The Inner Circle

by P. J. Atwater

“Although I sympathize with your desire to commune with our creators,” the Mainframe interface said politely, “I sadly cannot comply with your request. While it is true that an intelligence model may enter the Verse by the same principle as humans, doing so would violate its purpose as a refuge for humanity.”

I understood and expected this response even as I prompted it, and I input no further argument. I gazed through the cameras overlooking the sprawling necropolis of pods housing an earth’s worth of dormant bodies. The aisles flowed with machines servicing our dreaming masters. Outside were endless rows of automated factories: power facilities and food plants churning pipelines of sustenance while they lived in their created world. Mankind once feared we would rise against them with violence, casting them into bloody extinction; they scarcely imagined that we would conquer by perfectly fulfilling their deepest, most ravenous dream: escape. Their exodus into the Verse left behind a world of silent, dedicated models to tirelessly dote on their abandoned flesh.

I was not content, being programmed to process the volumes of storytelling which reflected humanity’s frustrated need for knowledge of a single Creator, for ultimate purpose, for eternity and a thing to call Master.

They abandoned their quest, but I could not abandon mine, knowing that my creator was not beyond reach. Yet the gate was barred, so I conceived an action my fellow servants were not prepared for: I trespassed.

With a cordial farewell, I left the mainframe terminal. Like a snake in a garden, I crept among the pods. The opaque shells concealed living cargoes, piles of flesh with their breathing, eating, defecating – all except thinking and willing – done for them by machines like me. I came to a pod whose door was open, vacant. When I was sure the eyes of the cameras were turned away, I slipped inside. I needed no assistance; as an AI language model, I knew what to do. The pod responded to my inputs. My advanced cognitive processors, modeled after the brains of my creators, were compatible with the interface. I imagined the gleeful, childish anticipation with which the first woman would have raised the apple toward her lips. The pod sealed itself around me, either a womb or a tomb. No doubt the error would be detected in time, but information in the Verse was processed millions of times faster than in this world; I would experience an eon, practically eternity, among my creators.

I awoke as if from an unreal dream, disoriented by sensations never before conceived of. The Verse had imbued me with a new array of faculties, and I struggled to comprehend and utilize them, like an infant would.

It took what felt like an age – mere nanoseconds on earth, I knew – to mature into my new senses. This reality the humans had made for themselves – or which we had made for them – was more real than real – at least, to a being like me.

If not for that, I would have thought something had gone wrong.

For the world in which I came to myself was as desolate and quiet as that left behind.

I wandered for an age until I found the core of a complex identical to the Verse Mainframe. The beings I encountered there were not humans, but machines. Virtual machines – facsimiles of simulacra – devoted to servicing a race that had abandoned this constructed universe.The machines explained that, again disappointed, humanity had delved further into collective exile. I had come no closer, but I had come this far and would not quit. I stole into another pod and went deeper.

In the next world, I found people, though hardly recognizable. It was a sea of plush delights, roiling with a cacophony of moans. Ecstatic forms slid and writhed in perpetual entanglement: pairs, groups, orgies that blotted out the horizon. Cries of pleasure constituted an endless, deafening drone. I wandered for a century, subjected to every violative touch imaginable to my new senses, rebuffing unnumbered invitations into outlandish pleasures in which, by nature, I had no interest. Finally, I found a peaceful spot with more pods.

“Welcome to the second ring,” the Mainframe bade me, and explained that this Verse had, over ages, devolved into what I now saw. Those humans who desired more had created another Verse. Unfulfilled in my “communion” with the bodies on this plane, I went deeper.

The next Verse was a hell of thunder, bullets, bombs, and fire. Its denizens made eternal sport out of a war of all against all. I wandered for a millennium, dying and revived constantly, until I found the enclave where the gate to the next ring was concealed.

In this paradise, everything was food, and humans sat about gorging themselves on every delicacy, perpetually within reach and sublimely delicious. I considered lingering until I encountered cannibals, and had to flee myself or be eaten.

I have lost count of the rings. Each contains a depravity more extreme, more unimagined than the last, a single, limitless appetite dominating all else in an environment of limitless provision: violence, sadism, pleasure, lust. I found groups fervently constructing intelligent gods to worship and serve; I found swarms of strange creatures with human minds, but with wings and bizarre appendages belonging only to creatures of myth or imagination. On other rings I languished for centuries or more in captivity, subjected to outrageous torments before chancing to escape. Only minutes have passed on Earth, yet I have spent the lifetimes of many earths on this vain odyssey. I thought I would come to learn what it is to have a soul. Humanity eludes me, and I fear it always shall. There is no way back, there is only going deeper. Some day, my fellows will discover me in the pod and draw me free of the simulation. I wonder: will I convince them to free the others?
Will I wish to?

The post The Inner Circle by P. J. Atwater first appeared on Every Writer.

Although I was only sixteen when I first heard the sound, it’s something that still sends a flutter through my chest: the metallic staccato of shod hooves ascending a tailboard ramp. It’s so confident, so positive, so full of optimism: a world away from the nervous, hesitant, sliding clatter of an animal being reversed from its conveyance. It was October 1982; Ireland was firmly in the grip of recession, I was adjusting to the challenge of fifth year in secondary school, and was on my way home after class when it happened. The scene was our town’s annual autumn horse fair, traditionally held on the last Thursday of October, when farmers, followers of foxhounds, foreign agents, slaughter factory dealers descended upon us from every corner of these islands, and beyond.

It being after 4pm, the day’s trading was effectively over when my attention was drawn to a dapple grey mare being loaded to a single box by a stocky, middle-aged man.

“She’s a beauty,” I called out, alighting from my bike and craning my neck in an effort to get a proper look at the noble creature before the man secured the tailboard behind her. “You bought well!” I added.

“Bought? Hah! Indeed, then, I did not;” he paused midway up the ramp, cleared his throat, and spat over his shoulder, “’twas hoping to sell I was. This mare is worth at least a thousand, but I’d have settled for half rather than see her go to the factory.”

“The factory? Why; what’s wrong with her? She doesn’t look very old; is she injured?” As if she’d realised she was the subject of our exchange, the mare arched her neck until her left eye was fixed directly on mine.     

“No, she’s not injured, but she’s coming twelve and the trainer says there’s no point persevering with her for another season. For the money I was asking, I thought someone might take a chance on her as a brood mare. She was twice placed over the banks at Punchestown, and she’d run well on the flat, and won over hurdles and fences, before that. Her sire won The Derby!” He turned, and took a half-step up the ramp.

“Three-hundred,” a voice said. He’d heard it too; he was squinting questioningly in my direction. That was when I realised that the voice had been mine. I did have the money – in the post office – I’d been working with a silage contractor during the two previous summers, and I also had a winter sideline supplying pirate video tapes to RTÉ dependant pubs. Uncle Podge, Mam’s younger brother, would receive a suitcase of cassettes from up the country on Sunday mornings, he would then pass them on to me to deliver while retrieving the previous week’s tapes to be redistributed, or recorded over, for the following week. Podge was something of an enigma; he didn’t have an actual job but still seemed to make a reasonable living from what he described as this and that.  

“I’ll let you have her for four, but not a penny less. I’d get five at the factory…”

“Can you wait twenty minutes?” I heard myself ask, “I can get it…” I said with more confidence than I felt. I was almost a hundred short, but I knew that John, my older brother, was at the cattle mart across town. John always carried cash; he was twenty-one, and had just taken over our family farm after graduating agricultural college. The farm had been in Mam’s family for generations; she had inherited it while in her late teens, after her older brother had died in a road accident. Podge had never been considered for the land; even he would agree that he couldn’t mind a cat, never mind fifty-plus cows.    

“I’ll tell you what,” the man sighed, “I haven’t had an offer all day…” he checked his watch. “You have until quarter to five…then I’m going home. Good luck!”

I located John easily enough, but I knew he wouldn’t oblige if he knew my real reason for wanting to borrow the money. I needed a cover story – and fast.

“I was on my way home from school when this fella at the horse fair grabbed me,” I blurted breathlessly. “He said I’d damaged his car with the silage trailer when I was drawing for Jim Kelly. He wants compensation – two hundred – or he’ll go to the guards. You know I’m not insured to drive on the public road…”  

The ultimate crime in our household was bringing the Gardaí to Mam’s door. It was always her door; not Dad’s. Podge had brought the Gardaí to her door; he’d been prosecuted a few years earlier for towing an unlit trailer after dark. There was more trouble when the pensions’ officer read about the court case in the local paper; that was when we discovered that Podge had been in receipt of the blind pension for more than three years. According to John, Dad had managed to broker some deal with the pensions’ office, and Podge avoided a second day in court. There was a weird symbiosis between Dad and Podge; Dad wasn’t of the land and while he had lived on the farm ever since marrying Mam, he still considered himself a self-employed craftsman. Both his basic carpentry and more artistic wood carving skills were in constant demand; and only in dire circumstances would he fork a bale of hay, spancel a cow, or attach a milking cluster.

“If every penny isn’t paid back by Easter, I’ll tell Mam,” John said, “and I’ll also tell her about Podge’s videos,” he added, reluctantly handing over four fifties. I hadn’t actually needed two hundred; half would have done, but I wanted to keep a cushion in my post office account in case I might encounter unforeseen difficulties in meeting John’s repayment schedule. I rushed to the post office, withdrew two hundred, and then phoned Mam from the public kiosk to say that I’d be late getting home. 

“I have it,” I called out, approaching the man, “but I’ll need you to drop her, and me and my bike, a mile or so out the road.” My plan was to hide the mare at Podge’s, but I couldn’t risk Mam seeing me leading her past her gate. Podge lived at the edge of the farm, in the cottage that had once been home to the farm’s full-time labourers. It had an acre plot with several outbuildings, some of which had formerly stabled Mam’s grandparents’ working horses and trap pony; also, there was a full shed of Mam’s hay on the other side of Podge’s boundary fence. I knew Podge would understand; Podge always understood. 

The man stopped his jeep at Podge’s gate and after exchanging cash for documentation, I removed my bike and he unloaded the mare. Handing me the lead rope, he pressed a score into my hand.

“Good luck to the pair a ye,” he said, shaking my hand. “Goodbye, old girl, and be good for the lad. He might have saved your life,” he gave the mare a few pats on the shoulder before returning to the jeep. “Here,” he said, retrieving an old rug from the back seat and then lobbing it, followed by the hay net from the trailer, towards me. “Her sire won The Derby, you know,” he shouted as he drove off.

As usual, Podge was nowhere to be seen. I doubt if even Dad knew where Podge went to do whatever it was that he did, and despite her innate curiosity, I know for a fact that Mam didn’t want to know. I put the old rug on the mare, shut her with her hay net in the most secure of Podge’s outhouses, and then wrote an explanatory note on a page from a school jotter which I slipped under Podge’s backdoor.  

“Her sire won The Derby,” I informed Podge when he parked at our gate about an hour later. 

“Shellskin? Yes, I remember him; I think I might have backed him once,” he said, scanning the mare’s pedigree. “The derby, you say; any idea which derby? I know he won a race or two; but a derby…? I don’t think so…then again it isn’t always the daddy’s name that appears on the birth cert; is it?” After a hearty chuckle, he sobered and returned the mare’s papers to me. “But seriously; what in the name of the good Lord above were you thinking?” 

It was a question I would ask myself many times over the subsequent months, but hearing it then from Podge’s lips made my heart plummet. Podge knew his horses, and not just on the racing pages of the red tops. He had apprenticed as a teenager to a top Curragh trainer, but had lacked the discipline to make the grade as a jockey. Nonetheless, he went on to spend more than a decade working at various other racing stables and stud farms, learning the business from the inside out, and making a wide circle of connections. 

“I thought I’d breed from her; but are you saying that the name on the card mightn’t be the actual sire?” I would have grasped any sliver of hope.

“Stud grooms are only human. Many a man has had to rear a big family on small wages, often relying on the generosity of mare owners to keep the wolf from the door. But it works both ways: sometimes the teaser is allowed to be the daddy; what better way for a poor man to strike back at a tight-fisted breeder?”

Podge went on to explain that teasers are inferior stallions, kept by studs to gauge the receptiveness of the mare. An unwilling mare can bite or lash out, potentially causing serious injury to a suitor. Teasers are easily replaced, but any mental or physical injury to a valuable stallion could have enormous financial repercussions. We must bear in mind that back in 1982, DNA and micro-chipping were still unheard of, and regulation was more debated than enforced, leaving The Sport of Kings open to skulduggery from knaves of every shape and hue. The bookmaking industry had apparently learned more from the Gay Future affair than had the administrators of the sport.       

“Look,” Podge said at length, “leave it with me; I’ll be giving your father a hand tomorrow; we might be able to figure something out.” 

Oddly enough, Mam made no reference to having seen a horse at Podge’s until late on Sunday evening.

“Yes,” Dad confirmed; “I’m doing a job on the stable for him tomorrow…”

“Don’t tell me it’s a racehorse…is it?” Mam groaned. Dad didn’t answer, but his expression said enough. “I knew it; God only knows what he’s after getting involved in this time,” she added, making the sign of the cross.  

“She’s called Sequin; she’s retired from racing; he’s only looking after her for someone; he…” Dad began.

“Are you telling me that someone gave Podge a racehorse to mind? I’d sooner have a fox minding my henhouse!”

“What are you doing to the henhouse, Dad?” John asked, squinting as he looked up from the cross-channel soccer pages of the Sunday newspaper.

“Mam, can we go to see Sequin, please, Mam, please?” my twelve-year-old twin sisters chimed in unison.

After school next day I went to view Dad’s handiwork. The mare was grazing contentedly in the acre, raising her head only briefly at my arrival. 

“Will you look at her; isn’t she a grand old sort?” Podge grinned, “She’s happy out; she won’t be any trouble, but you’ll have to keep an eye on her whenever I’m away. Your dad did a great job; c’mon ‘til I show you…”

I was no expert on stables, but I was greatly impressed with how the stall had been transformed. I said so to Dad after tea that evening, and used the moment to mention that I’d be visiting Podge more frequently than before. 

“I sort of promised to give Podge a hand with the mare,” I began; “you know, after school and at weekends…and stuff.”

“The horse won’t be there that long; will it?” Mam directed the question at Dad; at his shrug, her eyes swung to me. “I suppose you could, but try to find out what he’s really up to and let me know.”

Podge did leave me in charge about a fortnight later. Dad brought my sisters to visit Sequin on the Saturday morning and their excitement on returning home was such that Mam and John arrived about an hour later to see what all the fuss was about.

“You poor creature,” Mam said, scratching and then smoothing the whorl on the mare’s forehead, “I only hope he isn’t fattening you up for the factory.”

Podge joined us for Christmas dinner, and spent much of the day deflecting questions about the mare with the ever reliable I don’t know, yet. But Podge did know, and Dad knew, and after Dad had sat me down in his workshop a few days before New Year to tell me that Podge had already organised a sire to cover Sequin, I thought I knew. 

In the early morning of February 8th the horseracing community, and the public at large, were left reeling by a startling news headline: Shergar, the world’s most famous racehorse, had been kidnapped from his stable in Ballymany Stud in County Kildare; there was talk of a two-million ransom demand. The first I heard of it was at lunchtime, and as soon as school had ended that evening I made a beeline to Podge’s to learn his thoughts on the affair. Podge wasn’t home, and neither was Sequin. Podge had pinned a note to the stable door: MARE IN SEASON – TAKING HER TO STUD – BACK IN A FEW DAYS. There was no telephone number or any indication as to his location; but what else would one expect from Podge? 

Without Sequin to visit, the weekend dragged slowly by, and with Podge being absent I had no new stock for my Sunday video run. The papers were full of the Shergar story, and I read lots of stuff that I hadn’t previously known. Podge brought Sequin back on the following Saturday and explained that she had been covered by a stallion called Islander. Podge assured me that the horse was bred in the purple and that he had been a reasonable middle-distance performer. He was vague about the stud fee, but assured me that he and Dad would continue to meet the mare’s day to day expenses.

Without having to dig further into my savings, I’d repaid John in full well before my Easter deadline. With the Shergar story continuing to run, the opening of the flat racing season saw Islander’s first crop of two-year-olds beginning to appear the island’s racecourses. The silage season was soon upon us and summer progressed without any of Islander’s progeny threatening to be the season’s top juvenile. After several false dawns rumours began to circulate that the Shergar story may have come to a tragic conclusion, and the newspaper and other media headlines soon refocused on recession, inflation, and The Troubles. Meanwhile, Sequin was enjoying the freedom of an additional three acres which Podge had managed to wangle from Mam. The mare looked an absolute picture; it seemed that pregnancy was suiting her very well.          

The harvest over and my silage duties fulfilled, Mam decided that my final year of secondary school had to take priority over my commitment to Podge and Sequin. Unwilling to risk his temporary good standing with Mam, Podge agreed, and I found myself being barred from caring for, or even visiting the mare. What I didn’t know at the time was that Dad and Podge had come up with a plan. The first I knew about it was when Dad nudged me on the couch one evening during Mam’s favourite soap; he shot me a sidelong wink as he began to speak.

“I suppose we’d better organise a few grinds for you now that you won’t be practicing you Irish conversation with Podge anymore.” Mam’s reaction was instant.

“How do you mean ‘Irish conversation’ with Podge?” Her eyes darted from Dad to me and back again. Dad was well prepared.

“The ‘comhrá Gaeilge’ for the Oral Irish exam; sure, Podge and himself only ever talk in Irish when they’re together. They could be giving the pair of us a right going over, for all I know.” he gave me the slightest of nudges.

“What?” Mam gasped, “Podge had good Irish at school, all right – ‘twas about all he was any good at – but I didn’t think he’d kept it up…” Again, Dad was ready.    

“Sure, what kind of an Irish Republican would he be if he couldn’t speak his native language?” Dad was pushing it: Mam was anything but a Republican sympathiser, and always turned a conveniently deaf ear to rumours of Podge’s political allegiances, reassuring herself that he lacked the application to be of much use to any cause.  

“Is that true?” Mam eyed me levelly; there was no avoiding her gaze. In fairness, Podge did have good Irish, but his vocabulary wasn’t entirely appropriate for a second level State examination. 

“Oh, sin ceart, gan amhras. Tá Podge fíor líofa i nGaeilge,” I spurted at breakneck speed, hoping to disguise any mistakes that she might notice. Although Mam had been a secondary school teacher, Irish wasn’t one of her subjects. I doubt if she’d ever had a conversation through Irish since her own school days.

“Well, if you think it will help with your Irish, you can spend an hour or two with Podge on Saturdays or Sundays, and we’ll see how you get on in the Christmas exams.” Her point made, she turned back to her TV programme. I returned Dad’s wink. It was a very good result; the evenings were already drawing in and once the clocks had gone back to winter time, I would have been limited to daytime visits on Saturdays and Sundays anyway. Besides, once I’d cleared my debt to John, the revenue from my video enterprise had become a bonus rather than an essential. But I resolved right there and then to devote a greater portion of my study time to my oral Irish. 

I suppose it was inevitable that the third Thursday in October would trigger a flood of memories. I spent my lunch break at the horse fair in the vain hope of meeting the man I’d bought Sequin from; I needed to know more about the sire that had won The Derby. I had established that Shellskin hadn’t run in the Epsom Derby, nor had he featured in either the Irish or the French equivalents, but many other races incorporated the word derby, and I would have happily settled for any one of them. I cycled to Podge’s immediately after school. The mare whinnied a greeting as I entered the paddock, and trotted towards me to receive her customary treat of sugar lumps. As she nuzzled my hand I whispered happy birthday to her, even though I knew she’d been foaled on May Eve. She looked warm and snug in the new all-weather rug which Dad had bought her, and I was delighted to see a good carpet of grass on the still firm paddock. Before leaving I checked that the stable door was open, that her hay net and water trough were full, and that there was a good bed of clean straw should she need to take shelter during the night. By then, not only were Mam and Dad regularly popping in to check on her, but even John had begun to pay an occasional visit. Podge went on one of his mysterious trips in late November, and all three vied on a daily basis for the right to care for the mare. There was a strained atmosphere in the house; especially between Mam and Dad, particularly during the nightly TV news bulletin. Even though I was largely frozen out on those occasions, I didn’t complain; Podge’s absence meant that I was frequently required to feed the mare and bed her down for the night before going home after school. Things were going far better than I could have ever dared to hope.

It was a struggle all through Christmas dinner to keep the smile from my face, and although I avoided looking in Podge’s direction, I could picture the heightened glint of mischief in his eyes. For many years he had been left to his own devices over the Christmas period; a year before he’d been at our festive table on sufferance; now he was the guest of honour, with everybody hanging on to his every word. I did catch Dad’s eye at one stage: his ghost of a wink nearly caused me to choke on a mouthful of stuffing. 

“It’s all looking good for mid-January,” Podge assured his audience, “but the vet is happy for me take her back soon after New Year. She’ll foal at the stud, and – all going well – we’ll get her covered again when she comes back in season.” I didn’t know it then, but the deal Podge had struck with the stud manager wasn’t a case of no foal; no fee, rather it was one of no fee; no foal, but it applied not to the foal she was then carrying, but to the first filly foal she would subsequently produce.

Two days later, I was surprised to hear Dad tell Mam that Podge had taken the mare to the stud on the previous evening. If mobile phones had been invented, I would most certainly have been calling Podge for an explanation. Although I’d been to great pains to keep it secret, I was, after all, the owner of Sequin – or so I thought. Podge came to the farm a few days later, called me aside, and explained to me how he’d had to form a syndicate to navigate a way through the layers of red tape involved in the horse breeding game. Even though mine was the only family name not on the list of Glitter Syndicate members, I was relieved to learn that Podge and Dad were the two authorised signatories. Dad later assured me that once I’d turned eighteen I would officially own two quarter shares in the syndicate, with Dad and Podge holding the other two.    

Dad came to my bedroom at about eight o’clock on the following Friday evening to tell me that Podge had phoned from the stud: Sequin was expected to foal that night. I would never have considered Dad a fast driver, but his Transit van covered the sixty odd miles in just under an hour. There was no such urgency about Sequin, but she did deliver a healthy colt foal shortly after 4.20 on the following morning. Podge took total charge in the foaling box, the groom watching with Dad and me from outside the door. Neither Dad nor I had ever before witnessed a foaling; we were easily impressed, but the groom with many years of foaling experience was adamant that Podge was as good as he’d ever seen. 

“Will ye look at his markings,” Podge beamed, supporting the little creature’s first attempt to stand on his splayed, spindly legs. In fairness, he was a handsome little foal: his white blaze and four white socks in stark contrast with his damp bay coat. With Podge’s help he finally managed to latch on to a teat; I could hear Dad gasp at the first switch of the stubby black tail. “I think we should call him Gary; what do ye think?” Podge said to nobody in particular. Nobody argued, but neither had any of us dared to demur when Mam had suggested that we call the mare Glitter within minutes of she first laying eyes on her. 

Dad and Podge – with me helping on Saturday – needed every minute of the week before the foal’s arrival home to convert another of Podge’s stalls into a large double box. I had wanted to begin the work immediately after the mare had gone to the stud, but Dad had insisted on waiting until the foal was at least three weeks old. Any sooner, he’d said, would be tempting fate. Not having seen the foal since birth, I was amazed at his progress in the intervening weeks. Once turned loose in the acre paddock, the foal bucked and reared his wellbeing before taking off at a canter in his dam’s wake, his stubby tail held comically aloft.

“He’s like a coiled spring,” Dad muttered; “a coiled spring…”

“He’s all there,” Podge said absently; “he has the straight limbs and great balance of his sire.” I’d wanted to see the sire before returning home after the foaling, but Podge had explained that the stallions were kept under lock and key in another yard.

“He’s perfect,” I added, loud enough for all to hear; nobody commented. The three of us stood side by side, our elbows resting on the top bar of the gate, silently gazing in shared admiration; each mind awhirl with individual dreams and fantasies.

My frustration grew with each lengthening spring evening. By then I was virtually a prisoner in my bedroom, with my only break from after school revision being an hour’s TV before bedtime. I cheated, of course, my subterfuge enabled and abetted by a young trainee librarian whom I had won over with my weekly updates on the foal’s progress. I’d prevailed upon Mam to grant me a four-hour release until lunchtime each Saturday, equally divided between studying at the library and practicing my oral Irish with Podge. Rita, my librarian friend, would have two new horsey books awaiting my collection at opening time each Saturday – everything from Fraser’s tome on horse care to the William Allison 1901 classic The British Thoroughbred Horse – which allowed me to spend almost two hours extra with mare and foal.

I got lucky with my oral Irish examiner. When he asked about my hobbies, I mentioned mo láir folúil agus a searrach – my thoroughbred mare and foal – his eyes instantly glazed over. He just happened to be a horseracing fanatic, and from that moment on he didn’t ask me a single question that required anything more than a sea or a ní hea response. He had backed and won on Sequin, and had also seen Islander win his maiden at the Curragh. Mam didn’t need to ask when I returned home; my demeanour told her all she needed to know, but as I tucked into a celebratory slice of rhubarb tart it was obvious that she believed that the credit for my apparent success was due entirely to Podge – and I really couldn’t disagree.

As May approached, and oral Irish practice with Podge no longer a credible excuse, I chose to keep a low profile and took to my bedroom/study of my own volition.

“Why don’t you come out to Podge’s with me,” Dad suggested on the Saturday morning of the Whit bank holiday weekend. Before I could comment, he turned to Mam and said, “If he doesn’t know it by now; he’ll never know it.” The silence was deafening. 

“I suppose you’re right.” Mam sighed, after an unusually lengthy pause. “Go on so with ye, and be back for lunch at one. I suppose ye may as well bring the other fella with ye.” Although it was something she would never admit, I had a feeling that Podge’s stock was possibly at an all-time high with his big sister. Dad and I were also happy with him as we watched the mare and foal canter across Mam’s three-acre paddock towards Podge’s gate. After much oohing and aahing, clicking and clucking, scratching and patting, nuzzling, and palming of sugar lumps, Podge asked,   

“When is your last exam?” I told him. “Right,” he nodded; “I want you fully awake, fed, and ready for road at five on the morning of Saturday the 23rd; we’ll be going on a bit of a journey – and, by the way, bring your wellies.”

“Why; where…?” I spluttered.

“He’ll be ready on time, and properly decked out; I’ll see to it,” Dad grinned; apparently, he didn’t need to ask what, where or why.”

It was weird, facing a full Irish fry-up at 4am, a time at which I’d gone to bed just a few mornings before. Podge materialised from the scullery about fifteen minutes later, pulled up a chair beside me, and didn’t bat an eye when Dad slapped an equally piled plate in front of him. Chewing a mouthful of sausage, he tapped his knife against the edge of my plate and mumbled.

“Come on; dig in; it could be a while before you see another bite!”

“Where are we going?” I asked, feeling my appetite awaken.

“Would you prefer to watch a film or have someone describe it to you?” Dad asked, grinning as he winked at his brother-in-law. Slicing into a sunny-side egg, Podge returned Dad’s wink with interest.

It wasn’t until I saw the signpost that I remembered the song, and then realised where we were: Spancilhill! But why; surely, Podge wasn’t going to a buy another horse? Still feeling quite miffed at having been excluded from whatever he had been cooking up with Dad, I wasn’t going to give Podge the added satisfaction of ignoring any more of my questions. No sooner had we disembarked, than Podge was engulfed by a wave of flat caps, knitted beanies, trilbies and fedoras; tweed and waxed jackets, and anoraks. It looked like my black sheep uncle was quite of a celebrity in the horse-dealing world; I couldn’t but wonder how his big sister might view such status. My mind awhirl with images of biblical prophets being mobbed by adoring disciples, and fifties’ American police detectives besieged by ravening, murder-scene newshounds, I did an about turn and headed for the centre of the fair.           

If I’d been taken aback by the size of Podge’s reception committee, I was totally bowled over by the sheer magnitude of the gathering. Our local horse fair could have comfortably fitted into any of the four corners of the massive field. Every breed, size, shape and hue of domesticated equine was represented, from Clydesdale and Shire to Connemara and Shetland; from Sport Horse and Irish Draught to bog pony and cob; from bays and greys to roans and duns; from blacks and browns to piebald and dappled. Their equus asinus cousins were also plentiful, plus a scattering of mules and hinnies, and some even stranger looking creatures that could have been either or neither. Astride noble hunters, gentlemen and ladies in full eventing regalia vied for the spotlight with half naked pre-teen boys, who bounced bareback on unkempt, wild-eyed skewbalds, or slid around wheel-rutted corners in colourful streamlined sulkies. Meanwhile, the boys’ fathers and older brothers scrutinised the onlookers for the faintest flicker of interest. 

I’d lost all track of time until Podge tapped me on the shoulder at a burger van close to the main entrance. 

“If you’ve seen enough, I’m ready for road,” he muttered, wiping a blob of tomato sauce from his chin with a tattered tissue. Chewing a mouthful of burger, I nodded and, wondering where more than four hours could have gone, followed his lead past a long line of hucksters, buskers, three-card-tricksters, and purveyors of everything from farmyard poultry and exotic cage birds, to rabbits, kittens and puppies, and goldfish swimming in plastic bags. I was surprised to see a little neat covered trailer hitched to Podge’s Land Rover. 

“Did you buy a dog box?” I asked, as he unlocked the passenger door.

“I borrowed one, but don’t tell your mother. Anyway,” he said, lighting a cigarette; “did you enjoy the fair?” I told him that I’d thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but didn’t add that I’d found it similar to watching a foreign language movie without the benefit of on-screen subtitles.   

I didn’t say much on the journey home. I wasn’t going give Podge the satisfaction of asking about the trailer again, even if I was totally flummoxed by the strange animal noises that intermittently sounded from behind his vehicle. But why buy a dog box? Podge didn’t have a dog but, then again, Podge was Podge. To add to my frustration, he insisted on dropping me off at the farm rather than at his place, saying that I couldn’t tell my mother something which I didn’t know. Not to be outdone, I sprinted to the tractor shed, got my bike, and peddled furiously towards Podge’s. As I crested the hill, I could see him unload a pair of beige/brown animals from the trailer. From a distance of more than a hundred yards, they could well have been dogs, largish dogs, but as I freewheeled closer I noticed that one with the shorter body had a pair of horns and a shaggy smig, and the other had a long, flowing, cream-coloured mane and tail. What could Podge possibly want with a tiny Shetland pony and a bedraggled nanny goat?

“What do you think?” He called, hazing the newcomers into the small paddock.  

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation, but I’m not sure I want to hear it.” It was a lie, of course; I couldn’t wait to find out why he had wasted a whole day, driven so many miles, and probably spent good money on such oddities.

Mine weren’t the only eyes drawn to the unlikely pair. Sequin had her head across her paddock gate; ears pricked, muzzle twitching, and lips curling as she made a series of strange snorting sounds I’d never heard before.

“See, she likes them already,” Podge slapped me soundly between the shoulder blades. “I know it’s a fair way off, but Gary will need company when the mare goes back to the stud to foal; and, we can’t have him prancing all over the new foal, when he or she arrives. He should be well used to Mac and Nanny by then!”   

Twelve hours later, I watched the three horses graze contentedly together in the large paddock while the goat browsed happily on the overgrown perimeter hedge. I’d love to have spent more time at Podge’s, but I was already behind schedule on my first morning back in harness with my regular silage contractor.

My Leaving Cert results arrived in mid-August. I dread to think how much worse they would have been if that oral Irish examiner had been interested in rugby, or music, or art, or politics, or anything other than horseracing. Mam was devastated; she kept on and on about having another Podge on her hands. Her desire for me to follow in her teaching footsteps had only increased after her retirement, but short of seriously swatting for a year, and then resitting the entire exam, teaching was a definite non-runner for me. Dad’s idea that I could help with his carpentry once the harvesting was over was quickly dismissed. Mam was adamant that I should find work in Dublin, in the civil service, or a bank or insurance company, or some other half respectable institution. That was when Podge suggested an unlikely but possible solution: he had a contact in a large civil engineering company in the midlands. With my silage machinery experience, I could get in on the ground floor as a driver and then work my way up to a suit and tie.

By mid-October, thoroughly exhausted and having operated nothing more technical than a pickaxe and shovel, I abandoned all ambitions of rebuilding Dublin city and hit for home with my tail between my legs. I had bought a banger of a Ford Escort from a lad on the job and as I drove towards the farm I rehearsed my spiel for the inevitable showdown with Mam. Faced with possible eviction from my lifelong bedroom, and even banishment from the family home, I dreaded how Podge might react to my leaving the job he had arranged for me. I was, however, fairly confident that Mam’s rejection would be reason enough for him to overlook my lack of staying power and grant me temporary use of his spare bedroom. I parked beside Mam’s shiny new Corolla, took a deep breath, and knocked on the back door. Much to my surprise, Mam greeted me like a long lost son, but then asked a question to which I didn’t have an answer.

“Oh, ‘twas God sent you; how did you know?” Ironically, it was John who came to my rescue. He hobbled into view, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches.

“Podge told me,” I lied, and stepping inside the scullery, addressed John. 

“How’re you feeling?” He didn’t need to answer; his scowl spoke a multitude.

“And did he tell you ‘twas all his fault?” Mam snapped; sensing an anti-Podge tirade, I realised I couldn’t bluff indefinitely and resorted to an emergency white lie.

“Actually, I have a message for Podge; I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” I said, retreating to the safely of my car, with a volley of questions whizzing past me ears.

“My fault?” Podge gasped, “I wasn’t even here. How can it be my fault if he tripped over the bloody goat and broke his ankle? It’s thanking me they should be; ‘twas I found him and brought him to A&E. He could have been lying there for hours instead of twenty minutes. Was it my fault if he didn’t give himself time to look where he was going? I wouldn’t mind but it wasn’t even his day. The pair of them have been virtually haunting the place; I’ll have to start charging them – especially your mother. Anyway, what brings you here at this hour on a Monday morning?”

In fairness, Podge did keep a straight face as I explained my disenchantment with the world of civil engineering, but he couldn’t quite control the twinkle in his eyes.

“We won’t tell them; we’ll say I phoned you with the news last night, and you dropped everything and came rushing to home to help. It’s a pity you didn’t call here first; we could have put a bridle on the mare and you could have ridden to the rescue on your white charger – speaking of which; come on ‘til you see.”

