Bohemians of Sesqua Valley

by W. H. Pugmire

  “Who’s that?”

  “The Strange Dark One.”

  She narrowed her eyes as I burst out laughing. “If you’re trying to dissuade my interest, you’re going about it ass-backwards. My brain itches with intrigue. How can I summon this realm?”

  “One does not beckon the dreamlands. One enters into it. There is a place in the valley where Sesqua’s woodland conjoins with the dreamland’s forest. Oh dear, what dreadful curiosity shimmers in your mortal eyes. You’ve been tainted by the beast, and tingle for arcane manifestation.” Ah, her sinister smile. I watched as she raised one sable hand to Luna and made a curious sign, a sign that I carefully observed and memorized. I listened, as a breeze began to blow, an element of which was caught within Marceline’s magical hand. She tilted her head slightly and smiled at me in such a way that my blood prickled in its veins. Playfully, she moved her closed fist before my face, then took it away as I tried to kiss it. Finally, she blew into that hand and released the mingled air. I watched her fingers open, like petals of some obsidian bloom, and then I looked upward to watch the moon darken as it was covered with what I imagined was a spread of molten shadow.

  “I thought you said the dreamlands can’t be summoned.”

  “That is correct; but one may call the things that dwell within its precincts.” The wind grew more vigorous, pushing the sweet scents of Sesqua Valley into my face. Marceline’s magnificent hair billowed in the tempestuous air. “Behold!” she exclaimed.

  I raised my eyes and saw the fragmented patches of black cloud that wheeled in distant sky. No, they were not clouds; for clouds are not composed of rubbery texture that catches and reflects dim starlight. Clouds are not horned, nor do they spread membranous wings. I beheld the horde and guessed that they were perhaps fifty in number. I had seen their curious image before, on an antique piece of parchment that Simon had shown me in his round tower. When I asked him what the illustration represented, he tapped the image fondly and chuckled. “Night-gaunts,” he answered.

  II

  I spent the next three days in Simon’s cyclopean round tower, finding anything I could related to night-gaunts and the dreamlands; but I didn’t know where to look, for his collection of arcane lore was vast and kept in a chaotic lack of order. Books, scrolls, bas-reliefs and maps were scattered everywhere. The circular walls and floor of the mammoth upper room were covered with cobwebs, dust and diagrams in chalk. Such a litter of lore, and yet I could not find the data that I sought. And then I had a hunch, and trotted down the winding steps of the ancient tower. I found one of the queer stone circles that existed in the valley, reclined therein and closed my eyes. I summoned the forest of the dreamlands as new sensation chilled my brain. I sang to valley air and sensed the things that pranced around me, and when I partially lifted my eyelids I witnessed the blurry shapes of dark shaggy creatures of diminutive stature that danced around my circle of chiseled stones. Reaching outward, I touched the tiny paws that pulled me from the circle, and I knew that these wee creatures could lead me to the place where the valley’s woodland met the land of dream. They did not do so; rather, they guided me out of the woods and onto a road that took me to town. Frustrated, I crept to the silent sphinx and violently knocked my head against its unyielding stone. I was about to repeat the action when I saw, through streams of blood and tears, movement in the Hungry Place, the neglected cemetery where outsiders to the valley are oft times interred.

  The figure, book in hand, watched me as I entered the somber site, but did not cease his gambol until he noticed that beads of blood fell from my chin, to earth. Using the back of one hand, I wiped away the stream of blood that spilled from where my forehead flesh had torn. Reaching into a pocket, he produced a clean white handkerchief. “Use this. We do not want to titillate this earth with liquid gore. Hello, Jonas.”

  “Eldon, whatever are you doing here?”

  How extraordinary, his laughter. “I’ve had the most delirious dream, of dancing on my tomb!” His voice was high-pitched; it quivered as it issued from his throat, emotional and mad. This was Eldon Prim, one of the valley’s suicidal poets. That he was still among the living astonished us, for Sesqua Valley has an appetite for those so richly lunatic and plays with them, psychically, as cats play at tormenting mice. Eldon’s supernatural scars ran deep. I saw that he was peering at me intensely, as if to read my mind. Again, his manic laughter. “But we are outsiders, Jonas—there’ll be no tombs for us; there will be this hungry sod, and only that, unless we keep company with whatever crawls beneath it. This is where I’ll be planted, this will be my grave. And so I dance upon it. Whee!”

