Ceremonies

by T E. D Klein

  Climbing the heavy wooden ladder up to the platform where the coops lay, she reached above her to unfasten the latch at the side.

  She froze; it was already unfastened. Around her head the bluebottles buzzed crazily.

  Lifting herself to the platform, she saw, in an instant, the reason for the quiet: amid a small mound of feathers at the back of the coop, their yellow legs thrust at odd angles in the air, lay the plump and headless bodies of three hens.

  Deborah maintains that Bwada did it. As she points out, the cat was known to be adept at turning handles, latches, etc., amp; just because she's run off, there's no certainty she's dead. 'Remember,' Deborah said, 'she's used to eating what she catches in the woods.'

  That's where her argument breaks down – because the hens had not been eaten. They would certainly have made Bwada a succulent meal, yet their bodies had scarcely been touched. Only the heads had been taken.

  Sarr claims he's heard of weasels doing this amp; came up with a dozen stories to prove it. While only a few days ago he was ready to believe that Satan had entered the cat, now he refuses to believe that his beloved old Bwada could have done such a thing. 'She may have fought with the other cats,' he said, 'but that was out of jealousy. She'd never stoop to this.'

  I'm willing to suspect anything right now. Having just read some

  Frederick 'White Wolf Marryat this afternoon, I'm not even so sure I'd rule out wolves, were- and otherwise, as a possibility. My Field Guide to North American Mammals lists both red amp; grey foxes amp; even coyotes as surviving here in New Jersey. No wolves left, the guidebook says. But of course it may be wrong.

  Why would any animal – Bwada, wolf, or weasel – make off with heads like that? Simply out of sheer meanness? It just doesn't seem natural.

  As if she were out to convince me just how nasty she really is, Mother Nature had one more shock in store for me. When I came back here to this building tonight, after talking long into the evening with Sarr amp; Deborah, I reached out in the darkness, closed my hand over the doorknob – amp; crushed three fat green caterpillars. They left a foul-smelling whitish liquid on my hand.

  'Guess what I have in my hand,' Rosie, grinning, held something concealed behind his back. Across the room the air conditioner fought a noisy war against the summer night.

  'Is it for me?'

  His grin widened. 'Now I ask you, have I ever come here empty-handed?'

  'Is it something to wear?'

  He shook his head. 'Uh-uh, no more clothes, young lady! You're better off choosing your own.'

  'Is it something to read?'

  'In a way. But don't be misled, it's not a book.' He paused. 'Give up? Here. Something to play with.'

  He drew forth an object wrapped in brown paper. Tearing that off, Carol saw that it contained a small cardboard box and recognized the green and gold design on the front. Dynnod, the letters said, in swirls of acanthus leaves and roses.

  'Oh, of course. They're the same cards I took out for Jeremy. Gee, thanks, Rosie. They're beautiful!'

  Actually, she was rather let down; she'd been hoping he'd brought her jewelry. And she seemed to recall that there'd been something a little unpleasant about these particular cards.

  'You never explained how these work,' she said, slipping the cards from the box and once again looking in vain for some instructions. 'They're for telling fortunes, right?'

  Rosie nodded. 'Only you tell them through a kind of game,* he said, 'and the winner gets his or her wish. Here, sit down. I'll show you how to play.'

  The rules were confusing. There were only twenty-two cards, but in order to win the game it was necessary to memorize them all, since the object was to guess which cards were held by one's opponent. Carol found her gaze returning again and again to the smiling man and woman on the card marked The Lovers, and though she tried her best to concentrate, her thoughts kept straying to Jeremy.

  'You're not paying attention, Carol,' Rosie said for the third time. 'You have to study all the cards. Now this tree's the da'fae because green is daeh, and we call the fire tein'eth because teine means red… '

  'I'm trying,' she said, already tiring of the game. There didn't really seem to be much point to it: it was difficult to score because each card held a different value which also had to be memorized, and so far as she could understand there was no clear way to tell when the game ended and who had won.

  'The cards,' he kept saying. 'You have to keep looking at the cards.'

