by A. D. Folmer
I was about to respond when a psychic cheese wasp landed on my sandwich and tried to eat it.
“Oh shit, they found another way out of the attic,” Fiona said. “Will you help me?”
“Sure,” I said. I felt a tiny bit of resistance as I fought for my sandwich, but the shade of an alien wasp was no match for me.
Steve and Cassandra followed us up to the attic while Earl remained downstairs.
“What is that?” Cassandra asked. I tried to explain without implicating myself. She still wasn’t satisfied by the time we reached the attic, but at that point it didn’t matter. There was a swarm of them now, and they headed for me as soon as the door opened.
“Why didn’t they show up the last time I was here?” I asked. I reminded myself that they were harmless and tried to resist swatting them. My resolve failed when one landed on my face. I screamed and ducked. To my relief, the cheese wasp flew away. I shielded my face with my arm to keep it from happening again.
“I tried putting up wards to keep them contained,” Fiona said. “It didn’t work for long.”
“We’d better get to work then,” The cries for cheese were a roar in my head. I could understand why the townspeople were afraid of these things.
Once she realized how much work we were going to do, Cassandra went back downstairs. Steve picked up a spatula and helped us chip away the plaster. Whenever we unearthed a body, I laid a shade to rest, and we burned the corpse. Eventually, the attic was clear of both plaster and psychic cheese wasps. Steve wiped his forehead. It left a smear. He was covered in so much plaster dust his hair looked as white as mine.
“What a mess,” he said. “I think we finally got them all.”
“I hope so,” Fiona said. “No offense, Jaspar, but from now on I’m not letting necromancers into my attic.”
“Oh no,” I said, clutching my chest. Plaster dust puffed away in a cloud. “I’m heartbroken.” Steve snorted.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“No,” I admitted. “In the last week I’ve been exposed to far more crypto-biology than I’m comfortable with.”
“You can still visit my kitchen,” Fiona said. How generous of her. “I think Gregory likes you.”
***
Back downstairs, Cassandra and Earl were having an argument. Whatever it was about, they stopped talking when they saw us. As I descended the stairs, Gregory scuttled from behind Earl and climbed on to my shoe.
“There you go,” Earl said. “He’s smart enough.”
“Please. Every time he begs Jaspar feeds him.” Sparks emerged from my jacket to stare at Gregory. The squid stared up at me and turned bright red. Then he started climbing my leg.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“That land squid is incredible,” Cassandra said. “I was just telling Earl that he’d make a great subject for a nature documentary.”
“That wasn’t the only thing you said,” Earl shot back. Gregory was trying to squirm into the pocket Sparks had vacated. I was glad my coat was oversized. He was a lot wigglier than the specter.
“I’m leaving soon,” I told him, “so don’t get too comfortable in there.”
Cassandra was scowling at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Are you always good with animals?”
“No, just aliens. So what do we do now?” I was addressing everyone, but Cassandra was the one who answered.
“I need to get one of those maps and recheck my readings. When I get the machine assembled, we can go to Bishop’s Corner and find out what happened to the first group.”
“You mean a team like the one that vanished?” Fiona asked. “What makes you think your machine will work better a second time?”
“This time I’ll have it working,” Cassandra said, “and we’ll go in daylight.”
“Daylight doesn’t make that place safer,” I warned her. “I almost got stabbed there right before lunch.”
“You’ve been there?” She said. “Then you can be on my team.”
“Oh no,” I told her. “I don’t meddle with the occult for free.”
“How is your machine going to help if it only detects magic rocks?” Steve asked.
“I’ll figure that out once I get the readings,” she said.
“These aren’t the kind of things you can confront and walk away from,” Fiona said. “The people who were killed in that video were also on a fact-finding mission.”
“And one of them got away to post the video,” Cassandra said.
“Very few people are willing to join a group with a seventy-five percent fatality rate,” I pointed out. “I’m not one of those people.” Cassandra glared at me.
“Why not? With power comes responsibility, you should feel responsible enough to help me. Or are you a fake psychic?” I noticed she didn’t say I had great power.
“You aren’t exactly tugging at my heartstrings,” I said. “And I notice you aren’t trying to guilt the police officer or the wizard into wandering into the woods.” I turned to Steve. “Could you take me back to the hotel?”
“Sure.”
***
Jeremiah was back at the front desk when I arrived. I was tired, dirty, and hungry, but he wanted to talk.
“Did you find anything new?” He asked.
“Yes, we think we found the key, and a bunch of fancy car parts.”
“Does this mean more people are going to be walking across my land?”
“I guess,” I said. “I think Steve would ask first, but I’m not so sure about the psychic rock researcher.” He frowned.
“That’s all I needed to know,” he said after a moment. “Do you have plans this evening?”
“I was going to eat at the diner then go to bed.”
“Would you consider eating here instead? My brother is coming over, and he wants to meet you.”
“He’s the mayor, right?”
“Yes. He also owns the self-service laundry.”
“Do you know why he wants to meet me?”
“I assume it has something to do with either the chupacabras or the tunnel,” Jeremiah said. “If it makes you feel any better, he might be the most normal member of our family.”
