Conjure House

by Gary Fry

  “Hey, that’s great. Well done.” Anthony hated football, but on this occasion thought it was necessary to show some enthusiasm. A connection had been established, and now he could discover what he needed to know. “Do you know a pupil there called…” He gazed to his right, seeing his wife and son proposing and rejecting several new products. Then he finished, “…called Suman?”

  “Someone?” asked Mark, again looking suspicious while holding his son visibly tighter.

  “No,” Anthony replied, and quickly repeated the name: “Su-man.”

  “There’s a boy called Simon,” James explained, and before Anthony could respond with either sorrow or unrest, the boy added, “But he can’t play footie ’cause he’s got asthma and his mum won’t let him.”

  “Okay,” said Anthony, trying not to forge any link between the problems suffered by this other Simon and the mole his little brother had borne on his upper lip. “And you’re sure there’s no one called—”

  “Daddy, can I have this?”

  Carl had interrupted just when Anthony had hoped to receive irrefutable confirmation, but pressing the issue further was surely unnecessary. He had the information he required, and this made him more determined to visit Larry Cole after leaving the shop. He knew he was close to learning about what was going on in Deepvale.

  His son cheered him by requesting a science kit, which had a selection of chemicals in tiny tubes, a microscope, and a booklet explaining how to conduct basic experiments. Anthony paid for the gift, and once they’d bid farewell and strayed out into the cool morning, he revealed his intentions.

  “You two go home…oh, I mean, to my parents’ bungalow,” he said, the Freudian slip bringing an irrepressible smile to his wife’s lips. Carl also looked pleased, mainly because he’d be able to play with his new toy. “I have something to do.”

  Melanie failed to ask the expected question and merely kissed him on the lips. “Fine. We’ll see you later, then.”

  “Of course,” he replied, and shivered as his wife’s expression lost a little of its warmness. This must be just a reaction to the wind, which rushed in from every angle. Clouds in a grey sky churned with unforgiving sentience…After noticing their son’s attention fixed on the science kit, Anthony whispered, “Don’t let him go outside.”

  “I won’t,” Melanie replied, but she was no fool. After kissing him again, she added, “But I expect a full explanation once you return, Ant.”

  “You will have one,” Anthony said, and turned to address the ancient monument at the heart of the village, which boasted an archaic symbol, possibly to ward off evil. As he watched his wife and child depart, before twisting to hurry again for the local historian’s house, he added, “We all will.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Following a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, Paul considered telling his parents about his recent spell of minor, probably drug-related depression…but then decided against doing so.

  He thought his mum might understand more than his dad. She was involved in local community activities, and before Paul had left home years ago, she’d worked voluntarily for The Samaritans. But for some reason Paul thought it was his dad he needed to receive strength from…and he wondered why this was the case.

  He didn’t let the issue trouble him for long, however. Instead he rubbed his belly and exhaled with feigned satisfaction.

  “My, that was good,” he said, glancing up at his mum as she removed his empty plate and smiled.

  “I hope you’re eating well in Manchester,” she said, and Paul knew she was fishing for news on his love life.

  “Yeah, I grab snacks between recording sessions,” he replied, feeling uncomfortable because of an unspoken pressure his parents had always laid on him, mainly about settling down and providing them with grandchildren. Perhaps he’d let them down here, but they’d never come out and say it. Before either protested, he’d have to bring a corpse to their home for dinner…

  He sniggered privately at the thought, even though this dark turn of mind concerned him. Why was his work so macabre, and why did he need to give expression to such subversive themes? Looking around the kitchen—his mum washing up at the sink, his dad paging through a newspaper at the table—reminded Paul that his upbringing had been stable. So what engendered his creativity, his periods of gloom?

