A Season In Carcosa

by Sr. (Editor) Joseph S. Pulver

  Which ever was, shall ever be

  The fate of kings whose samite masks

  Veil little more than entropy

  Incarnate in the blood. Unasked,

  They ruled by runes they dared not name

  Until a jaundiced phantom tasked

  Their line with sorcery. That shame

  They tasted once as mortals fled

  Before a greater Sign which came

  Eclipsing foes like twin suns bled

  To ash behind their moons. Unslaked

  By any wine save life, it fed

  Until Carcosa’s towers quaked

  & shattered past redemption. Dust

  Engulfed the stars as shadows waked

  In Demhe’s clouded depths, & rust

  Of aeons claimed that coronet

  Once called the Hyades. Upthrust

  Against the void, things men forget

  In waking out of nightmare cried

  With one dark voice – Hastur! – & yet

  A tattered wind alone replied

  In threnodies through bones which keep

  Bleak vigil where Cassilda died

  Beneath those snows still drifting deep,

  Along a shore where cloud-waves creep

  Into their sorceries of sleep.

  Yellow Bird Strings

  By Cate Gardner

  The yellow-haired girl kicked her heels against a blue fence waiting for friends to stage-manage her afternoon. Bird’s trained eye noted the strings wound about her wrists. Their snail trail led back towards the house where the mother puppeteer waited to yank the child back inside. A yellow door opened behind the girl. Bird froze. The door stood halfway along the garden path and the light that emanated from it was sepia, making the world seem like an old faded photograph. Unperturbed, the girl skipped along the path and in through the doorway. The door slammed shut and faded until only a trace of yellow swirled about the garden. Tiles dropped from the roof of the house positioned behind the now-vanished door.

  The house’s actual door was pillar-box red. It opened. A woman exited, wiping her hands on a tea towel. The mother puppeteer. “Emily, it’s time for tea. Emily. Emily.”

  The mother’s cry followed Bird along the road, growing agitated, fearful. You’re going mad, old man. Doors neither appeared nor disappeared and children only skipped through to imaginary places on television.

  A hunched shuffle replaced the elegant dance of the puppeteer and wrists that once manipulated now burned with pain. Bird’s shoulders ached from the weight of the plastic bags he carried. Although the bags contained only clothes, costume jewellery and broken string, they weighed heavy as if filled with Vivian’s bones, muscles and fat. The handles cut into his palms. Vivian accompanied him wherever he went; strapped to his back, dancing from his wrists, howling like the wind in his ears.

  His lips tasted of hers.

  His skin reeked of her sweat and perfume.

  Sometimes, Bird thought Vivian a figment of his imagination or a forgotten doll, a life-sized replica of a person. He frowned. That final thought accused. The loss of things both manufactured and living carved emptiness in his gut. Pain stabbed at his chest, causing him to double over. The bags dragged against the pavement. Home seemed an endless hike away, and yet, he stood at his gate, a yellow sky framing its grey slate roof, its pale bricks and the puppet who danced at the attic window.

  Bird blinked. In the snapshot moment between his eyes closing and reopening, the attic window emptied. He’d imagined the puppet. Imagined its face pressed against dusty glass, its mouth forming an O. It hadn’t danced away at the sight of him. They couldn’t dance without him.

  He lugged the bags to the front door. The right had split open and left a trail of red and green tights on the front path. Stop. Go. Bird slammed the door behind him, causing the house to shiver. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in her things, in plastic until the want for breath burned in his chest and he rolled onto his back. Above him, a fly caught in a spider’s web tugged against its prison. Bird turned onto his side, pressed his hand to the floorboards and stood. The house creaked about him, shivering at his monstrous steps.

  The mantelpiece clock ticked towards evening. Tired eyes reflected in the shine of his television awards. He’d been someone once. His hand slapped out to knock the awards from the mantelpiece, then stopped and clenched into a fist. Fingernails bit into palms. He shuffled to his favourite chair and switched on the television. Its images reminded him of all he’d lost. A game show blazed with a rainbow of psychedelic colours, painting swathes of light across his walls.