It’s hard to judge the age of a Whateley, but I would not have guessed that Mordecai and Jeremiah were brothers. Mordecai seemed much younger, but not quite as young as Zebulon Akeley, who was also at dinner.
“Pleased to meet you,” Mordecai said when we were introduced. He was wearing a turtleneck and a flannel shirt. I could now understand why Fiona compared him to his cousin rather than his brother. Not only was his hair closer in length to Zebulon’s, he’d bleached it and let it grow out so that several inches of dark roots were showing. He was easily the most disreputable looking Whateley I’d met so far. I momentarily wondered how he’d been elected mayor before I remembered that his opponent had been Abner Whateley, the most despised man in town.
“Pleased to meet you too,” I said. His mouth twitched into a smile when he looked at me.
“It’s nice to see Obadiah’s clothes being put to good use,” he said.
“What can I say? I’ve always wanted to dress like a pirate captain.”
“Never mind all that, let’s eat,” Mrs. Whateley said.
“Yeah, it smells great,” Zebulon said. “Hey, Jaspar.”
“Hey, yourself.”
“I heard about today,” he went on. “And last night. Someone’s really got it in for you, so why haven’t you left town?”
“They’re harassing me because of Steve,” I told him. “Once he gets his problems sorted out I’ll be in the clear. He seems to think he needs me around for that.”
“It’s causing a stir at school,” Theresa said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve had so many cultists around.”
“No,” Mordecai corrected her, “they’re always around; we just haven’t employed frontier justice on them before.”
“Earl’s really getting a ki
ck out of this isn’t he?” Zebulon said.
“He does seem more cheerful than he was a week ago,” Mrs. Whateley said.
“Yes, it turns out that no one contacted the FBI after all. With no one but the sheriff to reign him in he’s been getting excitable.” Mordecai frowned at his plate. “At some point one of these fools is going to have a family that still cares enough to come looking for them.”
It occurred to me that normal is very relative. Mordecai was too cavalier about the body count for my tastes.
“What are you going to do when that happens?” I asked. He sighed.
“It’s not like things could get worse for us,” he said. “I know some people are worried about tourism, but we’ve already got hundreds of tourists. I suppose state or federal law enforcement could get involved. They’ve already had their chance, and we’ve had no response. What I’m worried about right now is the reenactment.”
“What about it?” Jeremiah asked.
“It’s very close to Bishop’s Corner.”
“That’s the whole point.”
“I know. It just seems like a bad time.”
“We can’t change the time,” Mrs. Whateley said. “It’s a tradition for a reason.” I wondered what that reason might be. I didn’t ask. I was learning that indifference was the safest path to take in this town.
“We need to find that tunnel and make sure it’s sealed before the reenactment,” Mordecai said. I sighed.
“I know where it is.”
“And that would be why people are after you,” Zebulon said. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“I got the location from a ghost. That usually doesn’t go over well.”
“We’re different here,” Mordecai said. “Is it sealed up?”
“I’m not sure about that part. We found the key today.”
“So you have it?”
“No,” Mordecai muttered something under his breath.
“You weren’t going to go out there alone at night anyway,” Jeremiah said sharply.
“I wasn’t going to go alone,” Mordecai protested.
“You’re not taking Zebulon or Mr. Windisle out there either,” Mrs. Whateley said. “You don’t know what’s in there. It could be more of those vegetable monsters.”
“Radish monsters,” Theresa corrected her mother.
“It could be the source of the chupacabras,” Mordecai agreed, “and it’s too close to Bishop’s Corner to be left alone.”
“Then why don’t you go tomorrow?” Jeremiah suggested. “Everyone will be putting the wall together, so there will be lots of people around to help.”
“That’s a good idea,” Zebulon said. “Earl’s going to be there anyway, and so will Fiona and Cici.”
“Will you show us the entrance, Mr. Windisle?” Mordecai asked. I was tempted to say no. I had no evidence he was any better than the cultists, or that these identical cousins weren’t part of a cult of their own, for that matter. He was the mayor, however. Presumably that meant a majority of the people in this town trusted him at least as far as they could throw him. It was their town, and I was sick of being followed. Maybe if everyone knew where the secret tunnel was, I could go back to being ignored.
“Sure,” I said.
Before calling it a day I had one more thing to do. According to the directory in my room, there was a library somewhere in this hotel, and I had some things to look up. I wasn’t sure if they would have a book on local geology, but surely they had a dictionary. I wanted to know what the Interstitial Institute of Cryptogeography was all about.
The library wasn’t on the first floor; it was in the basement. The basement stairs weren’t as well maintained as the rest of the hotel. The Whateleys hadn’t bothered replacing this section of the carpet when they’d remodeled. The old carpet was a paisley pattern in harvest gold and orange. I could see why they’d replaced it in the rest of the hotel. It wasn’t worn, so even the Whateleys didn’t go into the basement very often. I considered just asking one of them for a dictionary but dismissed the idea. They hadn’t given any indication that any of the rooms in the hotel were dangerous.
