by S. T. Joshi
“It’s time to play, my sprigs,” she cackled. Slowly, steadily, everyone except Pera stopped what they were doing and walked to the elderly woman, encircling her. I was the last to stand and join their circle, standing next to Oskar and a woman I had not yet been introduced to. The ancient beldame stepped to Oskar and wrapped her ribbon so that it covered his eyes, tying it behind his head. She led him to the center of our circle, then joined our number.
We did not join hands, but everyone began to hum in a low, nearly inaudible way, and our circle began to rotate slowly. As we moved around him, Oskar reached into the air as if ready to touch our faces. At last he reached out and touched the face of one of the women I did not know. He said her name, and she laughed as she untied the band from around his eyes. Above us, the cry of crows mingled with her laughter.
Oskar skipped to me and clapped. “My turn to choose, and you’re it, Hank.” I wanted to protest as he pulled me to the center of the circle and began to tie the ribbon ’round my head. “Do be a good sport, old boy,” he requested, and so I stopped fidgeting and let him finish. My attention was focused on the smell of his jaundiced flesh and its effect on my appetite. He tied the knot and began to take his hands away, but I clasped mine over them and pressed them to my nose, my mouth. He allowed me to savor his mortality for a few moments, and then he sighed, “Do let go, there’s a good lad.”
I sensed him walk away from me, and then I heard the sound of humming encircling me. Feeling slightly foolish, I raised my hands and, although I couldn’t see anything, shut my eyes. I thought that I could feel a faint and shifting radiance on my hands, as if globes of soft auras pirouetted before me. Pitching forward, I grasped a face. The atmosphere grew still and silent. My fingers investigated the invisible visage; they felt the thick nose and full lips, lips that flexed so that my fingertips played against large square teeth. Thick stubble, almost a beard, covered the chin. Was it Philippe? Had he shortened his beard and I not notice it? I moved my fingers along the face and felt the ragged scar beneath the right eye, and on my other hand I felt the heat that emitted from a mouth that mocked with easy laughter.
Cursing, I ripped the band of cloth from before my eyes, and then cried in fright as a winged shadow fluttered before me, squawking risibility. The crow’s beady eyes stared directly into mine as I felt the wind of its flapping wings. And then it vanished to join its comrades in the boughs above us. I stood in the center of the circle, looking at the faces that were all too far away for me to have touched.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The circle broke up and my companions moved away. Eblis, who had not been a part of the circle, jumped out of a tree, landing near Pera. She arose and held onto the handles of his wheelchair as he leaped into it, maneuvering his stunted torso with hands, like some malformed monkey. I stood beneath the trees and listened to the sound of birds moving among the branches. I heard the patter of rain on bark and leaves, drops that slipped between those leaves and fell into the nearby pool. I looked at the others, who had crossed the road and were entering the building as Oskar held its door open for them. He stood there alone for some time, gazing at me, and then he waved and went inside.
A loud clap of thunder shook me from my mental void. I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes. My sharp hearing took in the sounds of storm, of moving shadow. The world was alive with sound such as I had never experienced. Pushing away from the tree I passed the pond and peered into its water, not understanding the spheres beneath its surface, those pale globes that seemed almost to watch me.
I ran through the rain, into the building, and stepped into the drawing room. The tiny lights of the brass chandelier spread dim illumination through the room. Stopping before the painting of the oak grove, I examined it with interest. I saw that the “rainbow” was not actually white but rather a mixture of pale yellows and greens. The same wan green glowed among the numerous brown clouds. My eyesight oddly blurred as I stared at the thing, and that painted mass of nubilation seemed to billow and convulse, its patches of pale green reflecting a kind of alien light.
Turning away, I rubbed my eyes and listened to the frail music that issued from some distant place. I stepped into the hallway and passed Pera’s closed door, approached the door that opened onto the catacombs, and crossed its threshold. I needed no light as I held my hand against the rough-hewed wall and climbed down the small stone steps. Curiously, my discomfort for small dark places had deserted me. Glancing to where the whistling music was coming from, I noticed a doorway cut into the basalt, into which a squat round door had been fitted. Beside the wall leaned the dented wheelchair. Cracking open the door, I peered into an incommodious cell.
