The Cauldron

by Jean Rabe

  Melusine was rousing from her rest.

  The shipkeeper would have to delve into Jerrah later. At least he had made preparations for Delporos’ simple but effective death.

  ***

  Chapter 29

  Carl Johnson

  Jerrah rocked back on the balls of her feet, hands clenching and unclenching, knuckles white. Her usual stoic mask had been replaced by a grimace.

  “Whoa,” Carl started. He was surprised to see her show so much emotion. “What’s going on that—”

  “I tried to leave,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Well, not tried. I did leave … while you were chatting up Ellen. While you were out of this stinking cabin. I really booked. I got out to the road, was looking at the highway, was thinking it’d be great if some guy came cruising by and would give me a lift. Save the soles of my shoes, get me out of here. Get me the hell out of here.”

  Carl spotted her backpack on the floor in front of the couch. He opened his mouth to say something, and then thought better of it. He waited, listening to the call of a loon on the night-black lake and Jerrah’s huffing breath.

  Ooooh-weee-oooh oooh oooh oooh, the bird repeated musically. Ooooh-weee-oooh.

  Finally, Jerrah continued. “So … I left. I really did hoof it out of here. I left you and this stinking little resort. But—” She glared at him. “Obviously, I came back.” She tapped her foot now, the impatient gesture a signal he should reply. When he didn’t, she dropped her gaze to the tips of her shoes. “It made me come back.”

  Carl swallowed hard. “It?”

  “Yeah, ‘it.’ And don’t tell me I’m nuts.”

  Carl thought she well could be, but who was he to be judgmental. Not when he thought he’d been married … maybe still was married … to Ellen at this resort. And especially not when he thought he might have lived through World War I. He could well have the corner on “nuts.”

  “It? What’s ‘it?’”

  She mumbled something he couldn’t make out.

  “What?”

  “Dunno. I said I don’t know what ‘it’ is … or who ‘it’ is.” She slapped the side of her head and resumed clenching and unclenching her fists. “But ‘it’ gets inside my head.”

  “And is ‘it’ there—”

  “Now? No. ‘It’ isn’t inside at the moment. Not that I can tell for certain anyway. But ‘it’ has been coming and going all day. Something or someone coming and going and making me do things. Probably coming and going for more than a few days. I’d just never noticed it before.”

  “Do things? Like—” Carl took a step forward, but she waved him off. He kept his distance and stuck his hands in his pockets to appear non-threatening.

  “Like making me take the bus to Morgantown for starters. Like making me find you and then dog you. Like not letting me leave this fusty-hole-in-the-wall rattrap with its elderly caretaker that you might be married to. Stuff like that.”

  Carl silently regarded her, a dozen questions forming that he kept bottled up. He hoped she’d get to answering some of them without his prodding.

  “Look, Carl … or John … or whatever the hell your name is. I figured there was something about you that made me follow you back in town. I halfway suspected you’d hypnotized me or something.” She tipped her face up, her eyes daggers boring into his. “Only I know for certain you had nothing to do with any of that. It was … it was the ‘it,’ the whatever that jumps into my brain and decides to take a turn steering me someplace. Only this last time when ‘it’ came to visit, it got sloppy and left shit behind.”

  Carl looked away, finding her stare uncomfortable. He waited, and after a few more moments, she started up again.

  “Like a bird leaves droppings on a sidewalk, you know? It left stuff in my head. Little droppings, little pieces. Not enough so I could make sense of everything. But it left shit behind. Maybe on purpose. Maybe by accident. I think it just got sloppy. The whole thing felt so rushed, zooming into and out of my head. In any event, Carl-my-friend … well … the droppings aren’t good news.”

  “Jerrah—”

  “You see, this thing … this ‘it,’ this presence or whatever….” She sucked in a great breath and held it until Carl feared she might pass out. She released it in one ‘whoosh.’ “This thing, whatever it is … whatever you want to call it, is trying to find out if you’re human. Really human.”