  At the end of an hour Rosie simply laid down his hand, announced, 'It appears you've beaten me, young lady,' and proceeded to read Carol's fortune in the cards that she held. As fortunes went, it seemed, in part, too bland – prophecies of friendship, hard work, a second visit to the country – and, in pan, too silly: 'There's a test in your future,' he said, studying the card marked The Mound.

  'A test of what?'

  He tapped the card and looked up, grinning. 'A test of will. Can you move mountains?'

  No, Carol decided, she just couldn't see the point of it all. It wasn't the sort of game she'd care to play again.

  The room smelled of perspiration and roses. Lying on the bed with her hand over her eyes, oblivious to the night sounds outside her window, Mrs Poroth breathed deeply and let her mind drift, skimming lightly over sleep as if upon the surface of a pool. Around her on the coarsely woven sheets lay nearly a dozen of the Pictures, their lumpish figures glowing in the lamplight like paintings on the rough walls of a cave. The others lay scattered where they'd fallen, on the floor beside the bed.

  Gradually her breathing slowed and her face softened, the harsh angular lines at each side of her mouth smoothing slightly as she left familiar thoughts behind and let herself fall into darkness, deeper now, where other presences, indistinct but real, hovered expectantly around her as if summoned. The rose scent was here too, but at the center of it she heard the click of teeth; she felt the brush of earth against her cheek, and something moist, and fur; there was a slow, distant heartbeat, vast and heavy as a continent, and the stir of giant leaves, and the sound of something wormlike, probing for her in the darkness as if seeking to enter her skull…

  A tiny doubt touched her, and still with eyes shut she awakened, struck suddenly by a fear she'd thought long buried, the fear that she was alien in this world, even in this stony little room she had known for the long years of her widowhood. What was she doing here, after all? What was her real purpose, and why was she so sure that God had chosen her to be the instrument of His will?

  The thought of God brought a hardness back to her face, and a resolve. Fear was a weapon of the devil. There was something, she knew, that would have to be destroyed, and soon. It was only a matter of finding where it lay hidden – that would not be hard – and of fending off a possible attack. All she needed was the strength.

  Again the doubt assailed her, the futility of it all. This is wrong, she thought, if s foolish. I'm not a young woman; I shouldn't have to carry such a burden by myself.

  But even as she gave the ±ought words, she rejected it. She knew there was no one who could help her, no one else as capable as she.

  Calmer now, she felt a new claim on her attention, drawn like a compass needle by something just beyond the bed. Opening her eyes, she sat up and scanned the room. On the floor where her gaze came to rest, she saw it staring from the Picture – the crude jagged lines of the tree, a scribble of waxy green crayon with a hint of eyes amid the lower boughs. She stared back at it a moment, then suddenly looked down at her right hand. The fingertips lay lightly upon another of the Pictures, one she recognized dimly from her dream. It was a dark, humped shape, swelling in the centre of the paper like a mound of earth.

  July Eighteenth

  Morning. Despite the heat, he switches off the air conditioner by his bed and raises the window overlooking the river. A warm breeze bathes his face and brings the scent of roses. The air is clear at this hour; he can see figures moving in the glass and brick apartments on the opposi
te shore, and, farther west, the wavering green line of low hills.

  Out there, beyond the Jersey hills, the thing is thriving. All this past week it has performed the special Ceremonies of its own: the required rites and, at certain times, the necessary sacrifices. Gradually, as the week spiraled toward its conclusion, it has honed its skill and gathered its murderous strength.

  Its moment is approaching – and so is his own. There are special preparations he must make. Concentration is essential; the darkness and the heat will not bother him, but the room must be silent. Shutting the window and pulling down the shades, he lies back naked on the bed, intones the Sixth Name, and prepares himself.

  Tonight, when it is time to act, he will be ready.

  Thanks, no doubt, to my recent decision – No More Asking For Seconds At Dinner – woke up feeling half starved this morning, after a crazy dream in which I was eating everything amp; everyone in sight: Carol, the Poroths, the cats, the cornfield, whole continents… As I recall, it ended with my swallowing my own foot. Jeremy Freirs, the human Uroboros.

