With a flick of his hand Mr. Gaap silenced him.
Old Patch fell to the ground still as the grave. And the silence rushed back in. Not a cricket, nor car engine, not one single thing made a sound. Marla Ann’s heart thumped in her chest. Even that was only a feeling and not a sound. And then far off in the distance thunder rumbled like rain was on its way.
Brother Del must not have seen Mr. Gaap or he paid him no mind. All of his attention was focused on the boys. The fury over their wrong-doing was like a mask on his face. Brother Del knew right from wrong and his face said he’d just been waiting for his chance to show it. He pulled his portable bible out of his back pocket and held it aloft like he was going to smack some sense into the boys with it.
Hank Jr. and Paul Ray stared at Mr. Gaap like they were the ones who were mesmerized.
Paul Ray, as if he got hit in the head with a baseball bat and it woke him up, yelled, “Say the mother fucking words and send him back to hell.” He shoved the papers into Hank Jr.’s hands.
Mr. Gaap, cool as a cucumber strolled toward the boys. He had a smile on his lips that said he knew how to handle teenage foolishness.
“Hold up with your devil conjuring.” Brother Del hollered. “Hold up or, by God, I will smite you.” He waved his little Bible in the air.
Hank Jr. held the papers like he was giving a speech at the Fourth of July picnic. “The thirty-third prince has dominion over the southern region of Hell and Earth. He is best conjured when the sun is in a southern Zo-de Ack-el sign. Gaap controls the element of water. He teaches Philosophy and can cause humans to love him.”
Mr. Gaap chuckled and shook his head. “Dear boys, you have the words but not the power. The Lesser Key of Solomon must be consecrated.”
Hank Jr. turned so pale he was almost see-through. “I told you!” he screamed at Paul Ray.
“He’s lying, stupid! That’s what they do.” Paul ray squealed like a little piglet getting ripped from the tit. He snatched the top page from the home-made book and threw it on the ground. “Keep reading.”
“Stop!” Brother Del yelled like he was getting to the good part of a sermon. “Repent your evil ways.”
Hank Jr. paid him no mind and muttered as he read down the page. “He can deliver familiars out of the hands of other magicians…
“No!” Paul Ray said.
“Necromancers can summon him with sacrifice and a burnt offering…”
“No!!!”
“Demons be gone!” Brother Del hollered as he circled the boys like an injun doing a war dance.
Clouds roiled in the sky like they never did before in Midway. This time of year was dry as dust. Strange how clouds could move like that, like they were from a foreign land. The air was even heavy and thick with moisture.
“His seal is thus and to be made as aforesaid…” Hank Jr. said.
“That’s it!” Paul Ray looked like someone drowning who finally caught a breath. “Say that part!”
Brother Del raised his arms. “Be gone demons!” He turned a shade of red that wasn’t found in nature, righteous red, as he surged toward the boys with his Bible held out like a club.
“Don’t break the circle, yo!” Paul Ray screamed as Brother Del caught him around the neck. The Bible fell to the ground and got shuffled about as they struggled.
On the black top of the carport the boys had drawn a circle and a star and sure enough they were both standing inside it. Hank Jr. better not think he was getting away with that. He was going to be down on his hands and knees scrubbing that mess off first chance he got.
Paul Ray squirmed and fought to get free, but Brother Del was still able to catch Hank Jr. by the back of his shirt.
Paul Ray wiggled until he broke free. He took off running faster than any fat kid ever ran before. He jumped over old Patch laying still on the ground and flew through the gate. He disappeared around the corner of the house.
“Come back here boy,” Brother Del yelled after him. “We going to flush that devil out of you!” But Paul Ray was long gone. “Your mama will hear about this!” Brother Del yelled to no avail.
Brother Del got a tighter hold on Hank Jr. “Tell your boy to mind me, Marla Ann!”
“That boy never does listen to me.” Marla Ann didn’t take her eyes off Mr. Gaap. A gentleman like that, he could surely set the boy straight.