  “Jerrah, that’s scary. I—”

  “Scary?” She drew in her lower lip, appearing to Carl like a petulant child. “Scared? Good word. Yeah, I think this thing is frightened of you. Scared to death.”

  “Jerrah—”

  She cut him off again with a glare.

  “Scared shitless, Carl. If it decides that you’re not human, it’s going to kill you.”

  Carl felt the color drain from his face.

  “Actually, it’s going to have me kill you.”

  Carl felt the pent-up questions dissolve.

  “Don’t ask me how I know. I don’t know … I just … I just can tell, that’s all. It made me put a knife in my pocket. See?” She pulled out one of the knives and dangled it by the handle, like it was a dead rat that offended her. She let it drop to the floor. “So the ‘it’ isn’t friendly.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Jerrah.”

  “How about tell me whether you’re human. You are human, aren’t you?”

  “Jerrah—”

  “And tell me I’m not nuts.”

  “Jerrah—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t say anything, Carl-my-friend. Just lock your bedroom door tonight. ’Cause, who knows? ‘It’ might pay me another visit.”

  He nearly offered to give her a ride into Morgantown to see if there was a Greyhound bus leaving tonight or early in the morning. He’d buy her a ticket back home. But as soon as the notion rose, he stuffed it back down. If Jerrah was nuts, she needed help, not a bus ticket. And if she wasn’t nuts, he needed to keep a close eye on her … for her sake and his.

  He headed toward his bedroom and wrapped his fingers around the knob. “I’m human, Jerrah,” he said. Though as the words tumbled out, he wondered if they were true. How could he be human and be here … looking as he did … and yet be Ellen’s husband? If he fought in World War I, like his dream suggested, and panned for gold, and worked in a circus, and escaped a witch trial in Salem, and done all the other things that felt so real … how could he have lived all those lives and be human?

  “Are you, Carl?” Jerrah asked. “Are you really human?”

  ***

  Chapter 30

  John drowned in the late forties, and Carl had been John. That made Carl effectively in his sixties, somehow having survived the plunge in the swollen river and ending up working for Harry near Milwaukee.

  But he didn’t look sixty. He looked at best half that.

  “I drowned,” he said, glancing down at his hands. For a moment he marveled at the way he accepted this new and bizarre past that had, in effect, sprung full-grown from his head. “Which means, that I’m just a few years older than Ellen.” He glanced at the corner of his bedroom, which was in the direction of the lodge. Pain and guilt welled up once more. “But she looks … old.”

  Carl thought he was being foolish, but he locked his bedroom door anyway. He turned the latch as quietly as possible. Did he want Jerrah to think he hadn’t locked it? That he trusted her and so left it open? That he wasn’t concerned about her warning that some force in her head wanted to kill him? He pressed his ear to the door, heard her running water at what passed for the kitchen sink.

  “Nuts?” he whispered. “She thinks she’s nuts. This whole thing is nuts.”

  Jerrah had called him her friend. He wasn’t being much of a friend to leave her out there, pacing, thinking, talking to the something in her head. He wondered if he should have mentioned his “foggy bolt hole,” which had allowed him to escape death at least twice … the accident with the semi and Shelly, drowning in the river w
hen he went to look at that boat. No, three times … that speeding car in town that had tried to run him down. What if Jerrah’s ‘it’ was a denizen from the fog? Was that possible? Something from his phantom realm come to track him down? Why would it want to kill him? Had he trespassed in the fog and angered it? Would it prevent him from using the bolt hole again? Would it snare him in his dreams? Or would it be exactly like Jerrah said … would it use her to kill him?

  “There is no ‘it.’”

  He slipped off his shoes and padded to the window, for whatever reason trying to be quiet. Pressing his face to the glass he looked out at the lake. It was a sheet of black satin that stretched as far as he could see, a nothingness that reflected only a piece of the moon. Craning his neck and looking up, he saw wispy clouds covering the rest of it. Only a faint scattering of stars was visible. When he’d come back from Ellen’s he thought he’d smelled rain coming. He stood there for long minutes, watching the clouds thicken and multiply. Ozone like rust in the air, even with the window shut. Lightning so close he heard air rip and sizzle for the barest instant before a crash that shook the room.

