Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy)

by Ari Berk

  As if in answer to the dimming of the day, somewhere above him the low wail began again, rising, quickly growing louder. Silas’s mind clouded. The miserable sound tore at his nerves. It was the screaming of a girl and it was full of fury and vengeance. Silas wished he was anywhere else. His mind flew to the edge of the millpond in Lichport. Down below, another was crying and waiting for him. A moan crawled up from his throat. “I’m sorry . . . ,” he said. “Bea, I am so sorry.” The crying grew louder and it seared the air around him. He put his palm to the back of his neck and could feel the burning heat on his hand. It was like an oven door had just been opened directly behind him. Silas turned around, confused, and in pain.

  The nameless girl was there.

  Hanging in the air before him was a spectral conflagration, as though a small bonfire had been lifted up off the ground. The flames flowed around a human form that seemed sculpted all of glowing embers. The heat coming off her was so intense that Silas raised an arm to cover his face.

  The ghost screamed and Silas looked again in horror.

  Within the writhing flames, her mouth open and wailing, was a face. Now Silas could make out more detail, could see how young she was. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen.

  “Please,” Silas cried. “Let me help you. Tell me your name.”

  The ghost opened her mouth again, but only a molten keen poured forth. His ears were going to burst. He stumbled backward trying to cover his eyes.

  Suddenly someone was pulling him by the arm.

  “Silas, come away! Come away!”

  Lars was dragging him toward the house. Silas caught his balance, Lars let go of his arm, and the two of them ran.

  Behind them, the ghost ascended to somewhere up along the roofline, her wailing weaving itself among the chimneys and high towers. Bricks and chunks of mortar began to rain down into the courtyard.

  Silas opened the front doors of Arvale, and they moved quickly into the hall. They closed the doors behind them, and stood catching their breath.

  “Did you see her?” Silas asked, gasping.

  Lars nodded, terrified.

  “She must be brought to peace, or sent back below. The longer she remains, the more danger we’re in. We have to hurry.”

  “Hurry? You’re one to talk of haste. Where have you been? I thought you’d gone home to Lichport!”

  “What are you talking about? I saw you just a couple of hours ago.”

  Lars stared at him. “Silas, I left you in the garden three days ago. . . .”

  Silas shivered. He’d only been with the cousins for an hour, or so he’d thought. Now everything was out of joint. He could feel it: a sickening displaced feeling in his stomach like the moment when, after falling asleep on a train, you awake to find you’ve slept past your stop and now have no idea where you are. He said quietly, “I am sorry, Lars. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “They throw quite a party, eh?”

  “Lars, we have to move fast. I think I have stayed here too long and I want to go home. I know what we need to do.”

  “Whatever it is, you know I’ll help if I can,” said Lars.

  “Listen,” Silas said, looking up at a hole recently torn in the roof of the hall, “she’s coming back.”

  The screaming outside picked up with renewed fury, and stones and roof tiles could be heard shattering on the ground just beyond the door. From the darkness at the back of the hall, a voice near the cold fireplace spoke.

  “I see you learned gentleman have not yet completed your task. I am not sure what will become of us if she pulls down one of the outside walls.”

  “We are making progress, Aunt Maud. I promise you.”

  “Truly?” she said, her voice rising in interest. “You have found her name?”

  “No,” Silas admitted. “But I know who to ask.”

  “Well, that is something, then,” she said, her tone going flat.

  “We are, even now, on our way to the sunken mansion.”

  Lars looked at him questioningly. “Silas, do you know where that is? For I don’t. I have never heard of such a place.”

  Maud rose from her chair and crossed the distance of the floor in an instant. She was smiling. This news pleased her. There was not a hint of surprise on her face.

  “This is well,” she said, drawing very close to them. “It seems at last I may be of some use to you. I know where the sunken mansion lies, and I will take you there at once so you may conclude this matter and fulfill the rest of your duties to this house.”

  Even though he needed her help, Maud’s eagerness gave Silas pause. There had been harsh words between them. But it was possible she was trying to be helpful now in order to mend her earlier display of anger? And Lars didn’t know where the tower was. Silas knew he had no choice but to put his trust in Maud.

  A crashing sound above them brought Silas’s attention back to the moment. One of the roof beams shook as though someone was striking it with a great hammer, and a large carved corbel in the shape of a chimera plummeted to the floor a few feet away.

  “Shall we make our way?” Maud said.

  Silas and Lars followed her out of the hall and up the stairs.

  From the wide landing, she led them down a long-unused corridor of the east wing. The thick glass in the windows was nearly black with dirt, and the tapestries along the walls were filled with holes, which was just as well because their woven themes, when they could be discerned, were grim. The tapestries appeared to depict episodes from a medieval Danse Macabre and showed images of capering skeletons pulling the crowns off the heads of kings, playing instruments as people died in piles from the plague, and generally bringing death to one and all, rich and poor, pope and peasant, young and old. The tattered weavings shivered as they passed.

