The Darkly Stewart Mysteries: Light and Darkly

by DG Wood

  Marielle thought for a minute.

  “Maybe six or seven families. Not many.”

  “Take me to their homes,” Darkly ordered.

  Darkly stepped onto the creaking boards of the back porch. The home was in the center of town, just a few doors down from the church. Beyond the backyard, the quietest of neighbors could be found six feet under in the Wolf Woods cemetery.

  She had visited this home previously before she knew what she was looking for. She had raced through, looking for signs of evacuation or for those who may have been abandoned and remained in hiding.

  Darkly walked past the dishes in the sink, and the wooden truck on the kitchen table. She passed into the family’s sitting room, with Marielle and Wyatt close on her heels. There was an old-fashioned radio in one corner and a sofa covered in quilts backed up against one wall, that faced a staircase leading up to the second story.

  In another corner, was a wood stove. A tea kettle sat on top. Darkly picked up the kettle and inspected the bottom, which was brittle, its metal compromised by prolonged exposure to the heat. The stove still radiated a tiny amount of warmth.

  Next to the stove, was what Darkly was looking for. An aluminum bathtub. Big enough to fit an adult. It was filled with water. Almost to the top. Enough water that a child could get in just barely without the water overflowing.

  “It was raining pretty hard,” she said to herself, remembering the words of the old Indian.

  Darkly looked around the base of the tub. She then got on her hands and knees and pressed her face to the floor.

  “What are you looking for?” queried Marielle.

  “I’ll know when I see it,” answered Darkly.

  Darkly’s eyes took her to the sofa and something poking out from underneath. She reached under and pulled a short metal pipe out from where it conceivably could have rolled. Darkly studied it and the bathtub.

  Darkly handed the pipe to Marielle and took off her jacket. She then removed her top and her jeans, and then her boots and her socks.

  “What are you doing?” asked the normally silent Wyatt.

  He was eating a piece of bread he had found in the kitchen. It looked moldy.

  “I need to test a theory,” replied Darkly, and kept undressing.

  She took it all off. Wyatt kept eating, and Marielle accepted Darkly’s most intimate of intimates. Neither seemed at all phased.

  Darkly then dipped her fingers in the water in the bathtub.

  “Not too chilly,” Darkly said hopefully.

  She then put one foot in and then the other. She stood there, like the fully-grown Venus emerging from a metal oyster. Darkly reached her hand out to Marielle, who then began to remove her shoes.

  “No. I meant pass me the pipe.” Darkly smiled.

  “Oh.”

  Marielle handed Darkly the pipe, and Darkly sat down in the tub, disguising the shock of the coolness of the water on her naked skin with tightly closed lips and a brief hum. Water splashed out onto the floor, causing Wyatt and Marielle to step back.

  Darkly took a breath and laid back into the tub, submerging her whole body below the water and holding herself in position with her feet pressed against metal. She brought an end of the pipe to her mouth and blew out, clearing the pipe of any water. She then breathed in. And then out. She breathed comfortably, slowing her heartrate, which had elevated at the anticipation of being deprived of oxygen. She looked up at Marielle and Wyatt peering over the top of the tub.

  Marielle reached into the water and took Darkly’s hand. The pregnancy had made her hormonal, Darkly thought.

  After a couple of minutes underwater, Darkly reemerged. She sat there for a moment, thinking before speaking.

  “I forgot about a towel.”

  “I’ll get one.”

  Marielle disappeared back into the kitchen and returned with a tea towel. She handed it to Darkly, who stood up and began wiping herself down.

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s going on?” Marielle asked, bemused.

  “I need to see the other homes with children.”

  Marielle took Darkly to the other homes, where Wyatt found food and Darkly found bathtubs filled with water. As the threesome returned to the hotel, Darkly shared her thoughts.

  “They were hiding their children in the water.”

  “From what?” Marielle asked.

  Darkly looked at Marielle with exasperation.

  “You grew up here, Marielle. You tell me.”