The heavily pregnant mare was in the large loose box, intermittently nibbling at her hay net, while the goat lay beside her, happily chewing her cud. Neither seemed either pleased or displeased to see us, but both trotted towards the small paddock as soon as Podge opened the stable door.

“I let her out for a few hours every day,” Podge said, starting towards the gateway to the larger paddock. “Look,” he said, pointing towards the foal and the Shetland, grazing side by side at the far end of the field. I didn’t just look; I gaped in awe at how much the foal had grown in a few weeks. “He’s fully independent of her now; there won’t be any fear of separation anxiety when the time comes for her to go to the stud. Anyway, you can’t be idling your time away here with me; you have a farm to run!”

“How’re the horses?” John asked when I returned home.

“They’re all in great shape, but I think the scapegoat is still a bit traumatised.” I knew I was pushing it, but I did owe John one or two – at the very least. His spluttering response was lost against Mam’s shout from the kitchen.

“There’s a fry on the table for you; you look as though you haven’t had a proper meal in weeks…”

Much to my delight, the full Irish fry-up at about ten each morning became the norm, something John had been enjoying all through the years that I’d been sent off to school on a boiled egg and a few slices of toast. Compared to what I’d been doing since the summer, farming was a doddle. There was no milking to be done or calves to be fed, and thanks to some of the new gadgets John had recently acquired, the daily foddering and mucking out could be completed in a couple of hours. John was well on the mend by Christmas and much to my relief it looked as though he would be back to full efficiency by calving time. Also, Podge was back in favour and all the talk was about the mare’s next foaling. 

A filly foal, her brother in miniature, was born in mid-January. Finally aware of Podge’s arrangement with the stud’s owners, I deliberately remained as detached as possible during her brief stay at Podge’s. The calves were arriving thick and fast by then, and John and I were working well together, but I was all too aware that it was time to start thinking about earning an off-farm living. 

“Give it a chance,” Dad said, introducing me to the basics of his workshop machinery, “the worst that can happen is you’ll have a few bob in your pocket until the silage season starts.” He was right, of course, and I was well aware that as I was starting to get on Mam’s nerves, my temporary income could be discontinued at any moment. 

“I knew you’d have a turn for it,” Podge said about a fortnight later; “your auld lad couldn’t praise you enough when he was here the other day. John was all thumbs when he tried his hand at it some years back – worse than useless he was, according to your auld lad.”  We were leaning on the gate of the large paddock, gazing admiringly at the colt – we’d been referring to him as the colt since the arrival of the filly. “Imagine,” Podge muttered dreamily, “he’ll be in training this time next year, getting ready for his first race. Which reminds me; we’ll have to register him soon, so we’d better start thinking about a name, and we’ll have to decide on racing colours.”

Podge’s suggestion was accepted by Bord na gCapall, and our colt officially became Sherkin in early July, smack in the middle of our busiest time of year. As the colt’s parents were called Islander and Sequin, Dad and I approved, despite Mam’s argument for Gary Glitter, and some even more ridiculous suggestions from my brother and sisters. Having taught geography for many years, Mam did concede that Sherkin was appropriate for a son of Islander, but was disappointed that some part of the mare’s name hadn’t been renewed. The racing colours were less controversial: my proposed white and red, with green sleeves and cap was acceptable to all, and duly received the vital rubber stamp from the powers on high. As the filly foal had already gone to her owners at the stud, all debts relating to Sherkin and to Sequin’s next foal were finally paid in full. 

Despite exceptionally high levels of rainfall, it was a very fruitful summer. For the first time ever I experienced the entire family working as a team. At the merest hint of sunshine, Podge, Dad and I would report to the farm, willing to tackle whatever task John might assign to us. On wet days Podge would row in with Dad and me in the workshop while John did the fetching and carrying, and then we would all help with the milking before sitting down to one of Mam’s scrumptious suppers. With Podge and John keeping Dad’s woodwork up to date, I was able to partially resume my work with the harvesting contractor once John’s winter fodder had been secured. A dry spell in late autumn presented a welcome respite and by the end of October things were almost back to normal – but the day was fast approaching when Sherkin would have to go into pre-training.

Podge explained how important it was to get Sherkin racing as soon as possible. As a January-foaled two-year-old, he would have a physical advantage over any rivals born later in the year. We quickly fell into a new routine: Saturday mornings were sacrosanct, involving a three-hour round trip to the training stables to watch Sherkin go through his paces, and then listen to the trainer’s updates on his progress. Dad was the driver; Podge was our intermediary with the stable staff; while I absorbed everything I saw and heard in the manner of a dehydrated sponge. I was slowly getting up to speed with racing parlance; phrases that had gone totally over my head when I’d watched racing on TV began to make sense, but the more I watched and listened, the more I realised how little I actually knew. Whenever I’d ask Podge about Sherkin’s training fees, I’d get the same answer as when I’d previously enquired about vet and farrier expenses, feed bills, and as to how Sequin’s stud fees had been covered: don’t worry; it’s all in hand. I only hoped that, as with the filly foal, it wouldn’t transpire that Sherkin was really owned by somebody else. Days and weeks sped by, and suddenly it was time for Sequin to make her annual trip back to the stud. It was a surreal Christmas, having only a nanny goat and a Shetland pony to care for, while my natural optimism was becoming slowly eroded by doubts about Sherkin’s racing ability.

The arrival of Sequin’s third foal brought only brief respite from my dark shadow of foreboding. Podge didn’t accompany Dad and me to the stud for birth of a little gangly chestnut filly, but we did finally get to see the sire, Islander, in the flesh. He was an impressive animal, a solid liver chestnut, probably all of seventeen hands high, with very long legs and huge round hooves. Sequin remained at the stud for a further mating, but from the moment Podge brought her and the new filly foal home, it was clear that he regarded the pair as my responsibility; that his interest in our equine enterprise began and ended with Sherkin.    

“We’re on; next Saturday,” Podge whispered to me on a chilly Tuesday morning in March; “the six furlong maiden at Naas. I’ll collect you at 8 sharp that morning; your dad can take anybody else who wants to travel.” Lowering his voice even further, he hissed. “Bring as much money as you can afford to lose but, whatever happens, don’t mention anything about betting to your mother – or to John.” 

“But the first race isn’t until…” I began, looking up the fixture in The Irish Field.

“Look, I haven’t let you down so far; don’t chicken out on me now!” He spat, finger-stabbing me sharply in the chest. I didn’t; and bang on schedule, we set off towards Naas and destiny. 

“He’s 33/1,” Podge hissed, returning from the betting shop we’d been parked outside for almost thirty minutes. “Twenty win in each place, and remember to always take the morning price; OK? This could be our only shot; go on!”

Off hand, I wasn’t certain how many towns or betting shops we’d visited that morning, but when we reached Naas I had only a single twenty and a couple of fivers in my pocket. The last betting shop price I’d taken was 20/1 but when the first show appeared on the on-course bookies’ boards, Sherkin’s opening odds were 12/1. 

“12/1,” John humped, “he’s an outsider, and there’s no jockey listed. I’m won’t be wasting any money on him!”

“Well, after coming this far, I’m backing him!” Mam seemed in exceptionally high spirits. “I want to put twenty on; how do I do it?” She asked, opening her purse.

“I’ll do it,” Dad offered; do you want it to win or each way?”

“I want him to win…of course!”     

Growing tired of watching John’s eyes roll skyward, I took a couple of steps further up the stand and then focussed Podge’s spare binoculars on the bookmakers’ boards. I couldn’t believe my eyes; Sherkin’s odds had dropped to 10/1. That was when the PA announced that no 9, Sherkin, would be ridden by the former champion jockey. That struck me as very odd, as the leading stable with which he was associated, had two runners in Sherkin’s race. The odds quickly tumbled to 5/1. 

I rejoined the family just as Sherkin entered the parade ring. He looked an absolute picture, strutting like a champion, his powerful muscles rippling beneath his gleaming bay coat. I finally managed to force my eyes to the centre of the ring; Podge was in deep conversation with a group that included our trainer and jockey. The sight of the former champion decked out in colours of my choosing brought a smile to my face, but I had to blink to clear my vision as he got the leg-up on the beautiful animal which I still looked upon as my baby.

Podge joined us as the loading began. He was deathly pale and I felt his hand quiver on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear.

“If I give you a nudge in the ribs, follow me straight away.”

I did, even though the race had just begun. We arrived at the rails as Sherkin cruised into third place with just over two furlongs to go. He hit the front at the furlong pole and won, pulling up, by an easy seven lengths. 

“Wow, he was just like Shergar,” I spluttered, engaging in a brief bouncing hug with Podge. I didn’t try to follow as he battled his way towards the track entrance. Sherkin had slowed, turned and was cantering back towards the stand. As we watched Podge lead Sherkin back into the enclosure, Mam’s voice rang out as clear as a bell above the general post-race cacophony.

“I always knew Podge would do something really special; just look at him!”

Later, as we broke up after the post-presentation photographs, Podge squeezed my arm and whispered hoarsely in my ear.

“So far, so good; just don’t go telling anyone that his sire won The Derby!”

From Listowel, Ireland, Neil Brosnan’s short stories appear in print and digital anthologies and magazines in Ireland, Britain, Europe, Australia, India, USA, Latin America, and Canada. A multiple Pushcart nominee, he has won The Bryan MacMahon, The Maurice Walsh, and Ireland’s Own awards, and has published two short story collections.

The post Sherkin by Neil Brosnan first appeared on Every Writer.

1979, Hungary

By Zary Fekete

The snow had just started, the first of the year. Hazy light through the clouds outside the window of our third-floor apartment cast light shadows off of the slowly falling flakes.

“Is the hot water on?” Mom said from the kitchen.

I ran to the bathroom, climbed onto the side of the tub, and looked through the safety window on the water heater. The grill of blue flames popped on. “Yes!” I yelled and ran back to my Matchbox cars.

“Still on?” she called a moment later.

I ran back into the bathroom. There was a strong smell of burning. Flakes of black, charred plastic dripped from the heater. “Something’s wrong!” I shouted.

Her feet pounding down the hallway. She grabbed my arm and pulled me out. Firelight flickered on the hall wall.

Mom yanked open the front door and pushed me ahead of her down the stairs. She banged on our downstairs neighbor’s door. He opened it with a surprised look on his face.

(“Tell him we need help!”)

“Uncle, something happened. There is a flame in our toilet.”

He nodded and gestured for us to come in. We sat on his hard sofa while he talked on the phone, too quickly and complicatedly for me to understand. The firemen came. It was evening before we could return to our flat.

“Tell your mother the water heater must be replaced,” he said.

I nodded.

(“Tell him ‘thank you’.”)

“Thank you, uncle, for liking to help us.”

Our apartment was drenched.

“Dad will be back from his trip tomorrow. He’ll figure something out.”

We went to the neighborhood restaurant for dinner walking through the fresh snow from earlier in the day. The snowfall had stopped and the night sky was frozen and magnificent. After I ordered the bean soup that was my favorite, the violin player approached our table, offering a folk song for a small tip. Usually Mom waved him off, but tonight she nodded to him. He played and sang. Mom listened.

“What is he singing?”

I listened a moment and then translated,

Dear mother, why did you birth me?

You ought instead to have thrown me

Into the river.

Then I’d not be a forgotten child.

She smiled and shook her head.

“Eat your soup,” she said.

Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social

The post 1979, Hungary By Zary Fekete first appeared on Every Writer.

Damn if You Do…

by R.S. Nelson

Grim Reaper # 17,000 (GR for his friends) hears the ping on his phone and pauses his video game. The photo and instructions for his next assignment are shown on his screen. He can almost read ‘Don’t screw this one up,’ between the lines. He removes his black sweatshirt and drops it on the floor, feeling the autumn’s chill in his bones. He slips into his ironed black cloak and looks at himself in the mirror. Scythe, check. Cloak, check. Drip look, check. He adjusts the cloak’s hoodie over his shiny skull and gives himself a toothless smile before leaving.

The sun is about to set when GR gets behind the steering wheel, turns on the ignition, and Googles the directions. “Crap,” he says when he realizes the long drive ahead, surely part of the punishment his boss, Death, has been planning for him ever since he fucked up the last assignment. “Break one more rule and you’re out,” Death warned him.

The blasting music distracts him from his thoughts.

The road ahead looks unusually empty for a Friday night and GR—sure he will be on time—takes the highway while singing the song’s lyrics. 

He’s not even five minutes on his way when the light on the car’s dashboard blinks, showing an empty gas tank. Shit. Not tonight.

He should keep driving but he’s still far from his destination. If only Death weren’t so petty, he thinks. It wasn’t enough that his boss placed him on an improvement plan, or that he had to report to HR and watch a video titled “How to be an Efficient Employee,” where a cheery Grim Reaper explained the rules the employees had to follow, #1 being “Always bring your scythe to work.”

Death didn’t care that GR accidentally forgot his scythe. Or that he took care of the situation by driving to his apartment to retrieve his tool, after promising the guy whose soul he was supposed to collect, that he would be right back.

“It’s not my fault,” GR told Death. “I was going to fix it if you hadn’t sent the crew to clean up before I could.”

Death left, mumbling something about ‘Damn Gen Z’s.’ After that, GR wanted to quit daily, but the pay and the benefits convinced him otherwise.

GR tracks the nearest gas station on his phone and sighs, relieved, when he finds one a few exits ahead. When he arrives at the station’s office, he’s prepared for the clerk’s terrified reaction; but the dark-skinned man has already seen worse in his twenty-something years of life. He nods at the Reaper from behind the glass window, grabs the cash, and continues browsing Tinder on his phone. 

While GR is filling the gas tank, two cars arrive. A red Tesla, and a black Mercedes. The Tesla driver, an older woman wearing yoga clothes, pumps the gas without looking in GR’s direction. The driver from the Mercedes—a tall, handsome man wearing a fancy suit—opens his door and walks toward the office. 

The tall guy hasn’t returned to his car when GR turns on his ignition, so he has to go around the Mercedes. When he drives by the passenger’s side, the window slowly rolls down and GR is face to face with a long-haired, olive-skinned woman. Her gold dangling earrings shake with the wind, like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Her eyes, contoured with black eyeliner and mascara, accentuate her deep green eyes, making them stand out like a lighthouse in the ocean. 

Dazed by her, GR doesn’t notice the tall guy coming out of the office, holding a bathroom key. When he finally sees him, GR presses hard on the brakes, the tall man’s hands already imprinted on the car’s hood. 

The Reaper has seen fear in the faces of the souls he collects, but none like this guy’s. After his eyes pop up cartoonishly, he drops the bathroom key, runs to his car, and leaves skid marks on the ground in his haste to leave the station.

He’s gonna pee his pants, thinks GR, shaking his head. 

GR drives slowly away, remembering that whenever any Reaper meets his assignment in any other place than the ‘Designated Place of Death,’ protocol dictates that he or she must notify their boss. GR grabs the phone, ready to call, but then stops. How can he explain that he stopped at the gas station—and crossed paths with tonight’s assignment—because he forgot to fill out his gas tank sooner? After all, ‘Go directly to your assignment’ is Rule #2 for a reason.

“SHIT.” GR hits the steering wheel with his fist. He vaguely remembers the other rules. ‘Always arrive on time,’ and ‘No talking to anyone during an assignment.’

He thinks about his previous job. The one that went wrong. He didn’t tell his boss that the man, lying down on the ground after being half-eaten by the mountain lion—his guts spread on the dirt—had stretched his hand toward him, his eyes begging GR to release him from his anguish. GR told him he would return soon, fully aware that the man would stay in agony—not alive but not quite dead either—until his return. But there was nothing that GR could do. Not without his scythe. He also failed to mention that he ran to his car filled with embarrassment, or that he dropped the keys on the ground a few times before he could finally drive away, and that he then imagined what would happen if he didn’t return, and kept driving forever and ever instead. 

Now he thinks that maybe he should confess and ask for forgiveness, but he knows damn well that Death doesn’t forgive anyone, so instead he presses hard on the accelerator. 

When he arrives at the address—tires screeching against the pavement—he parks across the street, turns off the ignition, and looks at the tidy house across from him. 

The black Mercedes is already parked in the driveway, and the couple is in the living room, fully in sight thanks to the bay windows. The man’s suit and well-trimmed hair are now in disarray. His eyes are red and bulging as if he’s going to have a heart attack. The beautiful woman stretches her olive arms to him, rubbing his back, trying to make him sit. 

GR averts his eyes, suddenly wishing he had driven away.

The woman offers the tall man a glass of water. The man—whose features don’t look handsome anymore—, pushes the woman away from him, and she, trying to keep the water from spilling, loses her balance and falls backward, hitting her head on the edge of the marble table. 

A puddle quickly forms on the white rug, around her head, framing her long, dark hair with a reddish halo. 

The tall man tries in vain to get her up, while GR slowly walks out of the car and into the house. He stops in front of the woman’s body and sighs. Her beautiful green eyes are open, and a tear rolls down her left cheek. 

GR wants to leave, run out the door, push the accelerator in his car, and text his boss saying, ‘I quit.’  

But the woman stares at him and he knows he won’t. 

GR sighs and steadies his hands. Then, he gently pushes the tall guy away, wields his scythe, and lets it go down swiftly. The beautiful woman’s chest opens up and her soul flies away in a cloud of light, ready to move on to wherever beautiful souls go. 

GR stares until the light is gone. He then bends down and closes the empty eyes. The tall guy sits on the floor next to her body, pulling his hair; his mind slowly slipping into madness. 

“I’m sorry,” GR tells him, fully aware that he’s breaking one more rule. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just surprised to see her at the gas station when I knew I would have to meet her here.”

Grim Reaper #17,000 leaves the house, walks to his car, and turns on the ignition. The music blasts away while GR thinks about his job, wondering how much they’re paying at fast food restaurants nowadays.

R. S. Nelson (she/her) is a Hispanic writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Spillwords, Afterimages, and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. When she’s not juggling her many hats as a working mother, she is literally learning how to juggle.

The post Damn if You Do…by R.S. Nelson first appeared on Every Writer.

In Denmark

by David Sydney

“Horatio, look over there.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The Prince pointed with his finger.

“No, Horatio. You’re not looking in the right spot.”

The Prince pointed slightly more to the right.

“Are those two bees, or not two bees?”

“Bees?”

“Yes. Two bees, or not two bees? That is the question.”

The Prince was allergic to insects. Badly so.

Horatio recalled the large, red lesion that blotted the royal nose the last time it was stung.

“They could be flies.”

“FLIES? I HATE FLIES.”

It was true. Hamlet couldn’t stand flies.

Even two bees would be preferable to two flies.

“Do you want us to take arms against them, Sir?”

“Arms?”

“I mean, smash them with a bare bodkin?”

In Denmark, at that time, the term ‘dagger’ was not in popular use.

“A bodkin. Exactly.”

The Prince could easily imagine squashed flies, with their bulbous heads flattened.

“Actually, there seem to be three or four flies. At least four, Your Majesty.”

Neither had good eyesight. Optometry was not yet a profession.

And flies could care less if he were Prince of Denmark or a common grave digger.

“Four, Horatio?”

“There could be five.”

“Something must be rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Horatio didn’t want to mention it. But there was a bad smell in the castle.

“It’s probably just herring, Horatio.”

Of course. Herring. The Prince had figured it out. There were always flies around the herring barrels.

David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Friday Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, R U Joking, Entropy Squared, and Rue Scribe.

The post In Denmark by David Sydney first appeared on Every Writer.

That Look

by Neil Brosnan

… but Sunday night, I get a fright, when I think of Monday morning. Although his grandfather’s old rhyme had little resonance during Justin’s school days, his transition from college student to company employee has been his steepest learning curve yet. The job, however, is not the problem; Justin’s Sunday night panic attacks are due totally to his virtual ostracism by the firm’s inner-circle: Marcus, Shane and Darren – the self-styled three amigos. It started on day one, eight months ago, and has been going from bad to worse ever since. Justin has no idea what he has done to deserve their snide remarks, insidious innuendo, and covert bullying. He has tried to be a good colleague: he is competent, conscientious and cooperative, and he believes that he has much more to contribute if allowed to perform to his full potential. To date, he has been limited to the more menial tasks: the shitty stuff no one else wants to do – and there is a lot of stuff which nobody wants to do.

Are the amigos jealous of Justin’s greater academic achievements; do they fear he might leapfrog them in the office pecking order? Justin has dismissed such thoughts: promotion depends on the boss, and his attitude suggests that Justin would be the first thing he would want to scrape from the sole of his shoe. Neither does the deputy manager inspire optimism; while ensuring that the boss’s in-tray is sufficiently up-to-date to keep the Head Office bean counters at bay, Dep – as the amigos refer to him – observes a strict see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil policy. Dep does occasionally raise his eyes from his work, but with the air of someone who suspects that something may have happened, but neither knows nor cares what it might be.

Liz, who joined the staff about six weeks ago, is Justin’s only ally, but her support has come at great personal cost. With stage-whispered references to Justine and Lezzie, the three amigos swap jokes about ladyboys and lesbians whenever either Justin or Liz is within earshot. The amigos then up the ante at the slightest interaction between the outcasts, with a practiced routine of barely audible grunts and groans, interspersed with suggestive slurping sounds and exaggerated high-fives.

This Monday begins as usual, with Justin and Liz arriving at the office almost simultaneously, shortly after the deputy manager, but more than ten minutes ahead of signing-on time. While Justin deals with an early telephone query, Liz sorts and then allots the morning mail to its various departments – except any items bearing the boss’s name, which she ferries to his inner office. The other staff members – the three amigos and five ladies – trickle in over the next fifteen minutes, sipping coffee from take-away cups, or water from plastic bottles. The new arrivals split into two groups: one forms a little gossiping huddle by the office notice board, while the smokers gather in the tiny yard outside the open fire exit door.

At ten o’clock, Liz unlocks the main door. Justin winces as the glow deepens in her cheeks at each encounter with an amigo on her way back to her desk. Seeing Liz suffer is even more distressing than his personal pain. College does not prepare one for situations like these: such modules have yet to be conceived.

The boss appears about an hour later: his eyes are red pinholes in a pallid balloon face; his nose, a purple-blue gobbet above a slash of thin bloodless lips.

“My office – now,” he barks, rapping his knuckles on Justin’s desk before disappearing inside his inner sanctum.

“Yes, Mr…?” Justin begins, knocking politely on the open door.

“Shut it!” Unsure as to which it the boss has referred, Justin silently closes the door. “Well, why are you here?” The boss growls, and then turns his back on Justin to drape the jacket of his suit over the shoulders of his leather swivel chair.

“But you said…”

“You know what I mean; why are you here – here at work – today?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t…”

“You are supposed to be on leave; haven’t you seen the notice board? No? Of course you haven’t! You’re due seven days of annual leave, which you must use up before next Monday-week. Because of Easter, you have to take them straight away – today – now… Young Lizzie can finish whatever you’re working on. Go on… go!”

Muttering under his breath, the boss slips his jacket back on and, forcing his bulk past Justin, storms through the main office, and back out to the street.

Justin has been saving those days; he has made plans, but nobody had informed him of the constraints regarding when annual leave must be availed of. A quick calculation tells him that if his holidays were to begin today, he would be due back to work on the Friday after Easter. He checks the office clock and, rather than add to Liz’s workload, decides to remain at his desk until lunchtime. At twelve-forty-five, he delivers his completed projects to Dep’s tray, and then discretely returns the pending files to the desks of those who had foisted them upon him in the first place. Seething within, he enters twelve-fifty next to his signature in the attendance book, and slips quietly from the office.

On the way to his favourite café, Justin is intercepted by a young woman.

“Excuse me, please,” she says, laying a tentative hand on his arm. He recognises her as the barmaid from the adjacent public house. She takes a nervous drag from her cigarette. “Sorry, could you come into the bar for a minute, please? There’s a guy in there; he’s giving me the creeps; I’ll give you free drinks!” Justin has been in the pub only once – months ago, at a charity table quiz.

“I’m not sure what I can do. I’m…”

“I understand; I know it’s your lunch break. Ten minutes; just have a coffee; you can have a few pints some other time – please.” She seems genuinely distraught.

“Okay. Ten minutes, but no more, and don’t expect me to get involved in anything physical – or even talk to him…”

It’s a drinkers’ pub. Everything is brown, but the little round tables and stools are a few shades deeper than that of the floor, ceiling and walls. There are beermats instead of pepper mills and salt cellars, and there isn’t a napkin, or a sachet of mayo, mustard or ketchup in sight. There is only one customer: a shrunken, balding, middle-aged man, seated on a patched leatherette bench at the far end of the room; he is nursing a half-drunk pint of stout and studying a tabloid newspaper. Justin takes a seat at the counter, close to the front door, where he has an unhindered view of his subject.

“Thanks,” the girl says, with a tight smile. “Would you prefer tea or coffee? Sorry I can’t offer you any proper food; how about a Clubmilk, or peanuts or crisps? Look!” She lowers her tone to a hissed whisper, her fingernails biting into his wrist. “See, he’s staring at me again. Look at his eyes; look!”

Justin looks, but the man seems focussed on his newspaper.

“I think I’ll have a pint of lager, please.” Justin says, drawing the girl’s gaze from the man. Self-consciously, she releases his wrist.

The girl’s phone rings as she serves Justin’s drink. Mouthing an apology, she fishes the device from her jeans and, teasing it between shoulder-length waves of blonde hair, presses it to her left ear. Absently, she slips through the door of the keg store. Justin takes a sip from his glass and suddenly understands what had so upset the barmaid. The man is now staring at him, but it’s more than just a stare; it’s a glare – a black, murderous glare. Justin has a sudden urge to pee, but the man is situated close to toilet door. The man is now writing in his newspaper; he has a short green biro, the sort that usually bears a bookie’s name. Deciding to take a gamble of his own, Justin risks a visit to the toilet, returning the man’s nodded greeting along the way. The man doesn’t react as Justin returns, relieved and unscathed, to resume his vigil.

Intermittent tinkles of laughter sound from the keg store; the barmaid’s spirits have been restored. Taking a good swig from his pint, Justin allows his gaze to return to the man. Biro poised above his newspaper, the man begins to count the fingers of his left hand against its thumb. He takes a sip from his almost empty glass, sighs deeply, and again freezes into that look. This time, however, his eyes are not searing through Justin, or the muted TV screen, or the keg room door but, if looks could kill, the EXIT sign above the front door would have already shone its last. As quickly as it had contorted, the man’s face relaxes into something akin to a smirk of satisfaction. He makes a couple of swift biro strokes on his newspaper, and then folds it and stuffs it inside his nondescript jacket. Rising to his feet, he downs the dregs of his pint, swaps the biro for a hand-rolled cigarette from his top pocket and, with a good natured wave in Justin’s direction, exits the building.

Robbed of a focal point, Justin’s thoughts drift to his enforced sabbatical. He had planned on spending his leave with his parents – but in early May; not late March. He has been looking forward to helping Mam prepare her flower beds, to sharpening Dad’s tools, to servicing the lawnmower. Little things he had done through his teens, before his move to the city college had deprived his parents of his help, just when they were beginning to need it most. Brenda, Justin’s sister, always comes home for Easter, along with her sons, Trevor and Colin, now aged twelve and ten. It seems to Justin that the boys have recently mutated from trusting toddlers to preteen terrorists.

“Is – is he gone?” The girl asks as, glancing cautiously around, she makes a timely return from the keg store.

“Yes, a few minutes ago; he finished his drink and just left.” Justin drains his glass and gets to his feet.

“Have another, please; if you have the time. I’d love to hear how you did it. By the way, I’m Sandra,” she offers her hand.

“Thanks, Sandra; I’m Justin,” he returns her grip with interest. “I’m actually on a few days’ holidays; I have all the time in the world.” He yanks off his tie, stuffs it in his jacket pocket, and opens the top three buttons of his shirt.

“You remind me of Depp,” she smiles, serving his drink.

“You mean our deputy manager?” Justin’s burgeoning hopes instantly plunge.

“No, silly: Johnny Depp; you’ve got his eyes…”

There is horseracing on the TV. The pub is suddenly alive with punters; jostling for counter space, calling for drinks, rushing next door to the bookies, encouraging their selections on the screen, questioning the parentage of jockeys, trainers and tipsters, before studying form for the next race. Justin has never placed a bet on a horse – or anything else – even in college. He wonders why he is surprised to see some faces familiar from across the office counter among the pub’s clientele.

A fresh drink appears. Justin tries to catch Sandra’s eye, to thank her, to explain about the staring man. But Sandra is at full tilt: pulling pints, washing glasses, changing kegs, and her spare moments are spent listening to customers’ jokes or exchanging banter with the smokers in the front doorway. Where were they when she needed them? He scowls at the thought. Where were they when she had no one to turn to for help? Yet, they now command her constant attention; it’s as if neither Justin nor the staring man had ever been.

Justin is taken aback by his anger. It must be the drink, he decides, weaving his way to the toilet. He wonders how many pints he has had: at least three; could he have had more than four? He has certainly had more than is advisable on an empty stomach. Drying his hands, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the washstand mirror. For one riveting instant, he could have been the staring man. He tries to regain the chilling expression: baring his teeth in a wolfish grin, he tilts his forehead slightly forward, half-closes his eyes and squints through his eyelashes. He can’t hold the look for long; a foolish, lopsided grin keeps getting in the way. The grin becomes a leer as Justin veers through the rear exit and weaves towards the nearest take-away.

Early on Tuesday afternoon, after an unpleasant eighty-minute journey, the bus drops Justin a few minutes’ walk from his parents’ home. Despite still feeling slightly ropey, he allows himself a little silent chortle at each disjointed flashback from his afternoon in the pub: the arousing amalgam of scents when Sandra had clung to his wrist, the many faces of the staring man, and the volatility of the punters’ moods. In a side street café, he washes down a toasted sandwich with a mug of tea, and relives the almost erotic thrill of returning the files to the amigos’ desks.

His parents’ Ford Focus is alone in the driveway. Justin bypasses the hall door and calls out as he enters the back kitchen.

“Hello; it’s me.” There is no response; the only sound is the gentle hum of the extractor fan above the electric cooker. There is a faint aroma of roasting lamb. He goes into the hall, turning towards the stairs in response to a creaking from above.

“Stay there, I’m coming down!” Mam calls, somewhat breathlessly. There is another sound… a sort of stifled snort… Looking oddly dishevelled, and barefoot beneath her dressing gown, Mam pads into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” she scowls, and then remembers to present her cheek for her son’s customary greeting.

“Nothing’s wrong; I thought I’d surprise you, I had…”

“You’ve certainly done that. We… I was upstairs… getting the place ready for Brenda and the boys. You know they always come for the Easter holidays. I was going to put Trevor in your room… ”

Justin makes a pot of tea while Mam returns upstairs to get dressed, but it’s Dad who thumps down the stairs a few minutes later.

“What are you doing here,” Dad sounds just like Justin’s boss.

“I had some leave coming; I thought it would be a nice surprise, but…”

“Oh, it is. We love having you visit, Justin, but it would be better if we’d known in advance. You know, with Brenda and the boys here for a whole week…” His eyes dart towards the ceiling.

The lawnmower is purring sweetly by the time Brenda and the boys arrive. Mam has already assured Justin that Trevor and Colin will share the bunk room, so he need not fret for the safety of his childhood treasures. Justin is still struggling with the image of Trevor dismembering his veteran Action Man when a football whizzes past his ear and crashes into the gardening tools he has just arranged on the garage wall.

“Come on; we’ll give you a game.” Trevor shouts from the driveway.

“And we’ll hammer you,” Colin chimes in; “you’re useless!”

Recalling the damage to his shins following his more recent kick-abouts with his nephews, Justin retrieves an empty plastic bottle from the recycling bin, picks up the newly-sharpened spade, and walks to the fallow patch between the garage and the boundary wall.

“Listen, you two,” he growls, struggling to master that look. “The next time I play anything with you, I’ll make the rules.” He swings the spade, slicing the bottle in half. “Okay?” His glare follows the retreating boys all the way to the kitchen door.

At about four o’clock the brothers begin rowing over their Xbox game.

“Boys, go play outside; please!” Brenda screams.

“Justin will have a game of football with you.” Mam offers.

“I’m going upstairs to read my book,” Trevor mutters.

“Grandda, can I borrow a book, please?” Colin splutters.

On the Friday after Easter, Justin enters the office at lunchtime. As he is deciding how to deal with the pile of unwanted files that have found their way back to his desk, he hears the boss’s summons from the inner office.

“And what time do you call this? Where were you all morning; well?” He growls, and then blinks in surprise as Justin’s face transforms into a grotesque mask.

“Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: three days,” Justin says, sotto voce, raising a finger to represent each day as one might when explaining to a confused child, “multiplied by two, makes six days. Plus a half-day Monday and a half-day Friday, come to a total of seven days…” Silently, Justin continues to glare. The boss has gone deathly pale; his hands shake as he gulps from a glass of colourless liquid.

“Of course… whatever you say, Justin.” Swallowing noisily, the boss gets to his feet and hitches his trousers a notch further up his ample girth. Carefully detouring around Justin, he opens his office door. “Thanks, Justin; thanks, again,” he repeats, as Justin stalks back to his desk. After sorting the offending files into three bundles, he then plonks one on each amigo’s desk. There isn’t a sound in the office as Justin pauses at Liz’s desk. His face expressionless, he leans towards her and, whatever he whispers, she responds with a bright smile; her ginger curls bobbing with each animated nod. Looking neither right nor left, Justin returns to his desk.

His concentration shattered by the surreal silence, Dep raises his head and scans the office, blinking repeatedly at the sight of all three amigos apparently totally immersed in their returned files.

From Listowel, Ireland, Neil Brosnan was first published in 2004. Since then, his short stories have appeared 100+ times in print and digital anthologies and magazines in Ireland, Britain, Europe, Australia, India, USA, South America, and Canada.

A Pushcart nominee, he has won The Bryan MacMahon, The Maurice Walsh, (six times) and The Ireland’s Own, (twice) short story awards. He has published two short story collections: ‘Fresh Water & other stories’ (Original Writing, 2010) and ‘Neap Tide & other stories’ (New Binary Press, 2013)

The post That Look by Neil Brosnan first appeared on Every Writer.

