GD: One more.
JH: One more what?
GD: One more.
JH: Treatment? Yes, you have just one more treatment. Do you feel they have helped? That you’re unlikely to commit murder if released back into society?
GD: One more will complete the ritual.
JH: It’s a clinical trial, not a ritual.
GD: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
JH: Mr. Denton?
GD: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
JH: Mr. Denton? Your nose is bleeding.
GD: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
JH: Mr. Den— Security! [screams]
***
Treatment Note: Subject #314-69-4245 Session 7/7
Date: 04/16/17
Procedure start time: 99:99:99
Procedure end time: 99:99:99
Total time elapsed: 99:99:99
Complications: I killed Dr. Harper. The ritual is complete, but I was misled. Instead of closing the door, I opened it.
Subject comments: He is risen.
INCENSE AND INSENSIBILITY
Christine Morgan
Mrs. Aylesbury, being a widow with two daughters, had fallen rather into dire straits since the death of her husband. When, therefore, a cottage at Star-Winds became available by the graces of a distant cousin, she was gladly obliged to accept.
That cousin, although born John Yaddith, had taken to going by the name of Brother Zoar. A large man, caftaned and sandaled, possessed of a leonine white mane, he welcomed them with immense affection.
The cottage proved both humble and cozy, smallish but adequate to the needs of the Aylesbury ladies. They found the environs most agreeable, set as it was in a cool, pearly-dawned coastal forest of fog-drenched ferns and redwoods.
Within a matter of days, they felt very much at home. During the daylight hours, they busied themselves with the activities of the community. They helped in the garden and kitchen, learned to macrame, wrote poetry, practiced the arts of tie-dye and beading.
Evenings, when they gathered cozily together, they would touch flame to some scent of incense or other – sandalwood, cinnamon, strawberry, less identifiable fragrances. These fragrant concoctions, along with blends of tea, potpourri, natural remedies, soaps and candles, were made and sold to augment the community’s modest income. Some had an invigorating effect that went well with card games or chatter; others, more calming, lent themselves to the enjoyment of quieter pursuits.
The elder of the sisters, Eleanor, had a particular interest in the botanical and found herself fascinated by the various processes. She struck up particular friendships with a girl called Hesperia and a striking youth known as Chaos. They, for their part, were more than glad to show her around and instruct her.
Dried and ground substances – tree bark, seeds, leaves, fruit rinds, flower petals, moss – all went into the making. Men and women perched upon stools, working the mixtures together with soft resins, gum arabics and pine saps. The resulting material, they formed into cones or pellets, or molded around thin sticks, or packaged into small round tins for use in incense-burners.
Eleanor noted the predominance of patchouli, lemongrass, sandalwood, cloves, charcoal and essential oils. Each breath brought minglings of aroma: floral and spice, sweet and bitter, fragrant and pungent.
Some, she almost knew but could not name. They danced enticingly, evocatively, at the very edges of her memory. Others, she did not know at all, and the merest whiff of them stirred a strange and vague expectancy of something almost akin to dread or revulsion so deep it was almost subconscious.
“I don’t recognize the …” she said, faltering. “I can’t quite identify …”
Chaos’s dark eyes glinted. “We know all the places where the most rare and secret things grow.”
“Rare and secret?” Eleanor echoed. She took up a pinch of the gritty, sticky stuff and rolled it between her fingertips and thumb. It felt like grainy clay, like wet salt dough, like wads of damp cornmeal. She sniffed it and sensed again that strange, vague expectancy … that something-akin-to-dread … and wasn’t sure if she wanted to recoil, or inhale more of its weird perfume.
“Like, so rare and secret, you won’t find them anyplace else,” Hesperia said.
“This blend,” said Chaos, savoring it, “is among the rarest of them all.”
Again, Eleanor sniffed at the incense, crushing it against the pad of her thumb to release more of its aroma.
Its predominance was a strong, damp earthiness … not quite like mildew, nor mold, but similar. Loam? Peat? The moss that grew thick and furry in crevices of redwood bark? Yet … fleshy, somehow … slightly sour, even acrid … or was it?
And there was some undercurrent of … spice … carnation? Marigold? Anise? Was that a hint of anise she detected? Or possibly fennel; it lacked the sweetness particular to licorice root …
“When it burns,” said Chaos, leaning close, so close that his cheek almost brushed against hers as he spoke, and his breath tickled warm and soft in her ear, “when it burns, you’ll see the colors in its smolder, glowing spires like faint suns in skies of flame, and red-gold thrones where gods no longer sit.”
She trembled, though with what precise emotions, she couldn’t quite define. His words seemed both profound and utterly without meaning, imbued with passion and promise. She felt poised at a threshold to some greater knowledge, some epiphany. A step further, and she might find her way to the enlightenment that would open new worlds of understanding.
Hesperia leaned in just as close on Eleanor’s other side, long hair falling in a shimmering drape. She held out a cupped hand, in the palm of which were strewn several loose petals.
Eleanor caught her breath at the sight of them. They were unlike anything she’d ever seen before. The nearest resemblance she could think of was less botanical than entomological, putting her in mind of the veined, glassy-clear wings of dragonflies.
