Gathered Dust and Others

by W. H. Pugmire

  “Do you know the Elder Sign?” Her voice was a shriek that sounded like a gale of madness. Reaching down, she picked up a piece of wood and stabbed it into her palm, then held the bloodstained member to the sky and shouted more of the monstrous language as her fingers worked with signaling. I gazed in wonder as the trees just beyond the archway began to alter, to melt and reform as another forest composed of stranger elements of shadow. And in that shade I saw one opaque outline that was a sentient copy of the effigy before which I knelt. Hannah, seeing the figure, shuddered and wailed, then floated through the aged archway toward the peril that awaited her. I shivered as I watched the seven iridescent spheres that formed above the daemon and the girl, those unearthly seven suns that churned with cosmic radiance that formed as threads of pseudo-lightning, a light show of dancing electricity that shot between each sphere. I watched, as the Strange Dark One caught that play of fire and washed it into the flesh of Hannah Blotch – her flesh that darkened and crumbled as ash. I rose and walked to the stone archway, as the eidolon of dread lifted its facelessness. Something in the smooth blank blackness that should have contained a countenance seemed to smile at me, mockingly, and then the spectre melted into the gloom of that other forest and its assembly of dark mute trees. I heard the tempest that lashed those trees, an alien storm that fell onto the pile of ash that had once been a living woman’s flesh. I saw that ash rise in coils and assemble as conscious outline that formed itself into one with whom I had been intimate – a phantom that kissed my soul with ecstasy and awe. She held out her dark mutated hands and called my name. The forest was now completely altered, no longer a place of Sesqua Valley, but of some otherwhere, and I recognized it as a realm that I had known in deepest dreaming. I saw the dwarfish imps that peeped between the spaces of dark mute trees, as above those trees the faceless gaunts pirouetted in a violet sky, their wide membranous wings outspread. I saw the seven suns that rose above outlandish peaks whereon the other gods fumbled in their ancient repose. And I saw she who had been transformed, her naked skin dark and rubbery, her broad hands ending in talons designed for digging in cemetery sod, her ghastly mouth wide and smiling as she mewed my name. I stepped through the archway of ancient stone and loped toward the woods of dream-land, to where my dam awaited me, and fell into her chilly hold.

  Host of Haunted Air

  Empty your heart of its mortal dream.

  The winds awaken…

  –William Butler Yeats

  I.

  I sat at my shop counter, inhaling the heady scent of olden books, my thoughts drifting and transforming into nebulous dream, when the bell sounded at the door. Chilly evening wind moved the brittle pages of the book that lay before me. A figure entered and quietly shut the door. I took in the male attire, clothes that hung askew on so lithe a feminine frame. I smiled at the green carnation in its buttonhole, at the tall black hat that was shiny with age. Beneath the hat’s rim dark eyes peered from a wan and worried face.

  “Have you see Jonathan since his return from Thailand?”

  “No,” I answered, closing the book before me. “I’ve been rather preoccupied with a new shipment. But I expect to see him at your Black and Red party, which is…”

  “Three weeks away.” She sighed and leaned against a tall and sturdy shelf, looked at her black silk gloves as if she couldn’t decide whether to remove them or not. Again, the deep sigh. “Perhaps I’m being foolish.” The pause was pregnant with implication.

  “Do tell me everything,” I coaxed.

  “That’s just it. I don’t know what’s up with him. He’s been distant, mentally preoccupied. Usually when he comes home from some far-off place he’s excited to tell me of his adventures. Now all he does is sit in his pagoda and whistle to himself.”

  “Hmm. You don’t think he’s heading for another breakdown or any such thing?”

  “I don’t know, that seems unlikely. There’s something secretive about the way he’s acting. That’s what really bugs me, I hate being left out. Jonathan’s been my intimate companion since father’s death, you know. We have a bond. In the past, when something’s troubled him, he would always confide in me. I’ve tried bullying him, you know how he enjoys a bit of brutality; but when I castigate and question he just dismisses me as though I were a clueless child. It’s pissing me off. I know he likes his little secrets, his naughty little pleasures or whatever.”

