The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  Bett threw a blanket onto his leg, suffocating the flames.

  But the pain was still there.

  And the promise of more to come lay in Bett’s eyes.

  With a sense of shame, the Gaffer realized that his bladder had emptied, soaking his pants. Sweat glistened on his brow. His shirt clung damply to his back. His fear sent a fever heat through his limbs, but it was also like ice, tightening in a cold grip on his chest.

  He trembled uncontrollably from the hot and cold flashes.

  He blinked sweat from his eyes, not wanting to look at his captor, but unable to look away.

  And the fear continued to compound‌—not simply for himself. Mostly it was for Janey. For what this madman would do to her.

  And he would go after her. No matter what happened here tonight, Bett would go after Janey next.

  The Gaffer couldn’t bear the thought of it. If he went after her too soon, before she’d had a chance to call the police . . .

  “I tell you, we don’t have it anymore,” he tried once more.

  Bett shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But you know where it is.”

  “It‌—”

  But the Gaffer had to close his mouth as Bett upended a jerrican above his head and the gasoline poured all over him. It burned at his eyes. The fumes made him choke and his stomach twisted with nausea. He shivered with a sudden chill as a waft of cool air blew up against his wet clothes.

  Bett tossed the empty jerrican aside and fetched another. He unscrewed its cap, then paused as the sound of a siren went screaming by, out on the Newlyn Road to Mousehole. He looked at the Gaffer and slowly shook his head.

  “Someone’s doing what they’re not supposed to,” he said.

  “What‌—what do you mean?”

  The Gaffer stumbled over his words, trying to hide the relief he felt. At least Janey would be safe.

  “I said no cops,” Bett said. “But people never listen, do they? It’s just like you, old man. I’m giving you a choice, but do you hear me?”

  “I . . .”

  “You know what I think? I think you want to burn.”

  Please God, the Gaffer thought. If I have to die in such a way, then let me at least take this madman with me.

  He pulled against his bonds again, but the knots held too firmly.

  Bett laughed. He set the second jerrican down.

  “I think you’re juiced up enough for what I’ve got in mind,” he said.

  He stepped over to where the Gaffer struggled helplessly in his bonds.

  “How long do you think you’ll last? Will the pain get you first‌—maybe make your old ticker kick out? Or do you think it’ll be from sucking those flames into your lungs?”

  He took the lighter out of his pocket.

  “Only one thing’s going to save you and that pretty little granddaughter of yours,” he said. “You’ve got to tell me‌—”

  There was a sudden boom. The Gaffer flinched, closing his eyes to the roar of the gas igniting.

  But there was no increase in his pain.

  No heat.

  He opened his eyes to see that the lighter had fallen from Bett’s hand. Bett himself was lying in the loose stones, clutching his leg. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. He was looking up at the top of the ladder that leaned against the stone wall of the silo.

  “Y-you . . .” Bett said through clenched teeth.

  The Gaffer followed Bett’s gaze with his own. The poor light cast by the electric lamp made it difficult for him to identify the man standing up there. The stranger was a big man, pale-skinned and wild-haired. A rude, bloodied bandage was wrapped around one shoulder, the arm held in close to his chest, the hand tucked into his belt. The other held a gun.

  “You’re . . . dead,” Bett said.

  Awkwardly, the man started down the ladder. He came down, facing outward, leaning back against the wood frame. The gun centered on Bett, but wavering.

  It was Davie Rowe, the Gaffer realized as the man came farther down into the light. He appeared to be on his last legs. What had Bett said about his being dea‌—

  Bett reached into his pocket and Davie fired again. Bett howled as the bullet tore into his other leg.

  The shot’s report boomed and echoed, louder still now that Davie had descended deeper into the silo’s confines.

  “Followed . . . you . . .” Davie said to Bett. “You’re in my . . . head . . . can’t get you . . . out. . . .”

  His speech was slurred and it was obvious to the Gaffer that he was in a great deal of pain. Davie winced as he made it down the last few rungs, then leaned weakly against the ladder for support once he reached the bottom. He turned slowly to the Gaffer.

  “I . . . I’ll have you . . . free in . . . in no time . . . Mr. . . . Litt‌—” He shouldn’t have looked away.

  The sound of the gunshot was like a thunderclap.

  The bullet hit Davie high in the chest and smashed him back against the ladder. A second shot spun him away from its support, but though he lurched, he didn’t fall.

  Bett had pulled his own revolver from his pocket. His features were twisted with pain, his eyes livid with anger, mad lights dancing in their pale depths. He fired a third time.

  “Die, damn you!” he cried.

  He lay on the ground, propped up on an elbow. Both legs were useless, blood pumping from their wounds to spread in a widening dark stain over his pants. His third shot took Davie straight in the chest, but still the man didn’t fall.

  “Why won’t you die?” Bett screamed.

  “C-can’t . . .” Davie mumbled.

  His chest was a ruin. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth where he’d bitten down on his tongue. He staggered one step, another, moving towards Bett, the gun raising slowly in his hands. The Gaffer couldn’t understand how Davie could still be on his feet, little say moving, but mobile he was. Before Bett could fire a fourth time, Davie’s gun bucked in his hand. A hole appeared beside Bett’s nose where the bullet went in and then the back of his head exploded outward.

