Encounters with Enoch Coffin

by W. H. Pugmire

  “I am the voice of wind and rain through leaves that move beneath one black abyss. The limbs of trees bend to my song and shape themselves with new design, forming sigils to the haunted sky in which I originate. I taste the husks of mutant trees that are rooted in the tainted soil, and I whisper within the sigils that have been etched into that shell of wood, the Logos that awakened me as mortal pleas. I am the voice of tempest spilled from depths of black abyss. Awakened, I sing so as to arouse that which is Elder than my immortal self.”

  Outside the small house, the rain stopped and all was still except for an occasional chattering of night birds. Enoch stepped down the ladder stairs so as to bid his host goodnight, but the lower regions of the abode were vacant of inhabitant. Shrugging to himself, the artist climbed back up the steps and undressed. The bed was comfortable and its blankets kept him warm in the cool room. He was almost asleep when he thought he heard movement within the room and imagined warm breath on his handsome face. Strangely, Enoch did not dream as was his wont, and it seemed that very little time had passed before he awakened to the smells of breakfast food from below. Slipping into shirt and trousers, he stepped barefoot to the lower room and saw movement in the small kitchenette at back. Xavier smiled as Enoch entered the place and skillfully placed eggs, sunny side up, onto two slices of soda bread that sat on a plate next to sausage and bacon.

  “Mother got used to soda bread during her months in Ireland, when she went back to attend some family burial. I’ve changed the recipe a wee bit by usin’ buttermilk instead of stout. Help yourself to fresh coffee and we’ll eat in the front there.”

  Enoch poured himself a cup of coffee, which he drank black with heaps of sugar, and accepted the plate of food offered him. Walking into the main room, he fell into a comfortable chair and placed his plate on the small stand beside it, then cursed when he saw that he had forgotten eating utensils. Xavier joined him in the room and set a fork onto the artist’s plate, and then he sat at a small table, moving away a bunch of books to make room for his dish. The dog lay before the hearth, its paws next to a food bowl.

  “It’s kind of incredible.”

  Enoch looked at the poet. “What’s that?”

  “That Rick would send you here to – what? – get a handle on me and have me collaborate with your illustrations for the book. You don’t find it insultin’?”

  “Not at all.”

  The boy shrugged. “Art is personal, right? Individual. My things come from these weird places inside me. But your stuff will be your interpretation of my stuff, you know, triggered by the pictures it puts inside your noggin. I don’t want to explain my stuff to you – I want you to find the parts of it that I don’t see so clearly. When I write, it’s like I go into a trance and become somethin’… someone else. Sometimes I’ll read over a thing and say, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ It’s like seein’ a photo of yourself for the first time, when before all you knew was your reflection in the mirror. You’re all different and you don’t even recognize yourself.”

  Enoch laughed. “Well, Richard wants your first hardcover edition to be rather special, limited though the edition will be. He produces beautiful books. I have those weird places inside me, too, and thus I know their feeling and can reproduce them with my art. The outré is my forte, Mr. Aboth.”

  The poet cringed. “I hate being called that. Xavier, please. Well, I don’t really know what you and Rick are expectin’ of me, cos I don’t know fuck-all about art technique and all of that. How is this gonna work?”

  “All right, here’s what’s expected. We have been brought together because we are alchemists, as is our publisher. Our art is predicated…”

  The poet frowned.

  “It’s established on a foundation of love for arcane things and our knack for evoking mysteries beyond corporeal time and space.”

  “I’m gonna let you down if that’s what you think. I’m not ashamed of my witch-blood and all, but it doesn’t guide the way I live.”

  Enoch finished the food and set his plate down roughly. “How can you say that when you’ve written the prose you have? Your language is skilled and gorgeous, and it sings of alchemy.”

  “But that ain’t me – or, it’s a part of me and a part of somethin’ else, my Muse. It’s the thing I conjure when I put my mind to workin’.”