  “Perhaps he’s caught the clap. There is, so I believe, an internationally famous bordello in Bangkok. Or is it Saigon?”

  “A case of the clap wouldn’t induce him to spend the night in his stupid so-called pagoda.” Inquisitively, I arched a brow. “Yeah, I got up to go pee at three in the morning and saw him from my window. He was sitting in the cold wind and rocking back and forth. When I called to him he totally ignored me. Fucking weird.”

  “Indeed, most curious. And what is it you want from me?”

  “Talk to him.”

  “Well, of course…”

  “Tonight.”

  “But, my dear!” Helplessly, I held up my hands in a gesture to indicate how frightfully busy I was, as I sat there doing nothing.

  “Please, Henry. There’s no one else. He listens to you.”

  “But, my dear, listen to that brutal wind. Surely this can wait.” But I saw from her expression that it could not. With melodramatic sigh I heaved off my stool, wrapped myself in heavy coat and escorted her to her car. The house in which they lived, in a well to-do lakeside residence, was almost a mansion. This had always been their home. After the death of their father, the two siblings had made few changes inside the house, comfortable with the furnishings they had known since childhood. Their personal lives, however, altered absolutely. Alisha often held gala gatherings for her enclave of bohemian mutants. Jonathan began his series of journeys across the globe, often sending me fabulous old books from far-off lands.

  I watched the nighted lake as we drove along the boulevard, until as last we came to the graveled driveway that took us to a high metal fence. Alisha pressed a gizmo and the gate began to move. Their property was so densely populated with towering firs and evergreens that it always had an air of seclusion, despite the constant traffic on the nearby lakeside road. The trees grew so close together that even on the brightest days the house stood in lush shadow.

  The gate closed behind us as she stopped the car. “He’s in his pagoda,” she said, as if dismissing both her brother and myself. Haughtily, I stepped out of the car and slammed its door behind me. The wind was chill and so I pulled my coat’s collar tightly around my neck. A line of swaying Japanese lanterns dimly lit the stone path that led across the lawn to the structure that Jonathan called his pagoda, although it but faintly resembled anything found in the Far East. It was like an open garden pavilion with roofing in Oriental fashion. Inside could be found a gigantic Buddhist bell, a fake waterfall and an amazing assortment of wind chimes. The young man sat on a mat, his legs crossed in what I took to be one of his yoga positions. It made my old knees ache to look at him. His long brown hair was tied in a ponytail. He wore sandals, khaki cut-offs, and some kind of fleece vest. With eyes closed he could not see me as I examined his handsome profile, the lean face with prominent cheekbones and goatee. Even in the dim lighting from the single lantern beneath which he sat I could tell that he was darkly tanned, perhaps from his time in Thailand, to which he had journeyed with some Hindu theist. He looked so remarkably composed that I began to question his sister’s histrionics.

  Chill evening wind died a little; the music of the wind chimes softened. “Henry.” I crinkled my brow in confusion. He had not moved, nor had his eyes opened. How then…? “I can smell you on the wind. You reek of dust and old books. I suppose that Ally has asked you to talk to me.”

  I spoke as I strolled to him. “Yes, but also to ask my aesthetic advice regarding décor for the upcoming festivities. But she does seem just a tad bit worried. Are you behaving beastly? In one of your tiresome moods?”

&
nbsp; “No. I’ve merely been preoccupied. She simply wants something to fret about, you know how she is. She wants this party to be a fabulous success.”

  “Ah, that might be it. And you’re being childish because she is so focused on her party that she is ignoring you. You’re both such spoiled children, clamoring for center stage.”

  “You’re stupid if that’s what you think.”

  “Pardon my benightedness,” came my bitchy reply. The wind buffeted us once more, and at the sound of clanging I looked at the swaying chimes and saw the new addition. But exactly what it was I could not ascertain. At first I thought it some freakish papier-mâché head, but as I drew nearer it looked more like a metal object encrusted with blue dusting of granulated steel. It had a kind of face; where the mouth would have been it wore an oval aperture the size of a small egg. Two lesser holes suggested nostrils. Where a face would have had eyes were two shallow indentions, but these were solid, sans orifices. Above these, on what might have been a forehead, was a grouping of tiny pea-sized holes that numbered seven.

