A Feral Darkness

by Doranna Durgin

"They can carry it," Sammi said, answering with such certainty that Brenna knew she'd started gathering information as soon as she'd heard the news. "But they can't pass it along until it reaches an active state in their systems, and they always become symptomatic within a few days after that. There's never—never—been a documented case of rabies passed on by a dog who went through quarantine. Once they start shedding the virus, they become sick within days."

  Brenna turned on Sammi with vehemence. "What did you say?"

  Startled, Sammi couldn't answer, clearly at a loss to know which of her words would provoke such a reaction. She sat on the chair with her mouth half-open, looking for a response.

  "The shedding," Brenna said. "What did you say about the shedding?"

  "Why, that's what they call it, I guess. When the dog has the virus in its saliva, and can pass it on. They say the virus is in its 'shedding' phase."

  "So it does shed? The rabies we know about sheds?" Barely paying attention to the dog, Brenna eased it down from the table, having given up on the bow.

  "There's only one rabies, the one we know about," Sammi said, looking completely baffled. "Brenna, are you all right?"

  Brenna realized that Elizabeth, too, was staring at her, and that the Shepherd mix was squirming to get away from the tight grip she had on the noose leash. She felt her face flush, and she said, "I'm okay. Just...just upset, is all. Thinking about how often we get careless about checking for rabies tags when we're just clipping nails on a walk-in, you know?" Not the truth, but a truth. And pertinent enough.

  Elizabeth slid her hand under the Lhasa and stood it on all four legs, pulling its hind legs out behind it slightly when it instantly tipped its rear to sit again. "You're right," she said. "We do. We'd better be more careful. Do all the right things. Even if we both are inoculated." One thing Pets! did right.