Brother Del turned himself and Hank Jr. around until he was facing Mr. Gaap. He dragged the boy across the velvet green lawn up to the edge of the pool. “Sorry to make your acquaintance under such circumstance.” Brother Del clamped Hank Jr.’s head in a headlock as he thrust out his hand.
“The pleasure is all mine.” Mr. Gaap shook Brother Del’s hand.
Brother Del was a big man and sweating to beat the band. In spite of the clouds and the thunder it was still a mighty hot day. He eyed Mr. Gaap’s pool like a dog with his nose pressed up on the butcher shop glass. “As you probably heard, this boy is in need of a full immersion to wash the evil out of him.”
Truth to tell, seemed like Brother Del was looking for any reason he could find to jump in that pool and church work just presented itself. But one person can never know for sure what’s in the heart of another.
A smile like the sun coming up in the morning spread across Mr. Gaap’s face. “Be my guest.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Hank Jr. squealed.
“I’m going to consecrate the hell out of you boy,” Brother Del proclaimed as he puffed and struggled to get Hank Jr. to the edge of the pool.
“You got to let me recite from The Lesser Key of Solomon!” Hank Jr. yelled as if those kind of words would have influence on Brother Del.
And they surely did not influence Brother Del, at least not the way Hank Jr. thought they would, because the minute they were out of his mouth Brother Del heaved him into the pool. The pages of The Lesser Key of Solomon flew up in the air and floated down like leaves. Hank Jr. sunk like a stone then popped right up again sputtering and spitting.
Brother Del did a big old belly flop into the pool. The water roiled and bubbled like it was a pot on the stove ready for crawdads. He grabbed Hank Jr. by the hair and held him under the water. “In the name of the Father, I command you to exit this boy.”
He hollered and yelled for God to come and deliver the demons out of Hank Jr.
Minutes ticked by and it seemed like the sky went from light to dark and back to light again and still Brother Del held Hank Jr. under.
Thunder rumbled like the storm was coming closer.
“Let him up Brother Del,” Marla Ann said without much conviction. Maybe Hank Jr. needed some extra time under the water. That boy had a lot of his shiftless no good daddy in him and in spite of what they teach in the church about how everyone can be redeemed, there wasn’t no truth in that. Everyone knew you could always see the end in the beginnings. Chances were Hank Jr. was never going to make it too far in life.
Marla Ann took comfort in the knowledge that God worked in mysterious ways and in the end everything turned out for the best. Maybe Brother Del knew just exactly how long he needed to stay under water.
Finally, the boy stopped flailing and fell limp.
The water roiled and bubbled and swirled in a circle faster and faster. Hank Jr. was caught up in it and pulled down into the middle like a turd in a toilet. Then the water started roiling and swirling even faster. The sky did the same. The current or something must have been really strong, or maybe a twister touched down because Brother Del spun around like a top. He hollered and screamed like nobody’s business. In spite of all the noise he was making he was sucked into the hole in the middle of the pool too.
Soon as he disappeared under the water the storm clouds let loose. Marla Ann crept up to the edge of the pool and looked into the water. Raindrops plunked one after another onto the placid surface.
Marla Ann studied the water. All around the leaves on the trees trembled with the rain. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to recall w
hy it was so important that she look in the pool. She was sure just a minute ago everything fit together like a puzzle. But for the life of her, she couldn’t recall how.
Brother Gaap stooped down and scooped up a little black book. He tossed the bedraggled thing into the trash.
“Good Day Marla Ann.” Brother Gaap opened his umbrella and held it over Marla Ann’s head.
Rain splattered on the blacktop. White chalk lines that somebody must have drawn ran in rivulets down to the street.
Marla Ann turned and looked into Brother Gaap’s smiling face. “It’s coming a real gully-washer.”
“Good for the garden. Good for the crops.” Brother Gaap took Marla Ann’s elbow. A rogue ray of sunlight must have caught on a drop of water, because for a moment it looked like Brother Gaap’s eyes flashed red.
“Good for the crops, it is,” Marla Ann said with a girlish giggle. “You want to come inside for some sweet tea and cake?”
“Why, thank you. That would be very nice.”