The stairs ended in a short hallway dimly lit by gas lamps. All the doors were closed, and none of them were labeled. The first door I tried wasn’t locked. The hinges creaked when I opened it. I stepped inside and felt along the wall for the light switch. My hand brushed against something hard and spiny. I pulled away and tried again. The switch was lower on the wall than I had expected. I turned on the light and looked at what I’d touched in the dark.
I had to smother a scream, and I stumbled back into the hallway. I’d found the room where Great-Grandpa Whateley’s trophies were stored. The old man had definitely gone after exotic game. There wasn’t a single skull I recognized the shape of. The thing I’d put my hand on was a mass of spiny protrusions, one giant eye socket, and four twisted tusks. The other trophies weren’t better. Across the room, seeming to stare at me through the door frame was a giant skull with three eye sockets and massive fangs. I gathered my courage and stepped back into the room. There were heads that seemed to be just balls of antlers, fish heads with spider fangs, and bony masses I couldn’t begin to describe. There was no furniture in the room; just row after row of skulls mounted on the walls.
I was so absorbed by horrified fascination that I almost missed the flicker of light behind me. I turned and saw the shade of the Cyclops skull materializing. I slammed it back into its skull and sprinted out of the room, and didn’t stop running until I was back in the lobby. The library could wait for another day.
***
Of course, Jeremiah found out what had happened. I’d left the light on after all.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said the next morning at breakfast. He brought me extra waffles, I assume as an apology. “I know Great-Grandfather’s trophies are unusual, but sometimes I forget how unsettling they are to people who didn’t grow up with them. I’ll lock the door.”
“No, Fiona warned me that they were around here somewhere,” I said. “Tell me; is there a library down there?” Jeremiah raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, it’s the door after the trophy room.” So much for pretending I hadn’t been rattled. “There’s also a smoking room down there at the end of the hall. You’re no longer permitted to smoke in there, but it does have some nice chairs if you get tired of reading in the lounge.”
“No, I don’t like being underground,” I said absently. “What’s on the other side of the hallway?”
“The boiler room and the laundry,” he said. He handed me hot chocolate with marshmallows. “What did you want in the library?”
“A dictionary,” I said. “There are some things I want to look up.”
“I can have it brought up to the lobby,” Jeremiah offered.
“No,” I protested. “I can handle going into the basement.” I hesitated. “As long as there aren’t any more skulls down there.”
“No, the trophy room is the only one in the hotel with skulls in it. I guarantee it.”
I still decided to get the dictionary some other time. I decided to bundle up and check out the construction before Mordecai showed up to drag me across the marsh.
Chapter 15: So that’s what cyclopean means
There was quite a turnout for the building of the wall of Jericho. Fiona and Mrs. Whateley had set out tables behind the hotel and covered them with baked goods. There was plenty of coffee, tea, and cider. I took the coffee. Gregory was sitting in the middle of the fruit selection disguised as an extra-large strawberry.
“You’re not fooling anybody,” I told him. He turned yellow and stretched himself out.
“No.” He shrank and inflated, turning dark purple as he did so.
“Cut that out,” Fiona said. “And get away from there. Those are for everybody, not just you.”
“Why did you bring him?” I asked her. She leaned towards me.
“I don’t, usually, but I didn’t like the way that professor
was looking at him. I’m keeping him close until I get a chance to upgrade my security.”
“Good morning Mr. Windisle,” Pastor MacReady said. “Are you here to help out?”
“He’s working on another project,” Fiona said.
“If I’m back in time I will,” I promised. I looked at the pile of materials and the flags marking out where the wall would be. “Is this really going to take only one day to build?”
“We tell ourselves that every year,” the pastor said. “Every year we’re wrong, but I think we can get the frame up today. After that, we’ve got a whole week until the reenactment itself. If the weather isn’t too bad, we’ll finish in plenty of time.”
Steve and Mordecai showed up at almost the same time. Earl and Zebulon arrived shortly afterward.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Steve. He nodded.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve gone after a magical site like this,” he reminded me.
When Cecilia arrived, we were ready to go. She was wearing a thick jacket and carrying a backpack.
“Are we ready?” She asked. We all answered in the affirmative.
“Has everyone got a lunch? And water, a flashlight, and extra batteries?”
“Take some food,” Fiona urged us. “We’ve got plenty, and you don’t know how long you’ll be gone.” I complied. Sparks didn’t like it and moved from my pocket to my collar.
“Has everyone gone to the bathroom?” Cecilia asked when we were finished.
“Cici!” Zebulon snapped. “We’re not children!”
“Well, I don’t want to have to come back early,” she said.
“We’re fine,” Earl said.
“And you’ll be fine here?” Cecilia asked Fiona. Fiona nodded.
“I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Great! See you later!”
***
If anything it had gotten colder and more miserable since the last time I’d been in the marsh. Everyone except Cecilia had sunk into the mud by the time we got to the hill.
“It’s at the bottom,” I told them. Earl seemed to hesitate.
“Will we have to go into the woods?” He asked.
“You can’t,” Mordecai said flatly, starting down the hill. “You can try, but it’s not possible. So the tunnel entrance must be in the clearing somewhere.”