  “And where does it come from, this something else, if not from a place inside you?”

  “Nah, it’s the part of me that leaves and joins the others in that secret place, and they dance with me and make me dream, and then I’m still kinda dreamin’ when I sit up there and scratch my words out. It’s ritual, sure.”

  “And where do you go, when you ‘leave’ and mingle with these others?”

  Xavier turned to gaze out the window. “To the hills, and under them, to the secret places that we know in Dunwich.” Enoch watched as the boy’s eyes began to darken. “And they sing to us, as our mammies sang when we were babes. We hear them there, beneath the hills and in the clouds. We smell them atop the rounded summits among the standing stones and skulls. The storm is their kiss, with which they claim us.” The poet sat dead still for some few moments, and then he blinked and smiled. “I can show you, if you like. You’ll need to draw the hills for the book, they’re important. Bishop Mountain is real close.”

  Without finishing his breakfast, the boy stood up and snatched a shoulder bag from a peg on the wall by the front door, and then he opened the door and vacated the house as Spider trotted behind him. Cursing, Enoch rushed up the stepway and got into socks and shoes, and then he joined the poet outside. The boy led Enoch toward a hill that rose behind the house, and as they walked toward the back area Enoch noticed three low mounds in the ground, two of which were topped by boulders on which curious symbols had been etched.

  “That’s Mother, and that’s Grandpa,” Xavier said as he pointed to the two graves.

  “And the other?”

  The lad shrugged. “Just some body we found atop Sentinel Hill. Didn’t feel right to leave him up there, with his hide all melted onto his bones and all, so I brought him down here and gave him ceremony. Felt right. People go up there to open the Gate without really knowin’ what the hell they’re aimin’ at. Usually they just get scared and scat, but this un had a bit of success. That was a noisy night,” he concluded, laughing. He pointed to the hill. “It’s a bit of a trek, but it feels good climbin’ up there, and the view is mighty nice. Let’s go. You comin’, Spider? He doesn’t always like to join. Dogs are super sensitive.” Enoch watched the beast tilt its head at them and watch as they moved toward the hill, and then it walked in a circle and settled on the ground, its head on its paws.

  They walked toward the hill and began to ascend it, wandering into its growth of woodland. Xavier’s stride was steady and rather jaunty, and this walk was obviously a favorite activity. Enoch glanced at his wristwatch now and then, and after a forty-minute hike they were out of the woods and approaching the apex of the hill. They followed a footpath that led them to the place where standing stones formed a circle.

  “Come on to the other side, you can see better there. Watch your step, there’s a bunch of stones that’s easy to stumble over, and some of their edges are kinda sharp. There, that’s the Devil’s Hop Yard that we passed, and there’s my place. It used to be where the Seth Bishop house stood, that was destroyed during the Horror, and Grandpa was able to buy the land and build our stead. Farm never was much and I hated that kind of work anyway, so I’ve found work in the Village. Won’t never make much livelihood writin’ my stuff, but that’s more a hobby anyways. Nice clear mornin’ after last night. Did the storm keep you awake?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t never sleep during a storm. I like to listen to it talk, all soothin’ like. We get plenty of storms in Dunwich. That’s Sentinel Hill to our right.”

  “Where you found the stranger’s corpse.”

  “Yeah. He was probably some kid from Miskatonic who got i
n good with the librarian and read the old books and had ideas. Tried to open the Gate, most like, not understandin’ it needs to be done durin’ the Festivals and all. I can’t be bothered with none of that. Grandpa knew a lot about it and tried to get me interested. Dunwich heritage and all of that. You were wrong, Mr. Coffin – okay, Enoch; I’m not really an alchemist, not the sort you probably think me to be. I know enough about the signs and callin’ to the hills, and I tend the Hop Yard and a few other sites cos I’m part of the land and its people. But I use my weird skill for my writin’. I conjure words, language. Whoa, words are powerful little devils. Poetry is just as potent as some passage outta the Necronomicon. And not so lethal to them as don’t know what the hell they’re doin’. Bad poetry just makes you look like a damn fool. Bad raisin’ up can leave you a dead fool.” He turned to stare at Enoch. “Is your art your alchemy, Enoch?”