Eblis sat upon a squalid mat, looking like some troglodytic chimera, a plate of food before him. He watched me enter his domain as he put a slab of webbed meat to his mouth and tore into it with diseased teeth. Oskar stood in one corner, facing the wall as he played some flute-like instrument. Ignoring both of them, I went to examine the dark painting above the goblin’s mat. Unlike the others, it did not represent another artist’s work. Rather, it was a simple representation of Eblis Mauran in his wheelchair, the knobs that were his hands in his lap.
Oskar killed his music and turned to face me.
“Tell me about Pickman,” I ordered.
“Not much to tell. He disappeared in September of 1926, after an unsuccessful career as an artist in Boston.”
“Why did he paint his chosen subjects?”
“He was attracted to the macabre. Who can explain why? Tell me why Goya’s mood so darkened that he ended his career with the so-called Black Paintings. What moods arrested Poe and Baudelaire so as to produce their diabolic lore? Hmm?”
“Stop being precious and tell me about Pickman.”
“Henry, there’s little to tell. Like Goya, his mood darkened near the end of his life, fueled perhaps by his lack of luck in being able to exhibit and sell his paintings. People were turned off by the image of the morbid changeling that kept appearing in his work, that became his whoreson theme. People felt abused when looking at his art.”
“I’m sure they did.”
“Look, I’m busy. Eblis has a session with the Mistress. Good day.” So saying, he exited the room and picked up the old wheelchair, carrying it away.
I frowned at the goblin, then turned my attention once more to his painting. It was a large work in an ancient frame and seemed quite accomplished. And then I noticed the hands that nestled in the painted figure’s lap, the nubs of which were both fingerless.
The gnome’s plaintive voice spoke. “Master Pieter painted it just after I was woven.”
I looked down at him. “I don’t understand you.”
“The Mistress grants me a new addition tonight.” He held up his arms and smiled. “Will you carry me?”
I tilted to him and he scrambled into my embrace. His tiny arms wound around my neck, his large sad face fell onto my breast, and suddenly there were tears in my eyes. I could taste his loneliness. I carried him up the steps and into the hallway, then placed him into his wheelchair, which awaited him. He thanked me in his high and childlike voice, and I followed as he wheeled himself down the hallway and into the parlor. As I watched the tiny creature work his chair, something that Oskar had said about Pickman reverberated in my head. Oskar had described the creature in Pickman’s painting as a changeling. Watching Eblis, I was certain that the word exactly described him: a secret child, unwanted in this world.
I followed Eblis to a door, which I opened for him. The crone sat at what looked like a prehistoric spinning wheel. In her left hand she held a moist mass of flesh, which she worked into the spindle and pulled through the outlandish device. I watched as the stringy meat was twisted and wound into a thread of glistening brawn. On a nearby table sat a shallow metal bidet in which a pile of the fibrous stuff had been tossed. Beside that mass of meat lay a large silver tray on which some of the flesh, woven together, was piled, ready to be eaten.
Seeing us, the old woman stopped her work and stood. “Ah, Henry, welcome. Will you have some opium?” Reaching for a pipe, she brought it to her mouth and lit the bowl. She sucked loudly and closed her eyes. “’Tis an old blend, from Burma. It will soothe your troubled mind.”
Saying nothing, I took the pipe and drew on it. I watched as she sat in a chair next to the metal bowl, reaching for the gnome, who hastened to her lap. Deftly, she took up a pair of slender steel knitting needles, implements with which she worked a length of fibrous flesh into the hand on which Eblis wore two digits. My gut twisted as I watched her work, moving the needles into his flesh, her hands stained by spilling blood. Eblis neither screamed nor squirmed, and when at last he held to me his gory limb, I saw that the hand now wore a newly formed third finger. I sucked deeply on the pipe and held the smoke, and then I began to laugh, because I knew that I was dreaming.