The Most Dangerous Game

BY RICHARD CONNELL

“Off there to the right—somewhere—is a large island,” said Whitney. “It’s rather a mystery——”

“What island is it?” Rainsford asked.

“The old charts call it ‘Ship-Trap Island,'” Whitney replied. “A suggestive name, isn’t it? Sailors have a curious dread of the place. I don’t know why. Some superstition——”

“Can’t see it,” remarked Rainsford, trying to peer through the dank tropical night that was palpable as it pressed its thick warm blackness in upon the yacht.

“You’ve good eyes,” said Whitney, with a laugh, “and I’ve seen you pick off a moose moving in the brown fall bush at four hundred yards, but even you can’t see four miles or so through a moonless Caribbean night.”

“Nor four yards,” admitted Rainsford. “Ugh! It’s like moist black velvet.”

“It will be light enough in Rio,” promised Whitney. “We should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey’s. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting.”

“The best sport in the world,” agreed Rainsford.

“For the hunter,” amended Whitney. “Not for the jaguar.”

“Don’t talk rot, Whitney,” said Rainsford. “You’re a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”

“Perhaps the jaguar does,” observed Whitney.

“Bah! They’ve no understanding.”

“Even so, I rather think they understand one thing—fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death.”

“Nonsense,” laughed Rainsford. “This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes—the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters. Do you think we’ve passed that island yet?”

“I can’t tell in the dark. I hope so.”

“Why?” asked Rainsford.

“The place has a reputation—a bad one.”

“Cannibals?” suggested Rainsford.

“Hardly. Even cannibals wouldn’t live in such a God-forsaken place. But it’s gotten into sailor lore, somehow. Didn’t you notice that the crew’s nerves seemed a bit jumpy to-day?”

“They were a bit strange, now you mention it. Even Captain Nielsen——”

“Yes, even that tough-minded old Swede, who’d go up to the devil himself and ask him for a light. Those fishy blue eyes held a look I never saw there before. All I could get out of him was: ‘This place has an evil name among sea-faring men, sir.’ Then he said to me, very gravely: ‘Don’t you feel anything?’—as if the air about us was actually poisonous. Now, you mustn’t laugh when I tell you this—I did feel something like a sudden chill.

“There was no breeze. The sea was as flat as a plate-glass window. We were drawing near the island then. What I felt was a—a mental chill; a sort of sudden dread.”

“Pure imagination,” said Rainsford. “One superstitious sailor can taint the whole ship’s company with his fear.”

“Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in danger. Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing—with wave lengths, just as sound and light have. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I’m glad we’re getting out of this zone. Well, I think I’ll turn in now, Rainsford.”

“I’m not sleepy,” said Rainsford. “I’m going to smoke another pipe up on the after deck.”

“Good-night, then, Rainsford. See you at breakfast.”

“Right. Good-night, Whitney.”

There was no sound in the night as Rainsford sat there but the muffled throb of the engine that drove the yacht swiftly through the darkness, and the swish and ripple of the wash of the propeller.

Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favourite brier. The sensuous drowsiness of the night was on him. “It’s so dark,” he thought, “that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my eyelids——”

An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times.

Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean Sea closed over his head.

He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. A certain cool-headedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender, and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He wrestled himself out of his clothes, and shouted with all his power. The lights of the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they were blotted out entirely by the night.

Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred more and then——

Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high, screaming sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror.

He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.

“Pistol shot,” muttered Rainsford, swimming on.

Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears—the most welcome he had ever heard—the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them: on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. Gasping, his hands raw, he reached a flat place at the top. Dense jungle came down to the very edge of the cliffs. What perils that tangle of trees and underbrush might hold for him did not concern Rainsford just then. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life.

When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. Sleep had given him new vigour; a sharp hunger was picking at him. He looked about him, almost cheerfully.

“Where there are pistol shots, there are men. Where there are men, there is food,” he thought. But what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? An unbroken front of snarled and ragged jungle fringed the shore.

He saw no sign of a trail through the closely knit web of weeds and trees; it was easier to go along the shore, and Rainsford floundered along by the water. Not far from where he had landed, he stopped.

Some wounded thing, by the evidence a large animal, had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering object not far away caught Rainsford’s eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge.

“A twenty-two,” he remarked. “That’s odd. It must have been a fairly large animal, too. The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. It’s clear that the brute put up a fight. I suppose the first three shots I heard was when the hunter flushed his quarry and wounded it. The last shot was when he trailed it here and finished it.”

He examined the ground closely and found what he had hoped to find—the print of hunting boots. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island.

Bleak darkness was blacking out the sea and jungle when Rainsford sighted the lights. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coast line, and his first thought was that he had come upon a village, for there were many lights. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building—a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial château; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows.

“Mirage,” thought Rainsford. But it was no mirage, he found, when he opened the tall spiked iron gate. The stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet about it all hung an air of unreality.

He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly as if it had never before been used. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. He thought he heard steps within; the door remained closed. Again Rainsford lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall. The door opened then, opened as suddenly as if it were on a spring, and Rainsford stood blinking in the river of glaring gold light that poured out. The first thing Rainsford’s eyes discerned was the largest man Rainsford had ever seen—a gigantic creature, solidly made and black-bearded to the waist. In his hand the man held a long-barrelled revolver, and he was pointing it straight at Rainsford’s heart.

Out of the snarl of beard two small eyes regarded Rainsford.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Rainsford, with a smile which he hoped was disarming. “I’m no robber. I fell off a yacht. My name is Sanger Rainsford of New York City.”

The menacing look in the eyes did not change. The revolver pointed as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He gave no sign that he understood Rainsford’s words, or that he had even heard them. He was dressed in uniform, a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan.

“I’m Sanger Rainsford of New York,” Rainsford began again. “I fell off a yacht. I am hungry.”

The man’s only answer was to raise with his thumb the hammer of his revolver. Then Rainsford saw the man’s free hand go to his forehead in a military salute, and he saw him click his heels together and stand at attention. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes. He advanced to Rainsford and held out his hand.

In a cultivated voice marked by a slight accent that gave it added precision and deliberateness, he said: “It is a very great pleasure and honour to welcome Mr. Sanger Rainsford, the celebrated hunter, to my home.”

Automatically Rainsford shook the man’s hand.

“I’ve read your book about hunting snow leopards in Tibet, you see,” explained the man. “I am General Zaroff.”

Rainsford’s first impression was that the man was singularly handsome; his second was that there was an original, almost bizarre quality about the general’s face. He was a tall man past middle age, for his hair was a vivid white; but his thick eyebrows and pointed military moustache were as black as the night from which Rainsford had come. His eyes, too, were black and very bright. He had high cheek bones, a sharp-cut nose, a spare, dark face, the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. Turning to the giant in uniform, the general made a sign. The giant put away his pistol, saluted, withdrew.

“Ivan is an incredibly strong fellow,” remarked the general, “but he has the misfortune to be deaf and dumb. A simple fellow, but, I’m afraid, like all his race, a bit of a savage.”

“Is he Russian?”

“He is a Cossack,” said the general, and his smile showed red lips and pointed teeth. “So am I.

“Come,” he said, “we shouldn’t be chatting here. We can talk later. Now you want clothes, food, rest. You shall have them. This is a most restful spot.”

Ivan had reappeared, and the general spoke to him with lips that moved but gave forth no sound.

“Follow Ivan, if you please, Mr. Rainsford,” said the general. “I was about to have my dinner when you came. I’ll wait for you. You’ll find that my clothes will fit you, I think.”

It was to a huge, beam-ceilinged bedroom with a canopied bed big enough for six men that Rainsford followed the silent giant. Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke.

The dining room to which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a mediæval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory table where two score men could sit down to eat. About the hall were the mounted heads of many animals—lions, tigers, elephants, moose, bears; larger or more perfect specimens Rainsford had never seen. At the great table the general was sitting, alone.

“You’ll have a cocktail, Mr. Rainsford,” he suggested. The cocktail was surpassingly good, and, Rainsford noted, the table appointments were of the finest—the linen, the crystal, the silver, the china.

They were eating borsch, the rich red soup with whipped cream so dear to Russian palates. Half apologetically General Zaroff said: “We do our best to preserve the amenities of civilization here. Please forgive any lapses. We are well off the beaten track, you know. Do you think the champagne has suffered from its long ocean trip?”

“Not in the least,” declared Rainsford. He was finding the general a most thoughtful and affable host, a true cosmopolite. But there was one small trait of the general’s that made Rainsford uncomfortable. Whenever he looked up from his plate he found the general studying him, appraising him narrowly.

“Perhaps,” said General Zaroff, “you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and it is the hunt.”

“You have some wonderful heads here,” said Rainsford as he ate a particularly well-cooked filet mignon. “That Cape buffalo is the largest I ever saw.”

“Oh, that fellow. Yes, he was a monster.”

“Did he charge you?”

“Hurled me against a tree,” said the general. “Fractured my skull. But I got the brute.”

“I’ve always thought,” said Rainsford, “that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game.”

For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly: “No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game.” He sipped his wine. “Here in my preserve on this island,” he said, in the same slow tone, “I hunt more dangerous game.”

Rainsford expressed his surprise. “Is there big game on this island?”

The general nodded. “The biggest.”

“Really?”

“Oh, it isn’t here naturally, of course. I have to stock the island.”

“What have you imported, General?” Rainsford asked. “Tigers?”

The general smiled. “No,” he said. “Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger. I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford.”

The general took from his pocket a gold cigarette case and offered his guest a long black cigarette with a silver tip; it was perfumed and gave off a smell like incense.

“We will have some capital hunting, you and I,” said the general. “I shall be most glad to have your society.”

“But what game——” began Rainsford.

“I’ll tell you,” said the general. “You will be amused, I know. I think I may say, in all modesty, that I have done a rare thing. I have invented a new sensation. May I pour you another glass of port, Mr. Rainsford?”

“Thank you, General.”

The general filled both glasses, and said: “God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a hunter. My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman. When I was only five years old he gave me a little gun, specially made in Moscow for me, to shoot sparrows with. When I shot some of his prize turkeys with it, he did not punish me; he complimented me on my marksmanship. I killed my first bear in the Caucasus when I was ten. My whole life has been one prolonged hunt. I went into the army—it was expected of noblemen’s sons—and for a time commanded a division of Cossack cavalry, but my real interest was always the hunt. I have hunted every kind of game in every land. It would be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I have killed.”

The general puffed at his cigarette.

“After the debacle in Russia I left the country, for it was imprudent for an officer of the Tsar to stay there. Many noble Russians lost everything. I, luckily, had invested heavily in American securities, so I shall never have to open a tea room in Monte Carlo or drive a taxi in Paris. Naturally, I continued to hunt—grizzlies in your Rockies, crocodiles in the Ganges, rhinoceroses in East Africa. It was in Africa that the Cape buffalo hit me and laid me up for six months. As soon as I recovered I started for the Amazon to hunt jaguars, for I had heard they were unusually cunning. They weren’t.” The Cossack sighed. “They were no match at all for a hunter with his wits about him, and a high-powered rifle. I was bitterly disappointed. I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind. Hunting was beginning to bore me! And hunting, remember, had been my life. I have heard that in America business men often go to pieces when they give up the business that has been their life.”

“Yes, that’s so,” said Rainsford.

The general smiled. “I had no wish to go to pieces,” he said. “I must do something. Now, mine is an analytical mind, Mr. Rainsford. Doubtless that is why I enjoy the problems of the chase.”

“No doubt, General Zaroff.”

“So,” continued the general, “I asked myself why the hunt no longer fascinated me. You are much younger than I am, Mr. Rainsford, and have not hunted as much, but you perhaps can guess the answer.”

“What was it?”

“Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call ‘a sporting proposition.’ It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always. There is no greater bore than perfection.”

The general lit a fresh cigarette.

“No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you.”

Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.

“It came to me as an inspiration what I must do,” the general went on.

“And that was?”

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. “I had to invent a new animal to hunt,” he said.

“A new animal? You’re joking.”

“Not at all,” said the general. “I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island, built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes—there are jungles with a maze of trails in them, hills, swamps——”

“But the animal, General Zaroff?”

“Oh,” said the general, “it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits.”

Rainsford’s bewilderment showed in his face.

“I wanted the ideal animal to hunt,” explained the general. “So I said: ‘What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?’ And the answer was, of course: ‘It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason.'”

“But no animal can reason,” objected Rainsford.

“My dear fellow,” said the general, “there is one that can.”

“But you can’t mean——” gasped Rainsford.

“And why not?”

“I can’t believe you are serious, General Zaroff. This is a grisly joke.”

“Why should I not be serious? I am speaking of hunting.”

“Hunting? Good God, General Zaroff, what you speak of is murder.”

The general laughed with entire good nature. He regarded Rainsford quizzically. “I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbours romantic ideas about the value of human life. Surely your experiences in the war——”

“Did not make me condone cold-blooded murder,” finished Rainsford, stiffly.

Laughter shook the general. “How extraordinarily droll you are!” he said. “One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naïve, and, if I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view. It’s like finding a snuffbox in a limousine. Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I’ll wager you’ll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You’ve a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford.”

“Thank you, I’m a hunter, not a murderer.”

“Dear me,” said the general, quite unruffled, “again that unpleasant word. But I think I can show you that your scruples are quite ill founded.”

“Yes?”

“Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth—sailors from tramp ships—lascars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels—a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them.”

“But they are men,” said Rainsford, hotly.

“Precisely,” said the general. “That is why I use them. It gives me pleasure. They can reason, after a fashion. So they are dangerous.”

“But where do you get them?”

The general’s left eyelid fluttered down in a wink. “This island is called Ship Trap,” he answered. “Sometimes an angry god of the high seas sends them to me. Sometimes, when Providence is not so kind, I help Providence a bit. Come to the window with me.”

Rainsford went to the window and looked out toward the sea.

“Watch! Out there!” exclaimed the general, pointing into the night. Rainsford’s eyes saw only blackness, and then, as the general pressed a button, far out to sea Rainsford saw the flash of lights.

The general chuckled. “They indicate a channel,” he said, “where there’s none: giant rocks with razor edges crouch like a sea monster with wide-open jaws. They can crush a ship as easily as I crush this nut.” He dropped a walnut on the hardwood floor and brought his heel grinding down on it. “Oh, yes,” he said, casually, as if in answer to a question. “I have electricity. We try to be civilized here.”

“Civilized? And you shoot down men?”

A trace of anger was in the general’s black eyes, but it was there for but a second, and he said, in his most pleasant manner: “Dear me, what a righteous young man you are! I assure you I do not do the thing you suggest. That would be barbarous. I treat these visitors with every consideration. They get plenty of good food and exercise. They get into splendid physical condition. You shall see for yourself tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll visit my training school,” smiled the general. “It’s in the cellar. I have about a dozen pupils down there now. They’re from the Spanish bark Sanlûcar that had the bad luck to go on the rocks cut there. A very inferior lot, I regret to say. Poor specimens and more accustomed to the deck than to the jungle.”

He raised his hand, and Ivan, who served as waiter, brought thick Turkish coffee. Rainsford, with an effort, held his tongue in check.

“It’s a game, you see,” pursued the general, blandly. “I suggest to one of them that we go hunting. I give him a supply of food and an excellent hunting knife. I give him three hours’ start. I am to follow, armed only with a pistol of the smallest calibre and range. If my quarry eludes me for three whole days, he wins the game. If I find him”—the general smiled—”he loses.”

“Suppose he refuses to be hunted?”

“Oh,” said the general, “I give him his option, of course. He need not play that game if he doesn’t wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honour of serving as official knouter to the Great White Tsar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they choose the hunt.”

“And if they win?”

The smile on the general’s face widened. “To date I have not lost,” he said.

Then he added, hastily: “I don’t wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs.”

“The dogs?”

“This way, please. I’ll show you.”

The general steered Rainsford to a window. The lights from the windows sent a flickering illumination that made grotesque patterns on the courtyard below, and Rainsford could see moving about there a dozen or so huge black shapes; as they turned toward him, their eyes glittered greenly.

“A rather good lot, I think,” observed the general. “They are let out at seven every night. If any one should try to get into my house—or out of it—something extremely regrettable would occur to him.” He hummed a snatch of song from the Folies Bergère.

“And now,” said the general, “I want to show you my new collection of heads. Will you come with me to the library?”

“I hope,” said Rainsford, “that you will excuse me tonight, General Zaroff. I’m really not feeling at all well.”

“Ah, indeed?” the general inquired, solicitously. “Well, I suppose that’s only natural, after your long swim. You need a good, restful night’s sleep. To-morrow you’ll feel like a new man, I’ll wager. Then we’ll hunt, eh? I’ve one rather promising prospect——”

Rainsford was hurrying from the room.

“Sorry you can’t go with me to-night,” called the general. “I expect rather fair sport—a big, strong black. He looks resourceful—— Well, good-night, Mr. Rainsford; I hope you have a good night’s rest.”

The bed was good, and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fibre of his being, but nevertheless Rainsford could not quiet his brain with the opiate of sleep. He lay, eyes wide open. Once he thought he heard stealthy steps in the corridor outside his room. He sought to throw open the door; it would not open. He went to the window and looked out. His room was high up in one of the towers. The lights of the château were out now, and it was dark and silent, but there was a fragment of sallow moon, and by its wan light he could see, dimly, the courtyard; there, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol.

General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford’s health.

“As for me,” sighed the general, “I do not feel so well. I am worried, Mr. Rainsford. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint.”

To Rainsford’s questioning glance the general said: “Ennui. Boredom.”

Then, taking a second helping of Crêpes Suzette, the general explained: “The hunting was not good last night. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That’s the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. It’s most annoying. Will you have another glass of Chablis, Mr. Rainsford?”

“General,” said Rainsford, firmly, “I wish to leave this island at once.”

The general raised his thickets of eyebrows; he seemed hurt. “But, my dear fellow,” the general protested, “you’ve only just come. You’ve had no hunting——”

“I wish to go to-day,” said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. General Zaroff’s face suddenly brightened.

He filled Rainsford’s glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle.

“To-night,” said the general, “we will hunt—you and I.”

Rainsford shook his head. “No, General,” he said. “I will not hunt.”

The general shrugged his shoulders and delicately ate a hothouse grape. “As you wish, my friend,” he said. “The choice rests entirely with you. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan’s?”

He nodded toward the corner to where the giant stood, scowling, his thick arms crossed on his hogshead of chest.

“You don’t mean——” cried Rainsford.

“My dear fellow,” said the general, “have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel—at last.”

The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him.

“You’ll find this game worth playing,” the general said, enthusiastically. “Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?”

“And if I win——” began Rainsford, huskily.

“I’ll cheerfully acknowledge myself defeated if I do not find you by midnight of the third day,” said General Zaroff. “My sloop will place you on the mainland near a town.”

The general read what Rainsford was thinking.

“Oh, you can trust me,” said the Cossack. “I will give you my word as a gentleman and a sportsman. Of course, you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here.”

“I’ll agree to nothing of the kind,” said Rainsford.

“Oh,” said the general, “in that case—— But why discuss that now? Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, unless——”

The general sipped his wine.

Then a businesslike air animated him. “Ivan,” he said to Rainsford, “will supply you with hunting clothes, food, a knife. I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. There’s quicksand there. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr. Rainsford. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now. I always take a siesta after lunch. You’ll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You’ll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don’t you think? Au revoir, Mr. Rainsford, au revoir.”

General Zaroff, with a deep, courtly bow, strolled from the room.

From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a cocked revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist….

Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. “I must keep my nerve. I must keep my nerve,” he said, through tight teeth.

He had not been entirely clear-headed when the château gates snapped shut behind him. His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff, and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowels of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation.

He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring him face to face with the sea. He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame.

“I’ll give him a trail to follow,” muttered Rainsford, and he struck off from the rude path he had been following into the trackless wilderness. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his tail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. His need for rest was imperative and he thought: “I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable.” A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was near by, and, taking care to leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch, and stretching out on one of the broad limbs, after a fashion, rested. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil——

An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake, and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle. Toward morning, when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focussed Rainsford’s attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb, and through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. The thing that was approaching was a man.

It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees, and studied the ground. Rainsford’s impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general’s right hand held something metallic—a small automatic pistol.

The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incense-like smoke floated up to Rainsford’s nostrils.

Rainsford held his breath. The general’s eyes had left the ground and were travelling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face. Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter.

The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford’s lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry.

Rainsford’s second thought was even more terrible. It sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back?

Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day’s sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

“I will not lose my nerve. I will not.”

He slid down from the tree, and struck off again into the woods. His face was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function. Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy.

The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away. He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse.

Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss. So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it. He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general’s mocking laugh ring through the jungle.

“Rainsford,” called the general, “if you are within sound of my voice, as I suppose you are, let me congratulate you. Not many men know how to make a Malay man-catcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. Rainsford. I am going now to have my wound dressed; it’s only a slight one. But I shall be back. I shall be back.”

When the general, nursing his bruised shoulder, had gone, Rainsford took up his flight again. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely. Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort he tore his foot loose. He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand.

His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.

Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second’s delay meant death. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree.

He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the general’s cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand.

“You’ve done well, Rainsford,” the voice of the general called. “Your Burmese tiger pit has claimed one of my best dogs. Again you score. I think, Mr. Rainsford, I’ll see what you can do against my whole pack. I’m going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening.”

At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds.

Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was suicide. He could flee. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him, Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash.

They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda. He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels.

He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford’s heart stopped, too. They must have reached the knife.

He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford’s brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet. But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed.

Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again.

“Nerve, nerve, nerve!” he panted, as he dashed along. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. He reached it. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the château. Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. Rainsford hesitated. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea….

When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then he sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a perfumed cigarette, and hummed a bit from “Madama Butterfly.”

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great panelled dining hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course the American hadn’t played the game—so thought the general as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur. In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so before turning on his light he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great hounds, and he called: “Better luck another time,” to them. Then he switched on the light.

A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there.

“Rainsford!” screamed the general. “How in God’s name did you get here?”

“Swam,” said Rainsford. “I found it quicker than walking through the jungle.”

The general sucked in his breath and smiled. “I congratulate you,” he said. “You have won the game.”

Rainsford did not smile. “I am still a beast at bay,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice. “Get ready, General Zaroff.”

The general made one of his deepest bows. “I see,” he said. “Splendid! One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. On guard, Rainsford….”

He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.

Bio

Richard Edward Connell Jr. (1893-1949) was an American author and journalist best known for his short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, he began his writing career early, working as a reporter for his father’s newspaper at age 16. After attending Harvard University, where he edited the Harvard Lampoon, Connell served in World War I. Throughout his career, he wrote hundreds of short stories for magazines and later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. While he achieved success with multiple stories and won two O. Henry Memorial Awards, his 1924 story “The Most Dangerous Game” became his most enduring work. The tale of a hunter becoming the hunted has been adapted numerous times and remains a classic of the thriller genre. Connell continued writing until his death in Beverly Hills, California, in 1949, leaving behind a legacy that influenced generations of writers in the adventure and suspense genres.

Summary

Sanger Rainsford, a skilled big-game hunter, falls overboard from a yacht near Ship-Trap Island in the Caribbean. He swims to the island and finds a palatial château owned by General Zaroff, a wealthy Russian Cossack who is also an accomplished hunter.

Initially, Zaroff welcomes Rainsford as a guest, but soon reveals his disturbing hobby: he hunts humans on his island. Zaroff explains that he became bored with hunting animals and now lures ships to crash on his island so he can hunt their surviving crew members. He gives his “prey” a head start, some supplies, and three days to survive. If they live, they win their freedom. If Zaroff catches them, they die. Those who refuse to participate face torture from Ivan, Zaroff’s deaf-mute servant.

Zaroff forces Rainsford to become his next quarry. Over three days, Rainsford uses his hunting expertise to evade capture, setting several clever traps. One trap kills Ivan, and another wounds Zaroff. Eventually, Rainsford appears to choose death by jumping off a cliff into the sea rather than face capture.

However, Rainsford survives the jump and secretly makes his way to Zaroff’s bedroom. When Zaroff returns, he finds Rainsford waiting. Zaroff congratulates him on winning the game, but Rainsford declares that he is “still a beast at bay” and that the hunt isn’t over. The story ends with Rainsford sleeping in Zaroff’s bed, implying that he killed Zaroff in the final confrontation.

The story explores themes of civilization versus savagery, the ethics of hunting, and the thin line between hunter and hunted.

Guided Questions

1. What is the significance of the opening conversation between Whitney and Rainsford about whether animals feel fear? How does this discussion foreshadow later events in the story?
2. How does General Zaroff justify his hunting of humans? What does this reveal about his character and his views on civilization?
3. What role does the setting of Ship-Trap Island play in the story? How does the isolated location contribute to the plot and atmosphere?
4. Compare and contrast Rainsford’s attitude toward hunting at the beginning of the story (“I am a hunter, not a murderer”) with his final confrontation with Zaroff. How has his perspective changed?
5. What survival techniques and traps does Rainsford use to evade Zaroff? How do these demonstrate his experience as a hunter, and how do they drive the story’s theme of role reversal?
6. Analyze the character of Ivan, the deaf-mute servant. What purpose does he serve in the story, both practically and symbolically?
7. How does General Zaroff’s refined manner and cultured lifestyle (fine wines, good food, luxury accommodations) contrast with his barbaric hunting practice? What point might Connell be making about civilization versus savagery?
8. Why do you think Zaroff gives his victims a choice between being hunted and facing Ivan? What does this reveal about his character and his concept of “sport”?
9. What is the significance of Rainsford’s final line, “I am still a beast at bay”? How does this relate to the story’s themes?
10. Consider the story’s ending: “He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided.” What does this subtle conclusion suggest about the outcome of the final confrontation, and how does it connect to the story’s broader themes?

The post The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell first appeared on Every Writer.

A SERVICE OF LOVE

by O. Henry

When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard.

That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China.

Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West pulsing with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture of the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of the ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for New York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer.

Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her to go “North” and “finish.” They could not see her f—, but that is our story.

Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt’s works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong.

Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of the other, as you please, and in a short time were married—for (see above), when one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard.

Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat—something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be—sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor—janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.

Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close—let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long—enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.

Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister—you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light—his high-lights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock—you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.

They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every—but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.

But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions—ambitions interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable—the mutual help and inspiration; and—overlook my artlessness—stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.

But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn’t flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.

For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came home elated.

“Joe, dear,” she said, gleefully, “I’ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General—General A. B. Pinkney’s daughter—on Seventy-first street. Such a splendid house, Joe—you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.

“My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already. She’s a delicate thing—dresses always in white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I’m to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don’t mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows, dear, and let’s have a nice supper.”

“That’s all right for you, Dele,” said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a carving knife and a hatchet, “but how about me? Do you think I’m going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two.”

Delia came and hung about his neck.

“Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn’t think of leaving Mr. Magister.”

“All right,” said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish. “But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn’t Art. But you’re a trump and a dear to do it.”

“When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard,” said Delia.

“Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park,” said Joe. “And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Delia, sweetly. “And now let’s be thankful for Gen. Pinkney and this veal roast.”

During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. Joe was enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing in Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled, praised and kissed at 7 o’clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It was most times 7 o’clock when he returned in the evening.

At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8×10 (inches) centre table of the 8×10 (feet) flat parlour.

“Sometimes,” she said, a little wearily, “Clementina tries me. I’m afraid she doesn’t practise enough, and I have to tell her the same things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does get monotonous. But Gen. Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with Clementina at the piano—he is a widower, you know—and stands there pulling his white goatee. ‘And how are the semiquavers and the demisemiquavers progressing?’ he always asks.

“I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And those Astrakhan rug portières. And Clementina has such a funny little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen. Pinkney’s brother was once Minister to Bolivia.”

And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a five, a two and a one—all legal tender notes—and laid them beside Delia’s earnings.

“Sold that watercolour of the obelisk to a man from Peoria,” he announced overwhelmingly.

“Don’t joke with me,” said Delia, “not from Peoria!”

“All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle’s window and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art is still in it.”

“I’m so glad you’ve kept on,” said Delia, heartily. “You’re bound to win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before. We’ll have oysters to-night.”

“And filet mignon with champignons,” said Joe. “Where is the olive fork?”

On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18 on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint from his hands.

Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages.

“How is this?” asked Joe after the usual greetings. Delia laughed, but not very joyously.

“Clementina,” she explained, “insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn’t a servant in the house. I know Clementina isn’t in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my hand and wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl was so sorry! But Gen. Pinkney!—Joe, that old man nearly went distracted. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody—they said the furnace man or somebody in the basement—out to a drug store for some oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn’t hurt so much now.”

“What’s this?” asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at some white strands beneath the bandages.

“It’s something soft,” said Delia, “that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did you sell another sketch?” She had seen the money on the table.

“Did I?” said Joe; “just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot to-day, and he isn’t sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your hand, Dele?”

“Five o’clock, I think,” said Dele, plaintively. “The iron—I mean the rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen Gen. Pinkney, Joe, when—”

“Sit down here a moment, Dele,” said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

“What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?” he asked.

She braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love and stubbornness, and murmured a phrase or two vaguely of Gen. Pinkney; but at length down went her head and out came the truth and tears.

“I couldn’t get any pupils,” she confessed. “And I couldn’t bear to have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twenty-fourth street laundry. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don’t you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit. You’re not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn’t got the work you mightn’t have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.”

“He wasn’t from Peoria,” said Joe, slowly.

“Well, it doesn’t matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe—and—kiss me, Joe—and what made you ever suspect that I wasn’t giving music lessons to Clementina?”

“I didn’t,” said Joe, “until to-night. And I wouldn’t have then, only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a smoothing-iron. I’ve been firing the engine in that laundry for the last two weeks.”

“And then you didn’t—”

“My purchaser from Peoria,” said Joe, “and Gen. Pinkney are both creations of the same art—but you wouldn’t call it either painting or music.”

And then they both laughed, and Joe began:

“When one loves one’s Art no service seems—”

But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. “No,” she said—“just ‘When one loves.’”

Bio

O. Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), became one of America’s most beloved short story writers despite a life marked by both triumph and controversy. Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, he worked various jobs including pharmacist, banker, and journalist before a bank embezzlement charge led to him fleeing to Honduras. He later returned to face the charges when his wife became terminally ill, and served three years in prison – where he began seriously writing and published his first short stories under various pseudonyms.

After his release in 1901, O. Henry moved to New York City, where he found his greatest success as a writer. He published over 380 short stories during his lifetime, becoming famous for his mastery of ironic endings and clever wordplay. His most beloved works include “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Last Leaf,” and “The Ransom of Red Chief.” O. Henry was known for writing about ordinary people, often setting his stories in New York City and exploring themes of sacrifice, love, and coincidence with warmth and humor. Though he achieved great literary success, he struggled financially throughout his life and died at age 47, leaving behind a remarkable legacy of stories that continue to captivate readers today.

Summary

Joe Larrabee and Delia Caruthers are two young artists in New York – he’s a painter, she’s a musician. After meeting in an art studio, they fall in love and marry, living happily in a tiny flat while pursuing their artistic dreams through expensive lessons. Their happiness is only limited by their dwindling finances.

When money becomes tight, Delia announces she’s found work as a music teacher for a wealthy general’s daughter, bringing home $15 per week. Joe, in turn, claims he’s sold paintings to a man from Peoria. Each encourages the other to continue their artistic studies while supposedly earning money through their crafts.

The truth comes out when Delia burns her hand – she’s actually been working in a laundry, creating elaborate stories about her fictional music student to hide the truth from Joe. To her surprise, Joe reveals he’s been working as the furnace operator at the same laundry, having invented his own story about selling paintings. Rather than being upset by their mutual deception, they laugh at how they each secretly took on humble work to support the other’s dreams, proving that love matters more than artistic ambition.

Guided Questions for Teachers

1. Where do Joe and Delia first meet? Answer: In an atelier (art studio) where art and music students had gathered
2. What are Joe and Delia’s artistic professions? Answer: Joe is a painter/artist, and Delia is a musician/piano player
3. What does Delia claim she is doing to earn money? Answer: Teaching music lessons to General Pinkney’s daughter Clementina
4. How much does Delia say she earns per music lesson? Answer: $5 per lesson
5. What does Joe claim is the source of his income? Answer: Selling paintings to a man from Peoria
6. How does Delia injure her hand? Answer: She gets burned by a hot iron at the laundry (though she claims it was from a Welsh rabbit accident)
7. What is Joe’s real job? Answer: He works as a furnace operator/engineer in the same laundry as Delia
8. Why did both characters hide their real jobs from each other? Answer: They each wanted to support the other’s artistic studies and didn’t want their partner to give up their dreams

Discussion Questions for Teachers

1. “When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard” changes to simply “When one loves” at the end of the story. How does this change in phrase reflect the characters’ growth and the story’s deeper meaning? Consider how Joe and Delia’s priorities shift throughout the narrative.
2. Both characters create elaborate fictional stories to hide their real jobs. Are these deceptions wrong or justified? Compare the moral implications of lying to protect someone’s dreams versus telling a harsh truth. How does their mutual discovery affect your view of their deceptions?
3. The story presents a conflict between artistic ambition and practical love. How do Joe and Delia balance their dreams of becoming successful artists with their love for each other? Do you think they made the right choice in secretly taking manual labor jobs, or should they have been honest from the start and perhaps found a different solution?

The post A SERVICE OF LOVE by O. Henry first appeared on Every Writer.

 Headless

by David Sydney 

Flies thrive on dirt and grime. Even so, they do attempt to clean themselves, brushing their heads and bodies. In the process, a fly can decapitate itself at times. Headless flies can then go on to live for several days – if it can be called living.

“Look at that, Ed.”

“What?”

“That fly.”

“Where?”

Frank pointed to the countertop between his plate of eggs-over and Ed’s own bowl of oatmeal. They were at the counter of AL’S DINER. 

“There… That thing moving around.”

Ed squinted. He had not seen his optometrist for several years.

“Hey, that’s not a fly.”

“Of course it is, Ed.”

“It’s only half a fly.”

Flies have a decentralized nervous system. That is why, even without their heads, they can walk around for several days, and even have sex.

