Encounters with Enoch Coffin

by W. H. Pugmire

  “I think some freaks at the pub were talking about this place, something about a Terrible Old Man.”

  “Yep,” Scot answered as he hesitated before the front door of the dwelling.

  “So what made him Terrible?”

  “His age – and his secrets. He was an old sea captain. Hand me that ship’s lantern, will you? Thanks.” Scot hesitated a few more seconds, and then he opened the door. Enoch followed him into what looked like a large bare room. The poet then struck a wooden match and lit the lantern’s wick, and Enoch gasped as he saw the gallery of queer booty that gathered dust along the walls. The room seemed strangely warm and Enoch began to unbutton his jacket. “Yeah, it holds warmth in some peculiar way. So does the porch, in all weathers, making it a handy place to camp. It’s weird, isn’t it? There is some unfathomable air of danger in the place, but also a subtle sense of security. One can be safe from the outside world of mortal men – but the Outside world breathes this air assuredly.”

  “It’s potent, indeed. I don’t like it. Let’s leave.”

  Scot placed a hand on Enoch’s arm. “Wait. The old feller kind of made me guardian of the place before he – left. We’re going to make an exchange. I owe you for the pleasure you gave me in buying my verses and actually reading them. Give me your cane. It’s a sorry thing.”

  “Got it cheap in a second-hand shop. Didn’t think I’d be needing to use it for such a length of time. My limbs aren’t healing as quickly as I expected they would.” He let Scot take the cane from him and watched as the fellow went to one corner of the room and then returned to him holding another walking stick. He could feel the extraordinary quality of the gnarled thing. The lantern light shimmered on the highly polished surface of reddish wood. Reaching out, Enoch took hold of the walking stick and was startled as the lantern’s flame momentarily burst as brighter ignition.

  “Holy hell,” the artist muttered.

  “You’re a bit of a wizard, aren’t you?”

  “I’m au fait with the arts. I know what I need to know. Look at the designs etched beneath the thin shellac – I seem to remember them from when I was allowed to scan the Necronomicon in the British Museum. This is an implement of power.”

  “He used it as such. It gave him his strength, and other assets. But I think you need to be a wizard to be able to evoke its properties. I have no knack for that kind of thing, never thought about mumbo-jumbo stuff until I settled in Kingsport and got to know the old codger. I’m not really comfortable with the occult or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, I have the authority to bequeath it to you, and I think it may help with your recovery. Just be careful with its potency. He told me once that magick can intoxicate.”

  “Where is he now, this centuried fellow?”

  “Oh, he went away – into the mist.” The poet smiled, happy to have a mystery of his own. Enoch found the fellow more and more fascinating. He sensed that Scot knew many esoteric things, despite his protestations. He watched as the poet began to tug at his shirt collar. “Ugh, it’s hot in here. Let’s scat.” Without waiting, Winfield Scot trotted out of the habitation, down the stairs and near to the grouping of large stones. Enoch laughed at the fellow’s sudden nervousness and followed him, and then bent among the stones so as to fondle the sigils that had been painted onto them.

  “Shine your lantern over here a bit, I think – yes, look. Some of the symbols painted on these stones match some few of the sigils etched into this staff. I seem to recall…” He stood and thought hard, trying to remember what he had read so long ago in a forbidden text, which he had tricked a librarian into showing him. The lines of script filtered to his brain, hazy at first, then more clearly. Enoch raised his curious walking stick to the mist as he stood among strange stones, and he began to call to things that slumbered beyond the rim. Scot screamed as the lantern’s flames shot out and licked his hand. Enoch paid no heed, for he sensed the black shape that boiled above them in the air, the bubbling void that spilled its essence into Enoch Coffin’s eyes.

  II.