OUTSIDE, THE STORM HAD PASSED, AND THE SKY WAS fairly clear. I walked to the crest of the hill, my mind and soul at peace. Knowing that I was dreaming gave me a longing for adventure, and so I began to follow the road down the hill, walking toward the dark and silent town. Just on the periphery of the sleeping hamlet I came upon a small cemetery crowded with willow trees, a place that looked so peaceful that I decided to investigate its weathered stones. And then I was startled by what sounded like a low harmonious wailing. Beneath a willow, standing around a barrow of stones, were three women dressed in black. I could not understand why they looked familiar, but then I remembered that I was dreaming, and so I ceased trying to make sense of these new phantoms. Boldly, I went to them and picked up one large rock that sat atop the mound. It felt very real, cold, and heavy.
The woman nearest walked to and joined me in holding the rock. I sucked the air through my nose, hoping to smell her mortality, but no fragrance wafted to me. She was a phantom indeed. Softly, she began to sing, and as her beady eyes observed me, I fancied that her song was meant for me. Taking the rock from her, I stepped closer to the pile and returned the rock to its place on top.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. I suppose whoever lies beneath must have died long ago.”
“Long, long ago,” the woman sang. I did not move as she came nearer, as her hand raised and began to investigate my face. I did not flinch as her talon poked into my scar and reopened it. I could smell the wet red stuff that began to leak down my face. Funny, I’d never experienced a sense of smell when dreaming, or of touch. Roughly, I grabbed hold of the woman’s hand. She was real enough.
“What’s happening to me?”
“You were lost, and now are found,” the woman sighed.
I pushed her from me and looked again at the mound of stones. “For whom do you warble?”
The woman motioned to the mound. “For our antecedent. For them who float in Wraithwood. For you.”
I shut my eyes and began to laugh. I could feel my high wearing off, but I was high enough to imagine that I could hear the sound of beating wings, and the noise reminded me of a line from Poe:
“Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!”
When my eyes opened, I stood alone on the cemetery sod. Above me I could hear the crying of crows as they flew upward, toward Wraithwood.
I whistled loudly and sucked in necrophagous air, a hungry aether that sank beneath my pores and chilled my soul. How soft seemed the ground beneath my feet. Falling to my knees, I clawed into that earth and brought a handful of it to my nostrils. My mouth began to water. I felt an overwhelming intensity of hunger, and in some dark secluded mental place I dreamed an image of myself digging deep into this chilly sod in search of sustenance. A memory came to me of the weird webbed food I had been served at the hotel. I craved it now. Rising, I walked out of that place, following the road upward, toward home.
All lights inside had been extinguished, and yet I could see wonderfully well when I entered the building. I had planned on going straight to my chamber, but when I heard a low murmuring within the parlor, I went to its doors and crept inside. A figure paced the room, babbling to herself. A gloved hand, through which two pointed fingernails had ripped, madly clutched the face beneath a lacerated veil. How keenly I could smell the blood that stained her face! I went to her, unable to comprehend the thing that hung from her mouth until I was very close. The crimson necklace that was a copy of the one in the Titian painting was clenched between the teeth of a tightened jaw. And still she tried to babble.
I unfastened the torn veil and let it drift to the wooden floor. Her hand shot up to scratch her face, but I held it tight so as to block the nail from slicing once more into the emaciated skin. Touching my fingers to her mouth, I gently pulled the necklace from her teeth, catching a spill of drool with my cupped hand. When again she muttered, I understood her words.
“I know when one is dead and when one lives; he’s dead as earth.” She took the ruddy necklace from me and swung it before our eyes. “Why should a dog, a rat, a witch have life and he no breath at all?”
“Of whom do you speak, kind lady? I did not find his likeness in the album. Where is his photograph?”
The woman tilted her head and examined me with lunatic eyes. Raising her hands above me, she slipped the necklace over my head. With one hand, she tightened it around my neck. When I began to have trouble breathing, I clawed at her hands and pushed her from me. Tittering, she fled the room, and I followed to her bedchamber, where I found her lighting a candle on a bookshelf that she had littered with various bric-a-brac. I noticed the gilded frame before which she swayed. Going to her, I examined the glossy sheet of paper within the frame. At first I could discern no image, but the more I studied it in the flickering light, the more I could almost make out an imperceptible and spectral outline. “Is this your young man?” I asked, touching the frame. “Is he the young man in the Titian?”
