The Bog

by Talbot, Michael

  Grenville stormed forward and glared down at him as Melanie rushed to his side.

  “Do not try my patience, Professor Macauley. I am in control of forces far beyond your ken and I have enough power in the tip of my little finger alone to rend you asunder.” His eyes flashed with fury as he spoke, but then something curiously respectful came into his gaze. “But do not think it has escaped my attention that you are a man of unusual spirit and intelligence. Who knows, perhaps in time, as I become persuaded of your loyalty, there may even be things that I would be willing to teach you.”

  And with that he ended.

  Although his insides were twisting with rage and defiance, David found that this last remark by Grenville plucked something deep within him. He knew that nothing would ever get him to sell out his family, or induce him to accept Grenville’s tyranny, but his insatiable curiosity, the part of him that always strove to know more and more, could not help but be allured by the possibility of learning even a fraction of the fantastic knowledge that Grenville apparently possessed.

  He was still lost in this thought when he looked up and saw that Melanie was gazing at him terror-stricken. Grenville stood back, and as Melanie helped David to his feet the silence in the room was abruptly punctuated by a sound in the distance. Curious, Grenville walked back out into the drawing room, and after David had brushed himself off he and Melanie followed.

  By the time they reached the drawing room Grenville was already standing at one of the windows and looking out, and cautiously both David and Melanie walked up behind him to see what was going on.

  In the distance David saw Luther Blundell tearing up the drive on his motorbike. From the speed he was going and the wild expression on his face, it was clear that he was very upset about something. David could only imagine that the discovery of his mother’s body had been more than he could bear.

  For several seconds they all just watched as Luther continued to race toward them.

  “I knew that boy would be trouble someday,” Grenville muttered. “But no matter.” He looked at David and Melanie with priggish self-satisfaction, and then turned and unlatched the double windows and calmly flung them open.

  By this time Luther was a scant few hundred yards from the house, and Grenville watched for just a moment longer. Then, as Luther was about to rip up onto the lawn, Grenville flung his hands out as if he were shaking something off of them, and a mist rolled out of his fingertips as they snapped in the air beyond. As David and Melanie watched, the inchoate mist coalesced a few feet beyond into a blue-white ball of coruscate energy that crackled and went roaring off with lightning speed. The fireball hit both Luther and the motorbike with hammerlike force, but instead of knocking them backward it froze them motionless, the energy ball expanding and enshrouding both the boy and the motorbike in a glistening cocoon of intense white light. Luther screamed, but his scream was quickly truncated, as first his skin and then the red ligaments underneath vaporized. For a few seconds his skeleton sat motionless on the now-melting bike, the brilliant fire glowing dazzlingly from his eye sockets as it incinerated his brain and other internal organs. Finally, it consumed his bones and the metal of the bike and then vanished, sending an oily black mushroom cloud pillaring ominously into the air, the only sign that anything had been there in the first place.

  Grenville shut the window and turned back to his guests. His gaze fixed on David. “Please think about all that I have said, and three days from now I’d like you to visit me once again. That will give you a chance to more fully absorb all that you have seen and heard today, and we will at that point continue our conversation. Until then, I bid you adieu. I will see that the chauffeur gets you home.”

  Grenville turned to once again face the window, and as if on unseen signal, the butler appeared. He led them out of the drawing room and back through the entrance hall. As they passed through the cavernous enclosure, unnaturally dark because it too had all of its curtains drawn, David once again became aware of the susurration, the mysterious rustling that he had heard on their first visit to the old manor house. Neither Melanie nor the butler seemed to register it, but he was sure that he heard something moving in the shadows against the wall. His eyes scanned the darkness, but again he saw no trace of what was making the sound.

  It was when they were almost to the front door that the sound grew louder and David realized that it was coming right for him and at incredible speed. He turned suddenly, expecting to see some wraith or ghostly apparition closing in on him, but still he saw nothing. As he squinted into the half light, however, he felt something invisible touch his skin. For a moment it danced like a midge across his face and arms, and then, like a rotted drapery passing swiftly over him, it was gone. He turned, his eyes wide with alarm, but the expressions on both Melanie and the butler’s face remained impassive; they sensed nothing. The butler held the door open and stared at him vacantly. David turned and looked into the empty darkness one more time, wondering what other unseen energies inhabited the old house, and then, not knowing what else to do, he departed.

  NINE

  For several hours after they got home they scarcely spoke a word to each other, and it was only after they had recovered from their shock that they discussed all of their options. At first David was sorely tempted to simply pack up his family and get them out of the valley as quickly as possible, but in the end he realized that this entailed a risk he was not willing to take. Although he would never have believed it a few weeks previous, he now accepted that they were engulfed by forces far beyond his fathoming, and given that he had no real measure of their sweep or magnitude, combined with his memory of what had happened to Luther Blundell, he reluctantly concluded that he should take all of Grenville’s threats seriously until he had reason to believe otherwise.