  “Win the life of your dreams,” Dirk Almond, the presenter, offered the viewing audience a bleached smile. “Behind one of these doors is everything you’ve ever wanted. But behind one lurks…”

  Dirk pointed at the audience, who shouted in reply, “The Eliminator.”

  Canned laughter hissed from the speakers. Bird jabbed at the remote, but the television wouldn’t change channels. There were new batteries in the cabinet, but that would require standing and besides, the television itself was closer. He could just switch it off.

  He didn’t. He ruminated until he dozed, closing his eyes against the chaos on screen, and the false anticipation of an opening door.

  Bird awoke with a start. His arms hung suspended above his head. Pain coursed across his shoulder blade. Bringing his arms down, Bird rubbed his wrists. It felt as if something still gripped him there, and yet, his skin showed no signs of restraints. He looked about him and noted something curious, something wrong with the wall.

  A dark outline pressed against the cream wallpaper, causing the pattern of yellow squiggles to elongate and spread. Vivian had objected to his use of the word squiggle, said the marks were a sign of some sort. They meant something to her. Bird stood and peered at the anomaly, tracing his fingers across the wall. There was something underneath the wallpaper. His fingernails dug into the paper until a section tore free. The house settled about him, both of them holding their breath.

  If Vivian were here, she’d scream against his vandalism, arms and legs kicking out, her strings wrapping about his wrists, pulling him away. The torn wallpaper revealed a doorknob and a section of door. He recalled the child, Emily, disappearing behind a yellow door. Coincidence or precognition?

  “It must be a secret room,” Bird said, certain his house was large enough to conceal a room.

  If Vivian were here, she’d be thrilled. Although… Bird scratched his head. Why had Vivian papered over the door?

  When the studio bosses had cancelled his television show, Bird had smashed a half-dozen of his puppets. Threw them against walls, stomped on their brittle necks, hurled them at Vivian. Perhaps, unable to throw away the broken puppets, she’d gathered their pieces and buried them in this room and he, in his whiskey stupor, had forgotten it existed. The doorknob half-turned and then caught against the lock. He needed something to jimmy it open.

  He tried to unlock the door with the bent tine of a fork, several old keys, and one of Vivian’s hairpins. Unhappy to settle with this failure, he attempted to open the door with brute strength, pulling and tugging at both the doorknob and the edges of the door. The effort left him breathless. Bird pressed his forehead to the yellowed wood. Sometimes the past should remain unearthed.

  To his left, the front door’s letterbox flapped open and something dropped through. A book. Grateful for the distraction, Bird shuffled to pick up the book, hitching his trousers as the waistband slipped over his hips. The King in Yellow. The book’s pages were as yellow as the title and smelled of damp. Something creaked behind him. Sounded like an opening door. Hairs bristled on the back of his neck. His insides trembled. He stopped, hands holding onto trousers that had been snug the day before and turned. The yellow door remained shut. Of course it did. His stomach growled, offering its own opinion. He placed the book on top of the television.

  With a microwave meal of sausages, onion gravy and mash balanced on his l
ap, Bird sat in front of the television. He must have slept through a day for the programming had moved from an evening game show to a children’s puppet show. Mash slid off his fork and landed on his belly. A puppet wearing a dirty yellow suit and a tarnished gold crown pressed its nose to the screen. Having captured Bird’s attention, the puppet danced back and offered a high-pitched laugh. Bird pressed the remote’s off button. Again, the television refused to switch off.

  The producers and director had told Bird puppet shows were last century. The kids wanted computer animation and celebrities, they said. They’d offered him numerous reality show parts. Well, they’d offered them to him and his ‘creepier’ (their words) puppets. Vivian went to auditions for shows about cookery, mud wrestling and a week on an active volcanic island. Bird shovelled half a sausage into his mouth; it proved more gristle than meat. Perhaps Vivian had left him to travel from show to show. If he flicked through the channels, he might see her, thin nose pressed against the screen, ready smile, lightning flash of anger.