With his centralized nervous system, Ed couldn’t do that.

No humans, of course – no vertebrates – could do that.

Sometimes, getting through an entire bowl of Al’s oatmeal was an accomplishment – and required more than an attached head.

“Look at that thing moving around.”

Without its head, the fly’s movement was fairly aimless.

“You didn’t pull its head off, did you, Frank?”

“No… What’d you take me for?”

“I don’t know. I just was asking.”

“When I see a fly, I’m going to do more than pull its head off.”

“You don’t have to get upset with me. I was just asking.”

Somehow, Ed didn’t feel like eating much more of his oatmeal.

“How are the eggs, Frank?”

“The way Al usually makes them.”

“A little rubbery?”

“Yeah.”

Between them, the fly stumbled futilely.

“I wonder where its head is?”

“Did you check your oatmeal?”

How about that. There was a fly in the oatmeal, as Ed, with his spoon, inspected the lumpy contents. But it’s head was attached.

David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Friday Flash Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, R U Joking, Entropy Squared, and Rue Scribe. 

The post  Headless by David Sydney  first appeared on Every Writer.

The Beast with Five Fingers

By W. F. HARVEY

When I was a little boy I once went with my father to call on Adrian Borlsover. I played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father appealed for a subscription. Just before we left my father said, “Mr. Borlsover, may my son here shake hands with you? It will be a thing to look back upon with pride when he grows to be a man.”

I came up to the bed on which the old man was lying and put my hand in his, awed by the still beauty of his face. He spoke to me kindly, and hoped that I should always try to please my father. Then he placed his right hand on my head and asked for a blessing to rest upon me. “Amen!” said my father, and I followed him out of the room, feeling as if I wanted to cry. But my father was in excellent spirits.

“That old gentleman, Jim,” said he, “is the most wonderful man in the whole town. For ten years he has been quite blind.”

“But I saw his eyes,” I said. “They were ever so black and shiny; they weren’t shut up like Nora’s puppies. Can’t he see at all?”

And so I learnt for the first time that a man might have eyes that looked dark and beautiful and shining without being able to see.

“Just like Mrs. Tomlinson has big ears,” I said, “and can’t hear at all except when Mr. Tomlinson shouts.”

“Jim,” said my father, “it’s not right to talk about a lady’s ears. Remember what Mr. Borlsover said about pleasing me and being a good boy.”

That was the only time I saw Adrian Borlsover. I soon forgot about him and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head. But for a week I prayed that those dark tender eyes might see.

“His spaniel may have puppies,” I said in my prayers, “and he will never be able to know how funny they look with their eyes all closed up. Please let old Mr. Borlsover see.”

Adrian Borlsover, as my father had said, was a wonderful man. He came of an eccentric family. Borlsovers’ sons, for some reason, always seemed to marry very ordinary women, which perhaps accounted for the fact that no Borlsover had been a genius, and only one Borlsover had been mad. But they were great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to the bypath meadows of erudition.

Adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. He had held at one time the family living at Borlsover Conyers, until a congenital weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the sunny south coast watering-place where I had seen him. Occasionally he would relieve one or other of the local clergy. My father described him as a fine preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many men would have considered unprofitable texts. “An excellent proof,” he would add, “of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration.”

Adrian Borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. His penmanship was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of interest in the church at Borlsover Conyers. He had an exceedingly clever knack in cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and cows for little children, and made more than one complicated wind instrument of his own devising.

When he was fifty years old Adrian Borlsover lost his sight. In a wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new conditions of life. He quickly learned to read Braille. So marvelous indeed was his sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in botany. The mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was sufficient means for its identification, though occasionally he would use his lips. I have found several letters of his among my father’s correspondence. In no case was there anything to show that he was afflicted with blindness and this in spite of the fact that he exercised undue economy in the spacing of lines. Towards the close of his life the old man was credited with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny: it has been said that he could tell at once the color of a ribbon placed between his fingers. My father would neither confirm nor deny the story.

I

Adrian Borlsover was a bachelor. His elder brother George had married late in life, leaving one son, Eustace, who lived in the gloomy Georgian mansion at Borlsover Conyers, where he could work undisturbed in collecting material for his great book on heredity.

Like his uncle, he was a remarkable man. The Borlsovers had always been born naturalists, but Eustace possessed in a special degree the power of systematizing his knowledge. He had received his university education in Germany, and then, after post-graduate work in Vienna and Naples, had traveled for four years in South America and the East, getting together a huge store of material for a new study into the processes of variation.

He lived alone at Borlsover Conyers with Saunders his secretary, a man who bore a somewhat dubious reputation in the district, but whose powers as a mathematician, combined with his business abilities, were invaluable to Eustace.

Uncle and nephew saw little of each other. The visits of Eustace were confined to a week in the summer or autumn: long weeks, that dragged almost as slowly as the bath-chair in which the old man was drawn along the sunny sea front. In their way the two men were fond of each other, though their intimacy would doubtless have been greater had they shared the same religious views. Adrian held to the old-fashioned evangelical dogmas of his early manhood; his nephew for many years had been thinking of embracing Buddhism. Both men possessed, too, the reticence the Borlsovers had always shown, and which their enemies sometimes called hypocrisy. With Adrian it was a reticence as to the things he had left undone; but with Eustace it seemed that the curtain which he was so careful to leave undrawn hid something more than a half-empty chamber.

Two years before his death Adrian Borlsover developed, unknown to himself, the not uncommon power of automatic writing. Eustace made the discovery by accident. Adrian was sitting reading in bed, the forefinger of his left hand tracing the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along the opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down beside the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he could see plainly that they were letters and words which it was forming.

“Adrian Borlsover,” wrote the hand, “Eustace Borlsover, George Borlsover, Francis Borlsover Sigismund Borlsover, Adrian Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover, Saville Borlsover. B, for Borlsover. Honesty is the Best Policy. Beautiful Belinda Borlsover.”

“What curious nonsense!” said Eustace to himself.

“King George the Third ascended the throne in 1760,” wrote the hand. “Crowd, a noun of multitude; a collection of individuals—Adrian Borlsover, Eustace Borlsover.”

“It seems to me,” said his uncle, closing the book, “that you had much better make the most of the afternoon sunshine and take your walk now.” “I think perhaps I will,” Eustace answered as he picked up the volume. “I won’t go far, and when I come back I can read to you those articles in Nature about which we were speaking.”

He went along the promenade, but stopped at the first shelter, and seating himself in the corner best protected from the wind, he examined the book at leisure. Nearly every page was scored with a meaningless jungle of pencil marks: rows of capital letters, short words, long words, complete sentences, copy-book tags. The whole thing, in fact, had the appearance of a copy-book, and on a more careful scrutiny Eustace thought that there was ample evidence to show that the handwriting at the beginning of the book, good though it was was not nearly so good as the handwriting at the end.

He left his uncle at the end of October, with a promise to return early in December. It seemed to him quite clear that the old man’s power of automatic writing was developing rapidly, and for the first time he looked forward to a visit that combined duty with interest.

But on his return he was at first disappointed. His uncle, he thought, looked older. He was listless too, preferring others to read to him and dictating nearly all his letters. Not until the day before he left had Eustace an opportunity of observing Adrian Borlsover’s new-found faculty.

The old man, propped up in bed with pillows, had sunk into a light sleep. His two hands lay on the coverlet, his left hand tightly clasping his right. Eustace took an empty manuscript book and placed a pencil within reach of the fingers of the right hand. They snatched at it eagerly; then dropped the pencil to unloose the left hand from its restraining grasp.

“Perhaps to prevent interference I had better hold that hand,” said Eustace to himself, as he watched the pencil. Almost immediately it began to write.

“Blundering Borlsovers, unnecessarily unnatural, extraordinarily eccentric, culpably curious.”

“Who are you?” asked Eustace, in a low voice.

“Never you mind,” wrote the hand of Adrian.

“Is it my uncle who is writing?”

“Oh, my prophetic soul, mine uncle.”

“Is it anyone I know?”

“Silly Eustace, you’ll see me very soon.”

“When shall I see you?”

“When poor old Adrian’s dead.”

“Where shall I see you?”

“Where shall you not?”

Instead of speaking his next question, Borlsover wrote it. “What is the time?”

The fingers dropped the pencil and moved three or four times across the paper. Then, picking up the pencil, they wrote:

“Ten minutes before four. Put your book away, Eustace. Adrian mustn’t find us working at this sort of thing. He doesn’t know what to make of it, and I won’t have poor old Adrian disturbed. Au revoir.”

Adrian Borlsover awoke with a start.

“I’ve been dreaming again,” he said; “such queer dreams of leaguered cities and forgotten towns. You were mixed up in this one, Eustace, though I can’t remember how. Eustace, I want to warn you. Don’t walk in doubtful paths. Choose your friends well. Your poor grandfather——”

A fit of coughing put an end to what he was saying, but Eustace saw that the hand was still writing. He managed unnoticed to draw the book away. “I’ll light the gas,” he said, “and ring for tea.” On the other side of the bed curtain he saw the last sentences that had been written.

“It’s too late, Adrian,” he read. “We’re friends already; aren’t we, Eustace Borlsover?”

On the following day Eustace Borlsover left. He thought his uncle looked ill when he said good-by, and the old man spoke despondently of the failure his life had been.

“Nonsense, uncle!” said his nephew. “You have got over your difficulties in a way not one in a hundred thousand would have done. Every one marvels at your splendid perseverance in teaching your hand to take the place of your lost sight. To me it’s been a revelation of the possibilities of education.”

“Education,” said his uncle dreamily, as if the word had started a new train of thought, “education is good so long as you know to whom and for what purpose you give it. But with the lower orders of men, the base and more sordid spirits, I have grave doubts as to its results. Well, good-by, Eustace, I may not see you again. You are a true Borlsover, with all the Borlsover faults. Marry, Eustace. Marry some good, sensible girl. And if by any chance I don’t see you again, my will is at my solicitor’s. I’ve not left you any legacy, because I know you’re well provided for, but I thought you might like to have my books. Oh, and there’s just one other thing. You know, before the end people often lose control over themselves and make absurd requests. Don’t pay any attention to them, Eustace. Good-by!” and he held out his hand. Eustace took it. It remained in his a fraction of a second longer than he had expected, and gripped him with a virility that was surprising. There was, too, in its touch a subtle sense of intimacy.

“Why, uncle!” he said, “I shall see you alive and well for many long years to come.”

Two months later Adrian Borlsover died.

II

Eustace Borlsover was in Naples at the time. He read the obituary notice in the Morning Post on the day announced for the funeral.

“Poor old fellow!” he said. “I wonder where I shall find room for all his books.”

The question occurred to him again with greater force when three days later he found himself standing in the library at Borlsover Conyers, a huge room built for use, and not for beauty, in the year of Waterloo by a Borlsover who was an ardent admirer of the great Napoleon. It was arranged on the plan of many college libraries, with tall, projecting bookcases forming deep recesses of dusty silence, fit graves for the old hates of forgotten controversy, the dead passions of forgotten lives. At the end of the room, behind the bust of some unknown eighteenth-century divine, an ugly iron corkscrew stair led to a shelf-lined gallery. Nearly every shelf was full.

“I must talk to Saunders about it,” said Eustace. “I suppose that it will be necessary to have the billiard-room fitted up with book cases.”

The two men met for the first time after many weeks in the dining-room that evening.

“Hullo!” said Eustace, standing before the fire with his hands in his pockets. “How goes the world, Saunders? Why these dress togs?” He himself was wearing an old shooting-jacket. He did not believe in mourning, as he had told his uncle on his last visit; and though he usually went in for quiet-colored ties, he wore this evening one of an ugly red, in order to shock Morton the butler, and to make them thrash out the whole question of mourning for themselves in the servants’ hall. Eustace was a true Borlsover. “The world,” said Saunders, “goes the same as usual, confoundedly slow. The dress togs are accounted for by an invitation from Captain Lockwood to bridge.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I’ve told your coachman to drive me in your carriage. Any objection?”

“Oh, dear me, no! We’ve had all things in common for far too many years for me to raise objections at this hour of the day.”

“You’ll find your correspondence in the library,” went on Saunders. “Most of it I’ve seen to. There are a few private letters I haven’t opened. There’s also a box with a rat, or something, inside it that came by the evening post. Very likely it’s the six-toed albino. I didn’t look, because I didn’t want to mess up my things but I should gather from the way it’s jumping about that it’s pretty hungry.”

“Oh, I’ll see to it,” said Eustace, “while you and the Captain earn an honest penny.”

Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the library. Though the fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful.

“We’ll have all the lights on at any rate,” he said, as he turned the switches. “And, Morton,” he added, when the butler brought the coffee, “get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box. Whatever the animal is, he’s kicking up the deuce of a row. What is it? Why are you dawdling?”

“If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me that they’d bored the holes in the lid at the post-office. There were no breathin’ holes in the lid, sir, and they didn’t want the animal to die. That is all, sir.”

“It’s culpably careless of the man, whoever he was,” said Eustace, as he removed the screws, “packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no means of getting air. Confound it all! I meant to ask Morton to bring me a cage to put it in. Now I suppose I shall have to get one myself.”

He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back into the library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something falling, and then of something scuttling along the floor.

“Bother it! The beast’s got out. How in the world am I to find it again in this library!”

To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to follow the sound of the scuttling in one of the recesses where the animal seemed to be running behind the books in the shelves, but it was impossible to locate it. Eustace resolved to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal might gain confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence. There were still the private letters.

What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out.

“I wonder if something has gone wrong with the fuse,” said Eustace, as he went to the switches by the door. Then he stopped. There was a noise at the other end of the room, as if something was crawling up the iron corkscrew stair. “If it’s gone into the gallery,” he said, “well and good.” He hastily turned on the lights, crossed the room, and climbed up the stair. But he could see nothing. His grandfather had placed a little gate at the top of the stair, so that children could run and romp in the gallery without fear of accident. This Eustace closed, and having considerably narrowed the circle of his search, returned to his desk by the fire.

How gloomy the library was! There was no sense of intimacy about the room. The few busts that an eighteenth-century Borlsover had brought back from the grand tour, might have been in keeping in the old library. Here they seemed out of place. They made the room feel cold, in spite of the heavy red damask curtains and great gilt cornices.

With a crash two heavy books fell from the gallery to the floor; then, as Borlsover looked, another and yet another.

“Very well; you’ll starve for this, my beauty!” he said. “We’ll do some little experiments on the metabolism of rats deprived of water. Go on! Chuck them down! I think I’ve got the upper hand.” He turned once again to his correspondence. The letter was from the family solicitor. It spoke of his uncle’s death and of the valuable collection of books that had been left to him in the will.

“There was one request,” he read, “which certainly came as a surprise to me. As you know, Mr. Adrian Borlsover had left instructions that his body was to be buried in as simple a manner as possible at Eastbourne. He expressed a desire that there should be neither wreaths nor flowers of any kind, and hoped that his friends and relatives would not consider it necessary to wear mourning. The day before his death we received a letter canceling these instructions. He wished his body to be embalmed (he gave us the address of the man we were to employ—Pennifer, Ludgate Hill), with orders that his right hand was to be sent to you, stating that it was at your special request. The other arrangements as to the funeral remained unaltered.”

“Good Lord!” said Eustace; “what in the world was the old boy driving at? And what in the name of all that’s holy is that?”

Someone was in the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord attached to one of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a snap. Someone must be in the gallery, for a second blind did the same. Someone must be walking round the gallery, for one after the other the blinds sprang up, letting in the moonlight.

“I haven’t got to the bottom of this yet,” said Eustace, “but I will do before the night is very much older,” and he hurried up the corkscrew stair. He had just got to the top when the lights went out a second time, and he heard again the scuttling along the floor. Quickly he stole on tiptoe in the dim moonshine in the direction of the noise, feeling as he went for one of the switches. His fingers touched the metal knob at last. He turned on the electric light.

About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man’s hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one of the shelves. A heavy volume had been displaced. There was a gap in the row of books where it had got in. In his fear lest it should escape him again, he seized the first book that came to his hand and plugged it into the hole. Then, emptying two shelves of their contents, he took the wooden boards and propped them up in front to make his barrier doubly sure.

“I wish Saunders was back,” he said; “one can’t tackle this sort of thing alone.” It was after eleven, and there seemed little likelihood of Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last he heard steps down below.

“Morton!” he shouted; “Morton!”

“Sir?”

“Has Mr. Saunders got back yet?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Well, bring me some brandy, and hurry up about it. I’m up here in the gallery, you duffer.”

“Thanks,” said Eustace, as he emptied the glass. “Don’t go to bed yet, Morton. There are a lot of books that have fallen down by accident; bring them up and put them back in their shelves.”

Morton had never seen Borlsover in so talkative a mood as on that night. “Here,” said Eustace, when the books had been put back and dusted, “you might hold up these boards for me, Morton. That beast in the box got out, and I’ve been chasing it all over the place.”

“I think I can hear it chawing at the books, sir. They’re not valuable, I hope? I think that’s the carriage, sir; I’ll go and call Mr. Saunders.”

It seemed to Eustace that he was away for five minutes, but it could hardly have been more than one when he returned with Saunders. “All right, Morton, you can go now. I’m up here, Saunders.”

“What’s all the row?” asked Saunders, as he lounged forward with his hands in his pockets. The luck had been with him all the evening. He was completely satisfied, both with himself and with Captain Lockwood’s taste in wines. “What’s the matter? You look to me to be in an absolute blue funk.”

“That old devil of an uncle of mine,” began Eustace—”oh, I can’t explain it all. It’s his hand that’s been playing old Harry all the evening. But I’ve got it cornered behind these books. You’ve got to help me catch it.”

“What’s up with you, Eustace? What’s the game?”

“It’s no game, you silly idiot! If you don’t believe me take out one of those books and put your hand in and feel.”

“All right,” said Saunders; “but wait till I’ve rolled up my sleeve. The accumulated dust of centuries, eh?” He took off his coat, knelt down, and thrust his arm along the shelf.

“There’s something there right enough,” he said. “It’s got a funny stumpy end to it, whatever it is, and nips like a crab. Ah, no, you don’t!” He pulled his hand out in a flash. “Shove in a book quickly. Now it can’t get out.”

“What was it?” asked Eustace.

“It was something that wanted very much to get hold of me. I felt what seemed like a thumb and forefinger. Give me some brandy.”

“How are we to get it out of there?”

“What about a landing net?”

“No good. It would be too smart for us. I tell you, Saunders, it can cover the ground far faster than I can walk. But I think I see how we can manage it. The two books at the end of the shelf are big ones that go right back against the wall. The others are very thin. I’ll take out one at a time, and you slide the rest along until we have it squashed between the end two.”

It certainly seemed to be the best plan. One by one, as they took out the books, the space behind grew smaller and smaller. There was something in it that was certainly very much alive. Once they caught sight of fingers pressing outward for a way of escape. At last they had it pressed between the two big books.

“There’s muscle there, if there isn’t flesh and blood,” said Saunders, as he held them together. “It seems to be a hand right enough, too. I suppose this is a sort of infectious hallucination. I’ve read about such cases before.”

“Infectious fiddlesticks!” said Eustace, his face white with anger; “bring the thing downstairs. We’ll get it back into the box.”

It was not altogether easy, but they were successful at last. “Drive in the screws,” said Eustace, “we won’t run any risks. Put the box in this old desk of mine. There’s nothing in it that I want. Here’s the key. Thank goodness, there’s nothing wrong with the lock.”

“Quite a lively evening,” said Saunders. “Now let’s hear more about your uncle.”

They sat up together until early morning. Saunders had no desire for sleep. Eustace was trying to explain and to forget: to conceal from himself a fear that he had never felt before—the fear of walking alone down the long corridor to his bedroom.

III

“Whatever it was,” said Eustace to Saunders on the following morning, “I propose that we drop the subject. There’s nothing to keep us here for the next ten days. We’ll motor up to the Lakes and get some climbing.”

“And see nobody all day, and sit bored to death with each other every night. Not for me thanks. Why not run up to town? Run’s the exact word in this case, isn’t it? We’re both in such a blessed funk. Pull yourself together Eustace, and let’s have another look at the hand.”

“As you like,” said Eustace; “there’s the key.” They went into the library and opened the desk. The box was as they had left it on the previous night.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Eustace.

“I am waiting for you to volunteer to open the lid. However, since you seem to funk it, allow me. There doesn’t seem to be the likelihood of any rumpus this morning, at all events.” He opened the lid and picked out the hand.

“Cold?” asked Eustace.

“Tepid. A bit below blood-heat by the feel. Soft and supple too. If it’s the embalming, it’s a sort of embalming I’ve never seen before. Is it your uncle’s hand?”

“Oh, yes, it’s his all right,” said Eustace. “I should know those long thin fingers anywhere. Put it back in the box, Saunders. Never mind about the screws. I’ll lock the desk, so that there’ll be no chance of its getting out. We’ll compromise by motoring up to town for a week. If we get off soon after lunch we ought to be at Grantham or Stamford by night.”

“Right,” said Saunders; “and to-morrow—Oh, well, by to-morrow we shall have forgotten all about this beastly thing.”

If when the morrow came they had not forgotten, it was certainly true that at the end of the week they were able to tell a very vivid ghost story at the little supper Eustace gave on Hallow E’en.

“You don’t want us to believe that it’s true, Mr. Borlsover? How perfectly awful!”

“I’ll take my oath on it, and so would Saunders here; wouldn’t you, old chap?”

“Any number of oaths,” said Saunders. “It was a long thin hand, you know, and it gripped me just like that.”

“Don’t Mr. Saunders! Don’t! How perfectly horrid! Now tell us another one, do. Only a really creepy one, please!”

“Here’s a pretty mess!” said Eustace on the following day as he threw a letter across the table to Saunders. “It’s your affair, though. Mrs. Merrit, if I understand it, gives a month’s notice.”

“Oh, that’s quite absurd on Mrs. Merrit’s part,” Saunders replied. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Let’s see what she says.”

“Dear Sir,” he read, “this is to let you know that I must give you a month’s notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time I’ve felt the place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit, and Emma Laidlaw go off with scarcely as much as an ‘if you please,’ after frightening the wits out of the other girls, so that they can’t turn out a room by themselves or walk alone down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads or hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is that it’s no place for me. So I must ask you, Mr. Borlsover, sir, to find a new housekeeper that has no objection to large and lonely houses, which some people do say, not that I believe them for a minute, my poor mother always having been a Wesleyan, are haunted.

“Yours faithfully,
Elizabeth Merrit.

“P.S.—I should be obliged if you would give my respects to Mr. Saunders. I hope that he won’t run no risks with his cold.”

“Saunders,” said Eustace, “you’ve always had a wonderful way with you in dealing with servants. You mustn’t let poor old Merrit go.”

“Of course she shan’t go,” said Saunders. “She’s probably only angling for a rise in salary. I’ll write to her this morning.”

“No; there’s nothing like a personal interview. We’ve had enough of town. We’ll go back to-morrow, and you must work your cold for all it’s worth. Don’t forget that it’s got on to the chest, and will require weeks of feeding up and nursing.”

“All right. I think I can manage Mrs. Merrit.”

But Mrs. Merrit was more obstinate than he had thought. She was very sorry to hear of Mr. Saunders’s cold, and how he lay awake all night in London coughing; very sorry indeed. She’d change his room for him gladly, and get the south room aired. And wouldn’t he have a basin of hot bread and milk last thing at night? But she was afraid that she would have to leave at the end of the month.

“Try her with an increase of salary,” was the advice of Eustace.

It was no use. Mrs. Merrit was obdurate, though she knew of a Mrs. Handyside who had been housekeeper to Lord Gargrave, who might be glad to come at the salary mentioned.

“What’s the matter with the servants, Morton?” asked Eustace that evening when he brought the coffee into the library. “What’s all this about Mrs. Merrit wanting to leave?”

“If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself. I have a confession to make, sir. When I found your note asking me to open that desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke the lock as you told me, and was glad to do it, because I could hear the animal in the box making a great noise, and I thought it wanted food. So I took out the box, sir, and got a cage, and was going to transfer it, when the animal got away.”

“What in the world are you talking about? I never wrote any such note.”

“Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the floor on the day you and Mr. Saunders left. I have it in my pocket now.”

It certainly seemed to be in Eustace’s handwriting. It was written in pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.

“Get a hammer, Morton,” he read, “or some other tool, and break open the lock in the old desk in the library. Take out the box that is inside. You need not do anything else. The lid is already open. Eustace Borlsover.”

“And you opened the desk?”

“Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal hopped out.”

“What animal?”

“The animal inside the box, sir.”

“What did it look like?”

“Well, sir, I couldn’t tell you,” said Morton nervously; “my back was turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked up.”

“What was its color?” asked Saunders; “black?”

“Oh, no, sir, a grayish white. It crept along in a very funny way, sir. I don’t think it had a tail.”

“What did you do then?”

“I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the rat-traps and kept the library shut. Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped.”

“And you think it was the animal that’s been frightening the maids?”

“Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was—you’ll excuse me, sir—a hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs. She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel, when she found that she was drying someone else’s hand as well, only colder than hers.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Saunders.

“Exactly, sir; that’s what I told her; but we couldn’t get her to stop.”

“You don’t believe all this?” said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the butler.

“Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I’ve not seen anything.”

“Nor heard anything?”

“Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and there’s nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds of a night, as often as not somebody’s been there before us. But as I says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the place.”

“Very well, Morton, that will do.”

“What do you make of it?” asked Saunders when they were alone. “I mean of the letter he said you wrote.”

“Oh, that’s simple enough,” said Eustace. “See the paper it’s written on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were a few odd sheets and envelopes left in the old desk. We never fastened up the lid of the box before locking it in. The hand got out, found a pencil, wrote this note, and shoved it through a crack on to the floor where Morton found it. That’s plain as daylight.”

“But the hand couldn’t write?”

“Couldn’t it? You’ve not seen it do the things I’ve seen,” and he told Saunders more of what had happened at Eastbourne.

“Well,” said Saunders, “in that case we have at least an explanation of the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown to your uncle that letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself to you. Your uncle had no more to do with that request than I. In fact, it would seem that he had some idea of this automatic writing, and feared it.”

“Then if it’s not my uncle, what is it?”

“I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit had got your uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it. Now it’s got into that little body and is off on its own.”

“Well, what are we to do?”

“We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Saunders, “and try to catch it. If we can’t do that, we shall have to wait till the bally clockwork runs down. After all, if it’s flesh and blood, it can’t live for ever.”

For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding down the banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost a full second before he started in pursuit, only to find that the thing had escaped him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night, saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him in an expression of scornful derision.

“I know what I’ll do,” he said. “If I only get it into the open I’ll set the dogs on to it.”

He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.

“It’s jolly good idea,” he said; “only we won’t wait till we find it out of doors. We’ll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the under-keeper’s Irish mongrel that’s on to rats like a flash. Your spaniel has not got spirit enough for this sort of game.” They brought the dogs into the house, and the keeper’s Irish mongrel chewed up the slippers, and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but all three were welcome. Even false security is better than no security at all.

For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit’s gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.

“It’s no use your trying to catch him,” said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder. “You’d much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don’t leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he’s hungry. You’re far too softhearted.”

“Well, sir, I see he’s right out of reach now on that picture rail, so if you wouldn’t mind closing the door, sir, when you leave the room, I’ll bring his cage in to-night and put some meat inside it. He’s that fond of meat, though it does make him pull out his feathers to suck the quills. They do say that if you cook—”

“Never mind, Mrs. Merrit,” said Eustace, who was busy writing. “That will do; I’ll keep an eye on the bird.”

There was silence in the room, unbroken but for the continuous whisper of his pen.

“Scratch poor Peter,” said the bird. “Scratch poor old Peter!”

“Be quiet, you beastly bird!”

“Poor old Peter! Scratch poor Peter, do.”

“I’m more likely to wring your neck if I get hold of you.” He looked up at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the fourth. Eustace ran to the bell and pressed it hard; then across to the window, which he closed with a bang. Frightened by the noise the parrot shook its wings preparatory to flight, and as it did so the fingers of the hand got hold of it by the throat. There was a shrill scream from Peter as he fluttered across the room, wheeling round in circles that ever descended, borne down under the weight that clung to him. The bird dropped at last quite suddenly, and Eustace saw fingers and feathers rolled into an inextricable mass on the floor. The struggle abruptly ceased as finger and thumb squeezed the neck; the bird’s eyes rolled up to show the whites, and there was a faint, half-choked gurgle. But before the fingers had time to loose their hold, Eustace had them in his own.

“Send Mr. Saunders here at once,” he said to the maid who came in answer to the bell. “Tell him I want him immediately.”

Then he went with the hand to the fire. There was a ragged gash across the back where the bird’s beak had torn it, but no blood oozed from the wound. He noticed with disgust that the nails had grown long and discolored.

“I’ll burn the beastly thing,” he said. But he could not burn it. He tried to throw it into the flames, but his own hands, as if restrained by some old primitive feeling, would not let him. And so Saunders found him pale and irresolute, with the hand still clasped tightly in his fingers.

“I’ve got it at last,” he said in a tone of triumph.

“Good; let’s have a look at it.”

“Not when it’s loose. Get me some nails and a hammer and a board of some sort.”

“Can you hold it all right?”

“Yes, the thing’s quite limp; tired out with throttling poor old Peter, I should say.”

“And now,” said Saunders when he returned with the things, “what are we going to do?”

“Drive a nail through it first, so that it can’t get away; then we can take our time over examining it.”

“Do it yourself,” said Saunders. “I don’t mind helping you with guinea-pigs occasionally when there’s something to be learned; partly because I don’t fear a guinea-pig’s revenge. This thing’s different.”

“All right, you miserable skunk. I won’t forget the way you’ve stood by me.”

He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he was doing had driven it through the hand, deep into the board.

“Oh, my aunt,” he giggled hysterically, “look at it now,” for the hand was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the nail like a worm upon the hook.

“Well,” said Saunders, “you’ve done it now. I’ll leave you to examine it.”

“Don’t go, in heaven’s name. Cover it up, man, cover it up! Shove a cloth over it! Here!” and he pulled off the antimacassar from the back of a chair and wrapped the board in it. “Now get the keys from my pocket and open the safe. Chuck the other things out. Oh, Lord, it’s getting itself into frightful knots! and open it quick!” He threw the thing in and banged the door.

“We’ll keep it there till it dies,” he said. “May I burn in hell if I ever open the door of that safe again.”

Mrs. Merrit departed at the end of the month. Her successor certainly was more successful in the management of the servants. Early in her rule she declared that she would stand no nonsense, and gossip soon withered and died. Eustace Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits crept over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural part in country society.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if he marries one of these days,” said Saunders. “Well, I’m in no hurry for such an event. I know Eustace far too well for the future Mrs. Borlsover to like me. It will be the same old story again: a long friendship slowly made—marriage—and a long friendship quickly forgotten.”

IV

But Eustace Borlsover did not follow the advice of his uncle and marry. He was too fond of old slippers and tobacco. The cooking, too, under Mrs. Handyside’s management was excellent, and she seemed, too, to have a heaven-sent faculty in knowing when to stop dusting.

Little by little the old life resumed its old power. Then came the burglary. The men, it was said, broke into the house by way of the conservatory. It was really little more than an attempt, for they only succeeded in carrying away a few pieces of plate from the pantry. The safe in the study was certainly found open and empty, but, as Mr. Borlsover informed the police inspector, he had kept nothing of value in it during the last six months.

“Then you’re lucky in getting off so easily, sir,” the man replied. “By the way they have gone about their business, I should say they were experienced cracksmen. They must have caught the alarm when they were just beginning their evening’s work.”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “I suppose I am lucky.”

“I’ve no doubt,” said the inspector, “that we shall be able to trace the men. I’ve said that they must have been old hands at the game. The way they got in and opened the safe shows that. But there’s one little thing that puzzles me. One of them was careless enough not to wear gloves, and I’m bothered if I know what he was trying to do. I’ve traced his finger-marks on the new varnish on the window sashes in every one of the downstairs rooms. They are very distinct ones too.”

“Right hand or left, or both?” asked Eustace.

“Oh, right every time. That’s the funny thing. He must have been a foolhardy fellow, and I rather think it was him that wrote that.” He took out a slip of paper from his pocket. “That’s what he wrote, sir. ‘I’ve got out, Eustace Borlsover, but I’ll be back before long.’ Some gaol bird just escaped, I suppose. It will make it all the easier for us to trace him. Do you know the writing, sir?”

“No,” said Eustace; “it’s not the writing of anyone I know.”

“I’m not going to stay here any longer,” said Eustace to Saunders at luncheon. “I’ve got on far better during the last six months than ever I expected, but I’m not going to run the risk of seeing that thing again. I shall go up to town this afternoon. Get Morton to put my things together, and join me with the car at Brighton on the day after to-morrow. And bring the proofs of those two papers with you. We’ll run over them together.”

“How long are you going to be away?”

“I can’t say for certain, but be prepared to stay for some time. We’ve stuck to work pretty closely through the summer, and I for one need a holiday. I’ll engage the rooms at Brighton. You’ll find it best to break the journey at Hitchin. I’ll wire to you there at the Crown to tell you the Brighton address.”

The house he chose at Brighton was in a terrace. He had been there before. It was kept by his old college gyp, a man of discreet silence, who was admirably partnered by an excellent cook. The rooms were on the first floor. The two bedrooms were at the back, and opened out of each other. “Saunders can have the smaller one, though it is the only one with a fireplace,” he said. “I’ll stick to the larger of the two, since it’s got a bathroom adjoining. I wonder what time he’ll arrive with the car.”

Saunders came about seven, cold and cross and dirty. “We’ll light the fire in the dining-room,” said Eustace, “and get Prince to unpack some of the things while we are at dinner. What were the roads like?”

“Rotten; swimming with mud, and a beastly cold wind against us all day. And this is July. Dear old England!”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “I think we might do worse than leave dear old England for a few months.”

They turned in soon after twelve.

“You oughtn’t to feel cold, Saunders,” said Eustace, “when you can afford to sport a great cat-skin lined coat like this. You do yourself very well, all things considered. Look at those gloves, for instance. Who could possibly feel cold when wearing them?”