Brother Gaap was the most gentlemanly man in all of Midway. Nobody in the whole town from the velvet green hills in the south to the lush woods around the lake would make a better pastor than Brother Gaap.
H I s For Hrace
Simon Kurt Unsworth
On the hillside ahead of him, someone was having their photograph taken.
At least, it was what Norrish thought was probably happening. About halfway up the slope, probably four hundred feet above him, a figure in a garish red coat was standing and pointing up at the crest of the hill. Somewhere below them, Norrish expected to see a second figure taking a photograph; he suspected that most visitors to the area ended up with at least one picture of themselves standing on a hill path pointing upwards at the peak beyond in a ‘look what I’m about to climb’ pose. There were even pictures of Norrish like that, taken when he had still holidayed with other people rather than by himself.
The path zigzagged up the steep hill, cutting first one way through the heavy scrub of bushes and grasses and then the other, and shortly after Norrish first saw the posing figure he lost sight of them, his last glance a glimmer of red against the earthen tones of the hillside. For a few minutes he enjoyed the solitude of his walk, with the rain pattering down on his head and spattering against his jacket, an old garment of beaten waterproof whose bright yellow reflective stripes had long since peeled and faded. His pack was settled well upon his back, the straps finding the grooves in his shoulders he was sure must be there by now after all the years of walking and carrying. He expected to meet the tourists at the top of the hill, pass them in a scent of mint cake and a rustle of new waterproofs and a nodded ‘hello’ made without eye contact. The path switched back on itself, the scrub beginning to thin, and Norrish emerged once more into the dank light of the clouded late afternoon.
The tourist in the red coat was still there.
Not just still there; still in the same pose, one arm aloft and pointing at the peak beyond them, coat flapping in the wind, head tilted back to expose a pale face to the sky. Norrish carried on, crossing back across the face of the slope with the path and feeling the incline tug at his thigh and calf muscles. This was his first walk in several weeks, and he had gotten rusty and stiff. He wondered why the person above wasn’t moving, and where their photographer was; as he got closer, the pose was getting clearer. Whoever it was, they were pointing at the standing stones on the hill’s peak, at this distance little more than tiny nubs of shadow like old teeth.
Lyfthelm Circle, and it was Norrish’s destination as well.
Norrish smiled slightly, thinking of the hotel owner. The man had insisted on telling Norrish about the local area, about Lyfthelm (“It means ‘cloud’,” he had said, “and the hill is sometimes called Hraec-Tunge, but I don’t know what that means and most people call it The Swallows.”), thinking that Norrish was a tourist, something Norrish hadn’t been for years; Norrish was a walker, and he knew this area well.
The path turned again, threading its way through another nest of gorse and bracken and tall, tangled bushes, and the posing figure was lost to view again. The rain was becoming heavy now, its sound on his hood and shoulders a skittish tattoo.
Cold water rolled around the rim of his hood, seeping down the inside his collar and tickly damply at his neck. Norrish shifted his knapsack, feeling its weight moving pleasingly with him, rolling around his shoulders. Another switchback and then he was on the same stretch of path as the figure, who was still there, still posing.
Still motionless.
As Norrish came close to them, he saw that it was a man; older, perhaps fifty, wrapped in a nicely red coat and waterproof trousers. He had a small rucksack over one shoulder, the strap twisted as though he had been halfway through removing it when he had stopped. His face was tilted back, eyes open wide and staring at the crest of the hill and the circle of stones, arm still stretched out, fingers pointing loosely. He was in the centre of the path, and he did not move as Norrish approached, did not acknowledge his approach at all.
“Hello,” said Norrish. The man did not respond. Norrish repeated the word, louder, wondering if the man was perhaps a little deaf; the wind was heavier up here, the exposed hillside scoured by gusts and swirls that hummed and chuckled in Norrish’s ears. It carried with it the scents of damp earth and the cold of the clouds, and it surrounded them. He walked to the man, and it was only when he got close to that he realised that something was wrong.
Terribly, horribly wrong.