The fragrance wafting up from them was that of fading, unearthly, dying starlight.
The very thought struck her as strangely poetic to have come from her own usually more prosaic consciousness.
Fading, unearthly, dying starlight?
The petals showed only a slight wilting that suggested they’d been recently plucked from the bloom … petal by petal, in the loves-me/loves-me-not manner with which a romantic might pluck the petals of a daisy.
When she picked one up, she found it – though delicate-seeming – strong and supple, somehow silken to the touch, yet also oddly … membranous. She held it beneath her nose and inhaled deeply of that strangely poetic fragrance.
Yes … fading, dying, unearthly starlight.
Images that were not images, but more akin to half-remembered visions from someone else’s dream, drifted through her inner darkness.
“What is that?” she asked.
“We call it nithon,” Chaos said.
“We’ll need to gather more soon; this is the last handful left.” Hesperia dropped the petals into a mortar and took up a pestle to begin grinding them into a thick, clearish jelly.
“Gather it where?”
“Oh, past the sphinxes,” said Chaos, in a casual, off-hand manner.
“Past the garden gate,” Hesperia added.
“What garden gate?” Eleanor asked, the words sounding faint and far even to her own ears.
“The sphinx-guarded one,” Chaos replied. “The labyrinth of wonder.”
This made no sense to her, yet she found herself nodding as if in comprehension of some deep and abiding truth.
“Can you imagine,” murmured Hesperia, “what else might grow there?”
“Yes …�
�� she sighed.
They smiled the way indulgent adults might smile at some whimsy from a child.
“Oh, but you can’t,” Chaos told her. “You can’t imagine. No one can.”
“Then show me. I want to see.”
“When you’re ready,” he said.
She wanted to protest that she was ready there and then, but something in the glinting darkness of his eyes convinced her she would do better not to push yet for more answers.
Instead, she settled onto a vacant stool. The men and women at the table were glad enough to make room for her as they demonstrated their techniques. Soon, Eleanor had the knack of it. Her palms and fingers became discolored, stained from the damp, granular residue.
Had she thought the mixture smelled vaguely unpleasant before? Mildewy and sour? It still did, a bit, but … she did not mind it so much now. Perhaps it was an acquired taste, improving with familiarity and exposure? Or had the thick, clearish jelly of the nithon-petals tempered its scent?
Her nose tingled. She thought of what Chaos had said, the colors in its smolder when it burned, and wondered anew what he had meant.
But when she looked up from her work to ask him, she saw that while she’d been occupied, he and Hesperia had drifted away. Resolving to seek them out later, she remained making incense the rest of the afternoon.
It rained that night, a heavy, steady rain, a grey and sodden dreariness that hung a dense pall over everything. A shifting in the weather carried murky tidal smells inland from the sea. The eaves did not so much drip as flow with miniature rivulets. Mud and puddles replaced the paths.
A general irritation built despite the cottage’s coziness. Before long, the Aylesbury sisters had taken to bickering over phantom trifles. They found even their dear mother’s attempts at kindly cheer to be grating, while she began to find them irksome in a way she never had before. Opening the shutters to let in the air let in only wet chill and brine. They lit candles and incense in hopes of chasing out the lingering disagreeable atmosphere … both figurative and literal, as it were.
Eleanor watched the granular cone smolder in a ceramic dish. Threads of fragrant smoke curled up from the deep red fire-ruby of the ember. It issued forth the very scent she remembered from earlier.
“Where did that come from?” she asked.
“Your friend Hesperia brought it by,” her mother said said. “She told me we should try it tonight, that it’s more potent when it rains. Something about how the moisture intensifies the scent. I saw her taking some to everyone.”
“I don’t much care for it,” said her sister. “It smells of gone-off mushroom soup.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, watching the smoke spiral up, spreading and drifting, diffusing, effusing. Eleanor found her gaze drawn to the ember, to the deep red ruby ring smoldering into grey ash.
What had Chaos said? “… glowing spires like faint suns in skies of flame, and red-gold thrones where gods no longer sit.”
And the strange perfume of it … loam and spice, a fleshy acrid sourness … that hint of something not-quite-anise … but tempered by the scent of fading, unearthly, dying starlight.
They conversed in desultory fashion for a while, then fell silent again, each lost in her own thoughts.
Eleanor’s dwelt upon the glassy and somehow membranous petals Hesperia had shown her. Nithon, but who had ever heard of such a thing? She wished she’d had a better chance to examine them. Or, better yet, see the blossoming plant itself –
“… past the garden gate,” Hesperia had said, and asked her if she could imagine what else might grow there.
After a while, the younger Miss Aylesbury opened up her page-worn notebook and began to write, the scratching of pen on paper an oddly eerie counterpoint to the drumming of the rain. After a while longer, hardly seeming aware of it, she began murmuring as she wrote, her words gradually becoming audible.
“From Leng comes Death to strip us of Life’s mask … silken folds of skin torn free to bone and entropy beneath --”
“Goodness,” Mrs. Aylesbury said, rousing as if from a torpor. “How morbid.”