  At the end of the corridor stood a heavy door, studded and bound with thick iron bands.

  “Beyond this door you will find what you seek,” Maud told them.

  “You are not coming?”

  “I cannot go this way, no. In any event, you shall have no need of me where you are going. Be strong, Silas Umber. Do not waver from your appointed task, no matter what you find.”

  Silas could hear that her words held expectation.

  Maud turned and walked away, her long wimple flowing behind her. She blurred upon the air, became indiscernible from the shadows and dusky colors of the corridor around her, and was gone.

  The door appeared to have been closed for a very long time. It was covered in thick dust, its keyhole at first completely hidden. Lars brushed at its surface. “I have no key,” he said.

  Silas stepped forward and put his hand upon the wood. The lock turned, and the door opened partially into the darkness beyond. He took a step toward the threshold and lurched forward. Before Silas could even cry out, Lars grabbed his collar, and then his arms, pulling him back.

  The two stood in a doorway that opened into the night. There was no room or hallway beyond. Only cold and insubstantial air. Whatever building had once stood beyond the door, it wasn’t there anymore.

  “I don’t understand . . . ,” Silas said, confused.

  Lars pointed down. “It is truly sunken. The tower has broken away from the house. The battlements of its roof are there, see? Below. Why didn’t Maud direct us to the tower from the outside?”

  “Because,” said Silas, “the tower is now beneath the ground. The only way in now must be through the chimney, and it stands too high to get at from down there. And because, despite what she’s told me, I don’t believe she can leave this house.”

  Silas looked beyond the door. A few feet away and to the left, he could see a large rectangular hole, a little blacker than the night, framed in brick. One long step from where he stood and he’d be on the edge of the chimney.

  “Lars, you wait here for me, okay?”

  “No. I am going with you. It is clear from your earlier adventure that you just get into trouble on your own.”

  Silas
shook his head. “I’m not precisely sure what’s down there, but I can tell you that I have seen places like this—misthomes for the dead—that are very dangerous. The way this place presents itself is a kind of warning. Whatever dwells in this tower was put here against its will and I suspect it won’t be very pleased to greet us.”

  “Thank you. Now, Silas, let me be clear. You are not the only one in the family who can be brave. I let you go alone to the summer house, and you lost track of time and were gone for three days. I should have gone with you. It weighs heavily on me. Now we must try to keep together. Let us go and waste no more time. The sooner we go down there, the sooner we may return.”

  Silas took Lars’s hand. “All right, then. But you must trust me, especially if anything . . . happens. I know something of who awaits us, but I have no idea what form this spirit might take. If he is truly the father of our nameless ghost, then he is also very old. You may see things down there that will upset you. Listen only to my voice. Nothing else. Do you understand? And if I ask you to do something, you must do it without hesitation.”

  Lars was shaking.

  “Are you sure you still want to come?”

  “I am.”

  “Then, cousin Lars, let’s make our way down.”

  LEDGER

  The manner in which the lord rules the hells may also be briefly explained. . . .

  All the inhabitants of hell are ruled by fear. . . . Punishments in hell are manifold. . . . It is to be noted that the fear of punishment is the only means of restraining the violence and fury of those who are in the hells. There are no other means.

  —FROM SWEDENBORG, HEAVEN AND HELL, TRANSCRIBED BY AMOS UMBER

  First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood

  Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;

  Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

  Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fire

  To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

  Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,

  In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

  Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

  Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart

  Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

  His temple right against the temple of God

  On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove

  The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence

  And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

  —from JOHN MILTON, PARADISE LOST, TRANSCRIBED BY AMOS UMBER

  SILAS AND LARS DESCENDED THROUGH A COLUMN of soot and ash. The stones of the chimney were close in about them, and though Lars had a small lantern, the blackness of the walls absorbed the light.

  They made their way slowly down the chimney, a bit of rope and one foothold at a time. When at last they emerged from the fireplace, they were covered in soot and had become just two more dark forms in a room hung thick with shadows.

  Silas could tell immediately that the quality of this building was different from that of the main house. Whatever this tower had once been, it was now a prison. Even the far wall of the room seemed to press in on him. The tower also felt less present somehow. He was sure that if he were to look out the arched windows, Arvale would be gone.

  Curious, he went to a window. When the shutter opened, Silas could see nothing but earth. Rocks, roots, and soil. They were now below the ground.

  Claustrophobic and uneasy, Silas spoke the words and tiny ghost lights appeared about them, lighting their way. The little candles floated on the air before and behind him, and Silas felt his courage returning.

  Lars looked at Silas briefly, but only nodded as if to say, Little surprises me anymore.

  They made their way down rough stone steps, following the curve of the wall, toward what was once the ground floor of the tower. Each chamber they passed was filled with artifacts of necromantic obsession: bones, circles, and strange glyphs traced in chalk upon the floor, candles inscribed with ancient runes, parchment scrolls, books with faded sigils and spines broken from lying open over the centuries. Many of the objects were burned, as though fire had once scourged these rooms. Silas and Lars did not pause long to look.