The man’s face was the colour of day-old milk, glittering as the rain spilled across it, and his lips had coloured to a rich, chill blue. He was shivering, teeth chittering together with porcelain insistence. His outstretched arm was shaking violently, and as he came even closer, Norrish saw that the man’s fingertips were also blue. The man was freezing. How long had been standing there? Norrish stepped around the man, to his front so that he was upslope of him and blocking his view of whatever it was he was looking at.
The man had a camera dangling from his outstretched arm, spinning and wet, its strap glistening wetly.
“Hello?” he called again, loudly, clearly. “Are you okay?”
Stupid question; this man was not okay, not by a long way. Even his ears had started to go blue, the tops of them and the lobes and angry, cyanotic blue. His hair was heavy with the rain, twisted into rattails that dancing and swung about him, framing his face.
“We need to get you moving,” said Norrish. He put one arm half around the man, placing a palm into the small of his back and pushing gently. After a moment, the man took a hesitant step and then another. His arm dropped back to his side but he kept his head tilted back and he moved like a sleepwalker or a drugged thing. The camera slipped off his wrist and fell to the ground; the man ignored it. Norrish bent and retrieved it, putting into one of the man’s pockets. The man did not seem to notice but simply kept walking.
“Good lad,” said Norrish, despite the fact the man was at least ten years older than he was. He pulled out his mobile phone, but between their isolation and the weather, the signal was non-existent. Up or down, he wondered? He looked back down the hill; no one. It wasn’t a great day for walking, not really, and they were off the main tourist trails anyway. Lyfthelm wasn’t as good a stone circle as Castlerigg, smaller and less dramatic and it was harder to reach; in good weather it could be busy but in this rain and with the clouds moving above them in wolfpack circles, only people who knew it tended to come here. People like Norrish, who liked his walks to be in places where there were few other people. Feeling a flash of irritation at the man for spoiling the solitary enjoyment of his day, Norrish sighed and began to guide him up the slope.
Norrish hoped that there might be others already up there, maybe even the man’s party, not realising that he had got into trouble. It was unlikely that anyone would have a signal on their phone, but he could at make sure the man was warm and safe while someone went for help. Leading the man was like pulling a sheep; h
e was docile yet somehow skittish and hard to move, his head permanently tilting back to stare into the rain and at the hilltop ahead of them, his steps staggering. The rain was thickening, heading towards being a storm, heavier than any of the forecasters had predicted, and Norrish was getting worried. Had he been alone he would have already turned back, but the man complicated things.
Around them, the gorse danced and shook in the rain.
The first dazzle of lightning came as they reached the last switchback, a staggered crack of thunder following on its heels. For a moment, the sky above them was a fragmented mess of roiling clouds leached to a sour ivory by the flash, and then the world darkened again, the saturated earth regaining its palate of greens and browns. Norrish blinked, pulling the man along, his feet slipping across the rutted, waterlogged surface of the path.
The man was slowing now, tugging back from him. He was making a noise, a low keening that came to Norrish as though from under layers of ice. The man was, if anything, trembling even more, his arm rising again to point up at the brow of the hill, and now he was screeching, his mouth wide open and his tongue moving in the shadows behind his lips like a worm severed and left to its death throes. Norrish pulled at him again but the man refused to move, literally digging his heels into the raw earth and leaning back against Norrish’s grip.
“Come on,” said Norrish, not that gently. “We need to move.” The rain thickened, closing in around them and reducing the world to a loose circle of violently writhing, sodden greenery and bruised cloud and wind and water and ahead of them, a crown of standing stones like broken, jagged teeth. The man screeched again as Norrish yanked on his arm; Norrish felt the muscles bunch and tremble even through the layers of coat and jumper underneath, and then he was moving, his feet dragging over the soil and through the sparse grass.
There was no one on the hilltop.
The gorse fringed the brow of the hill with tired snarls and ragged stems, leaving Lyfthelm Circle’s stones standing alone in the centre of a exposed clearing. The grass around Norrish’s feet was longer than on the path, scrawny and plastered to the ground by the rain but lifting with each gust of wind to wave wretchedly before falling back. It tangled over the tops of their boots, tearing as they moved forwards.
The Demonologia Biblica Page 10