  “Mmm, something new.”

  “Oh. Yes.” I sensed a change in his decorum, a sudden frigidity. Turning, I peered at him and saw his face filled with wonder, and in the eyes a tinge of terror. He moved his eyes from the thing of metal and noticed my expression. Hurriedly, a torrent of language spilled from his babbling mouth. “I found it in Bangkok, in a curious little shop. There was a main room filled with the most god-awful American junk. But I found this little alcove near the back, dimly lit and cluttered, just the kind of place where I find those old books that so delight you. And there it was, sitting among a disarray of jumble. I thought it was some kind of weird wind chime, so of course I bought it.”

  “It looks rather unearthly.”

  How nervously he cackled. “Indeed.”

  I touched a hand to its rough surface. How frightfully cold it was. With what an unnatural – nay – a disquieting texture it had been composed. Frowning, I took my hand away. My fingers almost burned with chilliness; and with something else, some kind of nasty residue that adhered to my numbing flesh. Disgusted, I rubbed my fingers on my trousers. A noise caught my attention. I leaned closer to – the thing – and fancied that I could hear wind moving through it. Stepping around so to examine the back of it, I was startled to see a solid surface with no opening of any kind. But surely that was the mitigating wind that moaned through it, its sound somehow distorted as it sailed through the thing’s apertures.

  I looked at the length of chain from which it hanged, from a small yet sturdy hook that had been soldered to its top. Moving, I faced its front. Had the night grown nippier, or was it creepiness that tickled my flesh? I sensed the night wind fade away. The chimes around us stopped their insistent movement. All was dead quiet, except for the faint suggestion of sound that issued from the thing before me -- and Jonathan’s faint whistling. I looked at him, with his wide eyes oddly glazed and his moving mouth askew. The mingling of sounds seemed seductive, so beguiling that I leaned closer to the egg-shaped opening so as to hear the better. Yes, I yearned to listen, to press against the course uncanny surface and listen to the air that moved within. Perhaps if I were to press my lips together I too could whistle in imitation of its eerie sound. Perhaps if I touched my mouth to the small opening…

  A hand tightened at my shoulder and pulled me away. I shouted in protest, and then saw Jonathan’s panicky eyes peering into my own. Something in their troubled expression filled me with fear, and together we fled the haunted place.

  II.

  I fidgeted in a chair before a fire. Jonathan had taken me to the expansive library room, and after having prepared coffee for me had fixed himself a large martini. I held the cup of scalding liquid tightly in my hand, grateful for its warmth. Now and then I glanced into the fireplace; but I quickly looked away, troubled at the things I saw, or thought I saw, within the flames.

  “Now. Jonathan. Explain to me, please, that which has just occurred.”

  “What?”

  “No, do not suddenly play ignorant. You will explain to me this – thing – in your pagoda and its unnatural affect. What it is?”

  He paced the floor, refusing to sit; nor would he look at me. “It’s what I told you it is.” He saw that I was growing agitated and angry. “It’s obviously some weird kind of wind devise.”

  “It’s ‘obviously’ like nothing we’ve either of us seen before.”

  Sighing in frustration, he finally sat. “Okay. Yes, it’s unusual, and has its eerie effect.” I snorted. “I can’t explain it. But, Henry, we are susceptible to such effects because of our senses. Sounds, music, can either soothe or disturb us. Look at what happened when Stravinsky premiered Le Sacre du Printemps. People went mad, the performance ended in riot. Or take thunderstorms, of which you are so partial. Some people run and hide, while you rush to the nearest window. We are creatures of our senses, rational or not.”

  I pouted. “You are trying to placate me with calm tone and soothing language. Yet not twenty minutes ago you hurled me from that place with terror flashing in your troubled eyes.”

  “I thought you were going to kiss the damn thing! You had the oddest expression on your face. Of course I dragged you away, I haven’t cleaned it yet. God knows where it’s been or by what it has been pawed.”

  “I am not placated.”

