that was what made him unable to solve his particular predicament. That was when he discovered, surprising himself most of all, that he was in love with his best friend’s wife.
Paul and his wife Cenaide were long time friends of Jack, who used to drop in on him at the weirdest hours of day and night, and he was always ready for them, for a drink, and a chat; besides, he used to visit them quite a lot himself. Cenaide wasn’t exactly a classic beauty, and neither was she a very intelligent woman, but one evening when they had gone to a dance, the three of them, and he took her in his arms, felt the softness of her cheek and the tickling of her hair against his face, the suppleness of her body against his, he suddenly realized that he l
oved her. He had known love before, and he still remembered how it felt and tasted and then hurt afterwards, so this surprised him, then he found it rather funny, and then it angered him. He had no business being in love with this girl, he told himself. Her hair was too short, he had always liked long hair, and the colour wasn’t right either. Her manner of speech was rude and she spoke with a strong cheap dialect, which she never was able to hide. No doubt she had lots of personal, annoying habits, and she couldn’t even talk about things on his own level of understanding. Above all she was married to his friend, whom she loved very much, of that he was certain. But he loved her with a sudden furious passion, which must have been smoldering in the depths of his mind for some time already, unnoticed. When he began thinking seriously about it later, when he was alone in his room, he recalled the fun they had had just by being together, talking about a lot of stupid unimportant things. He began to remember the peace he had felt, just sitting there and talking to her, knowing that she was near. He began to recall many things, small silly things, but they all added up as he brought them out of their hiding places in his mind, the tingle in his fingers when he touched her hand as she passed him his drink, and the warmth he had felt one evening when she had drunk a few glasses too much of the bottle of wine he had brought with him and had fallen asleep on the couch, and he had looked down upon her relaxed, resting face. He remembered now the sudden flare of anger he had felt one day when Paul had been shouting at her for some unimportant stupidity, and his uneasiness when he had visited them one evening, and she hadn’t been home, arriving very late.
The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror Page 11