Stories From a Lost Anthology

by Rhys Hughes

  “Listen,” I said. “It gets very lonely here. I meet so few people these days. Please stay a while longer and listen to my tale. It concerns the very field we are standing in. Please sit down and listen to me. It is best told in three parts, so have patience. I give you my word that I won’t harm you.”

  Reluctantly, the travellers returned to their blankets and waited for me to begin. At long last I was the centre of attention. I cleared my throat, as dry as leaves on a November bonfire, and regarded my audience fondly. And then I spoke:

  “Several centuries and more ago, all these fields were wooded. At that time, the plague had already claimed nearly a third of the population of the land and it seemed that the world had gone mad. Lepers, once treated with tolerance, were now blamed for the disease and stoned to death. Flagellants, bloody and despised, wandered from one walled town to another, spreading the seeds of death even as they evoked immunity with the whip and metal-tipped scourge. Strange portents were seen in the starry empyrean. Armed bands of robbers roamed the land. Desolation and chaos reigned over all.

  “Septimus Weber was a monk who decided to flee his cloister. As his fellows were struck down, one by one, behind the false security of their faith and ivy-clad walls, he took leave one dark night with a sack containing a single rare volume pilfered from the library. Only the Abbott, raving and afroth with the madness of the dooming boils, witnessed his flight, through the narrow window of his chamber, but attributing the vision to a malevolent demon turned away, aghast at the sight. Eldritch lights flickered over the marshes as Septimus splashed through the reeds and stagnant water. There were no sounds of pursuit but he kept up a relentless pace until dawn.

  “In due course, once he had cleared the fens and gained firmer ground, the renegade monk chanced upon a dark tangled forest. Realising that such a mysterious sylvan realm as this offered him the best prospects for the future, he entered it and crashed onwards through the undergrowth until he broke into a small clearing. Here he rested and regained some of his composure. It seemed the perfect place to build the small dwelling that would serve his dark purpose.

  “Before long, he had constructed a hovel from branches and dead leaves and had thrown himself into his studies. He pored over his stolen book, an ancient and forbidden manuscript by an obscure writer. He practised its arcane rituals and rapidly grew in that wisdom his former masters had deemed unfit for mortal consumption. A dedicated pupil, he spent most of his time reading and hardly any in eating or sleeping. The occasional wayfarer provided him with all his material needs, for he had already learned from the first chapter how to lure unsuspecting travellers into his lair and drug them with a potion made from wild berries and henbane.

  “Eventually, he considered himself ready to put his great scheme into operation. He assembled retorts and bottles, stolen from some passing merchant, and ground herbs and poisonous fungi in a pestle. Mixing his own blood and various distilled spirits together, he added all the ingredients into one great green-glass jar, sealed the stopper in the neck and affixed a length of chain from the jar to the roof of the hovel. Then he waited. The storm broke three days later. When the lightning struck, the jar glowed red and shook violently. Septimus danced around the bubbling brew and clapped his blistered hands. The mixture was swirling and in its vaporous depths, a tiny crystal was rising and falling. This, he knew, was the seed of artificial life.

  “Septimus had intended to create an homunculus, a tiny man who would grow to rapid maturity and who would combine uncanny insight with complete subservience. And now it seemed that he had succeeded. Over the following weeks, he kept a careful watch on his unnatural child as it expanded to fill the jar. Thin and pale, with a large head and twisted limbs, it resembled some ancient mandrake root, gnarled and broken into an obscene parody of the human form. During an eclipse of the moon, it was time to give birth to the creature with the aid of a little iron hammer. A single blow to the jar, a flooding of the waters, and then it was loose, writhing on the floor among the shards and the spreading pool of viscous liquid. Septimus scooped it up, wrapped it in a blanket and carried it over to a cot in the corner of the room.

