by Steve Vernon
A tale had popularized the sacred cow that blessed water melted a familie, and therefore a familie considered wetness a natural enemy whether cat or squirrel or bird. I assumed that, given millennia and smarts, they had probably deduced for themselves the difference between tap, rain, river, and blessed waters. Also, the people had to take another step and assume a familie would never be a fish. I had talked to a brook trout once. I believed a familie’s fear was due to a familiarity with their own nature and hence a hesitancy towards the unknown. Creatures of the water were wary of pastures and forests. Creatures of the land were wary of ponds and lakes. If a familie were never curious beyond their own home, they were not explorers. That truth could reasonably extend to explain a lack of inquisitiveness for habitats they considered foreign. And what we refused to understand, we avoided, just in case. He was comfortable by the Belug, so he must have been born close by. He saw the river sweep away my mother. He saw the lucky cat scooched between the spaces of the Tarago pier’s protruding red bricks. He saw the stream sweep away a baby rat. He saw me, walking home after classes, see the drowning pup and stumble down the hilly bank to run split splatting through the water in my academy uniform, trying to scoop the innocent up. I didn’t get the idea this incident with the orange cat coincided with the incident of his tail. He and my mother had met before or met then only to meet again.
I wasn’t sure what I was trying to determine, but I felt I probed this cat for a reason, even one beyond the obvious, and that the details strayed from some intuitive sense of relevance. Either way, I decided to go with what I knew. I decided to indulge the cat. Maybe he could tell me more stories about my mother. Whenever I had asked my dad, he wouldn’t look at me. He’d shrug. I don’t think he was aware of it, but he’d shrug. Then he’d keep reading the Smithton Chronicle or yell at the Warlocks on the television for once again losing to the Reapers. Rugby.
Once, I thought he was going to yell at me. His lips pursed, he slapped his palms against his forehead and huffed, then sauntered away to plop in his beat up recliner. ‘I forgot I recorded the game,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if the Warlocks don’t stink it up again.’ He asked me to get him a beer. I knew he liked it in a frosted glass mug. We kept three in the freezer. I poured, delivered it wrapped in a dishrag, and knew I’d never ask about her again. I don’t like stressing my father out. It’s only the two of us, and I don’t do much. I take out the garbage, keep my room and bathroom clean, and get him beer. ‘Get good grades,’ he said. ‘That’s your job.’ In a way, it would’ve been easier to just clean the toilet than study. School learning was pointless but kind of like a puzzle. I liked it enough.
His old girlfriend said we did our best to make a home. She was right. I still didn’t like her though. She was fine. I just didn’t like her. Dad insisted that I told him the truth about how I felt. ‘Be honest. This is serious. Do you like her?’ he asked. I still bobbed and weaved. ‘If you like her, I like her,’ I answered. He pressed. ‘She’s fine,’ I said. Which was true. He called me a liar. I stamped my feet and declared that at best I fibbed. ‘Alright, Sport,’ he said and shrugged as he left me in the kitchen. There’s always a disappointment in him when he calls me Sport. I don’t know if the regret is in his voice, or behind his eyes. I think it’s one of those dreams parents have for their children. They love you. They accept you. But they still have that one wish for how you’d turn out. He imagined laughing and patting me on the back, saying ‘Good job, Sport,’ as I caught a pop up ball. Instead, he watched the game while I read history books on the sofa I covered with a white bed sheet. He didn’t mean anything by it. It was just for him. I wasn’t supposed to know. I wasn’t supposed to hear it, the sadness. Or see it. I went with it. Sometimes, I even smiled. But not that time.
Back to the point, the fat cat said the lucky cat saved my mother. My father said my mother saved the lucky cat. He lied to me, or she lied to him. He didn’t want more questions, or she didn’t want him to worry.
As I thought the situation through–or tried to–the cat had moseyed off and plopped in the grass to lick himself. I wanted to pet his swollen belly, but he already had the upper hand. I needed to deduce what had happened with my mother. Although, I wasn’t sure I cared. I wanted to pet him more.
