Thru the Badger Hole

by Taki Drake

  He could feel the hum coming from that entity, the one who had now been named. From his Hungarian grandmother, he knew that naming was very important to a wide variety of spirits. She had told an impressionable little boy many tales that were supposedly fiction about spirit bonding and how invisible friends weren’t necessarily just part of your imagination.

  This had infuriated his parents to no end. Madrik remembered intense arguments between his parents and his grandmother. Nonna had resisted their impassioned pleas to only tell innocuous, American fairytales to their son. She refused. Saying what she taught him was part of his heritage and at some point in his life, he would need it.

  Madrik realized that such a point was now. Thank you, Nonna, for giving me something that hinted at what was happening to me. I think without that I might have gone nuts.

  Perhaps if his grandmother had not told him stories that set expectations, Madrik would have been frightened and rejected the spirit reaching out to him. Looking back through the lens of a good night’s rest, he realized that he and this entity had been going through exactly the steps that his grandmother had said would occur when forming a bond with a familiar or bonded ally.

  Without that basic guide, even if it had been decades before, Madrik knew that he would’ve reacted badly to the feeling of someone else in his mind. He felt a visceral tenseness in the pit of his stomach at the thought, knowing that this would have been a bad response. It might have damaged or made impossible his connection to the entity. I guess I better start referring to this entity as the Badger Hole Bar. After all, that is now its name.

  A stronger flash of pleasure sizzled through his brain and down his spine to his toes. The connection was getting stronger as he and BHB learned each other’s quirks and desires. It might be his imagination, but Madrik thought that BHB was getting stronger. That might be the reason the building was getting more polished, cleaner and in some ways more real.

  Stopping on the last step of the staircase, Madrik paused with his eyes unfocused. He didn't really see what was in the room but instead was following a mental train of thought. Deciding to jump all in, he said mentally, << Thank you so much for helping me understand who and what you are. I was so tired, and I needed the rest. What you did meant more than I can tell you right now. >>

  The response from BHB exceeded what Madrik expected, far more. It was if fireworks had gone off in his mind. Madrik could feel not only his skin but what he thought was the outside of the entire building. His heartbeat was echoed by another sound, a rhythmic thump that was lighter and faster than his. It formed a net of syncopation around his pounding blood. He could feel the breath running in and out of his mouth and lungs, supplemented by the fainter echo of air circulation within the building. Madrik’s senses reeled, and the room spun as his vision darkened.

  The sense of a supportive arm around him was very strong, and he drew strength from it. Warmth seeped into the coldness of his soul, softening the tracks of fathomless grief from his mind. Madrik noticed that his body was warmer also. A fire had been lit in the large fireplace, radiating comfort and a background susurration of primordial security.

  Taking deep breaths, the man focused on recovery, closing his eyes to concentrate. Once he thought that the dizziness had passed, Madrik opened his eyes once more. His ability to focus had returned, and he felt able to continue. Perhaps he was getting a bit hungry, and that was affecting his resilience. The man knew that was something that he had to take care of and finding food had just moved up in his priorities.

  Madrik had been standing at the base of the stairs for a few minutes but had not really been looking at his surroundings,. Instead, he had been contending with internal issues, but now it was time to come back to the physical world.

  He glanced toward where he had last seen the bar table. It was still there, but it had been joined by a chair. Like the chair upstairs in his bedroom, this one was sturdily made and, he knew from experience, would be comfortable even though it was not padded. In other words, it was a perfectly good barroom chair. Unfortunately, there was only one of them, and Madrik knew that that just wouldn’t do. He needed a bunch of tables in this room, and they all had to have chairs around them.

  Wondering briefly on whether he should consider booths also, he discarded that because he wasn’t sure what the patrons would look like.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a new interaction with the BHB. This was a first and startled him. He couldn’t remember another proactive move from the BHB before. Since most of the bar’s communications with him had been in response to something Madrik needed or wanted, he had started to think of the BHB as a reflection of his desires. This was a strong reminder to remember that his companion was far more than that.

  With crystalline clarity, BHB placed several images in his mind, one after another. The first image was of a black and white-striped broad animal, low to the ground with a fairly strong tail. Madrik immediately recognized a badger. Sending back a quick, << Perfect! >> the man was very pleased to receive a flush of pleasure through their connection.

  Closely following on the first image was a drawing in black and white that Madrik didn’t at first make any sense of. It looked like a jagged area with a darker band around it. It took him only a moment before he realized that BHB was giving him the images that comprised its name. Through that filter, the image was perfect, and he let BHB know that. It was a hole.

  This time, the pleasure flooding to him from his companion was stronger and more encompassing. It zoomed through the tissue of his body as if it were a cleansing and regenerative force. When it left, Madrik was gasping with relief and pleasure.

  BHB seem to be dithering about the next image. It wasn’t very long before another picture formed in Madrik’s mind. Actually, it was a pair of pictures. One was something that looked to Madrik like a crowbar, bent on one end with a forked tip. The other was a picture of a beer stein, foaming with beer. The man let out a roar of amusement and pushed back a gentle no attached to the first image and a mental shout of laughter and approval on the second.