  I felt it then, the suggestion of a pulse beneath my foot, as if some stagnant heart had found resuscitation. Placid dizziness coaxed my knees to bend, and I knelt within the Hungry Place, before the dancing man. The earth on which I kowtowed was soft and enticing, and I pushed my hand into its depth. The mad poet fell beside me and set the book he held upon the ground. I saw that it was the thin hardcover collection of his poems that a friend in Boston had published in a very limited print run. The hand that had held the book grasped my wrist and pulled my hand from earth.

  “No, Jonas, no. You’re not the one who dreamed of dancing in the Hungry Place. It has not summoned thee. ‘Tis not your paltry flesh for which it has an appetite. Nay, remove your mortal hide and let me plant mine own.” He reached into his coat’s deep pocket and pulled out a deadly ritual knife, the very sharp blade of which caught and reflected starlight. Looking up to the stars, Eldon raised one hand and made a little sign unto the sky; and then he rested his hand on the hard surface of his book and, using the dagger, liberated one finger from his hand. An undertone of hilarity issued from some deep place in his throat as he planted his severed digit into the cemetery sod. The valley pulsed more vigorously, and some snouted thing bayed beneath the peaks of Mount Selta. “Arthur Meikle is such a splendid sculptor, have him fashion me a tombstone. Farewell, Jonas Hobbs.”

  I stood and watched for just a little while, as the Hungry Place sifted its soil around the lunatic. He laughed, the sinking man, and sang, a noise that served as background music as I exited the place. I leaned against the moon-kissed sphinx until the distant noise silenced, and when I turned to look again into the Hungry Place I saw that it was void of occupant. But then a distant figure climbed onto a far section of the low stone wall that surrounded the cemetery and leapt into the graveyard. I turned away and leaned the back of my head against the smooth stone of the sculpted beast and let the moonlight play upon my eyes, and I wondered again at how singular the moon looked as it floated over Sesqua Valley, how its shadows formed faces and expanded and then melted and then blossomed again as other expressive things.

  “Eldon’s gone,” a soft voice told me. I did not regard the young creature at my side. “I found his book in the Hungry Place. Guess I’ll take it to the tower. You have it, don’t you?”

  I replied in quotation:

  “I hold it in, the hot and frantic breath.

  I won’t exhale the words of lunacy.

  I won’t pronounce your poison’d shibboleth

  And enter custom with insanity.

  Remember when you talked to me of pain

  And pierced a splinter into my soft eye?

  Remember how that splinter sliced my brain

  And planted dreams wherein the starlight died?

  Peace, peace. Your language is still whispered in the wind.

  Silence all the shrieking in my brain.

  All your arcane lunacy rescind.

  I will not mouth your fatal name again.

  I will not move among your nightmare race.

  I’ll find deep solace in some hungry place.”

  Cyrus nodded. “Weird. He wrote that before he came to the valley.”

  “It’s not weird at all, young creature.” I countered. “The valley seeks we who are demented, we who have been tainted by unholy alchemy. It lures us to its confines and sups upon our madness, t
hus nourishing its own.”

  “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You like to pose as so superior,” the lad complained.

  I shrugged. “For someone born of Sesqua’s shadow, you’re hopelessly innocent. Where is your edge of danger, Cyrus? One would mistake you for human.”

  “I’m not—human. Just because I’m not as diabolic as Simon and some others…”

  I raised a hand to silence him. “No matter, I’ve been ordered to avoid you. Adam asserts that I’m corrupting your soul.” Slyly, I smiled at him. “Do you shadow-spawn of this haunted valley have souls, I wonder? Or merely appetite?”

  “You’re talking a lot of nonsense tonight, Jonas. Leonidas must have slipped you some of his nasty narcotics. As for Adam, he’s not my master, nor our concern. We’ll continue with our studies. Good evening.”