  The only conclusion that made intuitive sense was that this had something to do with his dad. Did Paul mean that he’d inherited a gene or some other biological trait from the paternal side of the family? He wasn’t sure. All he knew with certainty was that whenever he felt grim, he had to compose because he’d otherwise feel worse, as if time was slipping away and his potential remained unfulfilled. But his dad was far from creative, preferring to work at the accountants’ office where he’d been a partner for decades.

  Paul was unable to make sense of this.

  Maybe if he’d had a sibling, the weight of parental expectation wouldn’t rest only on him. But this thought made him feel guilty. After all, consider what had happened to poor Simon, the Mallinsons’ youngest. That had been a real tragedy. Of all the old gang, however, only Anthony had failed to seek an artistic medium through which to express this horror, choosing instead the rational field of science. Paul understood the source of Andy’s creativity—he’d always had a visual gift, and his dad was cruel—and even Lisa’s literary abilities: she’d loved books as a child and had had elderly relatives obsessed with spooky stuff. But as for himself…

  He got up, scraping his chair legs against the tiled kitchen floor like the shriek of something monstrous. He supposed some people thought his music sounded this way, but it had never revealed its qualities too quickly. Listeners had to be patient, allowing its layers to unfurl. His mum had tried to understand it, but his dad wasn’t interested, claiming not to enjoy such material.

  Paul sighed and, looking at his parents in turn, said, “I’m off to my…old room. I have some work to be getting on with.”

  “It’s not your old room, son,” his dad replied, tempering the affection that threatened to make his voice sound emotional behind the front page of his tabloid. NATURAL CATASTROPHE STRIKES FAR EAST, ran the paper’s headline…and here Paul was, fretting about his comparatively unimportant identity.

  And that was when his mum added, “It’ll always be your room.”

  …until you settle down and have a child, at which point we’ll turn it into a nursery to enable the little boy or girl to stay over while you and your wife enjoy a nice night out away from the office where all normal people work once they’ve grown up and put away the hobbies of their youths.

  But Paul wasn’t up for a debate. He hadn’t slept well last night, dreaming of bizarre entities possibly informed by his peculiar experience after arriving in the village.

  “Thanks,” he said, keeping dismay out of his voice. “It’s appreciated.”

  “Just make your next visit sooner than your last.”

  “Time flies, Mum,” Paul said, and pictured in his mind the creatures he’d imagined overnight; those things had flown, too. He’d been unable to see them in sufficient detail to describe, but their presence had certainly been powerful. Might his recollection of these creatures help him work?

  In the fickle grip of inspiration, he retreated to the room at the bungalow’s rear, whose window overlooked a back garden as inconspicuously organised as his parents’ lives. He sat on the mattress, his guitar on his lap, and tried scrubbing his mind of all trivialities. Then there was only himself…and the darkness in his heart.

  He’d yet to compose his second slow movement, the core of his rock symphony. He wanted to suggest something otherworldly with this work, but the only entity that had come to mind was an approximation from experience. He’d envisaged an elephant, but far bigger than any that had trodden the earth, at least since humans had catalogued the natural world. This one lacked a trunk, its eyes were drooped slashes, and…and…But the more he’d tried zeroing in on this beast, which also move
d in a bipedal fashion, the less it resembled what he’d originally conceived. Now its limbs were stretched, and it towered over whatever it bestrode like a giraffe skirting insects, its head encircled by a starlit sky…

  Paul shivered. The window was closed, and when he glanced through the glass, he noticed flies coiling in a mass. Then these disappeared, their brief collective shape hinting at a mass defying gravity.

  He shook his head. His earlier feeling of power had now fled him, as if he’d just been sucked dry by some supernatural parasite. He strummed a few lifeless chords; the noise they produced sounded hollow and meaningless. Then he set aside the instrument to reflect again on his station in life. He’d never desired fame, only time and funds to develop his art.

  But he’d rarely felt more bereft of his Muse, nor as cosmically insignificant.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Lisa was delighted when her dad took her to the foot of his pretty garden and showed her his latest matchstick model in the shed. This was a marvellous and intricate construction, and while examining it, Lisa considered how genes might be passed down across generations. As far as she knew, there were no other creative people in the family, but surely her dad’s desire to build such incredible things was similar to her own turn of mind.