  He remembered storms from long ago that had lashed the lake, lightning—pink, green, white—just like he watched now, illuminating clouds and snapping to earth against the far shore. The lake glowed in the flickering light, beaten pewter under the rain that had started to fall. As Carl watched, a small branch sailed away from a wind-whipped tree and scuttled along the dock. He had a sudden fear for the huge willow tree beside Ellen’s house. But a part of him knew it was pliant, and that it always managed to survive. He recalled a lightning rod that he—that John Miller—had banded to the chimney.

  Carl felt around the window frame and found a hook-latch. It had been painted along with the frame and so was stuck in the “open” position. But he worried at it until he freed it. He swung it locked and tested that it held. Wouldn’t be much security, he thought. All someone had to do was break the glass to get in. Still, that would make more noise than simply opening the window, give him a little time to act.

  I’m being silly, he thought. I’m the one who’s nuts. There’s no ‘it’ visiting Jerrah and making her do things. No one was going to break into his tiny bedroom at this run-down resort at the outskirts of Morgantown.

  And yet that very possibility caused him to nudge the small nightstand in front of the door … just in case Jerrah … or ‘it’ managed to knock the door open.

  I really am nuts. Carl picked up his shoes and carried them to the bed, sat them on the floor and then edged them underneath it. He heard a soft scraping sound as he pushed them.

  “What?” He peered under the bed. “What the hell?” The bedroom light was a low-watt bulb, but it was just bright enough so he could see a knife. He pulled it out and stared at it, a thousand thoughts twisting through his mind.

  He could storm right out into the other room and confront Jerrah.

  And tell her what? That not only is she insane, she’s dangerous.

  He could grab her by the arm and take her into town, park her at the bus station and wait with her until the next ride came—and make sure she got on it. Get the nutcase a hundred miles away from him.

  He could leave.

  Maybe that was the best option. He could wait until he was certain Jerrah was asleep, and then he could tiptoe out of the cabin and drive back home, visit Shelly’s grave, tell his boss he didn’t need any more “leave” from work and that he was fit to return. Beg to return. Yeah, he should do that. Leave Morgantown and nutcase Jerrah, leave Ellen who might have been … still might be … his wife. Stop trying to ferret out his muddled, mysterious past.

  Maybe get some psychiatric help.

  A lobotomy, he wryly thought. That’d pretty much solve everything.

  He returned to the bed and sat on it, springs squeaking and mattress sagging under his weight. The bed was old, like this resort, and like he was feeling right now. He had to do something about Jerrah, didn’t he? She was like a cavity in a tooth; she wasn’t going to just go away on her own. But should he pull that particular tooth out of his life this very moment?

  Sleep on it. He grabbed the sides of his head and swung around, stretching out. Sleep on it. Sleep on it. Sleep on it, he thought. Maybe things will be better in the morning.

  Maybe Jerrah will be saner.

  Maybe he’d offer to take her to the highway so she could hitch a ride or drive her to the bus stop in town … take her anywhere so that she couldn’t come back to pester him.

  Or should he keep her close?

  His head pounded, the pain coming out of nowhere and feeling like a relentless blacksmith swinging a hammer. He closed his eyes and saw only a charcoal darkness, the light he’d failed to shut off keeping out the utter blackness. He made no move to get up and turn it off. Nor did he undress. If he managed to fall asleep, he intended to do so fully clothed.

  “Nuts. Nuts. Nuts,” he whispered.

  Soft, he heard a gentle rumble of thunder.

  Ooooh-weee-oooh oooh oooh oooh, a loon on the lake cried. Ooooh-weee-oooh.

  Rain pattered against the window.