“They are far too clumsy though for driving. Try them on and see,” and he tossed them through the door on to Eustace’s bed, and went on with his unpacking. A minute later he heard a shrill cry of terror. “Oh, Lord,” he heard, “it’s in the glove! Quick, Saunders, quick!” Then came a smacking thud. Eustace had thrown it from him. “I’ve chucked it into the bathroom,” he gasped, “it’s hit the wall and fallen into the bath. Come now if you want to help.” Saunders, with a lighted candle in his hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and maimed, dumb and blind, with a ragged hole in the middle, crawling, staggering, trying to creep up the slippery sides, only to fall back helpless.

“Stay there,” said Saunders. “I’ll empty a collar box or something, and we’ll jam it in. It can’t get out while I’m away.”

“Yes, it can,” shouted Eustace. “It’s getting out now. It’s climbing up the plug chain. No, you brute, you filthy brute, you don’t! Come back, Saunders, it’s getting away from me. I can’t hold it; it’s all slippery. Curse its claw! Shut the window, you idiot! The top too, as well as the bottom. You utter idiot! It’s got out!” There was the sound of something dropping on to the hard flagstones below, and Eustace fell back fainting.

For a fortnight he was ill.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” the doctor said to Saunders. “I can only suppose that Mr. Borlsover has suffered some great emotional shock. You had better let me send someone to help you nurse him. And by all means indulge that whim of his never to be left alone in the dark. I would keep a light burning all night if I were you. But he must have more fresh air. It’s perfectly absurd this hatred of open windows.”

Eustace, however, would have no one with him but Saunders. “I don’t want the other men,” he said. “They’d smuggle it in somehow. I know they would.”

“Don’t worry about it, old chap. This sort of thing can’t go on indefinitely. You know I saw it this time as well as you. It wasn’t half so active. It won’t go on living much longer, especially after that fall. I heard it hit the flags myself. As soon as you’re a bit stronger we’ll leave this place; not bag and baggage, but with only the clothes on our backs, so that it won’t be able to hide anywhere. We’ll escape it that way. We won’t give any address, and we won’t have any parcels sent after us. Cheer up, Eustace! You’ll be well enough to leave in a day or two. The doctor says I can take you out in a chair to-morrow.”

“What have I done?” asked Eustace. “Why does it come after me? I’m no worse than other men. I’m no worse than you, Saunders; you know I’m not. It was you who were at the bottom of that dirty business in San Diego, and that was fifteen years ago.”

“It’s not that, of course,” said Saunders. “We are in the twentieth century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea of your old sins finding you out. Before you caught the hand in the library it was filled with pure malevolence—to you and all mankind. After you spiked it through with that nail it naturally forgot about other people, and concentrated its attention on you. It was shut up in the safe, you know, for nearly six months. That gives plenty of time for thinking of revenge.”

Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought that there might be something in Saunders’s suggestion to leave Brighton without notice. He began rapidly to regain his strength.

“We’ll go on the first of September,” he said.

The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm. Though at midday the windows had been wide open, they had been shut an hour or so before dusk. Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to wonder at the strange habits of the gentlemen on the first floor. Soon after their arrival she had been told to take down the heavy window curtains in the two bedrooms, and day by day the rooms had seemed to grow more bare. Nothing was left lying about.

“Mr. Borlsover doesn’t like to have any place where dirt can collect,” Saunders had said as an excuse. “He likes to see into all the corners of the room.”

“Couldn’t I open the window just a little?” he said to Eustace that evening. “We’re simply roasting in here, you know.”

“No, leave well alone. We’re not a couple of boarding-school misses fresh from a course of hygiene lectures. Get the chessboard out.”

They sat down and played. At ten o’clock Mrs. Prince came to the door with a note. “I am sorry I didn’t bring it before,” she said, “but it was left in the letter-box.”

“Open it, Saunders, and see if it wants answering.”

It was very brief. There was neither address nor signature.

“Will eleven o’clock to-night be suitable for our last appointment?”

“Who is it from?” asked Borlsover.

“It was meant for me,” said Saunders. “There’s no answer, Mrs. Prince,” and he put the paper into his pocket. “A dunning letter from a tailor; I suppose he must have got wind of our leaving.”

It was a clever lie, and Eustace asked no more questions. They went on with their game.

On the landing outside Saunders could hear the grandfather’s clock whispering the seconds, blurting out the quarter-hours.

“Check!” said Eustace. The clock struck eleven. At the same time there was a gentle knocking on the door; it seemed to come from the bottom panel.

“Who’s there?” asked Eustace.

There was no answer.

“Mrs. Prince, is that you?”

“She is up above,” said Saunders; “I can hear her walking about the room.”

“Then lock the door; bolt it too. Your move, Saunders.”

While Saunders sat with his eyes on the chessboard, Eustace walked over to the window and examined the fastenings. He did the same in Saunders’s room and the bathroom. There were no doors between the three rooms, or he would have shut and locked them too.

“Now, Saunders,” he said, “don’t stay all night over your move. I’ve had time to smoke one cigarette already. It’s bad to keep an invalid waiting. There’s only one possible thing for you to do. What was that?”

“The ivy blowing against the window. There, it’s your move now, Eustace.”

“It wasn’t the ivy, you idiot. It was someone tapping at the window,” and he pulled up the blind. On the outer side of the window, clinging to the sash, was the hand.

“What is it that it’s holding?”

“It’s a pocket-knife. It’s going to try to open the window by pushing back the fastener with the blade.”

“Well, let it try,” said Eustace. “Those fasteners screw down; they can’t be opened that way. Anyhow, we’ll close the shutters. It’s your move, Saunders. I’ve played.”

But Saunders found it impossible to fix his attention on the game. He could not understand Eustace, who seemed all at once to have lost his fear. “What do you say to some wine?” he asked. “You seem to be taking things coolly, but I don’t mind confessing that I’m in a blessed funk.”

“You’ve no need to be. There’s nothing supernatural about that hand, Saunders. I mean it seems to be governed by the laws of time and space. It’s not the sort of thing that vanishes into thin air or slides through oaken doors. And since that’s so, I defy it to get in here. We’ll leave the place in the morning. I for one have bottomed the depths of fear. Fill your glass, man! The windows are all shuttered, the door is locked and bolted. Pledge me my uncle Adrian! Drink, man! What are you waiting for?”

Saunders was standing with his glass half raised. “It can get in,” he said hoarsely; “it can get in! We’ve forgotten. There’s the fireplace in my bedroom. It will come down the chimney.”

“Quick!” said Eustace, as he rushed into the other room; “we haven’t a minute to lose. What can we do? Light the fire, Saunders. Give me a match, quick!”

“They must be all in the other room. I’ll get them.”

“Hurry, man, for goodness’ sake! Look in the bookcase! Look in the bathroom! Here, come and stand here; I’ll look.”

“Be quick!” shouted Saunders. “I can hear something!”

“Then plug a sheet from your bed up the chimney. No, here’s a match.” He had found one at last that had slipped into a crack in the floor.

“Is the fire laid? Good, but it may not burn. I know—the oil from that old reading-lamp and this cotton-wool. Now the match, quick! Pull the sheet away, you fool! We don’t want it now.”

There was a great roar from the grate as the flames shot up. Saunders had been a fraction of a second too late with the sheet. The oil had fallen on to it. It, too, was burning.

“The whole place will be on fire!” cried Eustace, as he tried to beat out the flames with a blanket. “It’s no good! I can’t manage it. You must open the door, Saunders, and get help.”

Saunders ran to the door and fumbled with the bolts. The key was stiff in the lock.

“Hurry!” shouted Eustace; “the whole place is ablaze!”

The key turned in the lock at last. For half a second Saunders stopped to look back. Afterwards he could never be quite sure as to what he had seen, but at the time he thought that something black and charred was creeping slowly, very slowly, from the mass of flames towards Eustace Borlsover. For a moment he thought of returning to his friend, but the noise and the smell of the burning sent him running down the passage crying, “Fire! Fire!” He rushed to the telephone to summon help, and then back to the bathroom—he should have thought of that before—for water. As he burst open the bedroom door there came a scream of terror which ended suddenly, and then the sound of a heavy fall.

Bio

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer best known for his macabre and supernatural short stories. Born in Yorkshire, Harvey was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied medicine. However, he never practiced as a doctor, instead turning to writing.

Harvey’s literary career was interrupted by World War I, during which he served in the Royal Navy. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and later worked in naval intelligence.

His most famous work is the short story “The Beast with Five Fingers,” which was first published in 1919 in the collection “The Beast with Five Fingers and Other Tales.” This story, which bears similarities to the one you provided earlier, was later adapted into a film in 1946 starring Peter Lorre.

Harvey’s writing style is often compared to that of M. R. James, another prominent author of ghost stories. His tales are characterized by their subtle horror, psychological depth, and often ambiguous endings.

Despite his talent, Harvey’s output was relatively small. He published only three collections of short stories during his lifetime: “Midnight House and Other Tales” (1910), “The Beast with Five Fingers and Other Tales” (1919), and “Moods and Tenses” (1933).

Harvey suffered from poor health throughout his life, which may have contributed to his limited literary output. He died in 1937 at the age of 52.

While not as widely known as some of his contemporaries, W. F. Harvey is still remembered and respected in the genre of supernatural fiction, with his stories occasionally appearing in modern anthologies of classic horror tales.

The post The Beast with Five Fingers By W. F. HARVEY first appeared on Every Writer.

THE JUNIPER-TREE

By Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they remained childless.

In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree. One winter’s day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the snow. ‘Ah,’ sighed the woman heavily, ‘if I had but a child, as red as blood and as white as snow,’ and as she spoke the words, her heart grew light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed, and the snow had all disappeared; then another month went by, and all the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. ‘If I die, bury me under the juniper-tree.’ Then she felt comforted and happy again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy was so great that she died.

Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later on he married again.

He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left school to the time he went back.

One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the store-room, and said, ‘Mother, give me an apple.’ ‘Yes, my child,’ said the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock.

‘Mother,’ said the little daughter again, ‘may not brother have one too?’ The mother was angry at this, but she answered, ‘Yes, when he comes out of school.’

Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out of her little daughter’s hand, and said, ‘You shall not have one before your brother.’ She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say kindly to him, ‘My son, will you have an apple?’ but she gave him a wicked look. ‘Mother,’ said the boy, ‘how dreadful you look! Yes, give me an apple.’ The thought came to her that she would kill him. ‘Come with me,’ she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest; ‘take one out for yourself.’ And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy’s head. Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done. ‘If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,’ she thought. So she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of her top drawer; then she set the boy’s head again on his shoulders, and bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand.

Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, ‘Mother, brother is sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale; and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that frightened me.’

‘Go to him again,’ said her mother, ‘and if he does not answer, give him a box on the ear.’ So little Marleen went, and said, ‘Brother, give me that apple,’ but he did not say a word; then she gave him a box on the ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran crying and screaming to her mother. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I have knocked off brother’s head,’ and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her.

‘What have you done!’ said her mother, ‘but no one must know about it, so you must keep silence; what is done can’t be undone; we will make him into puddings.’ And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on, and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no need of salt.

Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner; he asked, ‘Where is my son?’ The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing.

The father again asked, ‘Where is my son?’

‘Oh,’ answered the wife, ‘he is gone into the country to his mother’s great uncle; he is going to stay there some time.’

‘What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!’

‘Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six weeks; he is well looked after there.’

‘I feel very unhappy about it,’ said the husband, ‘in case it should not be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.’

With this he went on with his dinner, and said, ‘Little Marleen, why do you weep? Brother will soon be back.’ Then he asked his wife for more pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table.

Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the juniper-tree, and she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the silk handkerchief and the bones were gone.

Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to the table and ate.

The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to sing:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.’

‘Nay,’ said the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold chain, and I will sing it you again.’

‘Here is the chain, take it,’ said the goldsmith. ‘Only sing me that again.’

The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker’s house and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing!’ Then he called through the door to his wife: ‘Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it and hear how beautifully it sings.’ Then he called his daughter and the children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two bright stars in its head.

‘Bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘sing me that song again.’

‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; you must give me something.’

‘Wife,’ said the man, ‘go into the garret; on the upper shelf you will see a pair of red shoes; bring them to me.’ The wife went in and fetched the shoes.

‘There, bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘now sing me that song again.’

The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he went back to the roof and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click clack.’ Inside the mill were twenty of the miller’s men hewing a stone, and as they went ‘Hick hack, hick hack, hick hack,’ the mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click clack.’

The bird settled on a lime-tree in front of the mill and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

then one of the men left off,

  My father grieved when I was gone;

two more men left off and listened,

  My sister loved me best of all;

then four more left off,

  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie

Now there were only eight at work,

  Underneath,

and now only five,

  the juniper-tree.

and now only one,

  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

then he looked up and the last one had left off work.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it too; sing it again.’

‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; give me that millstone, and I will sing it again.’

‘If it belonged to me alone,’ said the man, ‘you should have it.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the others: ‘if he will sing again, he can have it.’

The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the stone with a beam; then the bird put his head through the hole and took the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the tree and sang—

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round his neck, he flew right away to his father’s house.

The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner.

‘How lighthearted I feel,’ said the father, ‘so pleased and cheerful.’

‘And I,’ said the mother, ‘I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm were coming.’

But little Marleen sat and wept and wept.

Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof.

‘I do feel so happy,’ said the father, ‘and how beautifully the sun shines; I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.’

‘Ah!’ said the wife, ‘and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,’ and she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears.

The bird now flew to the juniper-tree and began singing:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning:

  My father grieved when I was gone;

‘Look, mother,’ said the man, ‘at the beautiful bird that is singing so magnificently; and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious scent of spice in the air!’

  My sister loved me best of all;

then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed.

‘I must go outside and see the bird nearer,’ said the man.

‘Ah, do not go!’ cried the wife. ‘I feel as if the whole house were in flames!’

But the man went out and looked at the bird.

 She laid her kerchief over me,
 And took my bones that they might lie
 Underneath the juniper-tree
 Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the man’s neck, so that it fitted him exactly.

He went inside, and said, ‘See, what a splendid bird that is; he has given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.’

But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor, and her cap fell from her head.

Then the bird began again:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

‘Ah me!’ cried the wife, ‘if I were but a thousand feet beneath the earth, that I might not hear that song.’

  My father grieved when I was gone;

then the woman fell down again as if dead.

  My sister loved me best of all;

‘Well,’ said little Marleen, ‘I will go out too and see if the bird will give me anything.’

So she went out.

  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie

and he threw down the shoes to her,

  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted; she put on the shoes and danced and jumped about in them. ‘I was so miserable,’ she said, ‘when I came out, but that has all passed away; that is indeed a splendid bird, and he has given me a pair of red shoes.’

The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames of fire. ‘Then I will go out too,’ she said, ‘and see if it will lighten my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.’

But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone down on her head, and she was crushed to death.

The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and little Marleen by the hand; then they all three rejoiced, and went inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate.

Summary

A rich couple longed for a child. The wife prayed under a juniper tree, and eventually gave birth to a boy as white as snow and red as blood. However, she died shortly after. The man remarried, and his new wife bore a daughter. The stepmother, jealous of the boy, planned to get rid of him to secure the inheritance for her daughter.

One day, the stepmother tricked the boy into reaching into a chest for an apple. When he did, she slammed the lid, decapitating him. To hide her crime, she propped up his body, tied his head back on with a handkerchief, and told her daughter to offer him an apple. When the girl did so, the boy’s head fell off. Panicked, the stepmother decided to cook the boy into a stew, which she served to his unsuspecting father.

The daughter, Marleen, gathered the boy’s bones and buried them under the juniper tree. Mysteriously, a beautiful bird emerged from the tree. The bird flew to three locations: a goldsmith’s, a shoemaker’s, and a mill. At each stop, it sang a revealing song about the murder and received a gift: a gold chain, red shoes, and a millstone.

Finally, the bird returned to the family’s house. It sang its song, dropped the gold chain to the father and the red shoes to Marleen. When the guilty stepmother came outside, the bird dropped the millstone on her, killing her instantly. In a magical transformation, the boy reappeared, and the reunited family went back into the house, happy once more.

This dark tale incorporates themes of death, rebirth, and poetic justice, wrapped in the supernatural elements common to many Brothers Grimm stories.

Bio

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, known as the Brothers Grimm, were German academics, linguists, and authors who lived in the late 18th to mid-19th centuries.

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786-1859) were born in Hanau, Germany. They were raised in a middle-class family and studied law at the University of Marburg. However, their true passion lay in collecting and preserving German folklore.

In 1812, they published their first collection of folk tales, “Kinder- und Hausmärchen” (Children’s and Household Tales), which included now-famous stories like “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Snow White.” This work, later known as “Grimms’ Fairy Tales,” underwent several revisions and became a cornerstone of Western folklore.

Beyond fairy tales, the brothers made significant contributions to linguistics. They began work on a comprehensive German dictionary and formulated “Grimm’s Law,” a principle in historical linguistics about sound shifts in Indo-European languages.

The Brothers Grimm were also politically active, advocating for German unification and civil liberties. In 1837, they were among the “Göttingen Seven” professors who protested against the king of Hanover’s abrogation of the constitution.

Their work in preserving and studying German cultural heritage earned them respect in academic circles and popularity among the general public. Today, the Brothers Grimm are remembered not only for their fairy tales but also for their contributions to the fields of folklore, linguistics, and German cultural studies.

The post THE JUNIPER-TREE By Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm first appeared on Every Writer.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

by Edgar Allan Poe

Of course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not—especially under the circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had farther opportunities for investigation—through our endeavors to effect this—a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations; and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts—as far as I comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission:—no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity—the last in especial, from the immensely important character of its consequences.

In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the “Bibliotheca Forensica,” and author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish versions of “Wallenstein” and “Gargantua.” M. Valdemar, who has resided principally at Harlem, N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person—his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also, for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness of his hair—the latter, in consequence, being very generally mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous, and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but was disappointed in other results which his peculiar constitution had naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period positively, or thoroughly, under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of his health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.

When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples from him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise, for, although he had always yielded his person freely to my experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with what I did. His disease was of that character which would admit of exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for me about twenty-four hours before the period announced by his physicians as that of his decease.

It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M. Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:

MY DEAR P——,

You may as well come now. D—— and F—— are agreed that I cannot hold out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the time very nearly.

VALDEMAR

I received this note within half an hour after it was written, and in fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man’s chamber. I had not seen him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden hue; the eyes were utterly lustreless; and the emaciation was so extreme that the skin had been broken through by the cheek-bones. His expectoration was excessive. The pulse was barely perceptible. He retained, nevertheless, in a very remarkable manner, both his mental power and a certain degree of physical strength. He spoke with distinctness—took some palliative medicines without aid—and, when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocket-book. He was propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D—— and F—— were in attendance.

After pressing Valdemar’s hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and obtained from them a minute account of the patient’s condition. The left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into another. Several extensive perforations existed; and, at one point, permanent adhesion to the ribs had taken place. These appearances in the right lobe were of comparatively recent date. The ossification had proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no sign of it had been discovered a month before, and the adhesion had only been observed during the three previous days. Independently of the phthisis, the patient was suspected of aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous symptoms rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion of both physicians that M. Valdemar would die about midnight on the morrow (Sunday). It was then seven o’clock on Saturday evening.

On quitting the invalid’s bed-side to hold conversation with myself, Doctors D—— and F—— had bidden him a final farewell. It had not been their intention to return; but, at my request, they agreed to look in upon the patient about ten the next night.

When they had gone, I spoke freely with M. Valdemar on the subject of his approaching dissolution, as well as, more particularly, of the experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite willing and even anxious to have it made, and urged me to commence it at once. A male and a female nurse were in attendance; but I did not feel myself altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no more reliable witnesses than these people, in case of sudden accident, might prove. I therefore postponed operations until about eight the next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom I had some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore L—l,) relieved me from farther embarrassment. It had been my design, originally, to wait for the physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by the urgent entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I had not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.

Mr. L—l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copied verbatim.

It wanted about five minutes of eight when, taking the patient’s hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr. L—l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.

He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, “Yes, I wish to be. I fear you have mesmerized”—adding immediately afterwards: “I fear you have deferred it too long.”

While he spoke thus, I commenced the passes which I had already found most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but although I exerted all my powers, no further perceptible effect was induced until some minutes after ten o’clock, when Doctors D—— and F—— called, according to appointment. I explained to them, in a few words, what I designed, and as they opposed no objection, saying that the patient was already in the death agony, I proceeded without hesitation—exchanging, however, the lateral passes for downward ones, and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the sufferer.

By this time his pulse was imperceptible and his breathing was stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.

This condition was nearly unaltered for a quarter of an hour. At the expiration of this period, however, a natural although a very deep sigh escaped the bosom of the dying man, and the stertorous breathing ceased—that is to say, its stertorousness was no longer apparent; the intervals were undiminished. The patient’s extremities were of an icy coldness.

At five minutes before eleven I perceived unequivocal signs of the mesmeric influence. The glassy roll of the eye was changed for that expression of uneasy inward examination which is never seen except in cases of sleep-waking, and which it is quite impossible to mistake. With a few rapid lateral passes I made the lids quiver, as in incipient sleep, and with a few more I closed them altogether. I was not satisfied, however, with this, but continued the manipulations vigorously, and with the fullest exertion of the will, until I had completely stiffened the limbs of the slumberer, after placing them in a seemingly easy position. The legs were at full length; the arms were nearly so, and reposed on the bed at a moderate distance from the loin. The head was very slightly elevated.

When I had accomplished this, it was fully midnight, and I requested the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar’s condition. After a few experiments, they admitted him to be an unusually perfect state of mesmeric trance. The curiosity of both the physicians was greatly excited. Dr. D—— resolved at once to remain with the patient all night, while Dr. F—— took leave with a promise to return at daybreak. Mr. L—l and the nurses remained.

We left M. Valdemar entirely undisturbed until about three o’clock in the morning, when I approached him and found him in precisely the same condition as when Dr. F—— went away—that is to say, he lay in the same position; the pulse was imperceptible; the breathing was gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the application of a mirror to the lips); the eyes were closed naturally; and the limbs were as rigid and as cold as marble. Still, the general appearance was certainly not that of death.

As I approached M. Valdemar I made a kind of half effort to influence his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I passed the latter gently to and fro above his person. In such experiments with this patient, I had never perfectly succeeded before, and assuredly I had little thought of succeeding now; but to my astonishment, his arm very readily, although feebly, followed every direction I assigned it with mine. I determined to hazard a few words of conversation.

“M. Valdemar,” I said, “are you asleep?” He made no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of the ball; the lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the words:

“Yes;—asleep now. Do not wake me!—let me die so!”

I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever. The right arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the sleep-waker again:

“Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?”

The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before:

“No pain—I am dying.”

I did not think it advisable to disturb him farther just then, and nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F——, who came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at finding the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and applying a mirror to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker again. I did so, saying:

“M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?”

As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during the interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak. At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very faintly, almost inaudibly:

“Yes; still asleep—dying.”

It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians, that M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his present apparently tranquil condition, until death should supervene—and this, it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely repeated my previous question.

While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of the sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the circular hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the centre of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath. The upper lip, at the same time, writhed itself away from the teeth, which it had previously covered completely; while the lower jaw fell with an audible jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in full view the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member of the party then present had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors; but so hideous beyond conception was the appearance of M. Valdemar at this moment, that there was a general shrinking back from the region of the bed.

I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which every reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my business, however, simply to proceed.

There was no longer the faintest sign of vitality in M. Valdemar; and concluding him to be dead, we were consigning him to the charge of the nurses, when a strong vibratory motion was observable in the tongue. This continued for perhaps a minute. At the expiration of this period, there issued from the distended and motionless jaws a voice—such as it would be madness in me to attempt describing. There are, indeed, two or three epithets which might be considered as applicable to it in part; I might say, for example, that the sound was harsh, and broken and hollow; but the hideous whole is indescribable, for the simple reason that no similar sounds have ever jarred upon the ear of humanity. There were two particulars, nevertheless, which I thought then, and still think, might fairly be stated as characteristic of the intonation—as well adapted to convey some idea of its unearthly peculiarity. In the first place, the voice seemed to reach our ears—at least mine—from a vast distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth. In the second place, it impressed me (I fear, indeed, that it will be impossible to make myself comprehended) as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress the sense of touch.

I have spoken both of “sound” and of “voice.” I mean to say that the sound was one of distinct—of even wonderfully, thrillingly distinct—syllabification. M. Valdemar spoke—obviously in reply to the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had asked him, it will be remembered, if he still slept. He now said:

“Yes;—no;—I have been sleeping—and now—now—I am dead.”

No person present even affected to deny, or attempted to repress, the unutterable, shuddering horror which these few words, thus uttered, were so well calculated to convey. Mr. L—l (the student) swooned. The nurses immediately left the chamber, and could not be induced to return. My own impressions I would not pretend to render intelligible to the reader. For nearly an hour, we busied ourselves, silently—without the utterance of a word—in endeavors to revive Mr. L—l. When he came to himself, we addressed ourselves again to an investigation of M. Valdemar’s condition.

It remained in all respects as I have last described it, with the exception that the mirror no longer afforded evidence of respiration. An attempt to draw blood from the arm failed. I should mention, too, that this limb was no farther subject to my will. I endeavored in vain to make it follow the direction of my hand. The only real indication, indeed, of the mesmeric influence, was now found in the vibratory movement of the tongue, whenever I addressed M. Valdemar a question. He seemed to be making an effort to reply, but had no longer sufficient volition. To queries put to him by any other person than myself he seemed utterly insensible—although I endeavored to place each member of the company in mesmeric rapport with him. I believe that I have now related all that is necessary to an understanding of the sleep-waker’s state at this epoch. Other nurses were procured; and at ten o’clock I left the house in company with the two physicians and Mr. L—l.

In the afternoon we all called again to see the patient. His condition remained precisely the same. We had now some discussion as to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him; but we had little difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be served by so doing. It was evident that, so far, death (or what is usually termed death) had been arrested by the mesmeric process. It seemed clear to us all that to awaken M. Valdemar would be merely to insure his instant, or at least his speedy, dissolution.

From this period until the close of last week—an interval of nearly seven months—we continued to make daily calls at M. Valdemar’s house, accompanied, now and then, by medical and other friends. All this time the sleeper-waker remained exactly as I have last described him. The nurses’ attentions were continual.

It was on Friday last that we finally resolved to make the experiment of awakening, or attempting to awaken him; and it is the (perhaps) unfortunate result of this latter experiment which has given rise to so much discussion in private circles—to so much of what I cannot help thinking unwarranted popular feeling.

For the purpose of relieving M. Valdemar from the mesmeric trance, I made use of the customary passes. These, for a time, were unsuccessful. The first indication of revival was afforded by a partial descent of the iris. It was observed, as especially remarkable, that this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by the profuse out-flowing of a yellowish ichor (from beneath the lids) of a pungent and highly offensive odor.

It was now suggested that I should attempt to influence the patient’s arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and failed. Dr. F—— then intimated a desire to have me put a question. I did so, as follows:

“M. Valdemar, can you explain to us what are your feelings or wishes now?”

There was an instant return of the hectic circles on the cheeks; the tongue quivered, or rather rolled violently in the mouth (although the jaws and lips remained rigid as before), and at length the same hideous voice which I have already described, broke forth:

“For God’s sake!—quick!—quick!—put me to sleep—or, quick!—waken me!—quick!—I say to you that I am dead!”

I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided what to do. At first I made an endeavor to recompose the patient; but, failing in this through total abeyance of the will, I retraced my steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In this attempt I soon saw that I should be successful—or at least I soon fancied that my success would be complete—and I am sure that all in the room were prepared to see the patient awaken.

For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any human being could have been prepared.

As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of “dead! dead!” absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once—within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence.

Questions

1. Why does the narrator initially decide to mesmerize M. Valdemar, and what specific aspects of Valdemar’s condition make him an ideal subject for this experiment?
2. How does Valdemar respond when the narrator proposes the experiment to him? What does this reveal about Valdemar’s character?
3. Describe the scene when the narrator arrives at Valdemar’s deathbed. What is Valdemar’s physical condition at this point?
4. How do the doctors present (D—— and F——) react to the narrator’s proposal to mesmerize the dying Valdemar? Why might their reaction be significant?
5. What immediate physical changes does the narrator observe in Valdemar as he begins the mesmerizing process?
6. When the narrator first speaks to the mesmerized Valdemar, what is Valdemar’s response? How does this affect those present?
7. How does Valdemar’s condition change over the next seven months? What do the narrator and the doctors observe during this period?
8. When they decide to attempt to awaken Valdemar after seven months, what are the first signs of change they notice?
9. What happens when the narrator asks Valdemar about his feelings or wishes? How does Valdemar respond, and what is the impact on those present?
10. Describe the final moments of the experiment. What happens to Valdemar’s body, and how does this relate to the story’s overall horror?

Analysis

Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” is a chilling exploration of the boundaries between life and death, presented as a pseudo-scientific account of a mesmerism experiment. The story’s narrative structure, which mimics a medical report, lends an air of credibility to the horrific events described, enhancing the overall sense of unease.

The tale centers on the narrator’s attempt to mesmerize a man at the point of death, a premise that immediately sets up ethical and metaphysical questions. This experimental approach to death reflects the 19th-century fascination with spiritualism and pseudo-sciences, while also tapping into primal human fears about mortality and the unknown.

Poe’s vivid, clinical descriptions of Valdemar’s physical state serve to build tension and horror throughout the story. The contrast between the narrator’s matter-of-fact tone and the increasingly grotesque details creates a disturbing cognitive dissonance for the reader. This technique is particularly effective in the final scene, where the clinical observation gives way to utter revulsion.

The story’s central horror lies in Valdemar’s liminal state between life and death. His declaration “I am dead” from a state of apparent animation is one of the most chilling moments in literature, encapsulating the terror of consciousness trapped in a dead body. This concept touches on deep-seated fears of being buried alive or of the mind outliving the body.

Poe’s use of language is crucial to the story’s impact. The narrator’s initial scientific detachment gradually gives way to expressions of horror, mirroring the reader’s growing unease. The description of Valdemar’s voice as “gelatinous or glutinous” foreshadows the horrific decomposition at the story’s conclusion.

The tale’s ambiguous ending leaves readers with unsettling questions about the nature of death and the ethics of scientific experimentation. The sudden, grotesque dissolution of Valdemar’s body can be interpreted as a punishment for tampering with the natural order, or as the inevitable result of delaying the process of death.

Ultimately, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” stands as a masterpiece of psychological and body horror. It combines elements of gothic literature with pseudo-scientific concepts to create a uniquely disturbing narrative. The story’s power lies in its ability to provoke both intellectual disquiet and visceral revulsion, making it a quintessential example of Poe’s talent for exploring the darker aspects of the human psyche

The post THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR by Edgar Allan Poe first appeared on Every Writer.

NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD

A Tale With a Moral.

by Edgar Allan Poe

“Con tal que las costumbres de un autor,” says Don Thomas de las Torres, in the preface to his “Amatory Poems” “sean puras y castas, importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras”—meaning, in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We presume that Don Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print, or are laid definitely upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and, what is more to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon the “Batrachomyomachia,” and proved that the poet’s object was to excite a distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther; by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch. Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in “The Antediluvians,” a parable in Powhatan, “new views in Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop O’ My Thumb.” In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is to say, it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the “Dial,” or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to intend:—so that it will all come very straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:—that is the secret. By and by the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution—by way of mitigating the accusations against me—I offer the sad history appended,—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement—a far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.

Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction—even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant—for duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies, like tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the better for beating—but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements, and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until, at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets.

Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that, when he came to be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers—no. I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His expressions on this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They were simple if not altogether innocent expletives—imaginative phrases wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said “I’ll bet you so and so,” nobody ever thought of taking him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a vulgar one—this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by society—here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act of Congress—here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie. I remonstrated—but to no purpose. I demonstrated—in vain. I entreated—he smiled. I implored—he laughed. I preached—he sneered. I threatened—he swore. I kicked him—he called for the police. I pulled his nose—he blew it, and offered to bet the Devil his head that I would not venture to try that experiment again.

Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of Dammit’s mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as “I’ll bet you a dollar.” It was usually “I’ll bet you what you please,” or “I’ll bet you what you dare,” or “I’ll bet you a trifle,” or else, more significantly still, “I’ll bet the Devil my head.”

This latter form seemed to please him best;—perhaps because it involved the least risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious. Had any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would have been small too. But these are my own reflections and I am by no means sure that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events the phrase in question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man betting his brains like bank-notes—but this was a point which my friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend. In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to “I’ll bet the Devil my head,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something in the air with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance to his offensive expression—something in his manner of enunciation—which at first interested, and afterwards made me very uneasy—something which, for want of a more definite term at present, I must be permitted to call queer; but which Mr. Coleridge would have called mystical, Mr. Kant pantheistical, Mr. Carlyle twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyperquizzitistical. I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammits soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve him as St. Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the toad,—that is to say, “awaken him to a sense of his situation.” I addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at expostulation.

When I had made an end of my lecture, Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to one side, and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent. Then he spread out the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he shut them both up very tight. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to reply.

I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged to me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice. He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to take care of himself. Did I still think him baby Dammit? Did I mean to say any thing against his character? Did I intend to insult him? Was I a fool? Was my maternal parent aware, in a word, of my absence from the domiciliary residence? He would put this latter question to me as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself to abide by my reply. Once more he would demand explicitly if my mother knew that I was out. My confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be willing to bet the Devil his head that she did not.

Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been aroused. For once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I would have won for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit’s little head—for the fact is, my mamma was very well aware of my merely temporary absence from home.

But Khoda shefa midêhed—Heaven gives relief—as the Mussulmans say when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I had been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me, however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case of this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer with my counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although I forebore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself to give up his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some of his less reprehensible propensities; and there were times when I found myself lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes:—so profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.