  Sammi heaved herself to her feet, not a sign of her usual humor hidden anywhere on her face as she said, most pointedly, "Janean did all the right things."

  ~~~

  The PePP news spread through the store as fast as any news, leaving the employees somber and the early customers baffled by the black bows that spread—thanks to Elizabeth and some black bow ribbon—on the PePP and sales floor associates' collars and buttons. Roger put a moratorium on all talk of rabies on store grounds, and worried to Brenna about a drop in bookings should cautious pet owners keep their animals at home. But a local death caused by rabies was newsworthy enough that by the time grooming work hit a short lull and Elizabeth and José grabbed the chance to eat, the customers came in looking for details.

  "I don't have any real details," Brenna told the owners of Snifter the Brittany when they dropped him off for his bath and trim—not that a Brittany had a breed cut per se, but Snifter was gifted with a wild profusion of wispy hair on his back, head and ears, the sort that was best stripped off instead of clipped. "In fact," she added, "you probably know more. I haven't heard a single news report about it. Just what's hit the grapevine."

  "They can't figure out how it happened. I have a friend who thinks it started with the dog pack somehow," Snifter's mother said. "But on the radio they say that PePP has logs for all their animals, and that they keep strict track of the shots and quarantines."

  "That's true," Brenna said, and gave them a pick-up time for the happy but chronically over-energized Snifter. José would be plenty wet by the time he washed the Brittany—and Brenna, with her hand, wasn't even going to try. She took the dog in the tub room and put him in one of the big bottom crates, and then just stood there, staring at him without even seeing the astonishingly hopeful look on his face as he shoved it into the upper corner, somehow expecting that instead of a bath they'd just have a good romp.

  Of course they couldn't figure out how it had happened. Because it shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have been possible.

  Just like all the other things currently in her life that shouldn't be possible. Weird black hole moods that bounded in like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, a stray with multiple ID tags—all of which led to non-existent records of one kind or another—startling visions—no, not visions, for she'd only ever heard them. Someone else's memories of words about death and shedding rabies. Why shedding rabies, instead of just rabies?

  And Gil Masera mixed up in it all, with his half-truths, his interest in a property newly re-occupied by men who might well be called thugs, his frighteningly complete knowledge of her. His careful hands checking Druid the night Sunny died. His quiet words on the hill as Brenna sought to deal with Druid's fear. His recognition of what she'd felt along with Druid in the lane. The demand that had so angered her, when he'd stepped over the line to grab her arm. What did you do? he'd said.

  Maybe none of it was related. Maybe she was going crazy, and Masera just happened to stumble into it, to add to it. Brenna found herself at the tub, her forehead resting on her crossed wrists atop the cool porcelain. God, how am I supposed to sort it all out?

  And that, she realized suddenly, was more than a frustrated inner cry. It was a prayer, as true a prayer as she'd ever said.

  Except she had no idea which god she was talking to. The God she'd grown up with, the one she'd been raised to believe in as the only god? Or the ancient, forgotten god who once seemed to have answered a heartfelt child's plea, and whom she thought of as dwelling at the very spring where Druid's weird tracks appeared?

  She didn't know. Brenna Lynn, good little Christian girl, and she didn't know. The wrath of God strike her down or not, she didn't know.

  And if she didn't know that, how could she know anything?

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 11

  SOWELU

  Guiding Forces

  The busy days usually went quickly, but not this one. This one passed in a strange timelessness, and even when things got hectic—a dog on the table, the phone tucked under her chin, a customer waiting at the counter and Elizabeth gone for the day—Brenna operated in a strangely dissociated way, as though her soul were dazed and nothing else could touch her.

  She managed time for a phone call to the church she hadn't attended for several years, the small but healthy little congregation in which she'd grown up. The one her mother still made a point to attend on Easter and Christmas, although she spent her other Sunday mornings in the barely denominational services provided by Sunset Village. Yes, the pastor would be there in the late afternoon, keeping office hours before the evening youth group. Yes, he'd see her.

  "Brenna Fallon," he said, when she walked down the center aisle of the square sanctuary, plain but for one set of astonishing stained glass windows above the pulpit. He wore street casual clothes, a soft grey sweater over slacks, and his hair had completed the journey to silvery white since she'd last seen him. How many years ago? The year she'd graduated from high school and watched most of her friends journey away to one college or another?

  "Reverend Dayne," she said, and then, because there didn't seem to be any other way to start, added the expected. "It's been a long time."

  "Too long," he said, as though he were finishing some secret code exchange necessary before they could discuss anything else. He rearranged the candles on the table set before the pulpit, and she realized that it must have been a communion Sunday. That somehow made her long absence worse. And then he smiled, and said, "But I can't imagine you called me after all this time just to make small talk."

  "No," she said, and jammed her hands into her pockets. "Though I have to admit it makes it easier to sneak up on what I've really got on my mind."

  His smile this time seemed more genuine; he gestured at the front pew. Square backed, barely padded seats...she'd never understood why they weren't more comfortable. "To keep people awake," Russell had told her once when they were children, and received instant admonishment. Now, with years of perspective behind her, Brenna couldn't help but wonder if he'd been right.