  When they reached the far side of the bottom chamber, there was another locked door. The air was fetid and foul, and Silas could feel the presence of something old and mighty beyond. He turned and looked at Lars, worried that his cousin might come to harm.

  “Lars, here’s the plan. You must wait for me here.”

  “No, Silas, I’m going with you.”

  “You have come with me. Now I am asking you to stay here, so if I need help, you will be close at hand. I can it feel it now. It’s waiting for me, has been for some time, I think. I need to go in there by myself. It gives me strength to know you’re right here if anything happens. Okay, Lars?”

  “I will abide. Call out if you need me and I will come.”

  “I promise.”

  Silas took a step forward and placed his hand upon the locks. The bolts slid open before he could move them. He took hold of the handle and pulled opened the heavy door. From within the chamber beyond, Silas heard an awful sound: the gnashing of teeth, back and forth. Someone there, in the dark, was slowly, endlessly, grinding his teeth together. The lights about Silas’s head flickered but remained alight, casting a pale glow over only the closest things in the room. Silas closed his eyes and thought of the sun, torchlight, the warmth of the hearth in Mother Peale’s house. The lights once more leaped up to make a bright corona about his head. Then he could see more of the room, and what resided there. But as he entered, his heart called out in its rapidly rising beat: Get out! Leave this place and never return!

  The chamber was a museum, its shelves and floor covered with inscribed tablets from Babylon, frightening statues of obscure Near Eastern gods and monsters, and the remains of candles. Several tripods, perhaps once used as braziers, lay fallen over about the room. Dominating the far side of the chamber was an enormous bronze statue of something like a minotaur. The bottom of the statue was bell-shaped. Its thick human body, arms up with palms facing away, was surmounted by the massive head of a bull whose long horns nearly touched the roof beams. In the belly of the idol was a scorched hole, like a large bread oven. Above that, several rectangular niches might have once held smaller offerings. Next to the idol were stacks of rotten wood suggesting that whoever brought the idol here was no mere collector; the sacrificial oven had once been intended for use.

  Horse skulls and bones were scattered throughout the room along with pieces of smashed furniture. In the center of the chamber was a seated human form. On the floor beneath him was a circle made in chalk, and within it danced glyphs and sigils of elder power. Silas could feel that the seated figure was not here by choice, and so took care not to step on or drag his foot through the chalk lines on the floor, in case they were part of the spell holding him here.

  The head of the seated figure was partially skeletal, a bare patch of white bone showing through along the side of the skull. The rest of his face was emaciated, skin drawn tight and blackened with age. A small coronet of silver had slipped from his brow and hung awkwardly about his neck like a slave’s collar. His hair was dark and pressed down and flat against the skull as though it had been spun of tar. The remains of a short beard curled and stuck out slightly away from his head. Silas was reminded of one of those sacrificial corpses taken from the Danish bogs, sodden right through with blackness as though it had been carved from pitch.

  The figure turned his head toward his guest. Silas did not wait for him to speak.

  “Ancestor, I am Silas Umber.”

  There was a long pause and a deep intake of air as though the figure were trying to smell something.

  “Oh, yes? I would walk over to welcome you, but you see I am encumbered by the pettiness of my relations and no longer enjoy the privilege of freedom. I cannot leave this circle. But I know who you are, son of Amos Umber. I have heard your name r
ise in sulphur from the abyss. I wondered if you would come. And now, here you are. How fortuitous. Do you like my collections?” asked the figure, gesturing to the idol. “Who would have thought the Holy Land could hold such wonders?”

  Silas remained focused. “What is your name, sir?”

  “In life, I was Cabel Umber, onetime lord of this demesne. Janus of the house. Lord of the Dead who sat upon the throne of ebony. And a pilgrim. Now I am . . . as you see me: a mere dependent on this enduring estate, though I once was heir to a greater one.” The spirit held his gaze upon the massive bronze idol, then closed his eyes and may have smiled.

  Silas struggled to understand what he’d heard. Surely this was bravado, some display meant to impress or frighten or belittle him.

  Fairly certain he could discern the rising lie in Cabel Umber’s voice, Silas said, “You once sat on the Ebony Throne?”

  Cabel turned to look at Silas. “I did, Silas Umber, that selfsame chair which, I suspect, you yourself are inclined to take.”

  “I have no such aspirations,” said Silas, not giving too much away.

  “Not yet . . .” Cabel Umber laughed in a low, unsettling gurgle. “Do you think ‘Janus’ is the last title you’ll bear? Your path has been trod out for you since before you fell into the world. There are great things in store for you, little Janus. Very great things. The first born of our family are so very useful. Of course, should you decide you’d rather bestow those honors upon another, I am sure someone would gladly oblige.”

  “I’m not up to any more tests or initiations just at the moment.”