  “I’ve never seen this sort of thing before. My people have stayed put in Wolf Woods ten generations before I was born.”

  Darkly could tell Marielle wasn’t lying.

  Back at the hotel, the threesome settled in for a picnic of perishables that Wyatt had scavenged from the homes and washed it down with the homemade brew Darkly had the sense to bring back with them.

  There were a couple hours of light left, and Darkly knew she had one other theory to test. She instructed Marielle to rest and for Wyatt to watch out the window for any movement anywhere in town or on the hills around the town and report anything he saw when Darkly got back.

  “I’ll be back before dark.”

  Darkly walked down to the river and looked across into the forest on the other side of the water.

  “Here we go again.”

  Darkly took off her boots and socks, rolled up her jeans, and trudged out into the middle of the ford. Then, she turned south into the river and walked down the pebble slope until she was in water up to her thighs. Her jeans were wet. It didn’t matter. Darkly had a crazy idea about last night. She had to test it. With Wyatt’s words before his mind erasure about not singing at the forefront of her thoughts, Darkly began to do just what he had advised her against. She sang.

  At first, Darkly began softly. In the great tradition of Rex Harrison, she spoke the words of a Britany Spears song. But as her courage gained strength, so did her voice become more musical. She moved on to the The Rolling Stones and Nirvana. After a while she was belting out classic pop and rock at the top of her lungs and splashing through the water. It was a great release. But, she never took her eyes off the forest.

  Until another sound overpowered her voice. It was the sound of a drum. No, clanging, was more like it. A spoon against a pot. She looked behind her to see the distant figure of Wyatt hanging out of the window banging on a drain spout with what looked like the leg of a chair.

  Her eyes moved down, as the hair all over her body became electrified. There, standing on the bank she had walked out into the river from, she saw what the Mounties who spent too much time in the woods spoke among themselves about with knowing glances. It was a sasquatch. This was no Harry And The Hendersons breed. It was about ten feet and covered in reddish brown hair. It’s blood-shot eyes were boring into Darkly, and its head and neck were twitching in erratic fashion. It was desperate to get to Darkly, but wouldn’t dare go into the water. Instead, it just reached its jaw out in Darkly’s direction and gnashed its yellowed teeth.

  Darkly had never been so afraid. She was so scared that she forgot to draw her gun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The creature paced along the river’s bank, growing more agitated by the water that separated it from Darkly. It repeatedly turned away from the river, then took a couple of giant strides, as though it intended to brave its greatest fear. But, in the end, it stood no closer to Darkly, malcontent and slobbering and grunting. Its face was disturbingly human. What was behind the eyes was disturbingly not.

  Darkly remembered her gun and drew it. But, should she shoot? Did bullets have any effect on something so tall and wide? Or what if it just made the beast angrier and gave it the reason it needed to finally conquer its fear?

  But the shot became a moot point, when two wolves suddenly leapt from the bushes at the creature, one latching on to an arm, and the other biting into a leg. The sasquatch howled in pain and punched one of the wolves in the skull. It fell onto its back and whimpered, while the other wolf that
swung in mid-air from the beast’s bough-like arm, went flying into the water, splashing Darkly.

  Both wolves recovered and leapt at the legendary monster again. This time, one of the canines bit at the animal-man’s crotch, while the other went for the neck. But, the beast still did not topple. It’s anger elevated, the sasquatch reached down and wrapped one set of fingers around the wolf’s neck and squeezed until the jaws opened up. He then threw it twenty feet through the air. The wolf landed on a stone wall. Darkly heard bones break, and the wolf did not get back up.

  Suddenly, a raven swept down from the sky, appearing from nowhere. Well, to be honest, Darkly’s attention wasn’t exactly on the clouds. It grazed the top of the sasquatch’s head, as the creature wrapped both of its arms around the remaining wolf, ready to crush its ribcage.

  The bird distracted the sasquatch enough, that when the wolf sunk its teeth deeper into the creature’s neck, it stumbled and slipped on the slick stones at the edge of the water. In it went, tumbling into the river.