  Carol – God, it's been at least a week since I've written to her. Better do so before she loses interest in me. Must get around to it before tomorrow's mail.

  Squeezed in a second helping of corn bread this morning, telling myself it was to make up for the lack of eggs. We won't be seeing many omelets around here anymore till Sarr amp; Deborah get around to buying a couple of new hens. That one poor bird that's left doesn't look like she's going to be much good for anything for a while.

  After breakfast, sat on the porch reading some Shirley Jackson stories, but got so turned off at her view of humanity (everyone callous amp; vicious except for her put-upon middle-aged heroines, with whom she obviously identifies) that I switched to old Aleister Crowley when I came out here to my room. His Confessions look too long to read all the way through amp; are obviously untrustworthy as hell, but at least he keeps a sunny disposition.

  Inspired by Crowley's jovial satanism, took another walk in the woods, hearing for the first time since I've been out here the distant barking of dogs amp; thinking about hounds of the Baskervilles, Tindalos, Zaroff, amp; the rest. Didn't Lovecraft have a hound as well? Weather so inviting, despite the mosquitoes, that I walked all the way back to the pool at the edge of the marsh, where the brook bends. But the pool was covered by a layer of greenish scum, with something dead floating in the middle of it. I turned around amp; ran back to the farm.

  Maybe these things are normal out here, as we move toward the height of the summer.

  Sarr was working his way along the border of the cornfield, clearing off bunches of weed with a stubby little sickle. 'Little,' he agreed, 'but razor sharp. You want to try it?'

  I'd had such bad experiences with his other tools that I wasn't too keen on taking up a new one; but then I figured what the hell, with any luck this'll probably be the only time in my life I ever get the chance to play with one of these things, amp; I may as well make the most of it. I took the sickle from him amp; hefted it in my hand – hard to believe the Russians actually put this thing on their flag; it's like making a coat of arms out of a meat hook or an ice pick – then I took a few tentative swings, amp; to my surprise it sliced right through the thickest stalks amp; branches, pretty as you please. It's a lot smaller than the scythe amp; a lot less unwieldy; you hold it in just one hand.' And unlike the axe, it was easy to lift.

  'Very good, Jeremy,' said Sarr, 'I think you've found your talent at last.'

  The dogs were proving difficult to walk with. She had three of them to deal with, two easily distracted young males and a female not yet come into her first heat. True to their shiftless master, they had never known an ounce of proper training and were used to roaming at will. They were friendly enough, but as free-spirited as wild things. Mrs Poroth felt the daylight wane; shadows were crossing the forest floor, darkness creeping steadily up the trees. She realized that she still had far to go.

  She herself had gotten an early enough start, up, as usual, by five, just before dawn, to tend her bees and complete whatever weeding her garden required, but the Fenchels, where she'd stopped hours later to pick up the dogs, were accustomed to staying up most of the night hunting what game they could, whether or not in season, drinking whatever was available, and no doubt scavenging what they thought they could get away-with from their neighbors' land. None of them but young Orin ever rose before ten. The elder Fenchel, Shem, was the one she'd had to talk to, and as luck would have it he'd been sleeping off a bender until well past noon.

  Not that she'd expected any problem borrowing the three dogs. Shem Fenchel was obliged to her for too many kindnesses – the boils she'd lanced on Orin's neck, the painful shingles on his own hand she'd ministered to, the birth she'd attended when Sister Nettie Stoudemire had been called away – to begrudge her the use of his hounds for the afternoon, or even to ask her the reason. He assumed that she was using them for tracking.

  He was wrong. But as she'd set off with the dogs that day, leaving behind the Fenchel clan's collection of shanties at the fork in the road and disappearing into the forest, the animals jerking eagerly at their lead ropes and pulling her in every direction, she looked as if she were on the track of game.

  In fact, though, she was not relying on the dogs to lead her. She knew quite well where she was going, and the fastest way to get there. The dogs were simply for protection, weapons of defense. She herself was sharp-eyed and wise, but she was getting old as well; alone, she would be no match for the teeth and claws and catlike stealth of the Dhol in its present form, especially if it caught her unawares with the source of its power so near.