  She didn't need any help staying awake through this conversation. But she sat anyway.
>
  "You look tired," the pastor said, sitting next to her but far enough away that they could turn toward one another, carry on a conversation without bumping knees. "I heard about the young woman who died. You knew her, I imagine. Is that why you're here?"

  "No," Brenna said, but then stopped. Without Janean's death, would her thoughts have reached this point? "Maybe," she amended. "More like...the last straw." She took a moment to arrange her thoughts, and found she wasn't any more sure of her starting place than before. Slowly, she said, "We both know I haven't been here for years. And I know that a faith is more active when you stay joined with a community, but just because you're not going to church doesn't mean it's not there." She hesitated, waiting for some reaction on his part. Any sign of judgment at this early point, and she sure wasn't going any further.

  But he gave her none of that. Instead he gave her a faint smile, and a nod. "People take their faith to them in different ways," he said. "Some people aren't as comfortable with group worship. I happen to think it offers a necessary support. Now, if I were a Catholic priest, you can imagine that my response would be quite different."

  "It's a good thing I was brought up Presbyterian, then, isn't it?" Brenna said, acerbically enough to raise his eyebrows. She gave a chagrined shrug and let it go. "The point is...the reason I'm here...is that lately I've been looking at some of the other major religions—non-Christian religions. Non-Yahweh, even. And if you go beyond the god-ness of it, the philosophies seem to have as many good things to say as Jesus in any red-line Bible."

  "Ah," Reverend Dayne said, sitting to put his arm along the back of the pew, relaxing a little now that he knew the gist of the issue. "I feel obliged to say, Brenna, that this is just the kind of subject we discuss in our women's religious study group."

  "There's a women's religious study group?" Brenna said, surprised and unable to remember any such thing.

  Amused, he said, "Things do change. And as we've noted, it has—"

  "—been a long time," Brenna finished. "And that's why I'm here. Now. Asking you." A women's study group might actually hold some interest for her, but it wouldn't help her now.

  "What is it, exactly, that you're asking?"

  "I guess...what I'm wondering...is how does the church look at these other religions? If I take on Hindu philosophies for my own, does that mean I'm, well, damned? What about Muslim, or Buddhist? The Tao of Pooh?" What if I dance naked in the moonlight by the spring beneath the oak with my hair loose to the wind and flower petals scattered around? "My faiths, the things I was taught here at this church, are a very deep part of me. They're important to me. But right now I'm also finding it important to look at other faiths." Pagan faiths, which she wasn't ready to say. Not when so many people equated pagan with evil. Brenna herself would have to visit the library to understand truly what fell into the definition of a pagan faith, and she wasn't even sure it mattered right now. Not with a veritable shrine to Mars Nodens in her back yard. "I guess I'm worried about crossing some sort of line. The kind you can't come back from."

  "Ohh," Reverend Dayne said, a drawl easing into his voice. "There are very few of those, for someone in your position." He crossed his ankle over his knee and rested a hand on that leg, looking very much at home with himself. She hadn't shocked him, then. She hadn't said anything to worry him. She'd just been slotted into one of his past sermons. "Adult faith isn't stagnant, Brenna. An exploration and study of other faiths is an excellent way to confirm our own beliefs. The important thing is to make those explorations in a thoughtful way. Not—to use an extreme example—to dive into a cult situation just because we're trying to fulfil something lacking in our lives."

  There wasn't anything lacking in my life when all this came up, Brenna thought automatically, and then suddenly knew how wrong that internal commentary had been. There'd been plenty lacking in her life. Family support and interaction. Career satisfaction. Someone who liked dogs and the farm and movie nights as much as she did.

  Someone with whom to share her baths.

  She was just so used to dealing with those empty spots that she never saw them any more. But that wasn't the conversation she was having with him. Not this time. "So you don't think it's possible to add religions," she said. She found a dog treat in her vest pocket and worried it between her fingers. "To truly believe in more than one thing."

  He regarded her for a moment, somber for the first time in the discussion. "Brenna, many of those outside Christianity believe that Jesus existed, and even that he was a great prophet. They just don't happen to believe that he's the one Son of God. Here, that's what we do. It may not be entirely expedient—how much easier it would be if we could mix and match religions, or decide what inconvenient part of our faith we'll simply set aside to suit our needs of the moment. No. Yahweh is the one God. And in our faith, the Holy Trinity comprises that God. That's what it is to be Christian."

  Of course it was. Brenna suddenly didn't even know what she was doing here. What kind of answer had she expected? An arrangement to believe in God on the odd days and Mars Nodens on the even? No, it was a choice. One or the other.

  And she had a feeling that the other had set up presence in her pasture.

  "I'm sorry, Brenna," Reverend Dayne said. "I can see I haven't eased your mind particularly. Is there any other question? Some specifics, perhaps, that I can address for you?"

  "No, thank you," she said, standing. The dog treat had disintegrated into annoying crumbs in her pocket sometime during his final comments. "I have some things to think about. I hope...I hope I'm welcome to call on you again."

  "Anytime, Brenna," he said, warmly enough that she really believed him. He, too, stood, and held out his hand. She removed hers from her pocket, swiped it off on her jeans, and wondered what he thought about biscuit crumbs as she shook his hand. Then, a little too tired to be anything but hazy, her most focused thought relating more to the leftover peanut butter cookies in her truck than spiritual matters, she headed for the exit at the back of the sanctuary.