  But why was her own so macabre?

  She’d had an unproductive morning, eating breakfast before retreating to the spare room, which her mum had kept wonderfully clean. But Lisa had felt too ill to work on her script. She hadn’t drunk much the previous evening, despite the excitement of meeting her old friends again, and so maybe her discomfort was psychosomatic, arising from her decision to end her relationship with Ben. Her dreams last night had been disturbed, her lover’s cold attitude presenting itself in hideous subconscious imagery.

  She tried not to consider this now; it was all too painful.

  Moving around the matchstick cathedral, she marvelled at its Gothic structure and exquisite detail. This was like being an enormous otherworldly entity, glancing down at an impressive if ultimately negligible piece of human ingenuity. It was like being a God, and possessing a God’s-eye view.

  “It’s superb,” she said, and the comment made her dad smile, even though the cramp in her belly had caused her to grimace as she spoke.

  “Thanks,” he replied, but then looked at her with a serious expression. Then he asked the question she wasn’t ready to field yet. “And how…are things with you, love?”

  “Oh, you know…okay, I suppose,” she explained too quickly, and realised he’d noticed this, too. Nevertheless, she went hurriedly on. “The new film’s coming along well. We’ve secured funding. I just need to…to get my ideas down on paper. But I’ve been struggling with it lately. I can’t seem to see the wood for the trees.”

  Perhaps that was the problem: her concerns existed at her core, too deeply to be scrutinised in detail. Sometimes she wished she was Godlike; how amazing it would be to control every aspect of existence…

  A figure blundered against the shed’s solitary window, but when Lisa and her dad glanced that way, they noticed only a cloud of off-colour flies batting against the glass. Had a short boy just darted beyond these insects, laughing in a giddy way? That might be true, but it was of no consequence. Lisa had too much on her mind to be troubled by meddlesome youths.

  “Dad, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I should get back to work. We’ll speak later, yeah? I won’t be going home till…well, till I’m ready.”

  But she’d already decided she wouldn’t go back at all. Her dad smiled, compassion heavy in his ageing face. Lisa was loved unconditionally here, and this had transformed her feelings from cold to warm. This might be why she’d realised it wasn’t working with Ben, despite telling herself it was her lover’s insistence on having a child that had pushed her to the brink.

  Exiting the shed and strolling across the lawn, Lisa saw her mum watching from the kitchen window. Lisa feigned a smile, even though her belly ached dully. And after reentering the bungalow, she said, “Dad’s just locking up. And I’m going to my…oh, I mean, to the spare room.”

  “It’s always your room, darling,” her mum explained, detecting her clumsy correction. And this proved to be one supportive expression too many. Lisa burst into tears.

  After drying her eyes with kitchen roll, she promised to explain later about what was on her mind and then retreated along the hallway for her work and—more crucially—her mobile phone. She’d have to let Ben know her decision and felt fearful about doing so. He wasn’t a bad man, not like so many others in this pitiful world.

  As she shut herself inside the spare room, two mismatched figures beyond the window rushed behind a hedge. If that had been a father chasing his son, surely others in the grove had noticed. Lisa shut her eyes to clear her troubled mind. This was far from her only half-glimpse of something odd since arriving in the village…But she returned her attention to her main predicament, having realised she was seeking excuses to avoid it. Perhaps exhaustion and mixed feelings about her relationship had resulted in weird hallucinations.

  She sat on the bed to facilitate thought. She was sure Ben would make a decent father and herself a good mother…but did she want to settle down with a man she didn’t love? Of course not: that would be unfair to them both, not to mention the child. Lisa looked at her drowsing laptop; a few lights flashed above the keyboard, suggesting life inside, but none was displayed onscreen.