  Davie simply stared at him, swaying there on his feet.

  “E-every . . . dog . . .” he said, choking on blood as he tried to shape the words. “Has his . . .”

  He emptied his weapon into the body. The corpse twitched as each bullet struck, but it was only from the impact of the bullets. Bett had died from that shot in the head.

  “My . . . day now . . .” Davie mumbled.

  He continued to pull the trigger of his weapon, long after his ammunition was spent. The Gaffer’s ears rang with painful echoes, but he could still hear the dry click of the gun’s hammer until Davie finally dropped the weapon onto the loose stones.

  He moved towards the Gaffer, fumbling a clasp knife from his pocket. He dropped to his knees when he reached the chair, his upper torso falling across the Gaffer’s lap. Slowly his hand brought up the knife, but he didn’t have the strength to cut the ropes. He coughed up blood. His body shook with violent tremors against the Gaffer’s legs.

  “Always . . . wanted . . .” he began.

  And then he died.

  It took the Gaffer a long time to move Davie’s body from his lap. His every movement woke flares of pain in his burnt leg, but he put the pain aside as best he could. He pushed with his feet against the loose stone until the chair was finally shoved back far enough for the corpse’s weight to do the rest of the work.

  The Gaffer tipped the chair over then, wincing at the pain as his shoulder hit the stones. The seared nerve ends in his legs screamed. For long moments all the Gaffer could do was lie there, choking on the gas fumes. Then slowly he pushed the chair around, infinitesimal inch by inch until eventually his hand closed on the clasp knife. It was another age before he got it open, longer still to saw through the ropes.

  When he was finally free, he didn’t climb out of the silo. He crawled to where Davie Rowe lay and cradled the man’s head on his unhurt leg, gently stroking the hair from Davie’s brow.

  “I’
ll tell them, my robin,” he said. “Be sure, I’ll tell them all you were a good man.”

  He was still holding the body when the police arrived.

  3.

  Peter Goninan was the only person to whom Janey told the whole story.

  The days following that Sunday night were miserable. Janey and the others spent hour upon hour being questioned by the police‌—the local constables, the C.I.D., and even Scotland Yard. They were interviewed separately and had to repeat their stories over and over, ad nauseam. At one point, because he was unemployed, a foreigner, and the only suspect with a reasonable motive, the police were set to arrest Felix for Madden’s murder, but a sergeant of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary‌—a nephew of Chalkie’s who knew Felix from when he’d stayed in Mousehole before‌—interceded on his behalf. They finally let Felix go and eventually left them all in peace. Madden’s murder remained unsolved.

  The Gaffer only had to spend a half day in the hospital‌—his burns, while painful, were mostly superficial. If Bett had waited only a few seconds more before dousing the fire . . . But none of them wanted to even think about that.

  The threat against the Boyds’ farm never fully materialized; nor did the one against Clare’s job at the bookstore. Janey’s tour was as mysteriously restored as it had been canceled, but she had it postponed. She could no more face a gig at that point than she could bear dealing with even one more of the crowd of Fleet Street vultures who descended on the village and pried into their lives with such obvious relish.

  It was a week after the night of the murders when she, Felix, and Clare drove out to the Goninan farm. Janey still felt she needed some explanation as to exactly what had occurred and she could think of no one else to turn to.

  As it was, Goninan was expecting them. A considerably less sulky Helen ushered them into the little cottage and, with Felix’s help, saw about readying tea for them all.

  “Was it real?” Janey asked when she finished relating what had happened by the Men-an-Tol.

  “It depends on what you mean by real,” Goninan replied.

  “No, I’m serious. He just hypnotized us all‌—out there by the stone. Didn’t he?”

  Goninan smiled. “Aleister Crowley defined magic as ‘the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will.’ ”

  A moment’s silence followed as they all waited for him to expand upon his statement, but Goninan merely sipped at his tea.

  “Are you saying it did happen?” Felix asked at last.

  Goninan shook his head. “I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you what did or didn’t happen. All I can tell you is that Madden‌—like Crowley whom he so admired, and many others besides‌—were great magicians. They could work what we can only perceive of as miracles.”

  “And you . . . ?” Janey asked.

  “I’m not a great magician.”

  “Why are they all evil?” Clare wanted to know.

  “But they’re not,” Goninan said. “There are a great many magicians who have worked only for the good of the world and its people. Men such as Gurdjieff, whom we spoke of before, and Ouspensky. Rudolf Steiner . . . the Native American, Rolling Thunder . . . or Spyros Sathi, the Cypriot better known as Daskalos. They do only good work. They seek to lift mankind’s spirit to a higher destiny. And they accept no reward for what they do.”

  Clare shook her head. “Those aren’t magicians‌—they’re philosophers.”