  “Not really – it is my art, and therein lies its potency. But I paint the esoteric things without explicating them.”

  “There you go again – big words. But I think I know what you mean. You peel back the shroud without explainin’ the rotten mess beneath it. Do you always understand your vision?”

  The artist laughed. “Almost never. I allow the secret things to keep their mysteries, few of which I fully comprehend. I don’t want to kill mystique – I want to suggest the secret things that may be found within fabulous darkness and let them have their aesthetic effect. I want to conjure art as it seduces my brain and enhances vision. Do you understand that?”

  “Hell yeah. That’s what I do. I hear the others in my head and let them fuck my brain, and then I write the visions they leave beneath my eyes. That’s what it is – vision, seeing somethin’ old and secret, and tryin’ to explain how it feels inside your soul, where it plants all kind of roots. Hell yeah.”

  Enoch walked away from his new friend and went to touch a hand to one of the standing stones. “Were these erected by aborigines of the land?”

  “What, by Indians? Nope, they wouldn’t never climb up the hills of Dunwich. These stones were probably here afore any of them squeezed outta their mammies. Too bad there ain’t no wind, it sounds awesome when it dances around these stones.”

  “Wind is easily conjured.” Enoch smiled slyly at the lad.

  “I know. Grandpa used to call it when he was feeling lonely for his kindred.” Xavier’s face grew slightly sad. “Mama used to call the wind now and then, when she couldn’t sleep. I think that’s what she was doing, singin’ real low and weird, and then outside you’d hear the wind arisin’.”

  “Something like this?” Enoch placed his other hand onto the pillar and began to whisper to it, and then he rested his ear against the surface of stone and shut his eyes. When he heard the song beneath the stone, he pressed his mouth against the pillar and repeated the ancient cry. Xavier shuddered as an element entered into the air around them, and then the tears began to blur his vision as Enoch sang the ancient song that the boy remembered from childhood when it was murmured by his dam. He tried to speak the arcane words but found that his voice choked with sudden sobbing.

  Reaching for him, Enoch brought the young man into his embrace and pressed their moist lips together with what was almost a kiss. He raised his mouth to Xavier’s eyes and warbled the primordial melody onto them, and he smiled as the boy panted onto his own face, a sensation that he remembered from the previous night, when someone watched him closely as he sank toward slumber. Enoch moved his face away and peered into the boy’s eyes, and then he smiled and kissed the fellow’s streaming tears as, around them, an alien wind began to hum between the spaces of the standing stones. Enoch raised his eyes skyward and watched the shapes that formed as sigils of shadow far above them. He then took Xavier fully into his arms and sang the song of tempest at the youth’s ear, clasping the lad’s quivering form in his strong unyielding arms.

  III.

  The men sat in silence and lamp light in the main room of the small house. Enoch had just read aloud some few pieces from the manuscript of Xavier’s forthcoming collection, and the young man was curiously moved by the sound of his work read by another. The artist sipped at his cup of coffee and gazed at the fellow near him. How old was the poet? Was he even twenty? He looked, in the soft light, like a little lost boy as he scanned the sheets that Enoch had read out loud.

  “Your prose is beautiful, Xavier. The prose poem is, I think, the perfect form for the macabre. One can express anything and everything, concisely yet with force. These are finer than those in your chapbook, your language is more mature.”