I walked from under the bridge, buried the baby rat on the shore, and returned to the stream. The Tarago stood on its two brick piers. A cherry wood arch with triangular trusses supported an oak deck that did not extend passed the piers. A bridge that never connected two lands. You had to leave the woods, hop over the river basin, and onto the bridge, then cross to hop over the river basin again and return to the woods on the other side. Beacon Woods had paths, but none led to this bridge.
A tale held that the Tarago was a shrine dedicated to a water sprite. I accepted this as a fairytale as a child, and now, as a man–albeit a young man–I now questioned the story. What was wrong was often held true, and what was true was often held a myth. Once, there were sprites and demons, and now, only demons. Sprites were beautiful spirits of the seas and forests who wore flowing robes and radiated light. They healed the sick children who sipped from their waters and ate their fruit. Demons were horned beasts of the underworld who smelled of sulfur and left trails of ash. They exploited the greedy who valued money over their own lives. In the end though, sprites and demons both collected payment, a soul. Your child chewed the sprite’s roots and was healed, but she came to collect him seven years later. You signed your soul to a demon and had a streak at the tracks. Your luck all spent, you tripped in a pothole and cracked your skull. A demon was an ugly sprite. A sprite was a beautiful demon. Evil took all forms to appeal to all people.
I agreed that they were all demons, but I didn’t take offense with their price. The assumption that beings should alter fate for nothing, or only what you wanted to pay, was the true evil. Sprites could only be sprites. Demons could only be demons. But Man had a responsibility to be more than man.
‘Is it true,’ I said, ‘that if you connect the bridge to connect the east and west of Beacon Woods that you will summon a water demon?’
The cat stopped licking as if shocked: ‘I thought I had about ten more minutes of you dozing off into space before we addressed your penance for your mother’s sins.’
‘What does the water demon have to do with your tail?’
The cat walked into the stream and sat next to me. We looked at the bridge.
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘You started speaking and I made the mistake of thinking you cared about redemption.’
‘Alright, what do you want?’
‘What else would I want? I’m a demon. I want your soul.’
‘In exchange for...?’
‘In exchange for being your ally.’
I snickered. A fat cat who deluded himself to demonic proportions, and who bartered for souls because he needed a friend. I fell silent. I wanted to be his friend too. Could I trust him? That was the mystery.
‘Who else can you trust?’ he asked, licking the stream water from his paw.
I crouched down and reached to pet his head. He growled. I continued to reach. He clasped his teeth onto the flesh between my thumb and pointer finger and stared wide-eyed.
‘You have one mouth, and I have two hands,’ I said as I grabbed him by the scruff and rose. I held him. He bit me. He’d win. He was too heavy. My arm trembled. He released me. I hugged him against my chest so that he faced away and dug my leather loafers into the bank’s dirt, climbing our way back to the forest. I ambled through the high grass and wildflowers, snuggling him into me. He purred, his eyes half closed. He shook to life as I leaped onto the bridge, and settled again as I made our way to its center. I noted which boards of the bridge’s deck were loose.
‘You didn’t answer me,’ I said. ‘Is there a water demon here?’
‘God ruined humans when He gave them tongues.’
‘Is that why you rebelled?’ Thankfully, he couldn’t see me silently chuckle.
‘Well, you are far from your post at the gates of Hell. And I do humbly apologize for mistaking you for a nameless familie.’
‘It’s about time you showed some proper deference. I gave you some leniency because I know each generation of human children thinks itself more invincible than the last. You can’t help your arrogance.’
‘Does that mean my apology is accepted?’
‘You don’t concern me enough to be petty.’
‘Good. Then what’s your name?’
The cat shrieked and writhed from my grasp. I dropped him, and he stuck his landing on all fours. He shook his butt at me as he walked ten steps, stopped, turned, and planted himself before me, glaring. A demon’s name was precious. A demon’s word was pride. He knew to deny me his name was to betray our newfound goodwill and sour our potential pact. Still, I gave him more than enough to wiggle free. I had not accepted his contract. I had obviously repented my blasphemy for self-serving means. He could call me out on a number of disrespects to make me earn the moniker of his demonhood.