  << Don’t forget that the patrons will be drinking more than beer. So we had better plan on a variety of different kinds of glassware rather than just beer steins. >>

  A gleeful sense of anticipation was the only response from BHB.

  A subtle chill ran across the back of Madrik’s neck, and he felt his hair stir. Drawn by subconscious awareness, Madrik turned and looked at the back of the counter that he had dubbed the bar. Hanging over the center of the back wall, in pride of place was an enameled sign that showed a badger standing beside a hole. Up through the hole extended a brawny arm holding a beer stein. In an arc, over the top of the picture, the words “Welcome to the Badger Hole Bar” were placed.

  It was perfect.

  Not only did it present a word picture of exactly where they were standing but it fit the whole essence of Madrik. He loved puzzles, puns, and jigsaws. He was attracted to anything that required his mind to put together clues. At heart, he was a problem solver, someone who balanced capabilities on one side and needs on the other. Hopefully, having this bar would let him fill that role, one that he knew he could handle and that would bring him great satisfaction.

  Madrik felt a harmonic cord that grew in strength and complexity along his nerves and in the back of his mind. Layers were forming, marked by those mental clicks, as he and BHB bonded at additional levels. It was a strange feeling, a deeper connection than any he had ever formed in his entire life. This was beyond marriage or even parenting.

  Madrik felt a wash of guilt and apology slide through him, but he knew that finding a kindred soul was different than loving and being married to someone. Both types of bonds could coexist. There was no reason to feel guilty or disloyal. Jenny would’ve understood.

  Agreement with the sentiment flooded the channel between him and the BHB. He could tell that they had matched on a deep level of understanding and even affection. Madrik briefly wondered if this is why
witches were said to have familiars. The reinforcement of two beings would be something that he could lean on and something the BHB could depend on. With both of their essences aligned, it would not be a conditional alliance. Instead, it would be a heartfelt and solid partnership. Something that they did because it was essentially who they were, not an adaptive behavior that could be broken at any time.

  Wow. This is way more thinking than I usually do about subjects more appropriate for one of those deep discussions over a bottle of scotch. Okay, Madrik my boy, it’s time to get things done instead of just sitting here and contemplating the state of the universe or relationships or anything like that.

  There was something on the table. It had not been there just a few moments ago, and Madrik hadn’t felt it appear. But the evidence of his eyes showed him a brightly wrapped box with a ribbon bow sitting on the table. Confident that nothing the BHB would give him would be hurtful, Madrik walked over and untied the bow, carefully laying the ribbon to one side. The box itself was wrapped so that he could pull the cover off the box without destroying the wrapping paper. His hands slid over what he thought was paper and he realized that nothing he had ever touched on earth felt like that. Another material to investigate. I wonder what it’s good for.

  The box opened easily, and Madrik looked inside. Shouting in laughter, he turned the box so the contents could spill out. With a muted clatter, hundreds of puzzle pieces rained down on the table top. Nothing could have more clearly communicated to Madrik that BHB and he were alike when it came to putting together puzzles. Now, he just had to find a couple of pieces that would connect.

  Humming to himself happily, Madrik set about sorting out the puzzle pieces. He laughed out loud once more in the middle of sorting when he found a block that had already been connected. Instead of the mottled gray image on the front of most of the pieces, these few had parts of a picture. He had no idea what the overall picture was going to look like, but he thought he understood the rules of this game. As he made connections and increased his understanding, the picture would grow. The gift was that he now would have a way of tracking when he had put together all the pieces for an area.

  BHB could not have designed a more amusing way of communicating with Madrik. This was going to be fun!

  Chapter 6 – More Pieces

  Madrik was still seated at the table happily arranging puzzle pieces and organizing them by nothing more than how they felt in his hands. Try as he might, he couldn’t get any of the puzzle pieces to go together. The only ones that were connected were the ones that had been attached when he dumped them out of the box.

  Finally, the focused man decided that it just did not appear that he was going to be able to force a connection between the pieces, but he wasn’t truly disappointed. If all the puzzle did was to tell him when he had the whole picture of something, it would be extremely helpful. Very useful since there were a lot of puzzle pieces on that table.

  Madrik had counted the pieces five times. Then he counted them one more time to be sure. There were 1200 pieces. That was a lot of parts to a complex puzzle, but at least he had made a start. Even if the start was only for pieces that were already assembled by the BHB.

  A sharp sound of someone knocking on wood startled Madrik so badly that he spun around and almost tripped over the chair leg. He was so used to the fact that he was alone with the BHB that the sound scared the living daylights out of him. He could feel his heart racing, and his adrenaline was definitely up.

  The man found himself in an automatic crouched position, ready to flee or fight. Deliberately, he relaxed so that he could straighten. Thankfully, the bar had not found his response ridiculous. Pleased beyond any explanation, Madrik realized that he did not have to pretend to the BHB. It just took him as he was, strange responses and all. That was a very freeing feeling, one that Madrik was not sure that he had felt since his grandmother had died.