  “It grew quickly, as Septimus knew it would, but remained thin and ill-proportioned. Its purpose in life was to wait on its master, to carry and fetch and clean and cook. It dug a well and made Septimus a house of stone to replace his rotting hovel. It caught game for him to eat and brewed mead from wild honey. It performed all these tasks without a flicker of resentment or sigh of protest. Septimus grew lazy, neglected his book and sent his servant further afield to raid nearby villages. He sat in the doorway of his new abode and watched while his creation cut wood in the rain. In the evenings, the pair of them would play chess in front of a blazing fire. Septimus made sure that he always won. The homunculus lost with good grace and charmed his master to sleep with flutes whittled from sticks. Not once did Septimus thank him, nor did the creature ever expect gratitude.

  “One frosty morning in autumn, Septimus awoke to find the creature sitting on a stool, stitching patches of leather together into a pair of fine boots. The monk had already set it the task of mending all his other clothing and realised that it must have been up all night sewing and cutting. Septimus suddenly felt an absurd affection for the monster. He walked over to it and placed his hand on its grotesque head. ‘Thank you, my child,’ he said. Instantly the creature froze. Its thin lips quivered, a single tear spilled down its hollow cheek. Without a word, it calmly rose from its stool, opened the door and stepped out into the dawn. Septimus heard a faint splash and then raced out after it. He never saw it again. . . .”

  I paused and sighed deeply and waited for the two travellers to betray their emotions. But it was obvious that they were disappointed with my tale. The first traveller shook his head and the second traveller merely frowned. The sun had now set and the darkness was washing the last remnants of day from the land.

  “Is that all?” The first traveller lit the pipe that had been lying idle in his hand. “I don’t see how that is so very remarkable. Personally, I prefer my highwayman.”

  “Besides,” added the second traveller, “that story wasn’t about a ghost. It was about a little man grown in a jar. Little men grown in jars may well be solid, but that was not my point. My point was that ghosts are not, above and beyond whether jars are involved.”

  “Bottles, you mean.” The first traveller laughed and pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. I had not anticipated this reaction, but I was not unprepared. I placed a finger to my lips and wagged it admonishingly. Then I waited for them to settle down once more and resumed my story:

  “You have not yet heard the second part. I warned you that patience was necessary. Let me take you forward a few centuries from Septimus Weber to that time when the Civil War ravaged the land. By then, the dark forest had been levelled and turned into fertile agricultural acres. A large farmhouse had been built over and around the very site that the renegade monk had chosen for his hovel. This farmhouse was more in the fashion of a fortified manor than the usual jumble of outhouses and barns. Turrets and battlements overshadowed the labourers working in the fields. A single door of solid oak bounded and ribbed by bars of iron provided the only means of ingress and egress.

  “Sometimes the owner of the manor would ride out on his black stallion, but the workers would never glance up at him. There was something odd about Colonel Pritchard. Although a fine-looking man in outward appearance, he reeked of decay and unwholesomeness. Some whispered that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that the devil had demanded a refund. Others merely insisted that a life of debauchery had smeared him with its crimson fingerprints. Whatever the reason, it was a fact that he was universally loathed and feared.

  “One thing that concerned the peasants even more directly was his allegiance in the war. Colonel Pritchard was staunchly neutral. He refused to loan money or men to either cause and had refused to entertain the many envoys sent to him. Strategically, his manor
was an important prize for both sides. It soon became obvious that a battle was inevitable. Armies began to gather on the horizon; men on horseback and on foot ploughed up the fields of his neighbours. But Colonel Pritchard remained calm. Soon the ranks of rival soldiers were drawn up on the very lands he called his own. Pikemen and musketeers faced each other across the shallow valley.

  “It was at this point that Colonel Pritchard retired into the lowest cellar of his manor and locked himself in. The servants of the house crossed themselves and mumbled prayers at the bizarre sounds that emerged from that crypt. All night long there was laughter and moans, tinged with more than a hint of madness. Bending down to peer through the keyhole, Old Eldon, the overseer, beheld a curious sight. A naked Colonel Pritchard was crouched over an old battered volume of some kind, a switch of hazel held in one hand, his thin lips moving silently. Black candles illuminated the garish chamber, hung with scarlet draperies and scattered with blood-red petals. Old Eldon could not find the source of the laughter.