  When he awakened, he was reclining on a bed of blankets that had been spread on a wooden surface, his head sunk into a soft pillow. Winfield Scot, attending a teakettle that was screeching on the portable gas burner, smiled down on him. A bit of gauze was wrapped around one of the poet’s hands. “Did she wake you up? I’ve only got instant.” He opened a container of coffee and poured two teaspoons worth into a large chipped cup, and then he picked up the kettle and added water. “Sugar?”

  “Uh, yeah, three spoonfuls. I like it sweet. How’s your hand?”

  “Slightly cindered is all. It’ll be okay.”

  “What the hell happened last night? My mind’s a blur.”

  “You called some kind of ichor out of the mist – well, it might have been a shadow, or a portal. I don’t really understand all of this mumbo-jumbo. Hey, don’t look at me like that, it’s the truth.”

  “You know more than you let on. You’re a sphinx of untold secrets.”

  “You’re babbling. How are your eyes?”

  “They’re okay. Why?” Still a bit groggy, Enoch wasn’t aware of the curious way in which the poet was studying his face.

  “Oh, nothing. Three spoonfuls of sugar – ugh! Too sweet by half. Here you go, Coffin. Is that your real name?”

  The artist reached for the cup. “Yeah,” he replied, grateful for the brew. As he drank, Enoch scanned the day and saw that the weather was clear. Above the low gnarled trees he saw the mammoth towering outcrop of rock that rose one thousand feet above the harbor. Atop the highest crag, beyond a scattering of trees, he could just make out the peaked roof of what looked like a very small house. He let his eyes scan the rest of the impressive titan of rock. “What’s that other building lower down?”

  “Oh, that used to be a wireless station for the Arkham Advertiser. They built it sometime in the 1920s. Something strange happened there and it’s been abandoned for decades. Arkham’s on the opposite side about two miles yonder. Just below the other side is where the Miskatonic flows into the sea.”

  “Huh. You ever been up there?”

  Scot laughed lightly. “No one ever goes up there. It’s not safe.”

  The artist bit his lip and nodded slowly, and then he pushed himself to a standing position. “Well, thanks for tending to me during last night’s incident. You’re not telling me things, but I’ll find them out. Take care of that hand.”

  “Don’t forget your bag.” He picked up the plastic bag that contained the copies of his chapbook. “I went ahead and signed them for you.” Smiling, he winked. Returning the poet’s smile, Enoch took his bag, reached for the cane that was leaning against one portion of the porch and hobbled down the steps. He fancied that the air grew colder as he moved farther from the ancient house, but maybe it was just an effect of the weirdness he felt as he walked past the curious stones that stood in the yard. As he continued his walk, he found it remarkable that he was neither stiff nor in pain, and he moved with more and more confidence as he held on to the top of the old cane, which in daylight revealed itself to be a beautiful bit of craftsmanship. The daylight brought out the beauty of the reddish wood, and Enoch marveled at how “right” the cane felt in his grasp. Happily, he began to whistle, and the day was so lovely that he decided to walk all the way to Central Hill.

  The cottage looked very comfortable as he entered it and hung his crumpled hat onto a peg. Leaning the antique walking stick against one wall and tossing the plastic bag onto the armchair, he went into the kitchen and made himself a plate of breakfast grub and a pot of fresh coffee. He wolfed down the food as he stood inside the kitchen and gulped one cup of coffee, and then he filled his cup again and entered the small living room, where he looked around for the edition of Yeats before espying the plastic bag he had thrown onto the cozy chair. Setting the bag on the side table, he pulled out one of the chapbooks and began to read. The longest piece was a narrative poem in free-verse form entitled “Ancestral Tugging.” Enoc
h began to read and soon forgot about his coffee. The poem was obviously about Kingsport and had many points of reference to local spots, such as The Hollow district and the artist’s colony in what was known as Hilltown. The poem’s strangest portions concerned a ritual of danse beneath an autumn moon in what was meant to be the antique burying ground on Central Hill, the city’s primogenital cemetery where the oldest graves (dating to the 1640s) leaned beneath growths of pale willows. The narrative followed the dancers to a church, and beneath that church, to a hidden grotto wherein eldritch ritual was conducted by masked things.