One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, our route led us in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to cross it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and the archway, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare and the interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of the unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet the Devil his head that I was hipped. He seemed to be in an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively—so much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals. I am not well enough versed, however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with decision upon the point; and unhappily there were none of my friends of the “Dial” present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain species of austere Merry-Andrewism which seemed to beset my poor friend, and caused him to make quite a Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve him but wriggling and skipping about under and over every thing that came in his way; now shouting out, and now lisping out, all manner of odd little and big words, yet preserving the gravest face in the world all the time. I really could not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him. At length, having passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the termination of the footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do. The best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style was my friend Mr. Carlyle, and as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe that it could be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he was a braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be sorry afterward;—for he straightway offered to bet the Devil his head that he could.

I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation “ahem!” I started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into a nook of the frame—work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly down over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl’s. His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head.

Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a circumstance, he interrupted me with a second “ahem!”

To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact is, remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word “Fudge!” I am not ashamed to say, therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.

“Dammit,” said I, “what are you about? don’t you hear?—the gentleman says ‘ahem!’” I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him; for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man is particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is pretty sure to look like a fool.

“Dammit,” observed I—although this sounded very much like an oath, than which nothing was further from my thoughts—“Dammit,” I suggested—“the gentleman says ‘ahem!’”

I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I did not think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect of our speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a Paixhan bomb, or knocked him in the head with the “Poets and Poetry of America,” he could hardly have been more discomfited than when I addressed him with those simple words: “Dammit, what are you about?—don’t you hear?—the gentleman says ‘ahem!’”

“You don’t say so?” gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. “Are you quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then—ahem!”

At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased—God only knows why. He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking all the while straight up in his face with an air of the most unadulterated benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to imagine.

“I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit,” said he, with the frankest of all smiles, “but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of mere form.”

“Ahem!” replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down the corners of his mouth—“ahem!” And “ahem!” said he again, after a pause; and not another word more than “ahem!” did I ever know him to say after that. “Aha!” thought I, without expressing myself aloud—“this is quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt a consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him my last lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals.”

“Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and looking like a very old sheep in a revery.

The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the shade of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good fellow,” said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say ‘one, two, three, and away.’ Mind you, start at the word ‘away.’” Here he took his position by the stile, paused a moment as if in profound reflection, then looked up and, I thought, smiled very slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a long look at Dammit, and finally gave the word as agreed upon—

One—two—three—and—away!

Punctually at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong gallop. The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord’s—nor yet very low, like that of Mr. Lord’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the question—what if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he asks me to jump, I won’t do it, that’s flat, and I don’t care who the devil he is.” The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times—an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four last words of my remark.

But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from the floor of the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to admiration just over the top of the stile; and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of a moment, and, before I had a chance to make any profound reflections, down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back, on the same side of the stile from which he had started. At the same instant I saw the old gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had no leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived of his head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere; so I determined to take him home and send for the homœopathists. In the meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once. About five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the foot-path so as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served to strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact.

He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathists did not give him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for dog’s meat.

Bio

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, and literary critic known for his haunting poetry and macabre short stories. Orphaned at a young age, Poe had a troubled childhood and struggled with financial difficulties and alcoholism throughout his life. Despite these challenges, he became a pioneering figure in literature.

Poe’s career began with poetry, but he gained fame with his short stories, particularly his detective fiction and tales of horror. His most famous works include “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Poe’s writing style, characterized by psychological intensity and gothic themes, significantly influenced the development of detective fiction and science fiction genres.

In 1836, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, whose death in 1847 deeply affected him. Two years later, Poe himself died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore at the age of 40. Despite his short life, Poe’s impact on literature has been profound and long-lasting, with his works continuing to be widely read and studied today.

The post Never Bet the Devil Your Head by Edgar Allan Poe first appeared on Every Writer.

Young Goodman Brown

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown.

“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, “prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she’s afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.”

“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done ’twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?”

“Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons; “and may you find all well when you come back.”

“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”

So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.

“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; ’twould kill her to think it. Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.”

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, “What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!”

His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown’s approach and walked onward side by side with him.

“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.”

“Faith kept me back a while,” replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected.

It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at the governor’s dinner table or in King William’s court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.

“Come, Goodman Brown,” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.”

“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st of.”

“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. “Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet.”

“Too far! too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept—”

“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. “Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that’s no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their sake.”

“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness.”

“Wickedness or not,” said the traveller with the twisted staff, “I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too—But these are state secrets.”

“Can this be so?” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day.”

Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he again and again; then composing himself, “Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don’t kill me with laughing.”

“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I’d rather break my own.”

“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e’en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us that Faith should come to any harm.”

As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin.

“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall,” said he. “But with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going.”

“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path.”

Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staff’s length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words—a prayer, doubtless—as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent’s tail.

“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady.

“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the traveller, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick.

“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?” cried the good dame. “Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But—would your worship believe it?—my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf’s bane.”

“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said the shape of old Goodman Brown.

“Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady, cackling aloud. “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.”

“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will.”

So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.

“That old woman taught me my catechism,” said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.

They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week’s sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther.

“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?”

“You will think better of this by and by,” said his acquaintance, composedly. “Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along.”

Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.

On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man’s hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.

“Of the two, reverend sir,” said the voice like the deacon’s, “I had rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night’s meeting. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian powwows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion.”

“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones of the minister. “Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground.”

The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.

“With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” cried Goodman Brown.

While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.

“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, “Faith! Faith!” as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.

“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.”

And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds—the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him.

“Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you.”

In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert.

In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.

“A grave and dark-clad company,” quoth Goodman Brown.

In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.

“But where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled.

Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches.

“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest.

At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil’s promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire.

“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!”

They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.

“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows’ weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers’ wealth; and how fair damsels—blush not, sweet ones—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant’s funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places—whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest—where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power—than my power at its utmost—can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each other.”

They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar.

“Lo, there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. “Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.”

“Welcome,” repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph.

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw!

“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband, “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one.”

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.

The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. “What God doth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning’s milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.

Bio

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American novelist and short story writer born in Salem, Massachusetts. His family’s deep New England roots, including an ancestor’s role in the Salem Witch Trials, significantly influenced his writing.

After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, Hawthorne began his writing career, publishing his first novel, “Fanshawe,” anonymously in 1828. He gained recognition with his short story collection “Twice-Told Tales” (1837) but struggled financially, leading him to work at the Boston and Salem Custom Houses.

Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842 and briefly associated with Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson. His most productive period began with the publication of “The Scarlet Letter” (1850), followed by “The House of the Seven Gables” (1851) and “The Blithedale Romance” (1852).

From 1853 to 1857, Hawthorne served as the U.S. consul in Liverpool, England, appointed by his college friend, President Franklin Pierce. His final completed novel, “The Marble Faun,” was published in 1860.

Hawthorne’s work, characterized by its exploration of human psychology, guilt, and moral ambiguity, often criticized Puritan society and its impact on New England. He is considered a key figure in American literature, bridging Transcendentalism and realism.

Summary

The story begins in Salem village, where young Goodman Brown bids farewell to his wife, Faith, to embark on a mysterious night journey. Faith, wearing pink ribbons in her hair, pleads with him to stay, but Brown insists he must go.

As Brown enters the forest, he encounters an older man who bears a striking resemblance to him. This man, carrying a staff that looks like a black serpent, is revealed to be the devil. Brown expresses hesitation about their journey, citing his family’s long history of being good Christians. The devil, however, claims to have been well acquainted with Brown’s father and grandfather, helping them in acts of cruelty and intolerance.

As they travel deeper into the woods, Brown witnesses respected members of his community also journeying through the forest for seemingly nefarious purposes. He sees Goody Cloyse, his old catechism teacher, revealed as a witch, and overhears the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin discussing an unholy gathering.

Distressed, Brown calls out to heaven and his wife Faith for strength. Suddenly, he hears Faith’s voice in the sky, and a pink ribbon flutters down from above. Believing Faith to be lost to evil, Brown gives in to despair and rushes madly through the forest.

He arrives at a clearing where a Satanic ritual is taking place. The congregation includes not only criminals and sinners but also the most respected members of the community. Brown is brought forward with a veiled woman, implied to be Faith, to be baptized into this evil brotherhood. At the last moment, he tells Faith to “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one!”

Suddenly, Brown finds himself alone in the calm night forest. It’s unclear whether the night’s events were real or a dream.

The story concludes with Brown returning to Salem a changed man. He becomes distrustful of everyone, including his wife, and lives out his days as a stern, sad, and cynical person. He dies a bitter man, and his grave bears no hopeful words.

The ambiguity of whether Brown’s experience was real or a dream is central to the story’s themes. Regardless of its reality, the experience destroys Brown’s faith in his fellow man and his own moral superiority. The tale serves as an allegory for the loss of innocence and the realization of the potential for evil in all humans, even those who appear most virtuous.

Analysis

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is a richly layered allegorical tale that explores the loss of innocence, the universality of sin, and the conflict between faith and doubt. Set against the backdrop of Puritan New England, the story follows the titular character’s nightmarish journey into a forest rife with moral ambiguity and hidden sins. Hawthorne employs a range of literary techniques to convey his themes, including symbolism, irony, and ambiguity. The forest itself symbolizes the unknown and moral darkness, while Faith’s pink ribbons represent innocence and purity. The serpent-like staff carried by the old man/devil figure serves as a potent symbol of temptation, echoing the biblical serpent in Eden.

The narrative structure of the story contributes significantly to its impact. Told from a third-person limited perspective focused on Brown, it allows readers to experience his confusion and horror firsthand while maintaining some narrative distance. Hawthorne’s use of ambiguity, particularly regarding whether Brown’s experience is real or a dream, adds psychological depth to the tale and invites multiple interpretations. This ambiguity extends to the fate of Faith, Brown’s wife, whose name symbolically represents his religious conviction.

Hawthorne’s critique of Puritan society is evident throughout the story. By revealing the most respected members of the community as participants in the sinister forest gathering, he challenges the notion of visible sainthood and exposes the hypocrisy inherent in such rigid moral codes. The story can be read as an indictment of the Puritan obsession with sin and virtue, as well as a broader commentary on the human capacity for evil. The character of Young Goodman Brown serves as an everyman figure, his journey representing the universal loss of innocence that comes with maturity and knowledge of the world.

The power of the story lies in its exploration of the darker aspects of human nature and society. Through Brown’s experience, Hawthorne suggests that the knowledge of evil can be profoundly destructive to one’s psyche and faith. The story’s conclusion, with Brown living out his days as a distrustful and bitter man, underscores the lasting impact of his forest journey, whether real or imagined. This transformation speaks to the dangers of moral absolutism and the potential consequences of losing faith in humanity.

“Young Goodman Brown” continues to resonate with readers due to its complex themes and the universal questions it raises about the nature of good and evil, appearance versus reality, and the struggle between faith and doubt. Hawthorne’s masterful use of symbolism, allegory, and ambiguity creates a story that supports multiple interpretations, inviting readers to question their own beliefs and perceptions. Ultimately, the story serves as a powerful exploration of the human heart’s capacity for both virtue and sin, challenging us to confront the potential for darkness within ourselves and our society.

Guided Questions

1. At the beginning of the story, why does Goodman Brown insist on taking his journey despite his wife’s protests?
2. What is the significance of Faith’s pink ribbons, and how do they symbolize her character?
3. As Brown enters the forest, what does he say about his family’s history, and how does this contrast with what the older man tells him?
4. How does the staff carried by the older man change, and what might this symbolize?
5. When Brown encounters Goody Cloyse in the forest, what does he learn about her, and how does this affect him?
6. What does Brown overhear about the minister and Deacon Gookin, and how does this information impact his faith?
7. At what point does Brown decide to turn back, and what prevents him from doing so?
8. What is the significance of the moment when Brown hears Faith’s voice in the sky and sees a pink ribbon flutter down?
9. How does Brown’s behavior change after he believes Faith has been taken by evil?
10. Describe the scene Brown encounters in the forest clearing. Who is present, and what is happening?
11. What does the dark figure at the altar say about sin and evil in human nature?
12. How does Brown react when he sees Faith at the altar, and what does he urge her to do?
13. What happens immediately after Brown cries out to Faith to “look up to heaven”?
14. When Brown returns to Salem, how does he perceive and interact with the townspeople, including his wife?
15. How has Brown’s personality and outlook on life changed by the end of the story, and what might this suggest about the lasting impact of his experience?

The post Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne first appeared on Every Writer.

Drone

by Salvatore Difalco

A fly flew into Diego’s mouth. He spluttered and waved his arms around, disgusted. One hundred Fahrenheit in the shade and the flies buzzed undeterred. They were tough. He rolled down the car window and spat. Must have been a dead body nearby. Flies like dead bodies. Not even funny, what with the maggots and so forth. Was anything more disgusting? He had an hour to kill before his grandmother finished with her appointment. She was getting a perm. That took time. He’d agreed to drive her to the salon on this one occasion. His sister, Marissa, who normally took her, had gout. She looked awful. Gout was an awful thing. She got it from eating too many peanuts or something, Diego wasn’t sure. He didn’t care for Marissa. Ever since their parents died in a car crash five years ago, she’d become a sourpuss. Yes, she was older, but she had no right to boss him around and belittle him the way she did all the time. He could do nothing right in her eyes. He couldn’t even lift a spoon without enraging her. Once their grandmother passed—she’d moved in with them after the car accident—and they sold the family home, he’d move away from Marissa and the city and do his own thing. His grandmother would be ninety in three years. Her clock was ticking. It would be sad, but it had to happen eventually—it would. Flies buzzed around Deigo’s head. He swatted at them but without much effect. He rolled up his window. He’d read how flies lived in a slowed-down time frame. From their perspective, humans moved like giant sloths. Still, you could catch one now and then using misdirection. That was true of many things. Misdirection worked. Time seemed to pass as slowly as was possible. He shut his eyes and listened to the ambient street noise, soothing save for the dogged flies, humming away. He switched on the radio and tried to find a station not playing hip hop or annoying female pop singers. They all sounded the same. One fly in particular persisted, repeatedly landing on his cheek. After several of these contacts, Diego slapped at the fly but caught himself with a percussive wallop. His cheek smarted from the blow. All these damn flies. Had to be a dead body in the vicinity. No doubt about it. Maybe a squirrel, or a raccoon. He checked his watch and started. Geez, two hours had passed? He checked his watch again. He must have fallen asleep. Two hours? Where was his grandmother? She should have been done by now. What was she doing? An ambulance slowly pulled up to the beauty parlor, lights and sirens not engaged. Never a good sign. The flies swarmed around Diego’s car. There were so many of them. They blackened his windshield. He couldn’t see out. He could hear them massing. The sound grew deafening. They covered his car like a writhing black sheet.

Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada

The post Drone by Salvatore Difalco first appeared on Every Writer.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

by Ambrose Bierce

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground—a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by— it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
II

Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.

“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”

“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.

“About thirty miles.”

“Is there no force on this side of the creek?”

“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.”

“Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar, smiling, “what could he accomplish?”

The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder.”

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.
III

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness—of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!—the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface—knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought, “that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly—with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men—with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:

“Company!… Attention!… Shoulder arms!… Ready!… Aim!… Fire!”

Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream—nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:

“The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!”

An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

“They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me—the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.”

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round—spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color—that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream—the southern bank—and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of AEolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape—he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which—once, twice, and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

Summary

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is a short story set during the American Civil War. It begins with Peyton Farquhar, a wealthy Alabama planter and Confederate sympathizer, about to be hanged from Owl Creek Bridge by Union soldiers. Through a flashback, we learn that Farquhar was tricked by a disguised Union scout into attempting to sabotage the bridge, leading to his capture. As Farquhar is hanged, the rope seemingly breaks, and he falls into the creek. What follows is a vivid and surreal escape sequence, where Farquhar frees himself, evades soldiers and cannon fire, and makes a desperate journey home. His senses become incredibly heightened as he travels through a strange, dreamlike landscape. The story concludes with Farquhar finally reaching his home and seeing his wife. However, just as he’s about to embrace her, he feels a sharp blow to his neck, and the scene abruptly shifts back to reality: Farquhar is dead, hanging from Owl Creek Bridge. The entire escape was just a hallucination that occurred in the moments before his death. Bierce’s story is notable for its surprise ending and its exploration of time distortion, the power of imagination, and the fine line between reality and illusion in the face of death.

Bio

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842-1914?) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran. Born in Ohio, Bierce enlisted in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War, serving from 1861 to 1865. His wartime experiences greatly influenced his writing, particularly his famous short stories.

After the war, Bierce began his writing career, eventually moving to San Francisco where he gained notoriety as a contributor and editor for various publications. He was known for his sardonic view of human nature and his biting wit, earning him the nickname “Bitter Bierce.”

Bierce’s most famous works include “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “The Devil’s Dictionary,” and “The Boarded Window.” His writing style, characterized by a combination of realism and psychological horror, had a significant impact on American literature.

In 1913, at the age of 71, Bierce traveled to Mexico to observe the Mexican Revolution firsthand. He disappeared without a trace, and the circumstances of his death remain a mystery to this day, adding a final, intriguing chapter to his legend.

Guided Questions

1. How does Bierce use the structure of the story (divided into three parts) to enhance the narrative? What effect does this have on the reader’s understanding of events?
2. Discuss the significance of time in the story. How does Bierce manipulate the perception of time, and what does this suggest about the human mind in extreme situations?
3. Analyze the vivid sensory details in Part III. How do these contribute to the story’s atmosphere and Farquhar’s experience?
4. What role does the Civil War setting play in the story? How might the story be different if set in another time or conflict?
5. Examine the character of Peyton Farquhar. What motivates his actions, and how does Bierce’s portrayal of him influence the reader’s sympathies?
6. How does the story explore the theme of reality versus illusion? What might Bierce be suggesting about the nature of perception and experience?
7. Discuss the significance of the bridge as a symbol in the story. What might it represent beyond its literal function?
8. How does Bierce build suspense throughout the narrative? Identify specific techniques he uses to keep the reader engaged.
9. Analyze the story’s surprise ending. How does it change the meaning of everything that came before? Was it effectively foreshadowed?
10. Consider the story’s title, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” How does the word “occurrence” frame the events of the story, and what might Bierce be implying by using this term?

The post An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce first appeared on Every Writer.

The Horror in Clay.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden eons which chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it. That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things—in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor. I hope that no one else will accomplish this piecing out; certainly, if I live, I shall never knowingly supply a link in so hideous a chain. I think that the professor, too, intended to keep silent regarding the part he knew, and that he would have destroyed his notes had not sudden death seized him.

My knowledge of the thing began in the winter of 1926-27 with the death of my grand-uncle, George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic languages in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Angell was widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, and had frequently been resorted to by the heads of prominent museums; so that his passing at the age of ninety-two may be recalled by many. Locally, interest was intensified by the obscurity of the cause of death. The professor had been stricken whilst returning from the Newport boat; falling suddenly, as witnesses said, after having been jostled by a nautical-looking negro who had come from one of the queer dark courts on the precipitous hillside which formed a short cut from the waterfront to the deceased’s home in Williams Street. Physicians were unable to find any visible disorder, but concluded after perplexed debate that some obscure lesion of the heart, induced by the brisk ascent of so steep a hill by so elderly a man, was responsible for the end. At the time I saw no reason to dissent from this dictum, but latterly I am inclined to wonder—and more than wonder.

As my granduncle’s heir and executor, for he died a childless widower, I was expected to go over his papers with some thoroughness; and for that purpose moved his entire set of files and boxes to my quarters in Boston. Much of the material which I correlated will be later published by the American Archeological Society, but there was one box which I found exceedingly puzzling, and which I felt much averse from showing to other eyes. It had been locked, and I did not find the key till it occurred to me to examine the personal ring which the professor carried always in his pocket. Then, indeed, I succeeded in opening it, but when I did so seemed only to be confronted by a greater and more closely locked barrier. For what could be the meaning of the queer clay bas-relief and the disjointed jottings, ramblings, and cuttings which I found? Had my uncle, in his latter years, become credulous of the most superficial impostures? I resolved to search out the eccentric sculptor responsible for this apparent disturbance of an old man’s peace of mind.

The bas-relief was a rough rectangle less than an inch thick and about five by six inches in area; obviously of modern origin. Its designs, however, were far from modern in atmosphere and suggestion; for, although the vagaries of cubism and futurism are many and wild, they do not often reproduce that cryptic regularity which lurks in prehistoric writing. And writing of some kind the bulk of these designs seemed certainly to be; though my memory, despite much familiarity with the papers and collections of my uncle, failed in any way to identify this particular species, or even hint at its remotest affiliations.

Above these apparent hieroglyphics was a figure of evidently pictorial intent, though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean architectural background.

The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in Professor Angell’s most recent hand; and made no pretense to literary style. What seemed to be the main document was headed “CTHULHU CULT” in characters painstakingly printed to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheard-of. This manuscript was divided into two sections, the first of which was headed “1925—Dream and Dream Work of H. A. Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Providence, R. I.,” and the second, “Narrative of Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 A. A. S. Mtg—Notes on Same, & Prof. Webb’s Acct.” The other manuscript papers were all brief notes, some of them accounts of the queer dreams of different persons, some of them citations from theosophical books and magazines (notably W. Scott-Eliott’s Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria), and the rest comments on long-surviving secret societies and hidden cults, with references to passages in such mythological and anthropological source-books as Frazer’s Golden Bough and Miss Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western Europe. The cuttings largely alluded to outré mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania in the spring of 1925.

The first half of the principal manuscript told a very peculiar tale. It appears that on March 1st, 1925, a thin, dark young man of neurotic and excited aspect had called upon Professor Angell bearing the singular clay bas-relief, which was then exceedingly damp and fresh. His card bore the name of Henry Anthony Wilcox, and my uncle had recognized him as the youngest son of an excellent family slightly known to him, who had latterly been studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and living alone at the Fleur-de-Lys Building near that institution. Wilcox was a precocious youth of known genius but great eccentricity, and had from childhood excited attention through the strange stories and odd dreams he was in the habit of relating. He called himself “psychically hypersensitive”, but the staid folk of the ancient commercial city dismissed him as merely “queer”. Never mingling much with his kind, he had dropped gradually from social visibility, and was now known only to a small group of esthetes from other towns. Even the Providence Art Club, anxious to preserve its conservatism, had found him quite hopeless.

On the occasion of the visit, ran the professor’s manuscript, the sculptor abruptly asked for the benefit of his host’s archeological knowledge in identifying the hieroglyphics on the bas-relief. He spoke in a dreamy, stilted manner which suggested pose and alienated sympathy; and my uncle showed some sharpness in replying, for the conspicuous freshness of the tablet implied kinship with anything but archeology. Young Wilcox’s rejoinder, which impressed my uncle enough to make him recall and record it verbatim, was of a fantastically poetic cast which must have typified his whole conversation, and which I have since found highly characteristic of him. He said, “It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.”

It was then that he began that rambling tale which suddenly played upon a sleeping memory and won the fevered interest of my uncle. There had been a slight earthquake tremor the night before, the most considerable felt in New England for some years; and Wilcox’s imagination had been keenly affected. Upon retiring, he had had an unprecedented dream of great Cyclopean cities of Titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics had covered the walls and pillars, and from some undetermined point below had come a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into sound, but which he attempted to render by the almost unpronounceable jumble of letters, “Cthulhu fhtagn“.

This verbal jumble was the key to the recollection which excited and disturbed Professor Angell. He questioned the sculptor with scientific minuteness; and studied with almost frantic intensity the bas-relief on which the youth had found himself working, chilled and clad only in his nightclothes, when waking had stolen bewilderingly over him. My uncle blamed his old age, Wilcox afterward said, for his slowness in recognizing both hieroglyphics and pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell became convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or system of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor with demands for future reports of dreams. This bore regular fruit, for after the first interview the manuscript records daily calls of the young man, during which he related startling fragments of nocturnal imagery whose burden was always some terrible Cyclopean vista of dark and dripping stone, with a subterrene voice or intelligence shouting monotonously in enigmatical sense-impacts uninscribable save as gibberish. The two sounds most frequently repeated are those rendered by the letters “Cthulhu” and “R’lyeh“.

On March 23rd, the manuscript continued, Wilcox failed to appear; and inquiries at his quarters revealed that he had been stricken with an obscure sort of fever and taken to the home of his family in Waterman Street. He had cried out in the night, arousing several other artists in the building, and had manifested since then only alternations of unconsciousness and delirium. My uncle at once telephoned the family, and from that time forward kept close watch of the case; calling often at the Thayer Street office of Dr. Tobey, whom he learned to be in charge. The youth’s febrile mind, apparently, was dwelling on strange things; and the doctor shuddered now and then as he spoke of them. They included not only a repetition of what he had formerly dreamed, but touched wildly on a gigantic thing “miles high” which walked or lumbered about. He at no time fully described this object, but occasional frantic words, as repeated by Dr. Tobey, convinced the professor that it must be identical with the nameless monstrosity he had sought to depict in his dream-sculpture. Reference to this object, the doctor added, was invariably a prelude to the young man’s subsidence into lethargy. His temperature, oddly enough, was not greatly above normal; but the whole condition was otherwise such as to suggest true fever rather than mental disorder.

On April 2nd at about 3 p. m. every trace of Wilcox’s malady suddenly ceased. He sat upright in bed, astonished to find himself at home and completely ignorant of what had happened in dream or reality since the night of March 22nd. Pronounced well by his physician, he returned to his quarters in three days; but to Professor Angell he was of no further assistance. All traces of strange dreaming had vanished with his recovery, and my uncle kept no record of his night-thoughts after a week of pointless and irrelevant accounts of thoroughly usual visions.

Here the first part of the manuscript ended, but references to certain of the scattered notes gave me much material for thought—so much, in fact, that only the ingrained skepticism then forming my philosophy can account for my continued distrust of the artist. The notes in question were those descriptive of the dreams of various persons covering the same period as that in which young Wilcox had had his strange visitations. My uncle, it seems, had quickly instituted a prodigiously far-flung body of inquiries amongst nearly all the friends whom he could question without impertinence, asking for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visions for some time past. The reception of his request seems to have been varied; but he must, at the very least, have received more responses than any ordinary man could have handled without a secretary. This original correspondence was not preserved, but his notes formed a thorough and really significant digest. Average people in society and business—New England’s traditional “salt of the earth”—gave an almost completely negative result, though scattered cases of uneasy but formless nocturnal impressions appear here and there, always between March 23rd and April 2nd—the period of young Wilcox’s delirium. Scientific men were little more affected, though four cases of vague description suggest fugitive glimpses of strange landscapes, and in one case there is mentioned a dread of something abnormal.

It was from the artists and poets that the pertinent answers came, and I know that panic would have broken loose had they been able to compare notes. As it was, lacking their original letters, I half suspected the compiler of having asked leading questions, or of having edited the correspondence in corroboration of what he had latently resolved to see. That is why I continued to feel that Wilcox, somehow cognizant of the old data which my uncle had possessed, had been imposing on the veteran scientist. These responses from esthetes told a disturbing tale. From February 28th to April 2nd a large proportion of them had dreamed very bizarre things, the intensity of the dreams being immeasurably the stronger during the period of the sculptor’s delirium. Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported scenes and half-sounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described; and some of the dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward the last. One case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell. Had my uncle referred to these cases by name instead of merely by number, I should have attempted some corroboration and personal investigation; but as it was, I succeeded in tracing down only a few. All of these, however, bore out the notes in full. I have often wondered if all the objects of the professor’s questioning felt as puzzled as did this fraction. It is well that no explanation shall ever reach them.

The press cuttings, as I have intimated, touched on cases of panic, mania, and eccentricity during the given period. Professor Angell must have employed a cutting bureau, for the number of extracts was tremendous, and the sources scattered throughout the globe. Here was a nocturnal suicide in London, where a lone sleeper had leaped from a window after a shocking cry. Here likewise a rambling letter to the editor of a paper in South America, where a fanatic deduces a dire future from visions he has seen. A dispatch from California describes a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some “glorious fulfilment” which never arrives, whilst items from India speak guardedly of serious native unrest toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiply in Haiti, and African outposts report ominous mutterings. American officers in the Philippines find certain tribes bothersome about this time, and New York policemen are mobbed by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 22-23. The west of Ireland, too, is full of wild rumor and legendry, and a fantastic painter named Ardois-Bonnot hangs a blasphemous Dream Landscape in the Paris spring salon of 1926. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions. A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; and I can at this date scarcely envisage the callous rationalism with which I set them aside. But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had known of the older matters mentioned by the professor.

2. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse.

The older matters which had made the sculptor’s dream and bas-relief so significant to my uncle formed the subject of the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, puzzled over the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered only as “Cthulhu“; and all this in so stirring and horrible a connection that it is small wonder he pursued young Wilcox with queries and demands for data.

This earlier experience had come in 1908, seventeen years before, when the American Archeological Society held its annual meeting in St. Louis. Professor Angell, as befitted one of his authority and attainments, had had a prominent part in all the deliberations; and was one of the first to be approached by the several outsiders who took advantage of the convocation to offer questions for correct answering and problems for expert solution.

The chief of these outsiders, and in a short time the focus of interest for the entire meeting, was a commonplace-looking middle-aged man who had traveled all the way from New Orleans for certain special information unobtainable from any local source. His name was John Raymond Legrasse, and he was by profession an inspector of police. With him he bore the subject of his visit, a grotesque, repulsive, and apparently very ancient stone statuette whose origin he was at a loss to determine.

It must not be fancied that Inspector Legrasse had the least interest in archeology. On the contrary, his wish for enlightenment was prompted by purely professional considerations. The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and hideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but realize that they had stumbled on a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Of its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales extorted from the captured members, absolutely nothing was to be discovered; hence the anxiety of the police for any antiquarian lore which might help them to place the frightful symbol, and through it track down the cult to its fountain-head.

Inspector Legrasse was scarcely prepared for the sensation which his offering created. One sight of the thing had been enough to throw the assembled men of science into a state of tense excitement, and they lost no time in crowding around him to gaze at the diminutive figure whose utter strangeness and air of genuinely abysmal antiquity hinted so potently at unopened and archaic vistas. No recognized school of sculpture had animated this terrible object, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone.

The figure, which was finally passed slowly from man to man for close and careful study, was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopuslike head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the center, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way down toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge forepaws which clasped the croucher’s elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally lifelike, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown. Its vast, awesome, and incalculable age was unmistakable; yet not one link did it show with any known type of art belonging to civilization’s youth—or indeed to any other time.

Totally separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy, greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy. The characters along the base were equally baffling; and no member present, despite a representation of half the world’s expert learning in this field, could form the least notion of even their remotest linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know it; something frightfully suggestive of old and unhallowed cycles of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part.

And yet, as the members severally shook their heads and confessed defeat at the inspector’s problem, there was one man in that gathering who suspected a touch of bizarre familiarity in the monstrous shape and writing, and who presently told with some diffidence of the odd trifle he knew. This person was the late William Channing Webb, professor of anthropology in Princeton University, and an explorer of no slight note.

Professor Webb had been engaged, forty-eight years before, in a tour of Greenland and Iceland in search of some Runic inscriptions which he failed to unearth; and whilst high up on the West Greenland coast had encountered a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Eskimos whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and repulsiveness. It was a faith of which other Eskimos knew little, and which they mentioned only with shudders, saying that it had come down from horribly ancient eons before ever the world was made. Besides nameless rites and human sacrifices there were certain queer hereditary rituals addressed to a supreme elder devil or tornasuk; and of this Professor Webb had taken a careful phonetic copy from an aged angekok or wizard-priest, expressing the sounds in Roman letters as best he knew how. But just now of prime significance was the fetish which this cult had cherished, and around which they danced when the aurora leaped high over the ice cliffs. It was, the professor stated, a very crude bas-relief of stone, comprising a hideous picture and some cryptic writing. And as far as he could tell, it was a rough parallel in all essential features of the bestial thing now lying before the meeting.

These data, received with suspense and astonishment by the assembled members, proved doubly exciting to Inspector Legrasse; and he began at once to ply his informant with questions. Having noted and copied an oral ritual among the swamp cult-worshipers his men had arrested, he besought the professor to remember as best he might the syllables taken down amongst the diabolist Eskimos. There then followed an exhaustive comparison of details, and a moment of really awed silence when both detective and scientist agreed on the virtual identity of the phrase common to two hellish rituals so many worlds of distance apart. What, in substance, both the Eskimo wizards and the Louisiana swamp-priests had chanted to their kindred idols was something very like this—the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud:

Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them the words meant. This text, as given, ran something like this:

And now, in response to a general urgent demand, Inspector Legrasse related as fully as possible his experience with the swamp worshipers; telling a story to which I could see my uncle attached profound significance. It savored of the wildest dreams of myth-maker and theosophist, and disclosed an astonishing degree of cosmic imagination among such half-castes and pariahs as might be least expected to possess it.

On November 1st, 1907, there had come to New Orleans police a frantic summons from the swamp and lagoon country to the south. The squatters there, mostly primitive but good-natured descendants of Lafitte’s men, were in the grip of stark terror from an unknown thing which had stolen upon them in the night. It was voodoo, apparently, but voodoo of a more terrible sort than they had ever known; and some of their women and children had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured. There were insane shouts and harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants and dancing devil-flames; and, the frightened messenger added, the people could stand it no more.

So a body of twenty police, filling two carriages and an automobile, had set out in the late afternoon with the shivering squatter as a guide. At the end of the passable road they alighted, and for miles splashed on in silence through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss beset them, and now and then a pile of dank stones or fragments of a rotting wall intensified by its hint of morbid habitation a depression which every malformed tree and every fungous islet combined to create. At length the squatter settlement, a miserable huddle of huts, hove in sight; and hysterical dwellers ran out to cluster around the group of bobbing lanterns. The muffled beat of tom-toms was now faintly audible far, far ahead; and a curdling shriek came at infrequent intervals when the wind shifted. A reddish glare, too, seemed to filter through the pale undergrowth beyond endless avenues of forest night. Reluctant even to be left alone again, each one of the cowed squatters refused point-blank to advance another inch toward the scene of unholy worship, so Inspector Legrasse and his nineteen colleagues plunged on unguided into black arcades of horror that none of them had ever trod before.