  In the end, Melanie also came around to this point of view although she did so with considerable resistance. David had not expected her to deal with the matter well, but he also had not anticipated the reaction she displayed. He had thought that she would be wild and hysterical, but instead she behaved as if all of the life had been drained out of her. Her gaze was blank and defeated and she lapsed into long stares as if she knew or understood something about what was happening that he did not, something that spoke even more forebodingly about what fate lay ahead for them.

  As for Mrs. Comfrey, she displayed obvious worry over Melanie’s despondent state of mind, but she seemed not at all cognizant that it had any darker underpinnings. The children also sensed something was amiss and moped around the house cautiously as if they suspected at any moment they might be blamed for the mysterious cloud of gloom that had now overtaken their parents. David tried to assuage them by telling them, and Mrs. Comfrey, that it was a new discovery at the bog that had brought about their change in plans.

  David spent the rest of the morning unpacking the car, and when he had finished he turned his attentions to the problem that now towered so menacingly before them. This effort manifested itself in two endeavors. First, he went through all of his books to find what he could about sorcery and demonology, which he discovered, to his dismay, was precious little, for all of the academic texts he owned assumed without question that such subjects were mere superstition. They therefore dealt with them only as cultural eccentricities, offering no real insights into their workings.

  The second thing he did was try to track down some clue about the identity of the cryptic tongue that Grenville had used in his exchange with Julia. But again he met with failure. Various of the syllables of their dialogue could be found in half a dozen languages, but none in sequence or with any meaning that shed light on what language they had been speaking.

  Finally, frustrated and thwarted, he did what he felt was the only option left to him. He went upstairs and spent an hour looking through dresser drawers and old jewelry boxes until he found three small crosses, and these he made his wife and two children wear. He had never been devotedly religious, but given the effect the word hallelujah
had had upon Julia, it seemed an inevitable precaution. For himself he fashioned a cross out of two bits of old wood bound together by a rubber band, and this he wore on a cord of rawhide concealed beneath his shirt.

  And then, late that afternoon, he went to the campsite to attempt the unsavory task of persuading Brad to pack up and leave. It took him an hour to do this and it was no easy feat, but finally he told the younger man that Melanie was having what appeared to be a nervous breakdown and he trumped up the wild excuse that she was threatening suicide if either of them continued to have anything to do with the bog bodies. To fuel his argument he told Brad that she had concluded from the moth experience and the bite marks on both the bog bodies and Winnifred Blundell that there was a curse upon the place. Remarkably, Brad bought it, but agreed to leave only on David’s assurance that it was a temporary hiatus.

  As for himself, David found that not surprisingly he had lost all passion for his work. Instead of staying and continuing with the chemical treatment of the two Roman bodies as he should have, he went back home. That night, after forcing down one of Mrs. Comfrey’s typically hearty dinners, he retired to the living room to think. Melanie went upstairs, complaining of a headache, and the children remained in the kitchen with Mrs. Comfrey.

  A short time later, David headed for the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. As he approached the kitchen door, however, he heard something sizzling on the stove, and this surprised him, for he knew that both Mrs. Comfrey and the children had already eaten. Curious, he paused outside the doorway to listen.

  “Why are you doing that?” he heard Tuck ask.

  “It’s a scrap cake,” Mrs. Comfrey’s voice returned. “After every meal you should fry up some of the table scraps with a little batter to make a scrap cake for the goblins.”

  “How do you give it to the goblins?” Tuck continued.

  “You put it out on the back porch, and during the night the goblins come and get it, and that way the goblins don’t get mad.”

  David leaned forward so that he could see the scene transpiring in the kitchen. Katy was sitting at the table, almost completely oblivious to what Mrs. Comfrey was saying, but Tuck sat on a high stool by the stove, his face filled with fear, as he hung on to Mrs. Comfrey’s every word.

  “What do the goblins do if they get mad?” he asked worriedly.

  David stepped quickly into the kitchen. “Mrs. Comfrey, I thought I told you not to tell the children frightening stories.”

  She blinked dumbly, taken aback. “But this isn’t to frighten the children. This is to protect them.”

  “Well they wouldn’t worry about needing protection from goblins if you hadn’t brought them up in the first place.”

  “Well, I never! I only—”

  Irritated that she was still challenging his authority, David lost his temper. “Mrs. Comfrey, this is my house and if I catch you talking about frightening things again I’ll dismiss you!”

  Mrs. Comfrey turned red as she continued to be both angered and humiliated by his reprobation. Stunned by the fierceness of his father’s outburst, Tuck began to cry. “Daddy, don’t fire Mrs. Comfrey. She just doesn’t want the goblins to get me.”

  Still crying, Tuck jumped off his stool and ran out of the room. Mrs. Comfrey’s chest swelled as she put on an expression of righteous vindication.

  David glared at her. He knew that he had perhaps been too harsh because of his own frustration over the situation they were in, but for some reason he could not bring himself to temper his fury. He continued to glower at her for several moments as she defiantly scowled back. And then he turned and went after Tuck.

  David found him in the living room, curled up in one of the large horsehair chairs and crying. He sat down beside him and lifted him into his arms.

  “Tuck, Daddy’s sorry for yelling at Mrs. Comfrey. I’m not really going to fire her, I just think that it’s bad for her to tell you stories about goblins.”