  That source would be somewhere by McKinney's Neck, of that much she was sure. But she was making slower progress than she'd counted on, the dogs tugging at her arm and baying excitedly at every scent they passed, stirring up birds and insects and small scuttling things that fled their path as the three dogs bounded noisily through the underbrush. The Neck was still miles away, and the light was growing dimmer. She prayed she'd reach the place before sundown, even though she would not perform her work till after dark. There would be only the thinnest sliver of moon tonight, but it would be sufficient.

  She said another prayer, as well: that the place would not be guarded.

  But it might be, she told herself. It was, after all, a key part of the plan, enabling the demon to plot and learn and grow. Destroying it would not destroy the evil, but it would buy time.

  She tightened her grip on the ropes and let the plunging dogs drag her onward. Already she was wondering if the altar she sought would be as small as she imagined, and as easy to obliterate. She didn't know exactly what it would look like, but that part didn't worry her. She would know it when she saw it.

  Unseen by human eyes, it lay in the woods north of the stream, just beyond the marshlands and the swamp, between the clawlike roots of a lightning-blasted cottonwood whose fall had left a clearing in the trees – a clearing through which one might view, unobstructed, the sky, the stars; the moon.

  Even from a few feet away the thing looked scarcely different from a rather large molehill: a low mound of mud and sticks and foliage, a bit too regular for a product of nature, perhaps, but by no means conspicuous enough to excite attention. If not for the ring of small standing stones that surrounded the thing like a row of miniature menhirs, a Stonehenge built to child's scale, no one would have suspected that it was, in fact, an altar – an altar which, though scarcely one week old, had already seen much use.

  Only from up close would one have noticed the intricate patterns scratched in the surface of the mud, the circles within circles within circles. And even then, unless one happened to observe the polished shards of white and yellow protruding here and there, one would have missed the most interesting structural detail of all: the carefully packed layers of tiny skulls that formed a pyramid just beneath the mud.

  All the skulls were empty now, picked clean of flesh by paws not fitted for such de
licate work – and by teeth and a tongue that were. There were mouse skulls at the bottom and the middle, with curved yellow incisors, giant eye sockets, little room for brain; and there were three new acquisitions at the top: larger, more primitive, and beaked.

  A quiet night. We made some popcorn after dinner amp; sat around the living room with the radio on, watching the antics of the cats amp; listening to some crazy station out of Pennsylvania that plays a mixture of country-western amp; Bible-belt gospel. Neither kind of music has ever been high on my list, but it seemed sort of appropriate tonight. It's like the Gothics I've been reading, I guess – either you like that sort of thing or you don't, simple as that.

  Quiet out here now, thank God. I'm sick of playing front-row audience to every bit of local fauna that decides to march past my window. Sat up reading – or trying to – 'The Jolly Corner.' James seems so goddamned labored. (M.R. James of Cambridge, now he had the touch. Why so little fuss about him?)

  Normally that son of reading would have put me right to sleep, but my damned nose is so clogged again that it's hard to breathe when I lie back. Usually it clears right up as soon as I leave the farmhouse amp; come out here. I've used my little plastic spray bottle a dozen times in the past hour, but after a few minutes I start sneezing amp; have to use it again. Tried to read some more James so that I could get him out of the way, or at least fall asleep, but found my eyes too irritated, watery.

  Maybe it's the mildew. The stuff continues to grow higher on my walls in a dark greenish band. Tomorrow I really ought to take a damp rag amp; give this place a cleaning… amp; also trim the ivy that's been spreading over the outside of this building. It's already begun to block the light. If I wait too long, I may not be able to get out the front door.

  Silently it watches, crouched on the wardrobe in the corner, muscles bunched like cables beneath the steel-grey fur. The eyes narrow, focusing intently, missing nothing, while the long hooked claws slide out like stilettos. Poised, ready, motionless except for the faint spasmodic twitching of its tail, it waits for the right moment and prepares to spring.