Intermusings

by David Niall Wilson

  His eyes were slightly sunken, and his pallor had become unhealthy, and even paler than was his wont. No one took notice, though they stared at him more closely when he turned in his work at the paper, or when he bought food, oil, or ink. His plan was to write slowly, a little every night, stretching the dead man’s words out across the years to come. If he was never without a sheet of paper, and one of the pages of the ferret-man’s manuscript, then if and when the blood began, or he was afraid that someone was noticing something, he could translate a few words, or re-read the story at hand.

  He was half afraid that if the manuscript brought enough blood, since he’d joined his own to it through the quill, that it would draw him down to his death.

  The barman brought his drink, and Edgar cupped it between his palms without looking up. He took a long pull on the sweet, chilled wine and turned to glance down at the empty seats once more. He started, nearly spilling his drink. There was something on the bar, something indistinct and shapeless, but familiar. He shook and drank again, and as he did, he watched. The big man’s hat. It lay in its usual shapeless mass on the bar. There was no sign of its owner, but something dark was pooled beneath it.

  Edgar shoved his drink away violently, nearly tipping it. He scrabbled for his quill and drew a small bottle of ink from his breast pocket. Opening it and dipping the quill, he began to write with feverish intensity. Outside, the bells on the city clock had begun to ring maddeningly, and though he knew they went on for moments only, the echoing sound lingered. He twisted the sound into something the ferret man had said, something from the page in his pocket.

  "The bells, bells bells bells…."

  At the end of the bar, where the evening sunlight cast Edgar’s shadow down the bar, the lumpy mass that had been a hat dissolved to nothing, and the barman rubbed the smooth, polished surface of the ball unseeing. There was no sound but the loud, insistent scratching of a quill.

  A Wreath of Clouds

  By David Niall Wilson & Stephen Mark Rainey

  The old mansion looked down over the New England cliffs with empty eyes shuttered against the whistling wind that endlessly battered its ramparts. Even in daylight, the house crouched defensively on its perch, hiding its face from observers below; in the dark, it was a lightless silhouette, but still distinguishable as black against black. No one in town had seen the interior of the house in countless years, nor did anyone know the name or manner of its occupant, though it certainly had one. It was a puzzle to be whispered over at twilight, a story to frighten the children into their beds at an early hour. A mystery.

  Daniel Schell had lately taken to peering at the house from the window above his desk, admiring its sharp outline against the perpetually cloudy sky beyond the mountain. Schell was a professor of art history, classical architecture being his specialty; but he'd taken a semester off from teaching at his New York University to research a book on early American mansions and homesteads in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. He'd seen everything from the famous castles of the Vanderbilts to the tiniest Colonial churches in little backwoods communities; places the rest of the world had forgotten. They existed in a proliferation that few of his urban peers would have ever dreamed.

  It was the smallest of communities that appealed to him most. After so many wearying years in Manhattan and Long Island, he'd welcomed a retreat to this little corner of Maine, not far from Bar Harbor, where he’d found the necessary peace of mind to write. A couple of churches in town harkened back to the days when the State was still a part of the Colony of Massachusetts, and it was during his investigation of them that he realized how deeply the little community appealed to him.

  Schell felt particularly frustrated, with two deadly dull pages of detailed exposition grinning arrogantly at him from his computer monitor, daring him to proceed. He was tired, more bone-weary than any waking soul should be, and his eyes were beginning to lose their focus from too many hours of staring at the glowing CRT.

  In his distraction, a different glow caught him by surprise, something apart from the light of his monitor—something outside his window. Once he’d registered its presence, he had to wonder how long it had been there; a few minutes, maybe, or even quite a few minutes? He had no idea. He'd been lost in never-never land.

  An odd luminescence radiated from the sides of the old house on the mountain, or from behind it, outlining the building against the darkness of the sky. He'd seen a similar effect in the occasional flash of lightning, but lightning was a fleeting thing; this glow was not going away. He blinked several times and shook his head in an effort to clear his vision, but it was there, and it was growing brighter.

  A fire? he wondered. There was nothing on the other side of that house but a sheer drop to the ocean below. A ship at sea? It would have to be damned big blaze to put off such a glare. He frowned; the light didn't flicker the way a fire would. He trifled momentarily with the notion of phoning the police to report it; but unless somebody else called in with a similar report, they'd likely pass him off as a crank. And, oddly, while a number of pedestrians passed back and forth below this third floor window, none of them seemed to share his fascination with the phenomenon.

  This, he thought, was something he wanted to check out himself. He thought maybe the fresh air would clear his head, and he was getting nothing done where he sat. He headed downstairs, grabbed a jacket from his front closet and stepped out into the cool autumn air.

  The absence of moonlight emphasized the distant gleam rising from the mountain behind the old house, stirring in him a sense of mystery. He slipped quickly behind the wheel of his old Dodge and cranked the engine before he had a chance to change his mind. There was nothing like an adventure to kick-start stagnant creativity.

  He hadn't driven up the old road to the mountain since he'd first moved out from the city. From the look of the asphalt and the overgrown weeds that lined it, few others had felt the urge in recent days. Even the county and state, as if sensing that there was little necessity for maintenance, had avoided the place. The surface of the road was pitted and uneven, with potholes as deep as Dutch ovens pocking its surface.