  The wolf let go, and Darkly watched as the sasquatch clamored out of the water like it had been bathing in acid and scurried away, screaming, sometimes on all fours, sometimes on two legs.

  As Darkly watched the raven fly away, the two wolves that presumably saved her life lay on the riverbank. One was panting, its body half in and half out of the river. The other was deathly still.

  Wyatt followed Darkly back to the hotel, carrying the naked and wounded Marielle. This girl never gets a break, thought Darkly. She had tried to kill her when they first met, and now she had saved Darkly’s skin. She guessed they were really even now. Darkly noticed she was humming. In fact, she had never stopped from the moment the attack began. Like a broken record, she was compelled to repeat a few chords over and over. She had been under a spell. She had to get a handle on this.

  Marielle was half-conscious when Darkly tucked her into bed. Her eyes opened, as a coughing fit overcame her. Blood sprayed from her mouth onto the pillow under her head.

  “There’s internal bleeding, and her back’s broken. But, it wasn’t a silver bullet,” Darkly said to Wyatt, who sat at the end of the bed on a stool.

  “She fought well,” he concluded.

  There was genuine concern in Wyatt’s voice.

  “You both did,” replied Darkly. “I need you to watch her, bring her food.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Just for a couple of days. I will be back.”

  Marielle coughed again. More fresh blood.

  “My baby. Is it okay?”

  Darkly responded to Marielle’s mumbled plea not knowing whether she spoke the truth or not.

  “You’ll be fine. The baby will be fine if you rest now. I have to talk to a friend. Someone who can help us and give me some answers.”

  Darkly stroked Marielle’s hair and kissed her forehead.

  “Sleep now. When you wake up, I’ll already be back. And then we’ll get out of here together.”

  “I need to find the father,” Marielle whispered and drifted off into a place where pain was tempered by a different reality.

  “Okay.”

  That sounded like an impossible request to Darkly. Yet, on second thought, she guessed that if one followed the bodies, the father would turn up.

  Darkly looked around the room. There were enough supplies to keep Marielle and Wyatt fed for a couple of days. Maybe three. She left Marielle’s side and reached out for Wyatt’s hand. He took it unquestioningly, like a child. Darkly hoped his true nature remained submerged at least until she could get Marielle and herself to safety. She still hadn’t decided fully if she was going to kill him or not.

  “I am giving you my word as a Mountie. I’m coming back for you. Do you believe me?”

  Wyatt nodded yes.

  “Don’t go outside,” were Darkly’s parting words.

  Darkly had thought about waiting until morning and then decided there had been enough waiting. Perhaps the creature could see better in the dark than her. In fact, after the cave, she was certain of it. Surely she had speed on her side with the jeep.

  Her worry was unfounded. Her journey to the main highway in the open-top jeep was entirely uneventful. For now, the beast was spooked, and she had a nine-hour drive ahead of her that she hoped would remain surprisingly banal. She’d find her way to the home of Ennis McWhorter, RCMP Retired, in time for breakfast.

  Luckily for Darkly, there was a full can of gas in the back of the jeep that got her to a station along the Trans-Canada Highway. Filled up with coffee and fuel, she pushed through to the outskirts of Kamloops and pulled down the gravel driveway of her father’s best friend’s home as dawn was breaking.

  Ennis’s grandfather was a Scotsman who fought in the Great War. After the horrors of the trenches, he sought out the most remote place on earth he could find for the peace that only nature can afford one, as he liked to say. In British Columbia, he met a First Nations woman, whom he hired as a housekeeper and who stayed for marriage.

  Ennis’s native heritage shaped his attitude and actions throughout his years as an RCMP constable. He also inherited his long white hair from his grandmother’s side of the family. His relationships with First Nations communities was the reason for Darkly’s visit.

  Her host had seen Darkly grow up and become a constable in her own right. So, when she showed up at his door, it was as though he was greeting his own daughter. Having never married or had children, Darkly was the closest thing to a daughter that Ennis, in fact, had. Ennis fed Darkly and sent her to bed with the promise to wake her up by lunchtime. He did just that by chopping wood outside her window midday.