  He stopped to rest his eyes, which ached oddly, and knew that he was more tired than he realized. Shutting his eyelids, Enoch let his fanciful mind move through dreaming. When his body startled into wakefulness he had no idea how long he had slept. Glancing around, he espied the Yeats, which reminded him of the money he owed Miss Olney of the bookshop. Rising, he was suddenly aware that he still wore the light summer suit from the previous evening. Contrary to his usual custom, he felt too weary to wash up and groom himself. He moved into the bedroom, where his suitcase lay open on the bed, took off the light jacket and put on a hefty sweater of green cotton. Not bothering to study himself in any mirror, Enoch ran his fingers through his wavy hair and headed out, snatching up the walking stick to which he had become rather partial. The reading of Winfield Scot’s poem had made him want to investigate the old cemetery on Central Hill, but first he would venture to the bookstore and frolic with its curious curator.

  He stepped into thick fog and clasped the end of his walking stick as he found his way to the trolley stop. He waited, alone, until the old behemoth rolled to him and allowed him passage, and he sat and studied the fog as the vehicle took him to the downtown area. The miasma had added atmosphere to ancient Kingsport, and he felt indeed that he had stepped out of time and journeyed into another era. Tapping his walking stick before him, Enoch found his way to the bookshop, stopping just once to observe the obscure winged shape that watched him from the sky. He approached the shop, the door to which was open. The large main room was vacant of occupant, and Enoch moved smoothly to the locked bookcase of rare items so as to ogle the first edition of The Trembling of the Veil. He had heard of someone purchasing a copy for $2,000, and found it incredible that Miss Olney would leave such a thing unguarded in the unoccupied room.

  And then he felt her shadow press against him. “Have you read it?”

  “Long ago, in a library. It served to whet my interest in Oscar Wilde, which blossomed into an obsession. It’s odd, how some bygone authors seem so – present. Yeats’s poems have never lost their immediacy for me. I love that he was a mystic, an occultist, became a member of the Ghost Club – all those fascinating things that have now become my common reality. Richard Ellmann, in his biography, quotes Yeats as saying something about the mystical life being the very center of his existence. Yes, yes – he peered beyond the veil and past dimensions.”

  Enoch suddenly realized that he was prattling on, and turned to the woman with a rueful smile. She was dressed smartly in black slacks and sweater, and although she was not young Miss Olney still wore traces of beauty. Yet there was an aspect of her face, in the expression in her bizarre milky eyes, that confounded him. She nodded her head slightly, as if to herself. “You, too, have peered beyond dimension. What has happened to your eyes?”

  “What?” The woman took his arm and guided Enoch to where an antique mirror hung on one wall. He gazed at his reflection and touched one hand to his face. “I called something last night, under the influence of this sorcerer’s cane, I think. It used to belong to the Terrible Old Man, and was perhaps a source of his unholy strength and longevity. I don’t really remember much of last night. I blacked out.”

  “Your eyes have partaken of the void, as mine have eaten of the One.”

  “The One?” He turned to take in her gaze and saw the subtle way in which her eyes changed shade, as if they contained elements of moving cloud and mist. Tilting to her, he touched his fingers to the smooth unearthly mask that was her countenance. Lifting her hand to his, she kissed his fingers with icy lips, and he could not help but shudder.

  “Do you know what exists Outside, Mr. Coffin? Darkness and light and language, that is all. Fire and shadow and articulation. But they who mutter in the cosmos are chaotic, idiots divine. Their language has no import, for they exist in meaninglessness. It fills me with such an ecstasy of liberation, to know that our mortal essence, such as it is, will spill into that stupid void and coil without form or place among the dead and dying stars.