‘My name is Felesinfern,’ said the hellcat.
‘Nice to meet you. My name is Almon Campbell. And I accept your pact.’
‘As you must.’
‘Now tell me about the water demon.’
The cat stuck his head over the bridge and looked down into the drying basin. ‘I heard the story you probably heard, the legend everyone hears. But you’ve sat behind the trees watching other human children play, gathering sticks and bringing rotten, discarded planks from the lumberyard to finish the bridge. Nothing ever happened.’
‘I had considered you wanted me to conjure the demon.’
‘Too smart is an elegant way of being too dumb.’
I sniffled. The cat jerked his head around at me. I turned away and returned to two loose boards, each one with two rusted iron nails through each end. I tore them up, walked to one end of the bridge and dropped a splintered board to bridge the bridge to the woods, and walked to the other end and dropped a stained board to do the same. A nail fell out. I picked it up and placed it in my blazer’s interior pocket. I waited.
‘Nothing’s happening,’ said the cat. He sat behind me. Come to think of it, I had not seen him when I walked from end to end. He must have been trotting at my heels the whole time.
‘I’m not done,’ I said. I left the bridge. Amongst the trees, I found a low-growing branch of nice girth. I jumped, hanging from the limb, and bobbed and bobbed until it broke. I returned to the nearest board, used the branch to hammer the nails into the bridge’s deck and the forest’s dirt, and walked once more to the other end to do the same. I waited.
‘Nothing’s still happening,’ said the cat.
I shrugged without realizing. The gesture came to me like a long lost memory, ephemeral and fated. I was turning into my father. And to rub it in, I was going to double down on my denial with stubbornness. I sat in the middle of the bridge, my legs dangling over the river basin.
‘You’re being difficult.’ The cat crawled onto my lap.
I petted him. ‘No, I’m not. It’s a good theory.’ I didn’t believe I was the smartest person in New Haven because I embodied brilliance. I just believed that every other citizen of this apathetic town was so dumb that someone of average intelligence became a genius. One day, I would graduate and leave to see how small I was. But for now, I knew what I knew. If Tarago were a shrine, then it was made of blessed materials. The wood and nails, as mundane as they seemed, were sanctified. The old tribes built the bridge as a temple to worship a sprite. The stalwart priests dismantled it as a ward to imprison a demon. And I stitched it back together as a crime scene to conjure a witness.
An hour passed.
‘How long are you waiting?’ asked the cat. He had fallen asleep, awakened, and now stretched on the deck.
‘I’m waiting until I figure out what part I missed or it comes.’
‘You’re being a fool.’
‘As long as I’m figuring it out, then that’s it. I’m figuring it out. I’m just me, thinking, piecing it together.’
‘Fools try to reason all the time.’
‘Fools are fools because they failed, and they failed because they quit. If they kept going and stopped once they had worked it out, they’d be wise, seers of the unseen.’
‘You’re too young to worry about being wise.’
I glared back at him. ‘I don’t care what people think. I’m staying because I’m not giving up.’ I looked once more to where the stream led to the horizon. ‘Not yet anyway. And even if I did, there would always be tomorrow. It would be a hiatus, not a resignation.’
‘You’ll spend the rest of your life searching for a sprite so you don’t have to be wrong. Humans should’ve never left servitude. Working the land is your purpose. Hence, your thumbs. The more you stray towards autonomy the more trouble you get us all into. Chasing dragons and then wondering how everything got burned and where all the time went.’
‘I’m sure you like your table scraps. Seasoned, cooked, and best of all, pre-killed.’ I snarled at this familie who made pacts like a demon when he clearly had his own arrangement with a host to keep himself engorged with treats. His ruse suddenly felt offensive. ‘But I don’t think intellectual pride is how any of this happened, and I don’t think that’s how I came to be who I am.’
‘Humans can never be trusted to understand themselves.’ And he strolled off the bridge. I watched to see him disappear into the forest but he stopped and glanced back. ‘Mervana.’ It sounded like an insult. I took off my loafer, threw it at him, and he scampered through the thicket. Gone.