  “Then fuck you. “ Jonathan rose and fixed himself another drink. My pouting deepened when I saw that he would offer me no refill of the bad coffee. Muttering obscenities of my own, I placed the cup on a nearby table. “Look,” he continued, “I agree that the thing in kind of creepy – stop snorting! The thing is, I like it, whatever the hell it is, and that’s the beginning and end of it. Tut all you like. I found it, I liked it, I bought it.” He glared at me with defiant eyes.

  “Very well. I wish to speak with Alisha.”

  “She’ll be asleep. It’s late. You’re tired yourself.” I wanted to protest, but my yawns spoke otherwise. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. Just let me change into some trousers.”

  “I’ll meet you out at the car,” I told him, yawning again. Wearily, I rose and went outside, into wind and darkness. I felt distraught, emotionally drained. I did not understand the events that had just passed, but was suddenly too tired to care. Turning my eyes to the wretched pagoda, I saw its single lantern move in wind. I saw the shadows that swayed on the figure that stood beneath it, facing – the thing. Standing very close. I was momentarily distracted when Jonathan came out of the house, slamming the door behind him. The echo of sound reverberated in the aether. When again I looked to the pagoda, it was vacant of human occupant.

  III.

  Days passed. I had received a wee note from Alisha, apologizing for the ‘nonsense’ of the previous evening and formally inviting me to her ball. I decided to go as the Red Death. An obvious choice, perhaps. My other idea was Little Red Riding Hood, but there are limits even to my perversity. A flowing crimson robe would conceal my girth and look superb. As time passed, I oft reflected on that strange evening. I dwelt on that thing of encrusted blue metal, and saw it in deepest dreaming. Betimes I caught myself listening attentively to the wind, fancying that it hummed a variation of the weird tune that Jonathan had whistled when I had been captivated by – the thing. I knew not what else to call it, and so it was – the thing. Yet the more I pondered on it, the more mysterious a thing it seemed, something alien and bad. Yet beguiling. I burned to look at it once more, to touch it – perhaps to kiss it.

  At last the festive night arrived. I taxied to the mansion and was let in through the gate by an awaiting knight. I wandered below high swaying trees, moved through oscillating shadow and playful wind. My eyes followed the line of Japanese lanterns to the pagoda, and I hesitantly stepped toward the structure. Its hanging chimes danced in the air. The sphere of blue metal was nowhere to be seen.

  “Henry.” Jonathan stood a few yards away, holding to me his long pale hands. I walked to him, took his
hand, allowed myself to be escorted into the house.

  “Your strange new thing…”

  “Missing,” he said, shrugging. That was all; he offered no explanation or conjecture. I felt a peculiar sadness, and a kind of panic that I did my best to conceal. We stood in the hallway, examining each other. He looked resplendent in black tux and cloak. The only red was in the contact lenses placed over his eyes. He grinned at my ghoulish makeup, showing two sharp fangs. Together, we entered the ballroom.

  And an alternative world, a diabolic one. The crowd was much as I had expected, beautiful boys in scarlet gowns, masculine women in coat and tails. Somber music was piped in the room from unseen speakers, and bowls of incense filled the place with fragrance. From one darkened corner I espied Alisha, who smiled and slightly bowed. She was magnificent and original as the Lamanite king, Amalickiah. My eyes feasted on her indigenous beauty as I stepped to her. With masculine courtesy she offered me her hand to kiss.

  The room was like some fantastic phantasm. The walls had been elegantly covered with drapery of ebony and maroon velvet. Cushions of similar shade littered the floor, upon which groups of youngsters sexually explored each other. I watched as from one of these groupings a young figure arose. Despite the wild orange wig I recognized him as a lad who oft frequented my bookshop and who had a fascination for the yellow decadence of the late Victorian age. I was charmed to see him dressed after Beardsley’s splendid work of ink and color wash, “The Slippers of Cinderella.” He took from his apron one of the disintegrating roses that had been pinned thereon, and this he offered me with benedictional bow. “To the Great Lord Thanatos, the only god before whom I grovel,” he declaimed. I took his flower, cupped my hand below his chin and pulled him to me. His breath reeked of champagne. Bending to him, I kissed him hard.