  “Early next morning, the armies stirred sluggishly and prepared to decimate each other. Pikes extended, they converged on the very field directly in front of the house. The sound of drums cracked the air. As the sun rose over the horizon, cleaving the clouds and flooding the plain with a hideous pink glow, few noticed a solitary figure in black climbing up onto the battlements of the manor. It was Colonel Pritchard, still unclothed, the wand still grasped firmly in his hand. Raising the wand, he began to intone an endless litany, a dull booming chant that reached out across the fields. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a fog rose up from the soil, gouts of thick smoke that completely engulfed the armies. Before long, all was swirling chaos. But there were no sounds of battle, no clashings of steel against steel, no sharp reports of musket-fire, no screams of men in their death-agonies.

  “With a casual shrug, Colonel Pritchard climbed down from the battlements and returned to his cellar. When he next emerged, dressed in his usual garb, he made his way to the kitchens and ate a simple meal of hominy washed down with cider. He took the unprecedented step of inviting his servants and the peasants who worked his lands to join him. Reluctantly, they filed into the Great Hall of the manor. As they ate in silence, they kept their eyes fastened on the windows and the fog that had not dissipated. Not once did Colonel Pritchard follow their example. He ate an enormous quantity of food, as if he had been starved for weeks on end. Finally, just after noon, the fog began to lift and unable to restrain themselves any longer, the unwilling guests rushed out to stand on the verge of the battlefield.

  “Scattered in profusion on the ground, weapons and armour rusted quietly. The soldiers were nowhere to be seen. But the field was alive, writhing with worms. It was almost as if each soldier had been transmuted into one of the creatures. After this, the Colonel’s neutrality was respected and he was left alone. Yet he was never to know prosperity again. Because of the worms, larger and more ravenous than any that had ever been seen, no seed had the chance to sprout on his fields. Unable to grow crops, the peasants abandoned the farm and most of the house-servants followed suit. Old Eldon alone stayed with the Colonel. One day, the Colonel let him into his secret. He had found, so he claimed, an old book of spells that had once belonged to a sinister monk. He never said anything more about what had happened nor did he ever revisit that cellar. . . .”

  Again I paused and waited for the two travellers to give their opinions of my tale. But they were even more dismissive than they had been before. They had gained considerable confidence and were no longer even remotely disturbed by my presence. The first traveller was openly contemptuous. He took a flask of brandy from an inside pocket of his jacket and mockingly offered me some.

  “Your stories are not only unconvincing but are also totally irrelevant,” he said. “We are supposed to be talking about ghosts. Turning men into worms is one thing, but the solidity of ghosts is quite another. That is what concerns us at present. Not little men grown in jars or men turned into worms.”

  “Yes,” agreed the second traveller. “You’ll have to do better than that if you expect us to listen to you any more. Besides, we were talking about personal experiences before you interrupted. Both the tales you have told to us took place in the distant past. I don’t see what they have got to do with you.”

  I sighed and puffed out my hollow cheeks. I wondered if long ages of isolation had impaired my narrative skills. Perhaps I was no longer skillful enough to hold their attention? But the third part of my tale was as yet untold. So again I raised my finger for silence, took a deep breath and continued:

  “Let me now take you forward in time to a mere ten years past. Colonel Pritchard’s manor had fallen into a state of ruin; the fields had lain fallow for more than three centuries. No-one had lived on the estate since Old Eldon had followed his master to the grave. Enter onto the scene Claire Leatherwood, a young girl who had inherited enough money from a rich Uncle to make possible the indulgence of all her whims. She had decided to return to the simple life and had bought the dilapidated farm with its tumbled manor. She laughed at the superstitious locals who insisted that nothing would ever grow on those fields because of an old curse. She knew that hard work and diligence were the most important qualities needed to turn a large area of bare earth into the ripe acres of corn that you see all about you.