  I smiled at the bravado in his voice and watched him walk away. Then I remembered Eldon’s request, and so I sauntered up the road, to the large building that housed an artistic studio that was shared by members of the community. I did not care for the arrogant artist whom Eldon had named, but I knew his craftsmanship was exceptional, and so I entered the building and watched its few inhabitants at work. I was surprised to see that Arthur was working on a canvas rather than devoting his masculine hands to the sculptor’s task; and as I gazed at his painting on its easel my curiosity was piqued, for the ebony beast that was gradually revealed in its dark surroundings seemed familiar. The artist ignored me as I stepped to him until I bent to stroke the piece of paper that had been thumb-tacked to the canvas. When Arthur spoke to me, his voice was low and haunting in its effect.

  “They spill like patches of liquid shadow from their realm of fabulous darkness, and they esteem our adoration as our wonder-struck faces are reflected on their smooth blankness.” I uncurled the piece of paper, which proved to be an image of a fantastic fiend. It was winged and faceless and incredibly lean; indeed, there was almost something sinister in its sinewy and compact form, and in its stance, which bespoke of incredible strength. Unpinning it from the canvas, I lifted the rectangular piece of paper to the overhead light and saw that it was indeed a photograph from life.

  “Eldon has been swallowed by the Hungry Place. His last request was that you make a marker to his memory.”

  “Ah,” the other fellow uttered, “do we know his birth date? No matter, we shall record the day of—well, one cannot quite call it extinction, from what we know of our fate beneath the Sesquan sod. You were there?”

  “Yes.”

  Arthur tilted his head and regarded me queerly. “I’ve heard about you, Hobbs. You like to dwell in the dangerous places. I’ve heard you’ve actually ascended Mount Selta and swam in one of its sequestered pools.”

  “There’s only one pool, inside a cavern of crimson rock. Yes, I found it curious, that a mountain with so white an exterior should have scarlet walls within. But you’ve journeyed yourself,” I countered, holding up the snapshot. “You’ve found a way into the dreamlands.”

  He laughed. “No. The gaunts may be summoned if one knows the art. They love the light of our plump moon on their rubbery hide, and to feel the reflection of our faces on the surface beneath their horns.” He noticed my expression and laughed again. “You’re beguiled, Hobbs, and so you should be. The entire idea of a dreamland is hypnotic. How did such a realm come into existence? Is it formed of mortal dreaming, or is it the weave-work of some elder gods? Can we enter it as phantoms only, leaving behind our husks of flesh and bone? The night-gaunts are decidedly physical, and yet one senses that they are elementals of nightmare. So many scrumptious questions, so few boring answers.”

  I touched my free hand to the canvas on which the oblique silhouette of the depicted creature swam in gathered shadow. “Is this in preparation for a work in stone? I thought sculpturing was your forte.”

  “No, this is just an idea I had. I’ll give it to you once it’s finished. You obviously have some kind of affinity with night-gaunts. You should see your face, Jonas—you’re caught. Maybe they’ll lure you to their ghoul-haunted woodland and let you cross over.”

  I didn’t know how to answer him, for something in his words, and in the image on canvas, had indeed “caught” my imagination. He smiled at me as I opened my mouth to reply, and then he laughed out loud when the words caught in my throat. I had given the artist my message from the man who had been sifted through the cemetery loam, and my errand thus accomplished I made my escape. Night’s wind had picked up considerably, and I raised my hands to push hair from my eyes; and I saw that I still held Arthur’s photograph of his perplexing model, the silhouette of which looked different in the moonlight. Pushing the print into my pants pocket, I scanned the sky at the place where Marceline had conjured forth the horde of winged night-beasts, and then I followed the road away from Sesqua Town, toward a wooded area. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the moon as an enormous disc just over the twin-peaked mountain.

  I entered the silent woodland, escaping wind and starlight. The place seemed preternaturally hushed, and of a sudden some lines from a poem by Wilde oppressed my memory:

  “To outer senses there is peace,

  A dreamy peace on either hand

  Deep silence in the shadowy land,

  Deep silence where the shadows cease.”

  I wandered into deeper gloom, into a dreamy peacefulness. Although the place was dark, my vision had adjusted to my surroundings, and cool verdant shade soothed my eyes. As I marched along the path I could feel the photograph in my pocket as an entity near my inner thigh. My fancy dwelt on the fabulous creature, the night-gaunt of dreamland; and as I imagined it I held my arms aloft, as if perhaps I could sense the other realm with fingertips, for certainly its air would be of a different chemistry. I sought the essence of that incorporeal aether with my mind as my mouth hungered to gulp it, deeply.