I lay with my hands behind my head. The sky was boring in its constancy, static blue with no clouds, not a single white puff that may have looked like a German Shepherd barking or a lavender pillypuff hopping on its hind legs with its rat-like tail and long ears. I closed my eyes and, what seemed like moments later, heard a rumble. I opened them. Darkness. I sat up. The last ray of sunlight was sealed below the horizon. I had fallen asleep. I was alone in the forest, away from the town lights, and yet there was not a twinkle in the sky. The stars hid. In the distance, a dark deluge tumbled over the basin, the crashing waves pummeling over the wood’s shadowy silhouette. I heard the forest trees snap. The waters swished and roared, swelling so high that it seemed the night itself would smother the world. I didn’t run. I was frozen with my mouth open. The river rose above me, I closed my eyes, and heard the rushing waters pass by. I looked to see the murky river surge around me, glimmering with glowing fish. In my own pocket of space and time, maybe even my own universe–were the fish my new stars? the waters my heavens?–the river swirled and a shadow glided around my little bubble. I looked closer. Scales. A head poked through the surface, breathing my air. But it wasn’t mine to inhale. The white snake before me with blue eyes afforded me oxygen, life. It hissed, baring its fangs.
‘You finally called, Ayanna. After all I’ve done,’ said the gargantuan entity I now deemed a god. This being transcended both the horned and swarmy dealers and the flowing and gentle healers from my bedtime storybooks. ‘All these years and you have the audacity to summon me. If you say my name, I will bite your belly and let your unborn child’s first taste be my venom.’
I felt a numbness ring with pain in my head. Fear squeezed me until I felt the blood pound behind my eyes. But she had said Ayanna. I had never heard my mother’s name spoken aloud. My father would have sworn differently. I wanted the demon to say it again, as before, as a demonic chord, this name of the woman that birthed me.
‘Ay–Ayanna,’ I replied, her name like a found word from a dead language, ‘she is my mother.’ I gulped. ‘I am her son.’
The snake-god approached. Its forked tongue flicked against my cheek.
‘She is the only dark-skinned human I’ve ever seen walk these woods. She insists she is her own race, as if one race can be
many races. As if she can be alone in this world but among many. You smell like her. What games are you playing now, Ayanna?’ She receded her head into the water, and the river gushed forward. No.
I flailed my arms trying to swim for the surface. I knew there was no air above. I knew the forest was gone. The water would choke then bury me. The goddess circled, coiling upward around me, waiting. Did she enjoy watching me drown? No. She was too magnificent to acknowledge that someone like me could feel pain. I swam through schools of sparkling fish, reaching for a life, my life. I thought of my dad, and then shook him out of my head. To remember loved ones would be to surrender. My mother had promised to call the snake. The river demon had last seen her pregnant, and yet, knowing so much time had passed, still thought she hadn’t birthed me. This creature, living in a realm between the fleeting and the absolute, had no sense of time and only knew people as flesh and blood. My mother’s skin made me in her image. Her blood gave me her scent.
My chest felt solid. Dizziness weakened me. If I had to be my mother, then so be it. She was a clever, selfish imp. I admired her for being so crafty and so ruthless. She had summoned this demon many years ago. She had thrown herself into the river, knowing the lucky cat would save her.
She was pregnant.
She had a lucky cat.
She brought forth the river demon.
My eyes closed to the lights. I was dying. I sprung to life with understanding. I was dying. Now. And back then. She had saved me. This snake’s river water saved me. I gasped, uttering the demon’s name. Mervana. As I spoke, the breath formed a bubble around my head. Air. I coughed and spluttered the water from my lungs. The snake demon came to a halt. Her mouth hinged open, she snapped her head at me, biting with each thrust. I tossed about in the water, avoiding each attack. Her aim always a hair too left or too right, along with the tilting of her head, helped me predict how her poor vision misguided her strikes. I retrieved the nail tangled in the cloth of my coat pocket and cut a slit down my arm. My blood floated in a stream.