  He was getting no sense of tension or worry from the BHB. Instead, there was a feeling of anticipation and welcome. Apparently, the BHB thought whoever it was that was knocking was a friend rather than a foe.

  Taking a deep breath, Madrik walked over to the center door of the three on the wall opposite the stairs. Shaking a little bit with the tension in his muscles from uncertainty, he threw the bolt on the door and pushed it open.

  Thank goodness it’s a human! The thought popped into his mind with a burst of relief. He heard an answering flash of amusement and gleeful anticipation from the BHB. He was beginning to understand the bar’s moods, and he knew that this response meant that there would be times that the beings that he met would not be human.

  It was a good thing that he wasn’t particularly prejudiced about shape or color or for that matter any other aspect. Again he got that flash of amusement. Oh well, he thought to himself, I will just have to take it one experience at a time.

  A man was standing at the door with a smile on his face and a basket over one arm, a sack held firmly in the crook of the other. Madrik was not sensing any threat from the man, that, coupled with the BHB’s attitude allowed him to relax his guard and smile back.

  The stranger looked so normal to Madrik that he could have come from any town on Earth. Tanned and fit, he was of average height and had a look that said “gardener or farmer” to Madrik’s experienced eye. The visitor was older than he, appearing to be in his mid-60s.

  Flushing when he realized he had been staring at the man, Madrik opened the door wider and stumbled into speech. “Hello there. May I help you?” The embarrassed younger man realized as soon as he had spoken that his comment was inane. The words had just tumbled out of his mouth faster than his brain could catch up.

  The stranger smiled, and said, “Hello yourself. My name is Emesh. I think it’s the other way around. Now that you have started to open the bar, I’m assuming that you want the same arrangement that existed before and that you’d like the delivery of food supplies to begin soon.”

  Madrik’s stomach chose that moment to make a loud, gurgling roar. Smiling self-consciously, he gestured with one arm for Emesh to come in as he said, “I think that was your answer.”

  Emesh laughed and walked past Madrik to lay the basket and sack on the bartop. His eyes widened as he saw the room. Pivoting slowly, he looked around the entire space before turning to Madrik and saying, “My… You have certainly made great progress in the short time you’ve been here. However, I am sure that you are hungry and I brought things from the Blackmore garden that will be easy for you to eat.”

  “That would be very much appreciated. I am still very confused about everything, and I’m working as fast as I can to get settled in.”

  “I can understand that. It has been a long time since someone had the bar open.”

  Madrik asked the next question while watching Emesh’s face carefully. “I got the impression that this wasn’t a bar before.”

  “You are correct. This building has been many things over time, but right now it is a bar.”

  The younger man wanted to ask what the bar had been before but he could feel the sad reluctance and memory of pain that this line of questioning was causing in his mental companion. Reluctant to inflict additional discomfort, he abandoned that line of conversation and proceeded to unpack the basket and sack. He was anxious to see what bounty Emesh had brought him.

  Food, food, and more food. It looked amazingly lovely to the hungry man even though there was no meat. His wife had gone through a brief period of being vegetarian, and so he had a good appreciation for cuisine that avoided meat. However, he knew that at some point he was going to need those sorts of ingredients also.

  Emesh responded as if he was reading Madrik’s mind, “The garden is not a good source for meats. Several other groups supplied that type of food before, and I can let them know that you will be opening up for business. You are going to open for business, aren’t you?”

  Until that moment, Madrik had not really thought about the entire scope and impact of his decision.
He had been in such a flurry of discovery that the identification of the building as a bar and the naming of his mental companion had been taking up all of his attention and energy.

  It was somehow right for both him and the BHB that they would run a business and that it would be opening soon. Something in their growing bond was speaking to his subconscious, and that part of him was urging him to open the doors to others. As it flooded through his mind, Madrik could feel the BHB’s fervent agreement.

  This agreement between the two of them felt like a bubbling spring of excitement and satisfaction that had geysers of pure joy and anticipation spitting up large plumes of energy every once in a while. Those eruptions were clues for him, ones that it might take a while to decode.

  Summarizing the intense communications between him and the BHB, Madrik said, “Yes, of course. We hope to open soon, but I have to get a lot of things in order first.”

  Emesh’s laugh sounded like the cracking of a tree branch, sharp and resonant. “I think that’s an understatement, young man. I expect that while you want to open soon, it’s going to be more of a soft opening rather than a grand one.”

  “Whether or not we have a soft opening is somewhat immaterial. The BHB deserves a grand opening. One that will show off how totally awesome he is.” Madrik felt a welling of pride in the bar rising deep inside him. The startled appreciation, gratitude, and joy that flowed along his connection bond was an energetic thank you from the spirit of the building.

  His face must’ve reflected the interaction because Emesh smiled and nodded to himself as if one of his hopes had been met. He stood up, saying, “Well, I will leave you to work things out with the BHB. I will stop by tomorrow with some further provisions. I should be able to tell you at that time when the others will be stopping by, which would help avoid some of the surprises that you suffered when I showed up on your doorstep.” Without another word, Emesh stood up and walked rapidly out the door, pausing only to wave as the door closed gently.