“I’ll read another instead.” She turned a page. “Old when Babylon was new, sleeping beneath its mound, vast pavements and foundation-walls, stone steps leading down, to eternal night’s black haven where the primal secrets frown --”
“That’s still rather grim, dear, don’t you think?”
“We found the lamp, the brazen bowl.” Her eyes gleamed strangely in the reflected candle flames. “The oil, how it blazed! In its mad flash, the shapes we saw, vast shapes! The maze-wall, and the gate sphinx-guarded!”
“I think,” said Eleanor diplomatically, herself feeling rather as if she’d emerged from some half-dream, “that we’ve had enough poetry for now, don’t you?”
One by one they sank again into their private musings. They lit another cone of the same incense when the first was spent. The irritations and annoyances with each other did seem far and silly. It was better to sit here. So peaceful, so relaxing. Watching the fire-ruby ember shift and change as it burned its slow way down, releasing the musty, mossy, mildewy scent.
***
The younger Miss Aylesbury swayed in her seat. “Through what sphinx-paths winding in the night, pointed to by far blue rays! Where vine-choked gates of graven dolomite open to the stone-lanterned maze!”
“What was that, dear?” queried their mother, again like one stirring from a doze.
“It is the hour … the hour when the moonstruck … moonstruck …” Then she settled her cheek onto her notebook, yawned once, and fell asleep.
Mrs. Aylesbury blinked drowsily. “Oh, how odd. She must be very … very ...” Her head lolled onto her shoulder and she exhaled a slow, sighing breath as she, too, succumbed.
Eleanor stirred herself from her chair, and from her own attendant lethargy, with considerable effort. The uppermost third of the incense cone had become an ashen mound, the widening ring of the ember a strange twist of gold. As she reached for the dish, her hand struck it, knocking it askew. For an instant she suffered an image of scattering sparks on the braided-rag rug, igniting myriad hungry tongues of fire. But the incense merely wobbled, shedding flecks of ash, and did not spill.
She picked it up and carried it outside, holding her breath as she did so. Raindrops splashed on ceramic, hissing when they met the smoldering cone, forming a sooty puddle around it.
Soon, neither smoke nor steam arose from the sodden lump. Eleanor decided this was still an insufficient measure, and tipped the dish entire into a ditch of muddy water, where it sank with a gurgle.
As it vanished into the murk, she let herself breathe again. The distant low-tide miasma of the sea crept into her nose and throat and lungs. Her mind, however, felt more clear.
Had the incense been … drugged?
She almost could not believe it. Did not want to believe it, that much was certain. True, certain illicit substances were far from unknown at Star-Winds, but those who partook did so of their own knowing, willing accord.
Didn’t they?
Or did they?
The incense … the tea … the potpourri and soaps and candles … all the things they made … and sold … local farmer’s markets, street fairs … mail order … herbal remedies and traditional medicines …
The rain fell. Her wet hair hung limp along her cheeks, her wet clothes clung to her skin. Water trickled down her neck and back.
It seemed so quiet. She heard no voices, no laughter, no crying babies or barking dogs. Not even any music. No one else was out and about. Everything looked bedraggled, shabby and run-down, dispirited in the sodden, dreary weather. But for a few lights flickering through curtains and shutters, the neighboring cabins might have been deserted.
She went to the largest, a redwood lodge that served as home to Brother Zoar and his innermost circle. When her knocks brought no reply, she peered through a window. Sheets and swags decorated the walls and hung from the rafters, givin
g the effect of the interior of a nomadic tent. Bean-bags and oversized cushions heaped the floor, serving as beds for partially-clad people. Amid a clutter of water-pipes and wine jugs was a large incense-holder in the shape of a beaming, chubby Buddha. Several spent cones made gritty mounds of ashes in the burning-dish.
Her taps at the windowpane, then more knocking and calling, elicited no response. They merely slept on. If not for the steady rising and falling of their chests, she might have presumed the worst.
Hesperia had given it to everyone; did she know of its potent effects? Was this result her deliberate intention? If so, then why? And if not … if not, then …
It occurred to her that Hesperia was not among those slumbering figures. Neither were Chaos, nor Brother Zoar himself.
Despite the openness of the community, she nonetheless felt a qualm of manners as she let herself into the lodge. None of the three were to be found within. She passed through and came to the back deck, pausing briefly to glance out at its rain-sluiced redwood planks. A gleam out in the forest beyond, some shining amber beacon, caught and held her eye.
Why anyone would be in the woods at night, in this miserable weather …
“We know all the places where the most rare and secret things grow,” Chaos had said.
And Hesperia … “We’ll need to gather more soon; this is the last handful left.”
How they had whispered, soft, conspiratorial.
“Past the sphinxes.”
“Past the garden gate.”
“The labyrinth of wonder.”
How they had leaned so close and intimate, breath tickling silkily in her ears … the tantalizing allure of the nithon petals, like nothing she’d ever seen …
A Lonely and Curious Country Page 9