  Schell wound in and around them, moving slowly and watching the road. The last thing he needed was for his "adventure" to end in a flat tire, or a wrong turn off into the weeds.

  It slid over the mountain, moving slowly toward him. It didn't undulate, or steam, or wisp in the wind. It rose and lit the place up like some kind of searchlight gone awry. Strange, he thought, as bright as the light was, no one else in town had come out to investigate. Not even a stray police cruiser on the road. Surely, someone else had seen it; half the mountain was bright as day. There was no way they could miss it at the Gray Whale Tavern, just a couple of miles down the shoreline!

  The car suddenly bucked as it hit a deep pothole, and in the headlights, he saw that the road all but disappeared in a tangle of dead limbs and bracken. If he were to continue, he'd have to do so on foot. A moment's consideration and he decided that, as much as he'd been in the mood for adventure, he didn't care to hike the remaining mile or so on his own. He stopped, shifted into reverse and backed carefully around the offending pothole, finally finding an open enough space to turn the car around. He had a harrowing moment when the tires spun impotently in a deep rut, but they caught, and with a sigh of relief, he guided the car back in the direction he'd come, only a little sorry he hadn't been able to complete his mission of discovery.

  A sudden spot of brilliance in his rear view mirror snared his attention, and he took his eyes off the road for a few seconds too long. The road curved, the Dart didn’t follow; it dove off the shoulder and into the ditch. He slammed on the brakes, and the car thudded to a halt with its nose half-buried in dirt and loose rock. He tried desperately to back out, but the car gave a single, tired lurch and the engine died. A quick burst of steam slipped from beneath the hood and the Dodge's spirit departed for a better land.

  "Christ."

  His thoughts shifted fr
om the car’s predicament to his own when the odd, glowing light suddenly bathed the dashboard. He twisted his head to look out the rear window. The road and the surrounding trees were drenched in silver, as if the light of the moon had increased to the magnitude of the sun. His heart hammered into overdrive as the cold light washed over his car, over his body, its source apparently directly overhead, out of his line of vision. He heard nothing, yet a crackling, vibrating energy charged the air the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood out rigidly. The light gleamed on the crumpled hood of the car, and Schell expected the object casting it to appear through the window at any moment.

  But before whatever-it-was could slide into view, the light abruptly vanished. A thick darkness settled over the woods and the car—a darkness so unexpected that the change didn't register in Schell's mind for several seconds, his eyes still focusing on a brilliant but shapeless afterimage.

  When his eyes grew accustomed to the absence of light, Schell began to consider the depth of the situation he'd gotten himself into. It was a long way back home, on a dark deserted road, and something he couldn't identify or understand lurked somewhere nearby. He shivered and scanned the shadows.

  He pushed the car door open—reluctantly, and searched the sky through a latticework of tree limbs. Few stars broke through the hazy cloud cover, and all around him the black, twisted pillars of tree trunks rose like a barricade against what scant light the night sky might provide.

  "Not happy," he muttered, "not happy at all." He struggled out of the car and found his footing precarious on the loose gravel. He had to figure out what to do next. His car was going nowhere. Could he make the long, cold walk home, alone in the darkness? If no one had already shown up on the road, it wasn't likely anyone would for the rest of the night. With no cell phone or even a CB in his car, he couldn't very well call for help.

  The house at the top of the hill was much closer than home, or even the main road into town. Whoever lived up there almost certainly would have a phone, and might be able to provide a reasonable explanation for the phenomenon he'd witnessed. Barring all that, maybe they had hot coffee.

  He wandered up the road a hundred yards or so and studied the deadfall that had forced him to turn around. Surely, if somebody lived up there, they’d keep this road clear? The old road wasn't necessarily the only way up to the place, but it would certainly be the most direct. He kicked a tangle of thick limbs out of the road, and climbed over a section of fallen tree that extended halfway across the road. On a whim, he studied the break in the trunk, confirmed that it had fallen, not been cut. He hummed a few bars of "Suspicious Minds."

  He climbed steadily, scanning the sky and the towering trees on either side of the road. Whatever the light had been, wherever it had come from, it did not seem to be making an encore performance. After he'd gone another few hundred yards, he turned to look back the way he'd come. In the darkness, he could no longer see his car, or even the deadfall.

  The road grew steeper, and around a bend Schell saw the angled roof of the old mansion jut into the sky like an onyx blade against a black velvet curtain. It wasn't far now, and as he drew nearer, he saw that the house wasn’t totally dark; on the lower floor, a single window glowed dimly. He hoped whoever was inside had a phone so that he could call someone to pick him up.

  He ran through his possible saviors, and found the list lacking. He could try Karen, whom he'd met at the town's sole nightspot; they'd gotten to know each other well in recent months, and even slept together a couple of times. She was one of the few people he knew who shared any interest at all in his creative ventures, and who might listen to his reasons for coming up here without telling him bluntly that he had mulch for brains. He didn’t know if her understanding would extend to midnight mountain drives. There were a couple of others, but those were even less likely to show sympathy.