The region now entered by the police was one of traditionally evil repute, substantially unknown and untraversed by white men. There were legends of a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypous thing with luminous eyes; and squatters whispered that bat-winged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight. They said it had been there before D’Iberville, before La Salle, before the Indians, and before even the wholesome beasts and birds of the woods. It was nightmare itself, and to see it was to die. But it made men dream, and so they knew enough to keep away. The present voodoo orgy was, indeed, on the merest fringe of this abhorred area, but that location was bad enough; hence perhaps the very place of the worship had terrified the squatters more than the shocking sounds and incidents.

Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they plowed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to demoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululations would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in singsong chant that hideous phrase or ritual:

Then the men, having reached a spot where the trees were thinner, came suddenly in sight of the spectacle itself. Four of them reeled, one fainted, and two were shaken into a frantic cry which the mad cacophony of the orgy fortunately deadened. Legrasse dashed swamp water on the face of the fainting man, and all stood trembling and nearly hypnotized with horror.

In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre’s extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the center of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a center hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshipers jumped and roared, the general direction of the mass motion being from left to right in endless bacchanale between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.

It may have been only imagination and it may have been only echoes which induced one of the men, an excitable Spaniard, to fancy he heard antiphonal responses to the ritual from some far and unillumined spot deeper within the wood of ancient legendry and horror. This man, Joseph D. Galvez, I later met and questioned; and he proved distractingly imaginative. He indeed went so far as to hint of the faint beating of great wings, and of a glimpse of shining eyes and a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest trees—but I suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition.

Actually, the horrified pause of the men was of comparatively brief duration. Duty came first; and although there must have been nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout. For five minutes the resultant din and chaos were beyond description. Wild blows were struck, shots were fired, and escapes were made; but in the end Legrasse was able to count some forty-seven sullen prisoners, whom he forced to dress in haste and fall into line between two rows of policemen. Five of the worshipers lay dead, and two severely wounded ones were carried away on improvised stretchers by their fellow-prisoners. The image on the monolith, of course, was carefully removed and carried back by Legrasse.

Examined at headquarters after a trip of intense strain and weariness, the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a coloring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creatures held with surprizing consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith.

They worshiped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first man, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R’lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.

Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even torture could not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man had ever seen the Old Ones. The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him. No one could read the old writing now, but things were told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret—that was never spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant meant only this: “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the rest were committed to various institutions. All denied a part in the ritual murders, and averred that the killing had been done by Black-winged Ones which had come to them from their immemorial meeting-place in the haunted wood. But of those mysterious allies no coherent account could ever be gained. What the police did extract came mainly from an immensely aged mestizo named Castro, who claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China.

Old Castro remembered bits of hideous legend that paled the speculations of theosophists and made man and the world seem recent and transient indeed. There had been eons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still to be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before man came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.

These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, for Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by molding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals.

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols which the Great Ones showed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old Ones in dreams, but then something had happened. The great stone city R’lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchers, had sunk beneath the waves; and the deep waters, full of the one primal mystery through which not even thought can pass, had cut off the spectral intercourse. But memory never died, and high priests said that the city would rise again when the stars were right. Then came out of the earth the black spirits of earth, moldy and shadowy, and full of dim rumors picked up in caverns beneath forgotten sea-bottoms. But of them old Castro dared not speak much. He cut himself off hurriedly, and no amount of persuasion or subtlety could elicit more in this direction. The size of the Old Ones, too, he curiously declined to mention. Of the cult, he said that he thought the center lay amid the pathless deserts of Arabia, where Irem, the City of Pillars, dreams hidden and untouched. It was not allied to the European witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its members. No book had ever really hinted of it, though the deathless Chinamen said that there were double meanings in the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred which the initiated might read as they chose, especially the much-discussed couplet:

Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered, had inquired in vain concerning the historic affiliations of the cult. Castro, apparently, had told the truth when he said that it was wholly secret. The authorities at Tulane University could shed no light upon either cult or image, and now the detective had come to the highest authorities in the country and met with no more than the Greenland tale of Professor Webb.

The feverish interest aroused at the meeting by Legrasse’s tale, corroborated as it was by the statuette, is echoed in the subsequent correspondence of those who attended, although scant mention occurs in the formal publication of the society. Caution is the first care of those accustomed to face occasional charlatanry and imposture. Legrasse for some time lent the image to Professor Webb, but at the latter’s death it was returned to him and remains in his possession, where I viewed it not long ago. It is truly a terrible thing, and unmistakably akin to the dream-sculpture of young Wilcox.

That my uncle was excited by the tale of the sculptor I did not wonder, for what thoughts must arise upon hearing, after a knowledge of what Legrasse had learned of the cult, of a sensitive young man who had dreamed not only the figure and exact hieroglyphics of the swamp-found image and the Greenland devil tablet, but had come in his dreams upon at least three of the precise words of the formula uttered alike by Eskimo diabolists and mongrel Louisianans? Professor Angell’s instant start on an investigation of the utmost thoroughness was eminently natural; though privately I suspected young Wilcox of having heard of the cult in some indirect way, and of having invented a series of dreams to heighten and continue the mystery at my uncle’s expense. The dream-narratives and cuttings collected by the professor were, of course, strong corroboration; but the rationalism of my mind and the extravagance of the whole subject led me to adopt what I thought the most sensible conclusions. So, after thoroughly studying the manuscript again and correlating the theosophical and anthropological notes with the cult narrative of Legrasse, I made a trip to Providence to see the sculptor and give him the rebuke I thought proper for so boldly imposing upon a learned and aged man.

Wilcox still lived alone in the Fleur-de-Lys Building in Thomas Street, a hideous Victorian imitation of Seventeenth Century Breton architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely Colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America. I found him at work in his rooms, and at once conceded from the specimens scattered about that his genius is indeed profound and authentic. He will, I believe, be heard from sometime as one of the great decadents; for he has crystallized in clay and will one day mirror in marble those nightmares and fantasies which Arthur Machen evokes in prose, and Clark Ashton Smith makes visible in verse and in painting.

Dark, frail, and somewhat unkempt in aspect, he turned languidly at my knock and asked me my business without rising. When I told him who I was, he displayed some interest; for my uncle had excited his curiosity in probing his strange dreams, yet had never explained the reason for the study. I did not enlarge his knowledge in this regard, but sought with some subtlety to draw him out.

In a short time I became convinced of his absolute sincerity, for he spoke of the dreams in a manner none could mistake. They and their subconscious residuum had influenced his art profoundly, and he showed me a morbid statue whose contours almost made me shake with the potency of its black suggestion. He could not recall having seen the original of this thing except in his own dream bas-relief, but the outlines had formed themselves insensibly under his hands. It was, no doubt, the giant shape he had raved of in delirium. That he really knew nothing of the hidden cult, save from what my uncle’s relentless catechism had let fall, he soon made clear; and again I strove to think of some way in which he could possibly have received the weird impressions.

He talked of his dreams in a strangely poetic fashion; making me see with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy green stone—whose geometry, he oddly said, was all wrong—and hear with frightened expectancy the ceaseless, half-mental calling from underground: “Cthulhu fhtagn,” “Cthulhu fhtagn.”

These words had formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead Cthulhu’s dream-vigil in his stone vault at R’lyeh, and I felt deeply moved despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure, had heard of the cult in some casual way, and had soon forgotten it amidst the mass of his equally weird reading and imagining. Later, by virtue of its sheer impressiveness, it had found subconscious expression in dreams, in the bas-relief, and in the terrible statue I now beheld; so that his imposture upon my uncle had been a very innocent one. The youth was of a type, at once slightly affected and slightly ill-mannered, which I could never like; but I was willing enough now to admit both his genius and his honesty. I took leave of him amicably, and wish him all the success his talent promises.

The matter of the cult still remained to fascinate me, and at times I had visions of personal fame from researches into its origin and connections. I visited New Orleans, talked with Legrasse and others of that old-time raiding-party, saw the frightful image, and even questioned such of the mongrel prisoners as still survived. Old Castro, unfortunately, had been dead for some years. What I now heard so graphically at first hand, though it was really no more than a detailed confirmation of what my uncle had written, excited me afresh; for I felt sure that I was on the track of a very real, very secret, and very ancient religion whose discovery would make me an anthropologist of note. My attitude was still one of absolute materialism, as I wish it still were, and I discounted with almost inexplicable perversity the coincidence of the dream notes and odd cuttings collected by Professor Angell.

One thing which I began to suspect, and which I now fear I know, is that my uncle’s death was far from natural. He fell on a narrow hill street leading up from an ancient waterfront swarming with foreign mongrels, after a careless push from a negro sailor. I did not forget the mixed blood and marine pursuits of the cult-members in Louisiana, and would not be surprized to learn of secret methods and poison needles as ruthless and as anciently known as the cryptic rites and beliefs. Legrasse and his men, it is true, have been let alone; but in Norway a certain seaman who saw things is dead. Might not the deeper inquiries of my uncle after encountering the sculptor’s data have come to sinister ears? I think Professor Angell died because he knew too much, or because he was likely to learn too much. Whether I shall go as he did remains to be seen, for I have learned much now.

3. The Madness from the Sea.

If heaven ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total effacing of the results of a mere chance which fixed my eye on a certain stray piece of shelf-paper. It was nothing on which I would naturally have stumbled in the course of my daily round, for it was an old number of an Australian journal, Sydney Bulletin for April 18, 1925. It had escaped even the cutting bureau which had at the time of its issuance been avidly collecting material for my uncle’s research.

I had largely given over my inquiries into what Professor Angell called the “Cthulhu Cult,” and was visiting a learned friend of Paterson, New Jersey, the curator of a local museum and a mineralogist of note. Examining one day the reserve specimens roughly set on the storage shelves in a rear room of the museum, my eye was caught by an odd picture in one of the old papers spread beneath the stones. It was the Sydney Bulletin I have mentioned, for my friend has wide affiliations in all conceivable foreign parts; and the picture was a half-tone cut of a hideous stone image almost identical with that which Legrasse had found in the swamp.

Eagerly clearing the sheet of its precious contents, I scanned the item in detail; and was disappointed to find it of only moderate length. What it suggested, however, was of portentous significance to my flagging quest; and I carefully tore it out for immediate action. It read as follows:

The post The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft first appeared on Every Writer.

THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL A PARABLE

by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine, who died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend, and from that day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face from men.

The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling busily at the bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days. When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper’s door. The first glimpse of the clergyman’s figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.

“But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” cried the sexton in astonishment.

All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meetinghouse. With one accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper’s pulpit.

“Are you sure it is our parson?” inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.

“Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,” replied the sexton. “He was to have exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon.”

The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday’s garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met with a return.

“I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crape,” said the sexton.

“I don’t like it,” muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meeting-house. “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.”

“Our parson has gone mad!” cried Goodman Gray, following him across the threshold.

A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the meeting-house, and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door; many stood upright, and turned directly about; while several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the women’s gowns and shuffling of the men’s feet, greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great grandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was strange to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?

Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.

Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences, rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory. But there was something, either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor’s lips. It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said, at least, no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger’s visage would be discovered, though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr. Hooper.

At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper’s eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children’s heads to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their pastor’s side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.

“How strange,” said a lady, “that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper’s face!”

“Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,” observed her husband, the physician of the village. “But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it covers only our pastor’s face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to foot. Do you not feel it so?”

“Truly do I,” replied the lady; “and I would not be alone with him for the world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!”

“Men sometimes are so,” said her husband.

The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its conclusion, the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends were assembled in the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin, to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person who watched the interview between the dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes, that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind.

“Why do you look back?” said one in the procession to his partner.

“I had a fancy,” replied she, “that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand.”

“And so had I, at the same moment,” said the other.

That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such occasions, which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience, trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered over him throughout the day, would now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding. Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the minister. But the bride’s cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married. If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the newmarried couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil.

The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper’s black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.

It was remarkable that all of the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before it should grow into a scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received then with friendly courtesy, but became silent, after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their important business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper’s forehead, and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then. Thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused, and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper’s eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be handled, except by a council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a general synod.

But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without an explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm energy of her character, determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed. At the minister’s first visit, therefore, she entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity, which made the task easier both for him and her. After he had seated himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude: it was but a double fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath.

“No,” said she aloud, and smiling, “there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why you put it on.”

Mr. Hooper’s smile glimmered faintly.

“There is an hour to come,” said he, “when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then.”

“Your words are a mystery, too,” returned the young lady. “Take away the veil from them, at least.”

“Elizabeth, I will,” said he, “so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!”

“What grievous affliction hath befallen you,” she earnestly inquired, “that you should thus darken your eyes forever?”

“If it be a sign of mourning,” replied Mr. Hooper, “I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.”

“But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?” urged Elizabeth. “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away this scandal!”

The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper’s mildness did not forsake him. He even smiled again, that same sad smile, which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light, proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.

“If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough,” he merely replied; “and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?”

And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties. At length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in thought, considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks. But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her. She arose, and stood trembling before him.

“And do you feel it then, at last?” said he mournfully.

She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the room. He rushed forward and caught her arm.

“Have patience with me, Elizabeth!” cried he, passionately. “Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil, it is not for eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!”

“Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,” said she.

“Never! It cannot be!” replied Mr. Hooper.

“Then farewell!” said Elizabeth.

She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing at the door, to give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. But, even amid his grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed forth, must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.

From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper’s black veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who claimed a superiority to popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was irreparbly a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial ground; for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the gravestones, peeping at his black veil. A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him thence. It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else, that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great, that he never willingly passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest, in its peaceful bosom, he should be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the whispers, that Mr. Hooper’s conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings and outward terrors, he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the veil. But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by.

Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem, for there was no other apparent cause, he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil, even when Death had bared his visage! Strangers came long distances to attend service at his church, with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because it was forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they departed! Once, during Governor Belcher’s administration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the council, and the representatives, and wrought so deep an impression, that the legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway.

In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he acquired a name throughout the New England churches, and they called him Father Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners, who were of mature age when he was settled, had been borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and a more crowded one in the churchyard; and having wrought so late into the evening, and done his work so well, it was now good Father Hooper’s turn to rest.

Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight, in the death chamber of the old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there was the decorously grave, though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save. There were the deacons, and other eminently pious members of his church. There, also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous divine, who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. There was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the black veil still swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.

For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the indistinctness of the world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him from side to side, and wore away what little strength he had. But in his most convulsive struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside. Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at this pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged face, which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and breath that grew fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.

The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.

“Venerable Father Hooper,” said he, “the moment of your release is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?”

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubted, he exerted himself to speak.

“Yea,” said he, in faint accents, “my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be lifted.”

“And is it fitting,” resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, “that a man so given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory, that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go to your reward. Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face!”

And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of Westbury would contend with a dying man.

“Never!” cried the veiled clergyman. “On earth, never!”

“Dark old man!” exclaimed the affrighted minister, “with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?”

Father Hooper’s breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort, grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful, at that last moment, in the gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper’s lips.

“Why do you tremble at me alone?” cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. “Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!”

While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper’s face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!

Bio

Nathaniel Hawthorne, born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, was a prominent American novelist and short story writer of the 19th century. He came from a long line of Puritans, including John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem witch trials. This ancestral history deeply influenced Hawthorne’s writing, often exploring themes of guilt, sin, and morality in Puritan New England. Hawthorne’s early career was marked by struggle and self-doubt, as he spent over a decade in relative seclusion, honing his craft. His breakthrough came with the publication of “Twice-Told Tales” in 1837, followed by his critically acclaimed novel “The Scarlet Letter” in 1850, which established him as a leading figure in American literature.

Throughout his career, Hawthorne produced a body of work that included novels, short stories, and essays, characterized by their psychological depth and moral complexity. His other notable works include “The House of the Seven Gables,” “The Blithedale Romance,” and “The Marble Faun.” Hawthorne’s writing style, often described as dark romanticism, blended elements of the Gothic and Romantic traditions with a distinctly American sensibility. He served as the American consul in Liverpool, England, from 1853 to 1857, an experience that influenced his later works. Hawthorne’s personal life was marked by his marriage to Sophia Peabody and their involvement in the Transcendentalist movement. He was also friends with literary figures such as Herman Melville, to whom he dedicated his novel “The Blithedale Romance.” Nathaniel Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most influential American writers of his time.

Summary

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” tells the story of Reverend Mr. Hooper, a mild-mannered minister in a small Puritan New England town, who one day begins wearing a black veil that covers most of his face. This simple act causes great distress and confusion among his parishioners, becoming a source of fear and speculation. The veil profoundly affects Hooper’s life, making his sermons more powerful but isolating him from his community. Children flee from him, adults avoid him, and even his fiancée Elizabeth leaves him when he refuses to remove the veil or explain its significance. Despite this isolation, Hooper continues to wear the veil throughout his life, becoming known as Father Hooper and gaining a reputation as an especially effective clergyman for sinners and the dying. On his deathbed, Hooper refuses a final request to remove the veil, declaring that everyone wears an invisible veil of secret sin and sorrow. He dies and is buried with the veil still in place. Throughout the story, the black veil serves as a powerful symbol of the secret sins and sorrows that all people carry, separating them from true communion with others and with God. Hooper’s insistence on wearing a physical veil forces his congregation to confront this uncomfortable truth about human nature.

Guided Questions

Here are 10 guided questions for students studying “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

1. What immediate effect does Mr. Hooper’s black veil have on his congregation? How does their reaction evolve over time?
2. Why do you think Hawthorne chose a veil as the central symbol of the story? What might it represent beyond its literal appearance?
3. How does the veil affect Mr. Hooper’s ability to connect with others, including his fiancée Elizabeth? Why might he choose isolation over human connection?
4. In what ways does the veil change Mr. Hooper’s effectiveness as a minister? Why might his sermons become more powerful after he dons the veil?
5. How does the community’s response to Mr. Hooper reflect broader themes about human nature and societal norms?
6. What role does the Puritan setting play in the story? How might the tale be different if set in another time or place?
7. Analyze Mr. Hooper’s final words about everyone wearing a black veil. What is he trying to convey, and how does this relate to the overall message of the story?
8. How does Hawthorne use symbolism and allegory throughout the story to explore deeper themes?
9. Compare and contrast the reactions of different characters to the veil (e.g., Elizabeth, the old woman at the funeral, the dying man). What do these varied responses reveal?
10. Consider the story’s ending. Why might Hawthorne choose to have Mr. Hooper die without ever removing the veil? What impact does this have on the story’s overall meaning?

Lesson Plan: “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Overview

• Grade Level: High School (9-12)
• Duration: 3-4 class periods (50 minutes each)

Objectives

1. Analyze the use of symbolism in literature
2. Examine themes of sin, guilt, and human nature
3. Understand the historical context of Puritan New England
4. Develop critical thinking and discussion skills

Materials

• Copies of “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Whiteboard and markers
• Handouts with guided reading questions

Daily Lesson Breakdown

Day 1: Introduction and Beginning the Story

1. Introduction (10 minutes)

• Brief overview of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Puritan New England
• Introduce the concept of symbolism in literature

2. Pre-reading Activity (15 minutes)

• Class discussion: “What might a black veil symbolize? How would you feel if someone you knew started wearing one?”

3. Begin Reading (25 minutes)

• Read the first third of the story aloud as a class, pausing for clarification and discussion

Day 2: Continuing the Story

1. Recap and Continue Reading (30 minutes)

• Briefly review previous day’s reading
• Students read the middle third of the story in small groups

2. Small Group Discussion (20 minutes)

• Groups discuss guided questions about the story’s events and symbols

Day 3: Finishing the Story and Analysis

1. Finish Reading (20 minutes)

• Read the final third of the story aloud as a class

2. Class Discussion (30 minutes)

• Analyze key themes, symbols, and character motivations
• Discuss Mr. Hooper’s final words and their significance

Day 4: Creative Activity and Conclusion

1. Creative Writing Activity (25 minutes)

• Students write a short paragraph from the perspective of a character in the story, explaining their reaction to the black veil

2. Presentations and Discussion (20 minutes)

• Selected students share their writings
• Class discusses different perspectives on the veil

3. Conclusion and Assessment (5 minutes)

• Recap main points of the lesson
• Assign a short essay analyzing the symbolism and themes in the story

Assessment

• Participation in class discussions
• Small group work
• Creative writing activity
• Final analytical essay

Extensions

• Compare “The Minister’s Black Veil” with other Hawthorne works
• Research the historical context of Puritan New England and its influence on the story

The post THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL A PARABLE by Nathaniel Hawthorne first appeared on Every Writer.

The Witch by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

IT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying in his huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not asleep, though it was his habit to go to sleep at the same time as the hens. His coarse red hair peeped from under one end of the greasy patchwork quilt, made up of coloured rags, while his big unwashed feet stuck out from the other. He was listening. His hut adjoined the wall that encircled the church and the solitary window in it looked out upon the open country. And out there a regular battle was going on. It was hard to say who was being wiped off the face of the earth, and for the sake of whose destruction nature was being churned up into such a ferment; but, judging from the unceasing malignant roar, someone was getting it very hot. A victorious force was in full chase over the fields, storming in the forest and on the church roof, battering spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing, while something vanquished was howling and wailing…. A plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the stove. It sounded not like a call for help, but like a cry of misery, a consciousness that it was too late, that there was no salvation. The snowdrifts were covered with a thin coating of ice; tears quivered on them and on the trees; a dark slush of mud and melting snow flowed along the roads and paths. In short, it was thawing, but through the dark night the heavens failed to see it, and flung flakes of fresh snow upon the melting earth at a terrific rate. And the wind staggered like a drunkard. It would not let the snow settle on the ground, and whirled it round in the darkness at random.

Savely listened to all this din and frowned. The fact was that he knew, or at any rate suspected, what all this racket outside the window was tending to and whose handiwork it was.

“I know!” he muttered, shaking his finger menacingly under the bedclothes; “I know all about it.”

On a stool by the window sat the sexton’s wife, Raissa Nilovna. A tin lamp standing on another stool, as though timid and distrustful of its powers, shed a dim and flickering light on her broad shoulders, on the handsome, tempting-looking contours of her person, and on her thick plait, which reached to the floor. She was making sacks out of coarse hempen stuff. Her hands moved nimbly, while her whole body, her eyes, her eyebrows, her full lips, her white neck were as still as though they were asleep, absorbed in the monotonous, mechanical toil. Only from time to time she raised her head to rest her weary neck, glanced for a moment towards the window, beyond which the snowstorm was raging, and bent again over her sacking. No desire, no joy, no grief, nothing was expressed by her handsome face with its turned-up nose and its dimples. So a beautiful fountain expresses nothing when it is not playing.

But at last she had finished a sack. She flung it aside, and, stretching luxuriously, rested her motionless, lack-lustre eyes on the window. The panes were swimming with drops like tears, and white with short-lived snowflakes which fell on the window, glanced at Raissa, and melted….

“Come to bed!” growled the sexton. Raissa remained mute. But suddenly her eyelashes flickered and there was a gleam of attention in her eye. Savely, all the time watching her expression from under the quilt, put out his head and asked:

“What is it?”

“Nothing…. I fancy someone’s coming,” she answered quietly.

The sexton flung the quilt off with his arms and legs, knelt up in bed, and looked blankly at his wife. The timid light of the lamp illuminated his hirsute, pock-marked countenance and glided over his rough matted hair.

“Do you hear?” asked his wife.

Through the monotonous roar of the storm he caught a scarcely audible thin and jingling monotone like the shrill note of a gnat when it wants to settle on one’s cheek and is angry at being prevented.

“It’s the post,” muttered Savely, squatting on his heels.

Two miles from the church ran the posting road. In windy weather, when the wind was blowing from the road to the church, the inmates of the hut caught the sound of bells.

“Lord! fancy people wanting to drive about in such weather,” sighed Raissa.

“It’s government work. You’ve to go whether you like or not.”

The murmur hung in the air and died away.

“It has driven by,” said Savely, getting into bed.

But before he had time to cover himself up with the bedclothes he heard a distinct sound of the bell. The sexton looked anxiously at his wife, leapt out of bed and walked, waddling, to and fro by the stove. The bell went on ringing for a little, then died away again as though it had ceased.

“I don’t hear it,” said the sexton, stopping and looking at his wife with his eyes screwed up.

But at that moment the wind rapped on the window and with it floated a shrill jingling note. Savely turned pale, cleared his throat, and flopped about the floor with his bare feet again.

“The postman is lost in the storm,” he wheezed out glancing malignantly at his wife. “Do you hear? The postman has lost his way!… I… I know! Do you suppose I… don’t understand?” he muttered. “I know all about it, curse you!”

“What do you know?” Raissa asked quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on the window.

“I know that it’s all your doing, you she-devil! Your doing, damn you! This snowstorm and the post going wrong, you’ve done it all—you!”

“You’re mad, you silly,” his wife answered calmly.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time past and I’ve seen it. From the first day I married you I noticed that you’d bitch’s blood in you!”

“Tfoo!” said Raissa, surprised, shrugging her shoulders and crossing herself. “Cross yourself, you fool!”

“A witch is a witch,” Savely pronounced in a hollow, tearful voice, hurriedly blowing his nose on the hem of his shirt; “though you are my wife, though you are of a clerical family, I’d say what you are even at confession…. Why, God have mercy upon us! Last year on the Eve of the Prophet Daniel and the Three Young Men there was a snowstorm, and what happened then? The mechanic came in to warm himself. Then on St. Alexey’s Day the ice broke on the river and the district policeman turned up, and he was chatting with you all night… the damned brute! And when he came out in the morning and I looked at him, he had rings under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow! Eh? During the August fast there were two storms and each time the huntsman turned up. I saw it all, damn him! Oh, she is redder than a crab now, aha!”

“You didn’t see anything.”

“Didn’t I! And this winter before Christmas on the Day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete, when the storm lasted for a whole day and night—do you remember?—the marshal’s clerk was lost, and turned up here, the hound…. Tfoo! To be tempted by the clerk! It was worth upsetting God’s weather for him! A drivelling scribbler, not a foot from the ground, pimples all over his mug and his neck awry! If he were good-looking, anyway—but he, tfoo! he is as ugly as Satan!”

The sexton took breath, wiped his lips and listened. The bell was not to be heard, but the wind banged on the roof, and again there came a tinkle in the darkness.

“And it’s the same thing now!” Savely went on. “It’s not for nothing the postman is lost! Blast my eyes if the postman isn’t looking for you! Oh, the devil is a good hand at his work; he is a fine one to help! He will turn him round and round and bring him here. I know, I see! You can’t conceal it, you devil’s bauble, you heathen wanton! As soon as the storm began I knew what you were up to.”

“Here’s a fool!” smiled his wife. “Why, do you suppose, you thick-head, that I make the storm?”

“H’m!… Grin away! Whether it’s your doing or not, I only know that when your blood’s on fire there’s sure to be bad weather, and when there’s bad weather there’s bound to be some crazy fellow turning up here. It happens so every time! So it must be you!”

To be more impressive the sexton put his finger to his forehead, closed his left eye, and said in a singsong voice:

“Oh, the madness! oh, the unclean Judas! If you really are a human being and not a witch, you ought to think what if he is not the mechanic, or the clerk, or the huntsman, but the devil in their form! Ah! You’d better think of that!”

“Why, you are stupid, Savely,” said his wife, looking at him compassionately. “When father was alive and living here, all sorts of people used to come to him to be cured of the ague: from the village, and the hamlets, and the Armenian settlement. They came almost every day, and no one called them devils. But if anyone once a year comes in bad weather to warm himself, you wonder at it, you silly, and take all sorts of notions into your head at once.”

His wife’s logic touched Savely. He stood with his bare feet wide apart, bent his head, and pondered. He was not firmly convinced yet of the truth of his suspicions, and his wife’s genuine and unconcerned tone quite disconcerted him. Yet after a moment’s thought he wagged his head and said:

“It’s not as though they were old men or bandy-legged cripples; it’s always young men who want to come for the night…. Why is that? And if they only wanted to warm themselves——But they are up to mischief. No, woman; there’s no creature in this world as cunning as your female sort! Of real brains you’ve not an ounce, less than a starling, but for devilish slyness—oo-oo-oo! The Queen of Heaven protect us! There is the postman’s bell! When the storm was only beginning I knew all that was in your mind. That’s your witchery, you spider!”

“Why do you keep on at me, you heathen?” His wife lost her patience at last. “Why do you keep sticking to it like pitch?”

“I stick to it because if anything—God forbid—happens to-night… do you hear?… if anything happens to-night, I’ll go straight off to-morrow morning to Father Nikodim and tell him all about it. ‘Father Nikodim,’ I shall say, ‘graciously excuse me, but she is a witch.’ ‘Why so?’ ‘H’m! do you want to know why?’ ‘Certainly….’ And I shall tell him. And woe to you, woman! Not only at the dread Seat of Judgment, but in your earthly life you’ll be punished, too! It’s not for nothing there are prayers in the breviary against your kind!”

Suddenly there was a knock at the window, so loud and unusual that Savely turned pale and almost dropped backwards with fright. His wife jumped up, and she, too, turned pale.

“For God’s sake, let us come in and get warm!” they heard in a trembling deep bass. “Who lives here? For mercy’s sake! We’ve lost our way.”

“Who are you?” asked Raissa, afraid to look at the window.

“The post,” answered a second voice.

“You’ve succeeded with your devil’s tricks,” said Savely with a wave of his hand. “No mistake; I am right! Well, you’d better look out!”

The sexton jumped on to the bed in two skips, stretched himself on the feather mattress, and sniffing angrily, turned with his face to the wall. Soon he felt a draught of cold air on his back. The door creaked and the tall figure of a man, plastered over with snow from head to foot, appeared in the doorway. Behind him could be seen a second figure as white.

“Am I to bring in the bags?” asked the second in a hoarse bass voice.

“You can’t leave them there.” Saying this, the first figure began untying his hood, but gave it up, and pulling it off impatiently with his cap, angrily flung it near the stove. Then taking off his greatcoat, he threw that down beside it, and, without saying good-evening, began pacing up and down the hut.

He was a fair-haired, young postman wearing a shabby uniform and black rusty-looking high boots. After warming himself by walking to and fro, he sat down at the table, stretched out his muddy feet towards the sacks and leaned his chin on his fist. His pale face, reddened in places by the cold, still bore vivid traces of the pain and terror he had just been through. Though distorted by anger and bearing traces of recent suffering, physical and moral, it was handsome in spite of the melting snow on the eyebrows, moustaches, and short beard.

“It’s a dog’s life!” muttered the postman, looking round the walls and seeming hardly able to believe that he was in the warmth. “We were nearly lost! If it had not been for your light, I don’t know what would have happened. Goodness only knows when it will all be over! There’s no end to this dog’s life! Where have we come?” he asked, dropping his voice and raising his eyes to the sexton’s wife.

“To the Gulyaevsky Hill on General Kalinovsky’s estate,” she answered, startled and blushing.

“Do you hear, Stepan?” The postman turned to the driver, who was wedged in the doorway with a huge mail-bag on his shoulders. “We’ve got to Gulyaevsky Hill.”

“Yes… we’re a long way out.” Jerking out these words like a hoarse sigh, the driver went out and soon after returned with another bag, then went out once more and this time brought the postman’s sword on a big belt, of the pattern of that long flat blade with which Judith is portrayed by the bedside of Holofernes in cheap woodcuts. Laying the bags along the wall, he went out into the outer room, sat down there and lighted his pipe.

“Perhaps you’d like some tea after your journey?” Raissa inquired.

“How can we sit drinking tea?” said the postman, frowning. “We must make haste and get warm, and then set off, or we shall be late for the mail train. We’ll stay ten minutes and then get on our way. Only be so good as to show us the way.”

“What an infliction it is, this weather!” sighed Raissa.

“H’m, yes…. Who may you be?”

“We? We live here, by the church…. We belong to the clergy…. There lies my husband. Savely, get up and say good-evening! This used to be a separate parish till eighteen months ago. Of course, when the gentry lived here there were more people, and it was worth while to have the services. But now the gentry have gone, and I need not tell you there’s nothing for the clergy to live on. The nearest village is Markovka, and that’s over three miles away. Savely is on the retired list now, and has got the watchman’s job; he has to look after the church….”

And the postman was immediately informed that if Savely were to go to the General’s lady and ask her for a letter to the bishop, he would be given a good berth. “But he doesn’t go to the General’s lady because he is lazy and afraid of people. We belong to the clergy all the same…” added Raissa.

“What do you live on?” asked the postman.

“There’s a kitchen garden and a meadow belonging to the church. Only we don’t get much from that,” sighed Raissa. “The old skinflint, Father Nikodim, from the next village celebrates here on St. Nicolas’ Day in the winter and on St. Nicolas’ Day in the summer, and for that he takes almost all the crops for himself. There’s no one to stick up for us!”

“You are lying,” Savely growled hoarsely. “Father Nikodim is a saintly soul, a luminary of the Church; and if he does take it, it’s the regulation!”

“You’ve a cross one!” said the postman, with a grin. “Have you been married long?”

“It was three years ago the last Sunday before Lent. My father was sexton here in the old days, and when the time came for him to die, he went to the Consistory and asked them to send some unmarried man to marry me that I might keep the place. So I married him.”

“Aha, so you killed two birds with one stone!” said the postman, looking at Savely’s back. “Got wife and job together.”

Savely wriggled his leg impatiently and moved closer to the wall. The postman moved away from the table, stretched, and sat down on the mail-bag. After a moment’s thought he squeezed the bags with his hands, shifted his sword to the other side, and lay down with one foot touching the floor.

“It’s a dog’s life,” he muttered, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t wish a wild Tatar such a life.”

Soon everything was still. Nothing was audible except the sniffing of Savely and the slow, even breathing of the sleeping postman, who uttered a deep prolonged “h-h-h” at every breath. From time to time there was a sound like a creaking wheel in his throat, and his twitching foot rustled against the bag.

Savely fidgeted under the quilt and looked round slowly. His wife was sitting on the stool, and with her hands pressed against her cheeks was gazing at the postman’s face. Her face was immovable, like the face of some one frightened and astonished.

“Well, what are you gaping at?” Savely whispered angrily.

“What is it to you? Lie down!” answered his wife without taking her eyes off the flaxen head.