  “But what if the goblins do get me?” Tuck asked, concerned.

  David smiled. “But that’s just it, Tuck. You see, there are no such things as goblins. That’s a lie people like Mrs. Comfrey tell children to scare them into being good. I get angry at Mrs. Comfrey when she does that because I don’t believe in lying to children. I think adults should tell them the truth.”

  Tuck wiped the tears from his eyes as he pondered this. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Tuck?”

  “Are we still going to move?”

  “Not for the time being. Maybe in a little while.” Tuck fiddled with a button on his shirt. “I’m glad we didn’t leave,” he returned. “You know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because that would have meant that we were leaving Ben behind.” After this remark Tuck continued to fumble distractedly with his shirt button, gazing meditatively off into space. David drew in his breath, grateful at least that Tuck had not phrased the remark in the form of a question, and hugged his son tighter. Nonetheless, a moment later David noticed that Tuck’s expression had taken on a darker cast, and as he continued to stare off into the distance some inner voice seemed to be speaking to him, prodding him with things he found painful. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Tuck?”

  “Is Ben ever coming back?”

  David closed his eyes as he embraced his son tighter still. It was the question he had been dreading. As long as he himself had been ignorant of Ben’s fate it had been easy to be evasive, to postpone confronting the matter. But now that he knew the truth he was left in a quandary. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was tell Tuck the truth, for he feared it would send Tuck even further into his ever-increasing depressions. But after what he had said about Mrs. Comfrey he felt he had no right to lie. He took a deep breath.

  “No, Tuck. Ben isn’t coming back.”

  Tuck remained absolutely motionless, absorbing the information with no visible sign of distress.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  David took another deep breath. “Do you know how every fall the flowers die and the leaves fall off the trees? Do you know why they do that?”

  Tuck shook his head in the negative. “’Cause winter’s coming?” he offered tentatively.

  “Partly because the winter’s coming,” David returned. “But partly because they have to make room for the new flowers and leaves. You see, that’s the way nature works. Everything has a beginning and an end. If it didn’t the world would become stagnant, like a bucket of water that you just let sit and sit. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everything lasted forever? Just think about it. Every bee that ever lived, every tree and every person would still be here, and what a crowded place it would be. The only problem is that it’s painful when things we love go away. We miss them and that’s okay. But what’s not okay is to think that it’s bad that things have to go away, because it’s not bad. It’s a very important thing. It’s what allows new flowers to grow, and new leaves to replace the old, and the world to renew itself.”

  “And Ben went away?”

  “Yes, Ben went away.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “To heaven,” David replied.

  Tuck’s lower lip started to quiver. “But why did he have to go to heaven?”

  “Because it was his time to go.”

  A large tear rolled down Tuck’s cheek and hit David’s arm, and he gave his son another reassuring hug. “Hey, now, I don’t want you to be upset about this. I told you the truth about Ben because I don’t want you to be afraid when things have to go to heaven. Too many people in this world spend too much time being afraid of that, and it’s just silly. When something goes to heaven it’s a scary thing, and it’s a painful thing. But you’ve got to be brave about it. Things don’t go to heaven very often, but when they do, you’ve got to face it like a man.”

  Tuck wiped the tear from his eye. “I’ve got to have moxie, huh, Dad?”

  David smiled. He had forgotten about that. “Yes, Tuck. You’ve got to have
moxie.”

  David spent the rest of the night going over every word that Grenville had said, searching for some chink in his story, and continued with the pursuit all the next day. On the morning of the second day he went walking on the moors, and his continued absorption in the matters at hand was broken by only one occurrence of note. As he neared the low grouping of hills that marked the border of Old Flory’s land, he once again came upon a group of children taunting the little girl Amanda. As he once again dispersed her assailants he noticed that most of the children now boasted shiny new crosses around their necks, he assumed as a result of the vicar’s newly enkindled faith following the hallelujah incident. Amanda was the only one who did not possess such a prophylactic and, indeed, this seemed to be the basis for the other children’s jeering. To remedy this, after her attackers vanished, he took the crude wooden cross from around his neck and offered it to her. She accepted it as reverently as if it had been made out of the purest gold, and it nearly brought him to tears to see the furtive and incredulous gratitude that shone in her eyes as she ran off with it. When he went home he fashioned himself another.

  By the third day his lie about Melanie had started to develop into a self-fulfilling prophecy, for she had become so eaten up by nerves and fear that she was no longer able to keep down solid food. Mrs. Comfrey nursed her attentively, but with little success, for she continued to spend increasing amounts of time in bed.

  By nightfall her state of mind had deteriorated to such an extent that David resolved he had no choice but to take Grenville up on his offer of continuing their conversation. The prospect of meeting with Grenville, especially after nightfall when presumably Julia would once again be up and around, frightened him, but he felt he had no recourse. Given all that he had witnessed he knew that every encounter with Grenville meant one was taking one’s life into one’s hands, but he hoped perhaps to learn more about the old magician’s world, to gather some small piece of information that might lead to their escape.