  “Accordingly, she set about transforming the decrepit manor into a comfortable and unpretentious dwelling-place. She tilled the fallow fields and planted corn and barley. But strange to say, the locals seemed to have a point. The seeds disappeared soon after they had been sown, usually overnight. At first Claire suspected that the large ravens which infested the property were responsible. Whenever she stepped outside the farmhouse, they would be watching her from their vantage points on the roof of one of the barns. It was almost as if they were studying her every move, waiting to see what she would do. But after a series of careful observations, she realised that they rarely even alighted on the fields. On the contrary, they avoided them with an almost religious zeal.

  “One evening, fetching wood for the fire, Claire witnessed an extraordinary sight. Under the pale buttery light of the full moon, she saw that the fields were undulating with a steady rhythm. It appeared as if they were a single organism, breathing and pulsing with some grotesque vitality. This was disturbing indeed, but it provided a clue to the problem of the vanishing seed. What if the very soil itself was ingesting it? Shaking loose such absurd thoughts from her weary head, she returned to the house and retired to bed. That night she was troubled by strange dreams. A voice seemed to be calling her from the cellar. Unable to resist, she decided to investigate. The cellar was one of the few parts of the original manor that had survived intact.

  “There was no key to the door and she assumed that it was locked. But when she tried the handle, it turned and the door swung open. She descended into the darkness with a torch. In the centre of a rotting oak table a stained leather volume awaited her. The rest of the cellar was musty with decaying tapestries and the floor was covered in shards of green glass that glittered like glow-worms as they caught the beam of her torch. She opened the book at a random page and saw immediately what it was. But the odd thing was that it seemed to have neither beginning nor end. Whenever she tried to open it at the first or last page, she invariably found that there were more pages between the place she had chosen and the cover. It was almost as if it were a book of infinite depth.

  “She took it back up with her and began studying it, for she realised that a solution to the enigma of her undulating fields could be found within. She pored over its secrets for many weeks before her studies were distracted by yet another discovery. Clearing a tangled area of undergrowth near the farmhouse one morning, she uncovered an old well. It was complete with windlass. She wound up the bucket and was startled by something on the end of the rope which spoke to her. It startled her in much the same manner that I startled you not an hour past in this cornfield. It was, of course, the little man
that the monk had grown in the jar, worse for the wear of several centuries, but still capable of speech. It told her not to be frightened, that it was harmless and she eventually believed it. She offered it some food, but was informed that it drew its sustenance from the air.

  “She kept her discovery a secret and began spending her mornings with the little man. She told it about the undulating fields, the disappearance of the seed, the cellar and the book of spells. He seemed to know all about them already. He told her everything that I have told you. He explained why he had thrown himself down the well when Septimus had thanked him. It was because he had felt human at that moment and the conflicting emotions had proved too much for him. He asked her never to thank him for anything he might do for her in the future and she promised that she would not. He also told her all about Colonel Pritchard, how his manor had been built over the remains of the monk’s hovel which had become its cellar. He told her about the battle, the unnatural fog, the soldiers and the worms. She was fascinated and far less critical of the tales than you were.

  “He then explained why the fields had remained fallow for all those years. The worms in the field had died, but the souls of the soldiers trapped in them would not leave. In short, the worms lived on as phantoms, caught halfway between this plane and another. Although they were ghostly and not visible to the naked eye, part of their nature was material. They were more than capable of devouring her seed, and had been doing so whenever anyone had tried to plant anything. Only occasionally, when they all moved together, was it possible to see the horrible ripple that proved the truth of his words. Claire did not doubt him. She had taken a liking to the little man and confided in him her plan to cure the problem with the aid of the book of spells.