  Rarely feeling less like writing, she stood and crossed for the exit. Then she rushed across the hallway for the bathroom, closed the door, and quickly lowered her trousers before sitting on the toilet.

  A pungent scent conjured images in her mind of the…things she’d dreamed about during a fitful sleep overnight. Relaxing her bladder to urinate, she struggled to suppress ghastly visions of giant entities thundering across the nearby moors…What did any of this mean? In some nebulous way, was her life becoming entwined with her fiction?

  But she mustn’t overdramatise either. She thought instead of poor Anthony, of how he’d lost a brother and now his parents…Her own difficulties were negligible compared to that raw deal.

  She began to pee, realising that her urine felt denser than usual at this time of the month. The feeling made her reflect on her mood. She often grew maudlin during her period, but right now, with weeks before she was next due, nothing could account for such sullenness.

  Squeezing out a last drop, she tore off a piece of tissue and applied it to absorb residue. Then she lifted the balled-up wad to examine…and immediately dropped it into the lavatory bowl with a repulsed expression.

  It was red. She was bleeding.

  Miscarriage?

  That was her first thought, but how could this be? She and Ben used double contraceptives: pill and condom—or “belt and braces,” as he joked among friends. His childishness wasn’t endearing, and it often angered her how insensitive he could be.

  Nevertheless, Lisa stood to tear off another piece of tissue, and as a wind howled off the moors like the approach of something monstrous, she had to admit the real reason she felt tense right now. It was less to do with Ben than she’d thought.

  She’d begun to menstruate—several weeks too soon.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  His dad was a bastard.

  Andy had always known this and hadn’t expected anything better than the way he’d been treated since arriving back in Deepvale. On this occasion, however, the truth hurt.

  He’d often wondered whether his art served as a primal scream against the way he’d been brought up. Almost all his friends, three of whom he’d met last night, had received decent treatment from parents as children: if not always unconditional love, at least tolerance and affection.

  But not Andy.

  In his case, beating had followed beating, with yelled abuse accompanying gross negligence or, at best, a species of begrudging coexistence.

  He often wondered why his mum had put up with this, but Dad hadn’t always been cruel to her. Hi
s patience there was probably related to the physical pleasures she could offer him after hard days at the factory in Leeds. Perhaps the brutal fucker resented Andy’s birth simply because it had ruined his mum’s figure…

  Who knew? More to the point, who cared?

  Andy had remained in his old room most of the morning, gazing at his unfinished canvas. Back in Liverpool, he’d sketched a landscape to serve as the background, and it was only after arriving in Deepvale that he’d realised where he’d derived influence.

  Here. These were surely the moors around his native village.

  Now he must add a suitably hideous creature. The trouble was that, despite suffering a wild dream last night in which terrible monsters had charged around like the fickle infants of something unthinkably awful, he was bereft of inspiration.

  Instead of working today, he’d spent too much time fantasising about earning money. He’d use this to compensate for neglecting his family, which his craft had demanded. They might all travel abroad, and while he painted daily, his wife and children could enjoy a better life than the one offered by where they lived now. There were surely better places to flee to than even the Yorkshire Dales.

  The planet was a big place, he reflected, and then looked again at his incomplete portrait. But the only things he could picture in his mind’s eye were too large to fit the scale he’d already established. The mutated behemoth demanding that he took up a pencil would look inappropriate on such a small piece of land. This creature was too huge, too scary, too monstrous…

  And he was supposed to be designing an image for a children’s product, wasn’t he? He mustn’t forget that. Even though company executives had asked for something frightening, Andy believed the creature he now had in mind was unsuitable for any child’s vulnerable mind, and possibly even for adults’…

  But he was being foolish. All these considerations were unworthy of someone his age; perhaps he should just put away his toys. That was how his wife Kelly occasionally described his artistic endeavours. But he insisted that she did him a disservice. Aside from family, painting was all he had in life, and sometimes during the darkest days, he might consider his work even more important than they were.