  I sensed another occupant of woodland, and looked about me until I saw the ghostly silhouette, the lissome outline, the phosphorescent eyes. Young Cyrus reached out to me with anxious hands, which I clutched. “You’re crazy to be out here alone at this hour. What the hell are you about?”

  “I seek the dreamlands.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Damn, you’re crazy. Come on, let’s return to town.”

  “No. Hang you, boy, I’m being called, compelled to find that other sphere. It summons me just as surely as Sesqua Valley once did.”

  “Jonas, you’ve been bewitched by magick, that is all. You’ve been staring too deeply into arcane lore, your eyes have drunk too deeply of sigils and schema. The beast of Sesqua Valley has corrupted you. I know too well that shimmer in your eyes, which is the sign of an intoxicated soul. I’ve witness it on Simon’s insane eyes many times. Your quest is folly, my friend. You could never find the dreamlands.”

  I grabbed his coat by the shoulder and shook him. “How do you know? What’s to hinder me?”

  He leaned closer to me, and I could smell the fragrant valley on his inhuman hide. “You lack the required innocence,” he stated simply, in his quiet voice.

  “You’ve been there.” I had a sudden hunch, and by his air of false nonchalance I knew that I had struck a note. “You’ve been to the dreamlands—you know the way. Admit it.”

  He shrugged and grinned. “I admit nothing. Oh hell, follow me.” Surprised, I watched him trot toward a second pathway and vanish from sight. I rushed after him, tripping over small shrubs and almost losing balance. Something tickled my sense of play, and I chuckled gleefully. Running through the woods reminded me of my childhood, when every summer was spent chasing through the mammoth woods of a lakeside park. I would sometime build small altars of twigs within those woods and dance around them; or oft times I would merely recline on supple and aromatic earth and daydream. Some pocket of my soul ached to stop and lay upon this earth—and dream. How dare the child of shadow say that I lacked innocence? At that moment I felt a purity of soul.

  The woodland opened up as some gargan
tuan shape arose before me, and I watched Cyrus dig his fingers into the sharply sloping soil of a colossal mound that rose above the moon drenched trees. Happily, I scampered up the slope in pursuit of my crony, not resting until I reached the mound’s apex. Cyrus sat on the ground, and as I knelt beside him I looked behind me and saw that Mount Selta was far behind us. Distant hills surrounded us, as did the spreading woods.

  “There,” Cyrus whispered as he pointed to a far-off district. “Do you see the place where shadows cease, that region of verdant mist that captures moonbeams? Come on, use your arcane senses.”

  I strained to see what he could perceive, but it was not to be. A sob of frustration caught inside my throat. Suddenly, the boy’s hand combed through my hair, and then it wound through strands and tugged me to him. I felt his tender kiss upon my eyes. He leaned away from me as I looked again. I saw the eerie region. “The forests of dreamland,” I sighed. Oh, the ache I knew within the pit of my being. I raised one hand as if I might have touched the other place, and the sight of that hand held in the air reminded me of another hand, one that was beautifully black. Memory grew keen, queerly so, and I saw within its depths the movement of Marceline’s hand, as she made weird gesticulations to the sky. I remembered exactly the formation of her fingers.

  “What are you doing?”

  I smiled but did not look at him, for my eyes were enchanted by remote movement. They rose from out the outlying mist, dark patches of rubbery blackness that caught the sheen of moonlight on their immortal flesh. I stood to greet them as they sallied toward the mound, and I raised my hands to their horrendous beauty as they encircled me in the air. One member of the horde floated to me and hovered just above the ground. I thrilled to the sound of its membranous wings beating in the air, at the rich smell of its ghastly inky flesh. As it hovered close before me rich moonlight fell upon its facelessness, and on that slate of jet I saw a vague reflection of my visage. I welcomed the clawed hands that reached for me, and shouted maniacal hilarity as I was fiendishly tickled. My lunatic laughter seemed to attract others of the flock, and soon I was being lifted off the mound, held by hands that tormented me with their touch. I did not look down as someone shouted my name, and soon I could hear nothing but the beating of leathery wings as I was taken to the other place, as I was ushered into the mist of dreams.