  The road veered to the left and sloped down toward the cliff, beyond which the wide, black expanse of the ocean met the horizon. He heard the faint sound of breakers in the distance, and the air tasted salty. A long gravel driveway led up to the house. It was a Tudor-style home, three stories high. Several chimneys rose above the rooftop. The only light was in the window he'd seen before. The windows of the upper floors were shuttered, and probably had been for years. This close, Schell wasn't sure he wanted to approach the front door.

  Looking back toward town, he saw the lights from his neighborhood, though he couldn't make out his own apartment building. Out at sea he saw no ships. He sighed. If this had happened to anyone else, he'd say they were a damned fool and deserved what they got. He turned down the driveway toward the house, his footsteps seeming ominously loud now that he was possibly within earshot of an unknown someone.

  Even in the dark, he could tell that the facade of the house was badly weathered and probably hadn't seen a coat of paint in decades. The roof was missing shingles, and no smoke poured from any of the chimneys. The flagstones leading up to the front door were cracked, some little more than rubble. But the lawn, what little he could see of it, appeared to have been mowed sometime before summer's end, and the holly bushes on either side of the front porch had been trimmed back so that the entry wasn't blocked.

  He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, knocked, and waited. He scanned the sky, the woods, the ocean; inexplicably, he felt that if the strange light were going to reappear, it would do so shortly—almost as if it were in some way a sentient extension of this house; a lure, or a guardian. Or both.

  He was just about ready to give up and head down the mountain on foot when he heard a movement on the other side of the door. The door opened slowly to reveal a shadowy figure, framed by the soft glow of a lamp from behind him. A pair of bright eyes regarded him curiously, but the figure did not speak.

  "Hello," Schell said uncertainly. "I had an accident on the road and I was wondering if I might use your telephone."

  "You saw it, then. I knew someone would see it. What's your name, son?"

  "Daniel. Daniel Schell."

  "Please come inside."

  Schell did as directed, unsure of how to respond to the man's odd comments. If he'd seen that light, everyone must have seen it. Vision wasn't something one could turn on or off at will.

  As he followed his host's retreating form, he took in the furnishings of the old place. It was a vision of seedy opulence. The tapestries that hung on the walls, the thick carpets clotted with dust and the varnished railings and trim spoke of wealth he'd seldom experienced so close at hand, and yet it felt tainted. Nothing appeared to have been touched for years—perhaps a century. There was no evidence of the old man's presence, beyond the small circle of light that flowed from the small oil lamp; no evidence of habitation by anyone.

  As they moved further in, however, it was obvious that, though he didn’t use the entire place, the man had lived in the house for some time. In the spacious great room, Schell saw a rustic fireplace, huge, full-wall bookshelves, and an imposing, dusty chandelier. The entire room was littered with thick, leather-bound books, vials and bottles, and paper. There were papers everywhere, wadded up, piled, and filed—surely more than double what Schell had filled in the six years of his professional writing career. He was about to ask about those papers when his host opened a door and motioned for him to enter.

  This was the kitchen, and Schell's mood changed drastically when he saw the steaming teapot on the stove. The pleasant aroma of flowers and herbs wafted across the room to him, and there was another lamp on one of the counter tops. He flashed on the glowing light, but this was far too dim, and he realized they were so far inside the old place that he wouldn’t have been able to see this room from the outside. Still, the hospitable atmosphere made the house less formidable, and when the old man turned to him with two ceramic cups in his hand, a little wry grin splitting his face, the room seemed suddenly homey, and he began to wonder just what it had been that he’d feared.

  "Forgive my bad manners. My name is Radu Murgoc
ci," the man said, handing Schell one of the cups.

  "Thank you," Schell said, accepting the tea, casting aside any unseemly thoughts of being drugged and buried in some lightless cellar, never to be seen again. He accepted the old man's offer to take a seat at the little table next to the wall. Murgocci's voice was deep, with a trace of Eastern European accent. The old man had a full head of iron gray hair, pale skin, and a face deeply creased. "I wasn't sure if anyone lived up here," Schell said. “I can see your house from my window. And tonight, that light—"

  "So you came to see if you could discover what it was. I know. This is the first time you've ever seen it?"

  "Yes."

  "I have seen it here on two previous occasions. The last was two years ago. Each time it is the same—it appears first out at sea, then moves toward the cliff, and down the mountainside. And then it disappears, but something remains behind. One can feel it, if one is receptive."

  "What do you mean? Do you know what it is?"

  Murgocci shook his head noncommittally, and then peered deeply into Schell's eyes. "Did you see the source of the light?"

  "No, I only saw it pass over the trees. I nearly got caught it in when my car ran into the ditch…"

  The old man looked disappointed. "You encountered no one on the way, is this not so? As if it appeared to you and you alone, no?"

  Schell nodded, bewildered but vaguely excited by the man's insight. "So it seemed."

  "Based on my experience, I can tell you that few others, if any, saw it. It chooses who will witness its arrival."

  "Can't you tell me what it is?"

  "No."

  Schell waited, hoping Murgocci would elaborate; but the old man merely sipped his tea and looked toward the window.