  Bird leaned forward in his chair, his t-shirt soaking up gravy. She’d worn a purple dress to the audition; a purple dress, an orchid in her hair and several layers of make up, but when she’d returned only the dress remained intact, the make-up washed away by a tidal wave of tears, charcoal hints smeared on her ruddy cheeks. They’d told her she was nothing without Bird. Turned out he was nothing without her.

  Letting his meal drop to the floor, Bird stood. He pulled at the uncovered door until his shoulders burned and his wrists ached. Standing slumped against the door, he noticed that the wallpaper on the opposite wall looked uneven. On tearing the paper, he found another door.

  As this was a party wall, the door would lead into his neighbour’s house. Bird pressed his ear to the door and then his eye to the keyhole, but could neither see nor hear the family who lived next door. He understood Vivian would have papered over this door for privacy but it didn’t explain why he couldn’t remember these extra doors.

  From the bay window, he inspected the supposed dividing line between the houses and wondered if a corridor ran between them. A secret corridor populated by puppet children who hid from their puppeteer. Across the street, the girl who had vanished through the yellow door, Emily, now stood against a white fence. In place of her previous jeans and t-shirt, she wore a red-checked dress. Emily looked towards Bird’s house and, despite the fact net curtains covered his windows, looked at Bird in particular; her gaze porcelain smooth, expressionless.

  The ceiling creaked causing Bird to break his gaze. The trapped fly continued to struggle within the web. On the television, the puppet bemoaned, “There’s no one to play with. Oh wait, yes there is. Here comes a jolly fellow for me to mess with.”

  Bird moved away from the window and switched off the television. The book dropped to the floor. He scooped it up and threw it amongst Vivian’s neglected things. After cleaning up his spilled meal and wiping gravy and mash from his t-shirt, Bird settled into his chair. Tomorrow, he’d phone a decorator and have them paper over the doors. He didn’t want to know what hid behind them. As Bird began to snore, the television switched on and static filled the room.

  Bird woke to the blare of the television. He fumbled about him for the remote and found it jammed beneath his thigh. The game show was on again, probably on some channel’s never-ending loop, and an eager participant stood before a yellow door. The contestant and the announcer waited for Bird to fully wake and only when he was on the edge of his seat, breath caught in his throat, did the presenter offer the camera a bow and the show cut to an ad break.

  Rubbing his belly, Bird stood. The book he was sure he’d thrown amongst Vivian’s things fell from his lap. His trousers followed, dropping to his ankles revealing bone-thin thighs covered in loose skin. He kicked the trousers aside and walked some life back into his stiff bones. Didn’t matter if he only wore a dirty t-shirt and greying boxer shorts because there was no one to see him, and it may deter prying eyes. Looking through the net curtains, he saw Emily had moved on, and in her place, a puppet leaned against the picket fence. A puppet in a tattered yellow suit, a gold crown jammed on its head. The puppet stood. Bird did the opposite. His knees cracked against the floorboards.

  At first, Bird thought Emily hid behind the fence, manipulating the doll. She’d have seen some of his old shows on television, they repeated everything these days, and she thought to give him a laugh or a scare, perhaps both. Then, the puppet stepped from the pavement, crossed the road and opened Bird’s gate. The child could not manipulate a doll that far. Even, he’d struggle. The puppet’s shadow lengthened, stretching until it eclipsed Bird. The tarnished gold crown rapped against the window.

  “I’ll not let you in,” Bird said.

  A wicked game. The yellow door beside the mantelpiece yawned open, the space behind a sepia-yellow. It would have opened from the vibration of the rap of a gold crown against glass, Bird hoped. He chewed his lip, looking from door to puppet until he was dizzy with it all. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Bird blinked. The rap of the gold crown ceased, the puppet vanished or hid. The yellow door remained open.

  Despite his earlier fight to open the door, Bird kicked it shut. It teased, swinging forward an inch before slamming against the frame. The house creaked about him, offering a myriad of wooden footsteps. Puppet children. Bird licked his lips. His mouth was cotton dry.

  ‘You’ll never be alone,’ Vivian had said. Then she’d left.