  The rain made for good “sleeping weather,” Ellen used to say. Or had some other woman or wife in his life said that? Ellen hadn’t changed, physically. Older sure, but she was the same woman he had married. He recalled that in the winter months the cottages were left vacant, the tourists a memory, and it was only the two of them. There had been some winters he had worked as a janitor in the high school … the one he thought he’d attended in the sixties. He remembered treasuring the evenings the most, when it was just he and Ellen, reading, listening to the radio, or simply talking.

  What was real? What had been distorted? What had been displaced and blended by time?

  He listened for more thunder, instead hearing Jerrah pacing across the floorboards in the other room. The rain seemed to let up a little.

  Carl clamped his teeth tight, the pain he fostered in his jaw competing with the headache.

  How much of all of this was real? Any of it? Was he really at this run-down resort, run by someone he still might be married to? Or had he descended into some hellish madness? Had he fabricated this place and Jerrah? Was he caught in one of his fog-induced dreams and was actually back in his own bed waiting for the alarm to go off to rouse him for another day of work?

  The rain whispered against the window, and the loon called once more before falling silent. Carl continued to mull over his options while he heard Jerrah pace in the other room.

  Was she ever going to bed?

  She was too real to be a nightmare?

  Exhaustion eventually grabbed him, and he slept despite his worries and the headache. Dreams came quickly, and he embraced them, his subconscious willing them into crisper detail and pushing away the misty fog that curled around shapes and images that felt both familiar and foreign. The dreams, which once terrified him, were a welcome escape.

  ***

  Chapter 31

  In his dreams he heard someone talking in a tongue he couldn’t at first place. But Carl concentrated and picked through the accent and words, translating everything.

  The man who stood before him looked older than Carl knew him to be. He had a red-blonde drooping mustache and a funny cap, spider-web wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and liver spots on hands that he constantly wrung. His clothes were voluminous and looking like something a patron at a renaissance fair would wear. Carl looked down and saw that he was dressed in something similar, though shabbier.

  “It bends light. Do you understand, Esbiorn?”

  Esbiorn. Instantly Carl remembered the name, an Old Norse one that meant “divine bear,” and that he’d went by that name … when? How long ago? Four hundred years?

  “Yes, I understand, Master.”

  “It must be huge,” the mustachioed man stated. Carl tried to recall his name. “This structure, to bend the light from the stars.” The man padded to a tall, narrow window and leaned on the
sill. Carl/Esbiorn followed him.

  “Dark matter,” Carl/Esbiorn said. “That is its name.”

  If the other man had heard the label, he gave no indication. “You cannot see it with a telescope, so subtle it bends the light. It is colossal in scope.”

  “Two thousand times the size of this galaxy,” Carl/Esbiorn quietly supplied.

  “I have studied these stars so long and so often they are imprinted on my very eyes,” Tycho said. That was his name—Tycho. “And this shape, this—”

  “Dark matter.” Otherspace.

  “Is a structure that you can only see by realizing how it distorts the starlight. I study the stars and their light, how it stretches … and how it bends around that colossal mass. The mass is the largest, where the greatest distortions are. Do you understand?”

  Tycho was far ahead of his time, but Carl/Esbiorn was somehow much farther beyond this man that he was apprenticed under.

  “This matter must have gravity,” Tycho went on. “And that gravity changes the path of the light shed by the stars. So while the stars themselves are not affected by the structure, the images of the stars appear imprecise to us here … if you know how to look. Most astronomers would not notice this distortion.”

  “But you are not most astronomers, Tycho,” Carl/Esbiorn said. He pronounced it Ty-go and spoke in a Danish accent only slightly less thick than his master’s. “You are a genius.”

  Tycho dismissed the compliment with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Gravity, that mutual attraction of everything for everything. Could we only know the temperatures, dear Esbiorn, of the gas between the stars, we would know how much gravity is squeezing this … dark matter. And we would thereby know just how much of the matter there is in space. I would like to know that, Esbiorn, how much of it there is, exactly what it is. But I fear that will elude me in my lifetime.”

  The Dane nobleman Tycho Brahe lived in the mid to late 1500s and was recognized in his lifetime for his astronomical and alchemical work. Carl wondered how he’d become the man’s apprentice.