  My grandfather, I had been taught by my mother, had been a teacher of philosophy, and when I was a girl that sounded so grand. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. It was only much later that I was told how he had altered after he was called to this city in the mists and its High House on Kingsport Head, of how when he arrived here his eyes had grown weary with looking too long a time on dull reality. He was summoned, by something, to this magical city, and here he looked upon the past and future shadow. He recognized the sea for the first time as the great body of mystery that it is. He did the insane thing and climbed to the strange High House that had so captivated his imagination when he beheld how its lights shone at evening. When he returned to the harbor a sense of wonder had been siphoned from his eyes, and some of the very old folk whispered that a portion of his restless soul had been lost among the swathes of clouds that often conceal the topmost crag of Kingsport Head.

  Listening to the story of my grandfather was like a summons. I journeyed to mist-enshrouded Kingsport, and I climbed to the High House as he had before my time. I was determined to win back whatever portion of my grandsire’s soul had been forfeited to the dweller on the crag. Boldly, I pushed through one window of the peak-roofed house, and I confronted the One who dwells amongst memory and mist. And I commanded him to return the aspect of his soul that my grandfather had neglected to bring back with him. And the dweller in the strange High House smiled his ageless smile, and he commanded that I should partake of his eyes. And so I feasted. My mask is the result.”

  “Why are our eyes so affected?”

  “The Outside is jealous of the living light of mortal eyes, just as the scent of corporeal blood arouses weird appetite within them. Ah, the power of our penetrating gaze, our purple fluid! Some Outside thing has sapped a little of your light, but you may find that in darkness you will sense secret things that will leave you awestruck. You are an adept in the occult, I could tell that when I first saw you. You may find this transformation amusing, for a little while.”

  “How can I reverse it?”

  “That will happen when the time is right.”

  Enoch shook his head, bewildered, and then he reached into his pocket for his wallet. Miss Olney waved the twenty-dollar bill away and touched his face again. “Light and darkness,” the artist mumbled, “the potency of blood.”

  She smiled at him then and took his hand, and he remained silent as she led him to her spinning wheel. “Touch your finger to the spindle, sir, while I whisper secrets to your soul.” Her cool mouth touched his ear, into which she heaved esoteric sound; and as she whispered to him her hand guided his to the wheel’s spindle, upon which he pricked one finger that soon dripped blood into the woman’s other hand. Miss Olney raised her blood drenched hand to her eyes, the murky surface of which seemed to soak in Enoch’s liquid stain. She spoke again, to enchanted air in which her words formed spirals of spray that washed the artist’s haunted eyes. Turning from her, he walked through fog, not knowing where his feet were taking him until he saw the black fence form itself in the mist.

  He quietly walked along the stone path, past the painted stones, to one golden window at the side of the house, through which he peered. Winfield Scot, utterly inebriated, sat at a long table before a row of olden bottles in which dark pendulums hung from wire that was fastened to the stoppers. Enoch listened as the poet cooed to the pendulums, which answered him with faint vibrati
ng buzzing. He then moved away and walked out of the neglected yard to where he caught a trolley that returned him to Central Hill, at a stop near the old forsaken burying ground. He moved through mist onto the cemetery sod and heard the whisper of wind through willows. The fog began to lift so that he could see Kingsport below him, where one by one the small-paned windows of the colonial houses filled with enchanted light.

  Falling to his knees, the artist brought the walking stick to his mouth and kissed an arcane signal to which he then whispered, and he marveled at how the occult language spilled from his mouth as coils of sentient gloom. He raised his eyes heavenward, to where the three winged things watched him from lingering patches of mist; and then he laughed and chanted unfathomable articulation to those beasts as they sallied to him and feasted on the shadow that vomited from his mouth.

  III.

  “Do you ever sleep at home in bed?”

  Enoch opened his eyes to the friendly voice and found himself beneath a willow tree with Winfield Scot looking down at him. The poet was leaning on Enoch’s old cane. “What time is it?”

  “Almost noon. You have a very strange way of finding rehabilitation. Or perhaps you were seeking artistic inspiration in such dreams as may be nourished by this committal sod? You seem to have scratched yourself while dreaming.”