  The boy laughed. “The instructors at school were always tryin’ to correct my speech. ‘Stop talkin’ like a Dunwich farmer,’ they’d yell. Like I was supposed to be ashamed of where I come from. They’ve had a thing against Dunwich at Miskatonic for ages, and I was glad to leave early cos of Mother’s illness. Didn’t want to go to damn University anyway, but she wanted it and it made her happy. She thought they could learn me how to write ‘with more distinction’ was how she’d phrase it. But I didn’t want to be molded by their ways. My talent is mine own, a gift from them outside. Don’t need no mollycoddlin’ old fool in spectacles fussin’ over me and tellin’ me how to write and pretendin’ to care so much about my ‘gift,’ their eyes all shinin’ and stupid.” His laughter had a bitter ring. “Anyway, had to come home and tend Mother as she was dyin’. She went a little witless near the end and used to sing with the whippoorwills. But she’d get all quiet when I conjured the others and spoke to her all elegant-like; and she’d put her soft hands on my face and call me her lovely boy.”

  Not knowing what to say, Enoch glanced around the room and let his eyes settle on a round wall hanging that was composed of connected sticks. “I saw those totemic sigils on some of the bridges that I crossed. You were attending one when I first saw you.”

  “Oh, the river signs are different from the Whateley charm.”

  “No one has cleared the Whateley wreckage and claimed their land.”

  “Nope. The memory of the Horror runs deep with some. Grandpa was thought crazy for buildin’ on this spot, but ain’t nothin’ wrong with it.”

  “And the Whateley land?”

  “Best left undisturbed. There’s just a few of us visit it and tend the charm and the lair and all. Ah, I see that look in your eye. Ain’t too late yet. We’ll take my jalopy. Nah, Spider don’t venture out after dark. Good boy, Spider,” he said, patting the beast’s head. “No, you won’t need a jacket, it’s a warm night.”

  Exiting the house, they boarded the lad’s old car and drove through darkness. “You remind me of Grandpa, the way your eyes shine when there’s magick brewin’. I’ve never felt the thrill, and Mother was kind of blasé about it all. I think the Horror scared most folk more than they’d ever admit, cos it weren’t never figured out what the Whateleys were up to. We just know it was somethin’ awesome, somethin’ for a special season. But the season has passed, and now there’s just what was left behind.”

  “An aftermath of Horror?”

  The boy chuckled. “You’re kinda a poet yourself, when you speak sometimes.”

  The rough road took them to the Whateley ruins, and Xavier turned to reach down behind the driver seat and pulled out what looked like an antique oil lantern. Stepping out of the car, the boy motioned for Enoch to follow him as he pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the lantern’s wick. Silently, they walked to the ruins, and the artist was aware of an alteration in atmosphere, and of an aged old smell that permeated the place. Something untoward had had its origin here, of that there was no doubt. He stopped to gaze to the flat apex of Sentinel Hill and felt a thrill of horror course through his flesh. What else had trod this unholy ground, on what grotesque gargantuan hoofs? It had left its aftermath absolutely, an eidolon that tried to spill its shapelessness into one’s skull and teach one’s lips to shriek its name.

  Finally, Xavier stopped and bent to move some planks away that covered double doors
built into the ground. The lad pulled open one door and descended, his shadow playing weirdly on the stone steps and walls of dirt as he stopped to flick his lighter to a torch that protruded from one surface. The underground chamber was revealed. Enoch noticed that the hideous stench was not so strong in this lair beneath the house. He breathed quietly as his anxious eyes scanned the entered realm, and when he passed a small antique chest filled with ancient gold coins he let his hand bury itself therein.

  “Wizard’s booty,” Xavier whispered. “Best left alone.”

  The artist raised his hand out of the pile and surreptitiously pocketed one gold coin, and then he moseyed toward the unearthly lattice structures that hung on one wall. What they were he could not fathom. They seemed composed of bleached sticks from trees and thin lengths of board that had been fastened together in weird display, although he couldn’t tell in the poor light with what they had been conjoined. He couldn’t bring himself to touch them, for something in their outré nature confused him. He backed away and was amazed at how bizarre the sticks seemed, more phantom-like than physical, like the fossils of spectral things.