  A rejuvenating shower later, and Darkly was sitting across from Ennis on his back porch, drinking the universal elixir of cold beer.

  “Well, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” Ennis asked.

  “I can’t go into too much detail,” Darkly said sheepishly.

  “Ah. Undercover mission. I see.”

  Darkly smiled and took a swig of beer.

  “I’ve got a really weird question to ask you.”

  Ennis leaned forward.

  “Well, now you’ve got me intrigued.”

  “Did you and dad ever see giant men in the northern forests?” Darkly asked bluntly.

  “Giants?”

  There was no hint of ridicule in Ennis’s voice.

  “Hairy giants. About ten feet tall.”

  Ennis leaned back and thought about it.

  “I said it was a weird question,” Darkly said apologetically.

  “It’s not that weird.”

  Ennis got up.

  “Come with me.”

  Ennis led Darkly off the porch and to a separate building from the house. Inside, Ennis stored his snowmobile, snow plow, and other winter essentials. He led Darkly to the back of the garage and a locked door. Ennis unlocked it and flicked a switch on the interior wall. Fluorescent lights blinked to life.

  “After you,” said Ennis.

  Darkly stepped inside the back room. It was a bit like a museum. There were glass cases on tables that lined the perimeter of the room. Above those, on the walls, were maps of North America and photographs. Darkly’s adoptive father was in more than a few of them. One photo, in particular, caught her eye. Her dad, William Schilling, and Ennis were knelt next to a set of large footprints in mud outside a barn door.

  “That was a hoax.”

  Ennis’s words took Darkly by surprise.

  “This room is a shrine to my career and your dad’s. Some of the more interesting cases. This photo was taken in southern Alberta. A rancher kept losing cattle at night. Slaughtered in the fields they stood. The rancher was a city kid who inherited the ranch when his father passed away at a fairly young age. The neighbor wanted to buy the land. When the kid wouldn’t sell, the neighbor tried to scare him off it.”

  “So, no hairy giant,” said Darkly.

  “No hairy giant,” confirmed Ennis.

  Ennis w
alked over to a case and opened the glass lid, lifted out a small wooden carving and handed it to Darkly. It was the figure of a person carved into the wood, like a totem.

  “I had a lab carbon date it. The wood was cut about one hundred years ago.”

  The face of the carving looked very familiar to Darkly. She pulled the silver beads, the ones that had been inside Wyatt’s head, out of her jeans pocket, careful not to touch them with her bare skin. She grasped the sinew that connected the beads instead. The mask one of the beads and the face on the carving were so similar, it was not likely to be a coincidence.

  “Where did you get that?” Ennis asked, his interest further piqued.

  Darkly was silent.

  “Right. Top secret mission. May I?”

  Ennis held out his open palm, and Darkly dropped the beads into it. Ennis rubbed his fingers over the beads.

  “Do you know what these are?” Ennis asked.

  Darkly knew very well what they had been used for recently, but not what use they were normally meant for.

  “Something of a shaman’s?” she guessed.

  “Well, yes,” said Ennis, “it would have belonged to a shaman.”

  Ennis held the bead up with the mask.

  “This is sasquatch. Many First Nations people consider him a spiritual protector, who comes down from the highest parts of the mountains when the tribe is in trouble. This would have been a full necklace at one time. Silver. It was put around the necks of the sick to ward off evil. To protect from further infection, and, legend says, shapeshifters.”

  Ennis dropped the beads back in Darkly’s hand.

  “Shapeshifters?”

  “Men and women who can take animal form.”

  “Like a bird,” Darkly thought aloud.

  “Yes,” confirmed Ennis. “Or, say, a wolf.”

  This certainly got Darkly’s attention. Was Ennis testing her? Did he suspect something about what Darkly was up to? He had been in the woods his whole adult life. He’d surely heard it all.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Ennis.”

  “There was a time you used to call me Uncle Ennis.”