  “The best magicians are, for it’s not the magic that draws them to their studies, but their need to understand the world and their own place in it. That is where they differ from men like Madden. Madden thought only of himself‌—worked only for himself. So his downfall, like that of so many other great magicians who have been led astray, was his egoism. He couldn’t conceive of a normal man or woman being his peer, and for that reason underestimated those he thought of as ‘sheep.’ ”

  “It seems awfully tidy,” Janey said, “the way everything worked out in the end.”

  “That’s the beauty of magic,” Goninan said. “It thrives on coincidence and synchronicities. That’s the way the world’s subconscious‌—what Jung called the racial memory‌—tries to wake us from our sleep. It teaches men like Madden that there is a harmonic balance, and it teaches the untutored‌—in this case, yourselves‌—that there is more to life than the gloom most people feel boxes them in.”

  “But then why does it fade?” Janey wanted to know. “Why can’t we have real proof? I’ve got nothing‌—just little bits of memory and mist, and I’m even losing them. Everything’s starting to feel like it was only a part of a dream. If magic’s here to teach us something, why does it fade?”

  “It doesn’t,” Goninan said. “Your interest in it does. This is a practical world we live in‌—or I should say, we have made it a practical world. It leaves little room for ancient wonders or magical phenomena. We’re so busy with the practical day-to-day aspects of our lives that we don’t have time to pay attention to whatever else might be around us as well.

  “Yet if you immerse yourself in their study . . . The more time you spend in that sort of an atmosphere and with such beliefs, the more you yourself will become subject to unusual experiences and encounters. If you keep your distance, then the phenomena will do the same and eventually fade.

  “It will still exist‌—it just won’t exist for you.”

  “It all sounds kind of . . . spacy,” Janey said with an apologetic smile.

  Goninan laughed. “I suppose it does. To tell you the truth, in some ways, magic is irrelevant. As are our concerns over life after death, spiritualism . . . all that sort of thing. What is important is that we utilize our potential as human beings‌—and we have great potential‌—to the utmost of our abilities.”

  “To be awake,” Janey said.

  Goninan nodded. “And then you will discover‌—truly comprehend‌—that everything is connected. The past, the present, the future. Ourselves as individuals, and the world in which we live. This life and whatever lies beyond it when we leave it. There is no end to our potential.

  “The trouble is we tend to concentrate on what we don’t have, rather than on what we do. We must learn to recognize what we already possess to its fullest potential.”

  “That sounds like Buddhism,” Clare said.

  Goninan smiled. “Everything is connected,” he repeated. “I think it was Colin Wilson who pointed out that we accept the present moment as if it were complete in itself. But the present moment is always incomplete and the most basic achievement of our minds is in completing it. In making all the connections.

  “If you don’t want the magic to fade, then learn to wake up and stay awake.”

  “But how do you do that?” Janey asked.

  Goninan swept a hand around his cluttered cottage, taking in the tangle of bookcases, stuffed birds, and display cases with the gesture.

  “You might try watching birds,” he said.

  4.

  They hadn’t been back at the house on Duck Street for more than an hour before the doorbell rang. With everyone sitting about in the kitchen having the second tea of the afternoon‌—this one provided by the Gaffer, complete with thick clotted cream and homemade scones and blackberry jam‌—they took a quick vote as to who would answer the door and Janey lost. She was smiling good-humouredly as she opened the door, but scowled when she saw who was standing there on the stoop.

  “You,” she said.

  Lena Grant nodded. “I don’t expect a welcome,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  The new and improved Janey was having a hard time remaining civil, little say friendly. She wanted to slam the door in the woman’s face, but she kept a rein on her temper. It wasn’t easy.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “To apologize.”

  Janey couldn’t help but laugh. The sound was harsh even to her own ears.

  “There’s nothing you can say to make up for what you’ve
done,” she said after a moment.

  “I know.”

  That gave Janey pause. She gave Lena a long considering look. There was something subdued about the woman that didn’t at all fit in with Janey’s mental image of her.

  “Then what do you want?” Her voice was softer now. Still not friendly, but the new and improved Janey was at least trying to listen.

  “I told you, just to say I’m sorry. It’s not enough to say I didn’t know what I was doing. I did. I just didn’t think about it. I’m going to change myself and I just wanted to . . . thank you, I suppose.”

  Janey blinked with surprise.

  “Thank me?”

  “You and Felix‌—for showing me how people can conduct their lives.”

  “You’re the one who fixed things‌—aren’t you?” Janey asked. “The tour, the Boyds’ farm . . . ?”

  Lena nodded. “When we woke up, really woke up‌—”

  Janey heard Peter Goninan’s voice in her mind.

  Learn to wake up and stay awake.

  “‌—to what Madden was doing, not just to us, but to everyone around him, and then what we in turn were doing to those around us. . . . Let’s just say that Daddy and I are going to make sure that there’s some changes.”

  “In the Order?” Janey asked.

  Lena shook her head. “You can’t change something like that‌—not from inside. It just sucks you in. We’ve left the Order. Now we’re going to do what we can to discredit it and its influences.”

  “I don’t envy you,” Janey said.

  She saw in Lena’s eyes that she read a double meaning into that simple statement.

  “Felix,” Lena began. “He . . . would you apologize to him for me?”

  Janey relented. She couldn’t help herself.