“The Titian,” she spat, in a voice that sounded coherent and sane. “He was young, wasn’t he? Not yet nineteen. And so beautiful. I take flowers to him, to his shining face. I shall soon answer his summons.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Turning to me, she tugged at her collar. “Pray you, undo this button.”
I worked the buttons loose, then took the candle and led her to bed, setting the candle on the little bedside stand. Her face was smeared with dark blood that had seeped from her self-inflicted wounds. “I’ll be right back,” I promised, and then I went to her bathroom and threw a washcloth into the small porcelain basin. I turned one of the brass-spigots and let cold water flow onto the cloth, and as I waited I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. This reminded me that I was dreaming; for how could I see my face so clearly in an unlit room, and how could that reflection be mine own? I hadn’t seen myself since my arrival to the motel, and so it should not have surprised me to see the growth of hair upon my face. But why was the bristle so thick, and how had my face grown so wide? Could those broad lips be mine, those large square teeth that almost protruded from the mouth?
No, this was all some mad hallucination, for only in a dream could my visage so alter as to resemble the ghoul in Pickman’s painting. I thought of Oskar and his similarity to the figure in the painting above his bed. This was naught but mad delusion. And yet, when I reached for the cloth and wrung the excess water from it, I could feel the cold wetness so vividly. Returning to Pera, I washed the congealed blood from her face as she sat on the bed and stared at the flame. When I had finished, she took the rag from me and pressed it to the scar beneath my eye. Our mouths were very close, and I could smell her breath.
Dropping the washcloth to the floor, Pera picked up the candle and placed it between our mouths. “Put out the light,” she whispered, “and then put out the light.” My tongue, coated with saliva, licked out the tiny blaze. I took the candle from her and set it down, then reached to undo more buttons on her blouse. We sat in deep darkness, and yet I could see her, and even fancied that I could just make out the skull beneath her thin translucent skin. Toge
ther we reclined. She took hold of the necklace around my throat and spoke a stranger’s name. I wrapped my hungry arms around her meat and shut my eyes. I dreamed within my dreaming, and those dreams were of dark cemetery sod, and of the carcasses beneath the earth. How piquant was the smell of that soil and its inhabitants! And mingled with their odor I took in the sweet fragrance of the lunatic in my arms.
But when the morning light fell on me from the window in her room, I was alone. And when I went to that window to seek the source of singing that I heard, I saw the figures that stood within the grove, encased by dawn’s dim light. Crying, I fled the room and rushed outside, running across the road and into that grove. When I saw the figure hanging from a length of rope that had been fastened to a sturdy branch, I fell upon wet grass.
Someone called my name, and I turned to face the crone. She was pointing her camera device at me, nodding her head in approval. Cursing her, I turned once more to look at the woman hanging from the tree, at the three other women who stood underneath her and wailed harmoniously. Eblis was suddenly beside me, touching his three fingers to my face and nodding his happy head. I watched as he scampered to the tree and began to scuttle up it, like something in a Kafkaesque delirium. Oskar and Philippe now stood beneath the corpse and took hold of it as Eblis gnawed the rope around the branch. The body fell as the wailing trio blurred into one cloudy entity that rose to hidden branches, from which there came the squall of crows. I watched as the men took her body to the pool and gently tossed her into its water. In dream, I saw her dead hand gather a bunch of flowers that floated in the water next to her, and I sighed as she chose one lovely bloom and held it to me. Creeping to the edge of the pool, I reached for the flower that she offered me, and by chance I peered into the water, at the shining spheres that frolicked just beneath her. I saw the one pale globe that rose to kiss the back of her neck, that moved its mouth as if to name her. At the touch of his tender kiss, my lucent beauty smiled, closed her eyes, and sank into the water’s depths.