  A bath, a night’s sleep and the world would right itself. Steam filled the bathroom, seeping out onto the landing. The bathroom door was white, there were no other doors hidden behind the tiles or the shower curtain. Although alone in the house, Bird twisted the key in the bathroom lock. He understood the story-telling world. He knew an unlocked door was an invitation to unwanted things.

  Lying in the bath, the water still, he recalled Vivian dangling from the shower curtain pole. Her strings tied to the showerhead, waiting for their games to commence.

  How easily she’d let him play her. At first, he’d thought it her game, a way to persuade him to apply for one of those celebrity shows, but then she’d stopped mentioning them at all. Bird emptied a sponge full of water above his face.

  ‘My arms ache,’ she’d said.

  No wonder she left him. Sobs tore through Bird. He drew his knees to his chest and rocked. He must have stayed in the bath some time for when he emerged gooseflesh peppered his skin. He dried himself off and removed a suit and t-shirt from the chest of drawers in the bedroom. The clothes were from his performing days. He’d never expected to fit in them again.

  The mahogany wardrobe threw shadows across the wallpaper, the same paper as that on the living room walls with its dizzying invasion of yellow squiggles. Bird lay on the bed. He’d never sleep for the wardrobe’s hulking shadow. A book sat on the bedside table, Vivian’s, with ‘The King in Yellow’ marked on the spine. He picked up the book and hurled it at the wardrobe, as if to encourage its retreat. He waited for the ceiling to creak, for something to move in the roof space or in the walls, but the house lay silent. Too silent. No settling of floorboards, no cars passing outside, no puppet rapping at his window. The wardrobe’s shadow pressed against him.

  Bird climbed from the bed. The shadow followed him, curving with his movements. Pushing his shoulder against the wardrobe’s hollow weight, Bird encouraged the wardrobe from the wall. It caught against carpet, ripping through the thin pile. Bird kept on shoving until he revealed the wall behind it and the door inset into said wall. He pressed his hand to his chest.

  “I remember where you go,” he said.

  To the attic. He recalled standing outside his house a day or two ago, or according to the weight he had lost since then, a year, and the puppet that had pressed her face to the window.

  “There’s no one up there. You’re not up there.”

  The stillness waited for Bird’s next move. Vivian couldn’t be up there. He wasn’t that sort of man.

 
Carpet concertinaed about the wardrobe’s base, trapping it in position. His hand curled about the doorknob but didn’t turn it. Instead, Bird closed the bedroom door and considered wallpapering over it. Hiding the room until he forgot it existed.

  Yellow sunlight poured into the living room. The houses surrounding his appeared to be crumbling beneath the aged light--as if he’d lain in bed a hundred years. The yellow doors stood ajar. Static poured from the television. The mantelpiece clock stuttered. Time stuck at three thirty-five. Was the yellow light emitting from the doorways? He crossed over a door’s shadow. Something tapped against the window. He refused to check if it was wooden or golden, puppet or crown.

  As he stood in the doorway, the light pressed against him, clamping about his wrists, neck and ankles. Bird pushed against it, his puppeteer hands bone thin, dry yellow skin, black veins. Falling back and out of its pressure, Bird approached the first door from behind. It refused to close. He pressed his shoulder against it, his feet losing traction. With a grunt, he threw his now-slight weight against the door. It swung shut with leisurely grace. The game show host roared onto the television screen replacing the previous static. Yellow face, torn yellow suit, caught in the moment, pearl white teeth and black lips forming an artificial smile. The picture stuttered but remained the same.

  The other door slammed shut of its own accord. The clock hands spun around. On screen, Dirk Almond shouted, “Here’s Vivian.”

  Only she wasn’t here at all.

  On screen, a girl squealed and clapped her hands, performing a weird dance before the as yet unopened door. The girl’s only similarity to Vivian was that she played Dirk Almond’s puppet. Did the silly girl really think she’d find the life of her dreams behind a door on a television show? He expected to find nightmare.

  Upstairs, something thudded against one of the locked doors. A headache circled Bird’s temple, like a vice tightening about his skull. Another door pressed against the wallpaper, breaking through without his help. Breath caught in Bird’s chest. An insistent rap at the window shuddered through him. Emily and the Puppet King peered in.