  ~~~

  The next day at work Brenna posted help wanted signs on all the grooming area and store entrances, and stored a pile of applications beneath the grooming counter. She submitted an ad to Roger, who for once had goals that coincided with hers—get a new groomer, and get one fast. It would not, she knew, be as easy as he thought. They'd get applicants who thought that "likes to work with dogs," was adequate preparation for the exacting and demanding work of grooming, and far too few people who'd actually been through any sort of vocational schooling.

  At least they had DaNise—short, round, cheerful smile, and the darkest skin Brenna had ever seen—five days a week, and she was picking up the details of her job quickly. She'd even made herself a small step stool so her elbows didn't bang the insides of the tub, which Brenna viewed as a relieving sign of both her initiative and her intent to stay with the work.

  Before she left the store, Brenna found a red marker and penned a bold reminder to all of them. Get Customer Rabies Info! it said, and she underlined it before taping it to the back edge of the counter where the customers couldn't see it. And practice what you preach, she told herself, locking up her equipment for the day. Far too easy to grab a walk-in nail clipping client without question, especially during the rush periods.

  On the way home she pulled into the church parking lot, and stared at the church for a while. The day had turned balmy for early May—shirt-sleeve weather, with the interior of the truck too warm to sit in the sun for long. Just long enough to look at the unimposing exterior of the church—not even a bell-tower, and the stained-glass was at the back of the building—and decide against going in. The pastor might be there, and before she spoke to him again, she wanted to have found some answers of her own.

  This wasn't the place to look for them.

  The spring. That's where she'd go. Where she could think.

  Of course she took Druid, and the rifle to boot. Gossip about the feral dogs was dying down, althoug
h at work today she'd heard more talk from people wanting to link them to the rabies despite the utter lack of evidence. Masera, she realized, was right—regardless of the warnings, regardless of what had happened to Sunny, no one had ever seen a member of the oft-discussed pack.

  But something was out here. Something had ripped Sunny from her collar. And while Brenna was no longer certain it was anything that could be stopped by a rifle, she had a grim appreciation of the weapon's heft in her hand.

  What did you do ? Masera had demanded, making it crystal clear that the darkness had touched him as well, that he recognized, somehow, something special about her place by the spring. The Mars Nodens place. The place of power.

  What had she done? Nothing in that magazine article, so long ago, had hinted that Mars Nodens had a darker side. Maybe it was something else. Maybe her actions as a young girl had nothing to do with the things that were happening to her now.

  Which brought her right back to where she'd started these thoughts, to why she felt so driven to visit the spring in the first place. How could she believe both in her one God and in the existence of Mars Nodens?

  One thing she knew. She'd never figure out the nature of the darkness while she struggled over how to acknowledge its existence. Or if she even believed in anything other than her own internal faltering. Maybe she ought to be calling her doctor, not camping out by a spring.

  But Masera felt it too.

  If she was crazy, then he was crazy.

  Given how little she trusted him right now, she didn't find the thought particularly reassuring.

  She sat with Druid on the side of the hill for a while, taking him up as close to the spring as she could without triggering him and enjoying the warmth of the lowering sun. Not particularly thinking about anything, but taking advantage of the way the babble of creek water filled her mind so she could stop thinking.

  Early T-shirt weather, all right, despite the bright red hooded sweatshirt dumped carelessly on the ground beside her. And then, because it seemed right and because she so seldom did so, she pulled the hair bands off her doubled braid and finger-combed her hair so it settled over both her and Druid, a procedure he found interesting enough to take his mind off the close proximity of the spring. He sniffed it thoroughly and got strands of it caught in his whiskers, and ended up giving a mighty sneeze. When she laughed, he looked up with a doggy smile, panting as his black coat soaked up the sun, the corners of his mouth relaxed and happy. It was then she decided not to take him any closer to the spring. Not tonight. They both needed a happy moment, and they'd found one. No point in ruining it.