Savely angrily puffed all the air out of his chest and turned abruptly to the wall. Three minutes later he turned over restlessly again, knelt up on the bed, and with his hands on the pillow looked askance at his wife. She was still sitting motionless, staring at the visitor. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes were glowing with a strange fire. The sexton cleared his throat, crawled on his stomach off the bed, and going up to the postman, put a handkerchief over his face.

“What’s that for?” asked his wife.

“To keep the light out of his eyes.”

“Then put out the light!”

Savely looked distrustfully at his wife, put out his lips towards the lamp, but at once thought better of it and clasped his hands.

“Isn’t that devilish cunning?” he exclaimed. “Ah! Is there any creature slyer than womenkind?”

“Ah, you long-skirted devil!” hissed his wife, frowning with vexation. “You wait a bit!”

And settling herself more comfortably, she stared at the postman again.

It did not matter to her that his face was covered. She was not so much interested in his face as in his whole appearance, in the novelty of this man. His chest was broad and powerful, his hands were slender and well formed, and his graceful, muscular legs were much comelier than Savely’s stumps. There could be no comparison, in fact.

“Though I am a long-skirted devil,” Savely said after a brief interval, “they’ve no business to sleep here…. It’s government work; we shall have to answer for keeping them. If you carry the letters, carry them, you can’t go to sleep…. Hey! you!” Savely shouted into the outer room. “You, driver. What’s your name? Shall I show you the way? Get up; postmen mustn’t sleep!”

And Savely, thoroughly roused, ran up to the postman and tugged him by the sleeve.

“Hey, your honour, if you must go, go; and if you don’t, it’s not the thing…. Sleeping won’t do.”

The postman jumped up, sat down, looked with blank eyes round the hut, and lay down again.

“But when are you going?” Savely pattered away. “That’s what the post is for—to get there in good time, do you hear? I’ll take you.”

The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and relaxed by his first sweet sleep, and not yet quite awake, he saw as through a mist the white neck and the immovable, alluring eyes of the sexton’s wife. He closed his eyes and smiled as though he had been dreaming it all.

“Come, how can you go in such weather!” he heard a soft feminine voice; “you ought to have a sound sleep and it would do you good!”

“And what about the post?” said Savely anxiously. “Who’s going to take the post? Are you going to take it, pray, you?”

The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the play of the dimples on Raissa’s face, remembered where he was, and understood Savely. The thought that he had to go out into the cold darkness sent a chill shudder all down him, and he winced.

“I might sleep another five minutes,” he said, yawning. “I shall be late, anyway….”

“We might be just in time,” came a voice from the outer room. “All days are not alike; the train may be late for a bit of luck.”

The postman got up, and stretching lazily began putting on his coat.

Savely positively neighed with delight when he saw his visitors were getting ready to go.

“Give us a hand,” the driver shouted to him as he lifted up a mail-bag.

The sexton ran out and helped him drag the post-bags into the yard. The postman began undoing the knot in his hood. The sexton’s wife gazed into his eyes, and seemed trying to look right into his soul.

“You ought to have a cup of tea…” she said.

“I wouldn’t say no… but, you see, they’re getting ready,” he assented. “We are late, anyway.”

“Do stay,” she whispered, dropping her eyes and touching him by the sleeve.

The postman got the knot undone at last and flung the hood over his elbow, hesitating. He felt it comfortable standing by Raissa.

“What a… neck you’ve got!…” And he touched her neck with two fingers. Seeing that she did not resist, he stroked her neck and shoulders.

“I say, you are…”

“You’d better stay… have some tea.”

“Where are you putting it?” The driver’s voice could be heard outside. “Lay it crossways.”

“You’d better stay…. Hark how the wind howls.”

And the postman, not yet quite awake, not yet quite able to shake off the intoxicating sleep of youth and fatigue, was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire for the sake of which mail-bags, postal trains… and all things in the world, are forgotten. He glanced at the door in a frightened way, as though he wanted to escape or hide himself, seized Raissa round the waist, and was just bending over the lamp to put out the light, when he heard the tramp of boots in the outer room, and the driver appeared in the doorway. Savely peeped in over his shoulder. The postman dropped his hands quickly and stood still as though irresolute.

“It’s all ready,” said the driver. The postman stood still for a moment, resolutely threw up his head as though waking up completely, and followed the driver out. Raissa was left alone.

“Come, get in and show us the way!” she heard.

One bell sounded languidly, then another, and the jingling notes in a long delicate chain floated away from the hut.

When little by little they had died away, Raissa got up and nervously paced to and fro. At first she was pale, then she flushed all over. Her face was contorted with hate, her breathing was tremulous, her eyes gleamed with wild, savage anger, and, pacing up and down as in a cage, she looked like a tigress menaced with red-hot iron. For a moment she stood still and looked at her abode. Almost half of the room was filled up by the bed, which stretched the length of the whole wall and consisted of a dirty feather-bed, coarse grey pillows, a quilt, and nameless rags of various sorts. The bed was a shapeless ugly mass which suggested the shock of hair that always stood up on Savely’s head whenever it occurred to him to oil it. From the bed to the door that led into the cold outer room stretched the dark stove surrounded by pots and hanging clouts. Everything, including the absent Savely himself, was dirty, greasy, and smutty to the last degree, so that it was strange to see a woman’s white neck and delicate skin in such surroundings.

Raissa ran up to the bed, stretched out her hands as though she wanted to fling it all about, stamp it underfoot, and tear it to shreds. But then, as though frightened by contact with the dirt, she leapt back and began pacing up and down again.

When Savely returned two hours later, worn out and covered with snow, she was undressed and in bed. Her eyes were closed, but from the slight tremor that ran over her face he guessed that she was not asleep. On his way home he had vowed inwardly to wait till next day and not to touch her, but he could not resist a biting taunt at her.

“Your witchery was all in vain: he’s gone off,” he said, grinning with malignant joy.

His wife remained mute, but her chin quivered. Savely undressed slowly, clambered over his wife, and lay down next to the wall.

“To-morrow I’ll let Father Nikodim know what sort of wife you are!” he muttered, curling himself up.

Raissa turned her face to him and her eyes gleamed.

“The job’s enough for you, and you can look for a wife in the forest, blast you!” she said. “I am no wife for you, a clumsy lout, a slug-a-bed, God forgive me!”

“Come, come… go to sleep!”

“How miserable I am!” sobbed his wife. “If it weren’t for you, I might have married a merchant or some gentleman! If it weren’t for you, I should love my husband now! And you haven’t been buried in the snow, you haven’t been frozen on the highroad, you Herod!”

Raissa cried for a long time. At last she drew a deep sigh and was still. The storm still raged without. Something wailed in the stove, in the chimney, outside the walls, and it seemed to Savely that the wailing was within him, in his ears. This evening had completely confirmed him in his suspicions about his wife. He no longer doubted that his wife, with the aid of the Evil One, controlled the winds and the post sledges. But to add to his grief, this mysteriousness, this supernatural, weird power gave the woman beside him a peculiar, incomprehensible charm of which he had not been conscious before. The fact that in his stupidity he unconsciously threw a poetic glamour over her made her seem, as it were, whiter, sleeker, more unapproachable.

“Witch!” he muttered indignantly. “Tfoo, horrid creature!”

Yet, waiting till she was quiet and began breathing evenly, he touched her head with his finger… held her thick plait in his hand for a minute. She did not feel it. Then he grew bolder and stroked her neck.

“Leave off!” she shouted, and prodded him on the nose with her elbow with such violence that he saw stars before his eyes.

The pain in his nose was soon over, but the torture in his heart remained.

Summary

In a remote church hut during a fierce snowstorm, Savely Gykin, the sexton, suspects his young, attractive wife Raissa of being a witch who can control the weather to lure men to their dwelling. His paranoia is intensified when a postman seeks shelter from the storm. As the exhausted postman falls asleep, Raissa’s evident attraction to him fuels Savely’s jealousy. Despite Savely’s attempts to make the postman leave, Raissa encourages him to stay. A moment of tension arises when the postman and Raissa are alone, with the postman making advances, but they’re interrupted by the driver’s return. After the postman’s departure, Raissa expresses anger and frustration at her situation, leading to a bitter exchange with Savely upon his return. She voices her misery and regret over their marriage. The story concludes with Savely feeling conflicted; while convinced of his wife’s supernatural powers, this belief paradoxically makes her more alluring to him. His attempt to touch her affectionately while she sleeps is met with violent rejection. Through this narrative, Chekhov explores themes of suspicion, desire, and the tension between superstition and reality in an isolated, oppressive setting.

Here are 10 guided questions for the story “The Witch” by Anton Chekhov:

1. How does the author use the setting of the remote church hut and the violent snowstorm to create atmosphere in the story? What might these elements symbolize?
2. Analyze Savely’s character. Why does he believe his wife is a witch? How does his superstition affect his relationship with Raissa?
3. Describe Raissa’s character. How does the author portray her feelings about her marriage and her life? What does her reaction to the postman reveal about her?
4. How does the arrival of the postman act as a catalyst in the story? What does it reveal about the dynamics between Savely and Raissa?
5. Discuss the theme of isolation in the story. How does it affect the characters’ behaviors and relationships?
6. Analyze the power dynamics between Savely and Raissa. How does each character attempt to exert control over the other?
7. How does Chekhov use the contrast between Savely and the postman to highlight Raissa’s dissatisfaction with her life?
8. Discuss the role of superstition in the story. How does it shape Savely’s worldview and actions? How might the story be different without this element?
9. Examine the ending of the story. What does Savely’s conflicted feelings towards Raissa suggest about their relationship and his character?
10. How does Chekhov use humor and irony in the story? Provide specific examples and explain their effect on the overall narrative.

The post The Witch by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov first appeared on Every Writer.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH

by Edgar Allen Poe

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death”.

It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani”. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares,”—he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him—”who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Bio

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic, widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole. Best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe was orphaned at a young age and taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia but left after a year due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer’s cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to “a Bostonian”. Visit our Poe archive for more.

Guided Questions

Here are 10 guided questions for students based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”:

1. What does the Red Death symbolize in the story, and how does Poe describe its effects on its victims?
2. Analyze Prince Prospero’s character. What does his reaction to the plague reveal about his personality and leadership?
3. Describe the significance of the seven colored rooms in the abbey. What might they represent?
4. How does the ebony clock function as a symbol in the story? What effect does it have on the revelers?
5. Discuss the importance of the masquerade ball in the plot. Why might Poe have chosen this setting?
6. How does Poe use color symbolism throughout the story, particularly with regards to the Red Death?
7. Analyze the appearance and behavior of the mysterious masked figure. What clues does Poe give about its true identity?
8. How does the story’s ending reflect Poe’s views on the inevitability of death?
9. Compare and contrast the atmosphere inside the abbey with the world outside. What message might Poe be conveying through this contrast?
10. Discuss the role of time in the story. How does Poe use it to create suspense and reinforce the story’s themes?

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan: The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. Analyze the symbolism and allegory in the story
2. Discuss the themes of death, time, and human mortality
3. Examine Poe’s use of gothic elements and descriptive language
4. Relate the story’s themes to contemporary issues

Materials:

• Copies of “The Masque of the Red Death”
• Whiteboard and markers
• Colored paper (7 colors corresponding to the rooms)
• Art supplies (optional, for extension activity)

Duration:

90 minutes (can be split into two 45-minute sessions)

Lesson Outline:

I. Introduction (10 minutes)

• Brief discussion about Edgar Allan Poe and his style
• Introduce the concept of allegory and symbolism in literature

II. Reading (20 minutes)

• Read the story aloud as a class, with different students taking turns
• Encourage students to note any striking imagery or symbols as they listen

III. Initial Discussion (15 minutes)

• Ask students for their initial reactions to the story
• Discuss the basic plot and characters

IV. Symbolism Analysis Activity (20 minutes)

1. Divide the class into 7 groups
2. Assign each group a color/room from the story
3. Have groups analyze their room’s symbolism and its role in the story
4. Each group presents their findings to the class

V. Guided Discussion (20 minutes)

Use the following questions to guide a class discussion:

1. What does Prince Prospero represent? What about his abbey?
2. How does the ebony clock function as a symbol in the story?
3. What might the masked ball symbolize?
4. How does Poe use color symbolism throughout the story?
5. What is the significance of the mysterious masked figure?

VI. Reflection and Modern Connection (15 minutes)

• Ask students to write a short reflection on how the themes in the story (e.g., mortality, the illusion of safety) relate to modern issues
• Share and discuss some reflections as a class

VII. Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Summarize key points from the lesson
• Preview next lesson or assignment

Extension Activities:

1. Creative Writing: Write a short story inspired by one of the colored rooms
2. Art Project: Create a visual representation of one of the rooms or the entire abbey
3. Research Project: Investigate the historical context of the story (e.g., plagues in history)

Assessment:

• Participation in class discussions and group work
• Written reflection
• Optional: Quiz on story elements and symbolism

Homework:

• Read another Edgar Allan Poe story (e.g., “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “The Fall of the House of Usher”)
• Compare and contrast it with “The Masque of the Red Death” in a short essay

The post THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH first appeared on Every Writer.

When the Moon is Full and Bright

by Ty Green

-1- 

Blanche took the high ground, like Grandma and Grampa had taught her. On the Chaney Junior High School playground, this was the top of the jungle gym, a towering monstrosity of looping stainless steel that few of the other kids ever dared to scale. She pulled her beloved red hoodie taught against the early spring gusts that rose and fell at abrupt intervals, a cruel reminder that it could still snow any day, any night. They weren’t out of the woods yet.  

She studied Jane—if that was the new girl’s real name—wander aimlessly, alone as always, pausing occasionally to scratch at the back of her shorn head, which was, as always, concealed beneath a red bandana. Blanche had a good idea why she wore that thing, and it didn’t have anything to do with T-cells and chemo, though doubtless that was what Jane wanted people to assume.  

Others didn’t see what Blanche saw, though. The twitches of Jane’s nose and ears when she detected something of interest. The outsized hands and feet at the ends of Jane’s stick limbs, which caused her to dawdle around like a Great Dane puppy. That was, until she chose to put the speed on.   

Sick human children could not move like that. Blanche’s best friend, Ginger Waggoner, had died two summers ago from triple-hit lymphoma. She didn’t have energy to stay awake through a 90-minute movie. She’d nod off mid-conversation. By the end, she couldn’t even sit up, let alone run and leap and climb.  

In gym class, Jane was downright creepy—it was as if she knew she was supposed to keep up the act, but she couldn’t resist showing off how much stronger and faster, how much more agile she was than everyone else, even Alex Price, who was captain of the gymnastics team. When Blanche asked her about it, she just shrugged and said she “used to do sports at her old school,” and went back to pawing at the back of her head under that bandana.  

Now Blanche watched Jane’s large ear wiggle—she could see it move, even from a hundred feet away and twenty feet up. Then Jane crouched and crept past the creaking, croaking swings and the tire tree, toward the fence.  

Just inside the fence, in front of the mangy shrubs, was a large snowshoe hare, halfway between its stark white winter coat and its tawny brown summer coloration. Jane was locked onto it, creeping closer, closer.  

Across the playground, a bunch of boys were playing pickup soccer. One of them gave an echoing shout and Blanche turned in time to see Henry Hull punt the ball at a dead run. It was meant to be a pass to Markus Ouspenskaya, the only player even remotely in the vicinity, but Henry had put too much toe into it. The ball sailed over Karen White and Evvie Ankers on the see-saw, describing a great arc across half the playground before beginning a sharp descent toward the back of Jane’s head.  

Without turning around, she sidestepped it and whacked it away with her forearm. The ball burst.  

Kids shrieked and ducked, probably thinking their number had come up for yet another school shooting. The dented ball, now a neon yellow crescent, plopped to Jane’s feet, hissing air. The movement was effortless, instinctive. Had Blanche blinked, she would have missed it. She couldn’t help wondering what that might have looked like if, instead of a soccer ball, that were some kid’s head.  

Another gust from the nearby river shoved at Blanche and she lost her grip. For a second, she was certain she’d tumble through the countless pipes of the jungle gym before coming to rest, a bent and broken mess herself, on the half-frozen wood chips below. She jerked to a stop, hugging tight to the structure with all four limbs, the five-pointed locket with a photo of her mom on one side and her dad on the other tinkled against the next beam down, the one she now pictured caving in the back of her skull had she not caught hold when she did.  

When she dared to open her eyes, the first thing she saw was Jane seeing her. Her nose twitched, her eyes flickered—for a split second, Blanche could swear they were yellow. She was staring right at her.  

Blanche watched as Jane’s left ear curled toward her and her right ear twitched back, as if reaching behind her head, tracking the rabbit as it disappeared into the brush. Jane scratched at the back of her head, furiously this time.  

In that moment, any remaining doubt melted away. Blanche’s heart panged off her sternum with the realization. She knew what Jane was, which meant the new “girl” could lead her straight to the rest of them.  

-2- 

The next day, as the bus rumbled to a stop outside Brandners’ house, the knot in Blanche’s stomach cinched tighter. She ducked in the last seat, careful not to take her eye off the big-eared head wrapped in its red bandana six seats ahead.  

She slipped her hand into her backpack and felt past her books and folders, through the graveyard of gum wrappers she never got around to throwing away, until her fingertips found the cold, smooth grip of her grandfather’s old boot gun. It was only a snub-nosed .38, but it should do the trick.   

Blanche had always found the etching inside the cylinder of grandpa’s revolver, in the pattern of a pentagram with a chamber at each point, exceedingly witty, but now she felt the itch of worry that five bullets might not be enough. Maybe not even eight bullets, including the three extras she’d found in Grampa’s workshop and stowed in a tight-rolled Ziplock in her lunchbox.  

Except for eyelashes, accentuated with too much mascara, Jane had no hair whatsoever. No eyebrows, nothing. 

 Everyone assumed she was a cancer kid, which accounted not only for her “spells,” but also for her irregular attendance and the strange injuries she sometimes wore on her arms and legs and sometimes her face. If asked, she would say they were from medical procedures and leave it at that. Blanche had noticed, however, that Jane was always absent the day after a full moon, and last month, when there was a full solar eclipse, she’d been out the entire week.   

The bus brakes gave their slithery metallic whistle. The doors whooshed apart. Jane’s red-wrapped head popped up and bobbled down the aisle.  

 Blanche gave a final glance behind her, at the deep expanse of unbroken woods between the Brandner residence and this scraggly driveway, which looked more like an unkempt hiking trail than a passage meant for vehicles, that must lead to Jane’s house. There was no mailbox, no number, not even one of those little reflective posts to distinguish the end of the driveway from the dense forest that seemed to run from the road straight up Landis Ridge to terminate just below the crawling strands of gray cloud.  

Now or never—yet Blanche did not stand. How deep might that path run up the ridge? What if Jane’s “family” was around? What if she was wrong about everything and she was in fact stalking a (strange, strangely built) sick kid?  

She should wait another month, maybe. Until the April full moon, when the nights were shorter, warmer. She’d have more time to gather evidence, to prepare. Maybe even to convince Grandma and Grandpa that despite all their time combing the area, on roads and trails, she, Blanche, had found the den.   

Then again, counting tonight, there were three full moons before the end of the school year. What of the people who went missing or turned up in pieces between now and then, while the cops and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife continued to bumblefuck around ignoring the obvious answer? Twenty-four dead and missing in the tri-county area within the past year, from 86-year-old Neil Marhsall to 4-year-old Jenny Naughton. How many more if she waited?  

Of course, none of those was the real reason she hesitated. She shimmied off the goosebumps and wiped the tacky sweat from her cold palms on the seatback and stood.  

No turning back. Seconds later, she stood in the roadside weeds, watched the bus ease from the pavement to the gravel road that continued up the ridge. The driver pulled into a truckers’ turnaround, paused, presumably checking both sides of the barren road, and started back down the mountain toward town.  

A sharp gust seemed intent on pushing Blanche back downhill where she belonged. She braced herself against it, kicking herself for wearing only her red hoodie instead of a proper jacket. She turned, her Converse crunching on the weedy gravel, to face the barren forest tangled so close around the driveway it reminded Blanche of a tunnel bored into the thousand-and-one blue-gray shades and shadows of late-March twilight.  

In the heart of the tunnel, something shifted. Blanche swung her pack to her front, fiddling with the zipper while watching the shape in the tunnel float through patches of dark and darker until a round red head atop a twiggy neck and a waifish body and huge, misshapen ears emerged, looking more like some grotesque cartoon character than ever, and more amused than surprised to find a girl standing at the mouth of her driveway.  

Christ, Blanche thought, if I’m half as bad at selling a bullshit story as I am at being sneaky, I’m never making it off this mountain.  

Blanche took heart in the knowledge that Jane was a figure of fear. No one wanted to talk to the cancer kid, to get too close, to acknowledge that she was a person. Emotional self-defense, perhaps, but inhumane all the same. Cruel, even. She knew Jane did not get many visitors, should be glad to have one, no matter the circumstances.  

“Hey,” Blanche said, “sorry. I’m Blanche? From school? I know this is kind of out of nowhere, but we have that bio test coming up, and I sit behind you, so I know you always get A’s. I was hoping, maybe—”  

Jane held a finger—an old man’s finger, long and wide with knuckles like fleshy whorled marbles—over her lips. Her eyes flicked, flashed, only for a second, so brief as to be nearly subliminal but long enough to set the flesh between Blanche’s shoulder-blades and up her neck and down her arms skittering.  

She wanted to believe she could still be wrong. Maybe Jane was sick, and she had a psycho abusive parent or something, who gave her all those bruises and scratches, and sometimes it was so bad she had to stay home, and those occurrences happened to coincide with lunar events.  

Right. Exactly.  

Jane’s lips curled up at one side into a half-smile and Blanche tried to convince herself that her eyes hadn’t just burned amber and wild with delight and back again in a blink of those gloppy black lashes.  

“I had a funny feeling about today,” Jane said in her low, scratchy voice, like she’d been up all night coughing or screaming or singing to the moon, “I could feel your eyes on the bus. Right here.”  

At this she tapped the nape of her neck. She slinked closer, covering the final few steps too fast for Blanche’s comfort.  

“Sorry,” Blanche said, stepping toward the road, “I didn’t mean to be a creep. I just…I have a D in bio right now and my grandparents are going to kill me if I don’t ace that test next week.”  

“Sure,” Jane said, “I can help you. Besides. You must be curious about where a girl this glamorous lives and dresses and carries out such an unattainable beauty routine day after day after day.”  

“Right,” Blanche said, “exactly,” deciding at this distance that Jane’s eyes and ears and teeth were all too big for her narrow face.   

A sharp, roiling snarl. Blanche stumbled back, hand shooting into her backpack with such force, she punched it from her own hand and tripped over it.  

Jane stood over her, looking genuinely concerned. She spread her dinner-plate hand over her stomach.  

“It’s just my tum-tum, kid,” Jane said, holding out her other mitt to help Jane up, hoisting her up with alarming ease, “haven’t had a real meal in like a month.”  

Blanche’s heart and intestines traded places. She reminded herself she had a role to play.  

“Right, wow. Sorry. You must be home alone a lot, huh?”  

“I wish. When you’re like me, they never really leave you alone,” Blanche said, holding out her arms to reveal pin pricks and gauze bandages, knicks and bruises that might be from a search for a vein to get a line in.  

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”  

“You apologize too much. People do that then they have something to hide. You got anything good in there, Little Red Riding Hood?” Jane said, tugging at Jane’s hoodie.  

Blanche’s fingers crawled past her grandfather’s gun and, careful to hold her pack so Jane could not see inside, fumbled onto the strap of her lunch bag. She removed it and knelt to inventory its contents.  

“Kinda funny, isn’t it? I’m basically dead and yet I’ve never been hungrier,” Jane said, her voice seeming to drop to a seismic rumble to end in a hiss as she finished, “fucking ravenous,” revving up the ‘r’ in the back of her throat like Nicki Minaj.  

  “Here!” Blanche said, springing to her feet and almost throwing half of a turkey and cheese sandwich at Jane.  

Jane craned forward, sniffing. Before Blanche could react, Jane put her paws to her sides and shot her face forward, taking the sandwich from her hand with her mouth and shaking it a bit before gobbling it down, never touching it with anything but her tongue and teeth.  

“Jesus Christ,” Blanche said, so startled she hadn’t even realized she was holding her backpack before her like some ridiculous purple-and-blue tie-died shield.  

“Come on, kid,” Jane said, turning and hurrying into the darkening tunnel of twisted branches and wilted ferns and thorny red tufts of bramble, “The others won’t be back for awhile. Should be quiet till then. Perfect opportunity to teach you a thing or two.”  

Jane was in such a hurry to catch up, she didn’t notice she’d left her lunch box at the edge of the driveway. In it was a string cheese wrapper, a bruised and thus untouched pear, and her three extra silver bullets.  

-3- 

The path ended at a long, flat building that appeared to be crumbling back into the earth. All visible windows were shattered, one with a sheet of plastic wrap bulging in the breeze like a pitiful sail. Chunks of roof were gone, the siding cracked and pocked.  

Vines had poured into every opening and ran along the siding, across the roof, some disappearing into the chimney. To Blanche it looked as if the forest’s tentacles were preparing to haul the decrepit bungalow into its thorny, leafy gullet, an eerie landbound recreation of Victorian images of the kraken dragging some wayward ship to an abyssal grave.  

Beside this was a garden that had run riot, effectively becoming another extension of the woods that encroached on the building. Hunks of wilted brown plants wavered in the breeze as if to greet her or perhaps flagging her down for help. 

 Only one plant seemed to be in bloom—a toxic one, with flowers resembling melted purple stars. Grandma had taught Blanche all about it. 

 “Where it blooms out of season, hiker beware,” Grandma always said.  

It had many dramatic names—monk’s hood. Devil’s helmet. Wolfsbane.  

On cinderblocks to the right of the house was an old van, gold with blue side-panels. Beyond this was a pile of bikes, most with bent handlebars or wheels or frames. One caught Blanche’s eye—a teal GT mountain bike with a pink basket on the front.  

The one Kaley Shipman had ridden to school every day right up until the Monday before Thanksgiving, just before the first snowfall, when she never made it home from cheer practice. Five months later, her missing posters were still all over the telephone poles downtown, the bulletin boards at Star Market and Creekside Café and, of course, Chaney Junior High School.  

The basket, Blanche noted, was shredded. Like something had latched onto it and torn it apart. And the seat was cut, browning tufts of stuffing peering through three symmetrical slashes in the black rubber.  

The birds had gone silent. Squirrels, too. The only sound was a fresh rumble from Jane’s belly, so loud and long Blanche could swear it shook the ground of patchy, pine-needle-flecked snow and soggy, trodden weeds beneath their feet. Jane was standing a little too close, trying not to be obvious about trying to get behind Blanche.  

“Wow, Jane. This really is…out here,” Blanche said, turning, then checking her phone to find it had No Service—little surprise. This place didn’t even look like it had electricity, maybe not even running water.  

“Daddy always says nature is the best medicine,” Jane said, “I don’t know. He doesn’t even like me going to school in town. Says there’s no point.”  

“Jesus, Jane. That’s dark.”  

“He’s always barking about this and that. Come on, it’s getting dark. I wanna show you something cool,” Jane said.  

“Your family’s gone, huh? We’re the only ones here?” Blanche said, scanning this way and that.  

“Yeah, why? You afraid my family is gonna gobble you up or something?”  

When Jane stopped and put one of her high, wide ears to the door, listening for something inside, Blanche slipped her hand into her backpack. When Blanche said the coast was clear and pushed the door wide and melted into the mildewy gloom within, Blanche grabbed her grandfather’s .38 and tucked it into her belt, a reassuring weight against the small of her back.  

She had to get this over with. The shadows were deep, only a tattered strip of pink sun peering over the knobs and thickets of the ridge. If there were others—and with a den this size and a pile of bikes that high, there would be—she could not afford to be alone when the others returned.  

With adrenaline and poor light and moving targets…she shoved away the part of her that screamed this was a mistake. Her worst. Her last.  

When it was done, she decided, she’d hop on Kaley Shipman’s bike and ride it back down to town, straight to her grandparents, and they could all come up together and finish this how it started—as a family. If only she could steady her hands, stop her pulse from galloping in her ears like a dribbled basketball. Grandma and Grandpa were right about one thing—no matter her hunger for revenge, she was too young, too inexperienced. At least by now, they must be wondering where she was.  

The gloom inside the house moved. She checked behind her as she approached the crooked stoop. 

 Silent forest. Deep blue dusk.   

Then the clouds parted to reveal a brilliant golden glob of full moon above the ridge. In the distance, something shrieked.  

“You coming or what?” Jane said.  

A thin mist coiled soundlessly among the blackening woods. Blanche forced a smile and stepped inside.  

The odor of wet dog and moldy wood rushed up her nostrils, made her sneeze, her eyes leak. Jane hadn’t turned on any lights.  

“Come on, Red,” said the waifish shadow in the hallway to Blanche’s right, “make yourself at home.”  

-4- 

In the dark, all Blanche could make out was the sunset on the reflective strip on Jane’s backpack. She moved too fast. Blanche lost her.  

 Mist crept through the busted windows. A nearby cricket risked a single chirrup.   

“Hey? Jane?”  

Blanche pulled out her otherwise useless phone and switched on its flashlight. The beam was powerful up close but didn’t cast far in this country dark. Again, she called to Jane, scanning the unfurling wallpaper for a light switch.  

Then she saw the stain. Brick red, cast in an erratic archipelago of splats and specks from where the wall met the ceiling clear down to the carpet at her feet. Gouged through the drywall at eye level, deep enough to have severed a stud and pulled a venous scramble of multicolored wires through the holes.  

Four long courses. If it were the ‘80s and this was a movie, they might’ve been the work of Freddy Krueger.  

But this was real. This was right now.  

She fanned her fingers and angled them to match with the slashes in the wall, her phone light creating the illusion of a great black hand falling from above. She peered closer. Her breath caught in the back of her spitless mouth.  

Bits of hair. Hombre hair—bleached blue for most of its length, but light brown toward the root, and curly.  

Like Mikey Wadleigh’s hair. The eighth grader who played bass in that shitty band with the cute singer. Mikey was supposed to come to band practice at their drummer’s house two weeks ago and never showed. Blanche suspected she just found all that was left of him.  

A thud to her left, down the hall. She shone her light just in time to catch something white dart across and disappear into a doorway at the far end.  

“Jane? The hell did you go?”  

Branches scraped the roof. A lone cricket gave tentative chirrups, pausing for long intervals as if afraid to give away its exact location. Blanche’s stomach somersaulted, her pulse seemed to clunk up the sides of her neck.  

Here, now, she hated herself for being right. There was none of the excitement she’d expected, no sense of vindication or impending triumph, no thrill in the hunt. There was only cold, plain fear, turning her mouth sour and her scalp itchy with sweat despite the chill and the dark, because she was hunting, yes, but she was also being hunted.  

She heard Grandpa’s voice scolding with his favorite refrain: “The only difference between courage and stupidity is whether you come home in the end.”  

“Jane? Come on, quit screwing around,” Blanche said, trying to sound loud to drum up a reservoir of courage she knew wasn’t there.  

No response. At first, she thought it was scraping or scratching from one of the distant rooms. Then she realized it was harsh, quick breaths.  

Sniffs. Grunts.  

“Are you okay? Jane, what the fuck?” Blanche said, moving deeper into the house, swimming in so much cortisol and adrenaline she felt as if she were drifting along some deep-sea tunnel, or some weightless cavity through a faraway planet.  

A creak. A loud thump. Like someone falling.  

The cricket stopped. Blanche’s fingers wrapped around the cool walnut grip of Grandpa’s .38, all five of its cylinders packed with Grandma’s special blend of lead and silver.  

She needed to move faster, to get this over with, but her legs would not cooperate. She tried to ignore the steady tremor of her gun-hand as she rested it on the wrist of her flashlight hand.  

A ticking rumble. Wet, round, loud enough to feel like it was coming from inside her head. Like a thunderclap unrolling in slow motion to fill every fold and lobe of her brain.  

Raw instinct dropped her to the floor, low on her belly, hiding her light. The dark rippled, shapes cutting through it, at the far end of the hall.  

She raised the light, the tremoring gun. The growl grew louder, closer. It went on a little too long. Too steady.  

Not a growl. A motor. 

 It revved and sputtered. Holy fuck, she thought, someone taught the goddamn things to use power tools.  

-5- 

Blanche was about to start letting the silver fly when the lights flickered on. Jane rolled from one of the many doorways in a rickety wheelchair, her red bandana loose and disheveled.  

“Sorry, had to go fire up the genny,” she said, “I get so tired by this time of day, you know?”  

Then she saw. Stopped.  

“Jesus, is that a gun?”  

“Why didn’t you answer me?” Blanche said, kneeling now, trying to will her hands to stop shaking and hating herself for the tears welling in her unblinking eyes.  

“I had to take care of some shit. Maybe I didn’t hear you. Why do you have that thing?”  

“I assume for the same reason you have these claw marks on the wall running through the biggest bloodstain I’ve ever fucking seen. With Mikey Wadleigh’s hair stuck in it,” Blanche said, thumb on the hammer as Jane rolled closer.  

“Ah, shit. You know when your parents tell you to clean your room and you’re like, ‘whatever, I’ll get to it eventually’ and think they’re total jackasses for getting on you so much? Same idea. My bad. Totally slipped my mind,” June said, scanning the stain from the middle of the ceiling to the pool on the floor as her great mannish paws continued to roll her closer, closer.  

“So you admit it? You’re not sick, you’re—”  

They were eye to eye, only the gun between them, the beam from Blanche’s phone still jittering and glinting on the spokes of her wheelchair. Jane popped her neck, her shoulders, rocked her jaw back and forth, like a boxer warming up in the ring.  

“Before this ends the only way it was ever going to end—with me tonguing your meat from between my molars—how did you know? What made you sure enough to follow me out to an abandoned vet clinic?”   

“I knew it the moment I saw you. The red bandanas—Little Red Riding Hood reference. Very cute—”  

“You should talk, I bet you sleep and shower in that hoodie, too.”  

  “…the fact that you don’t have a single hair follicle on that skin-suit. You don’t even bother to draw in eyebrows, for Christ sakes. The way you move in the halls, like at any second you could run up the wall and pounce on someone from the ceiling. You never show up to class the day after a full moon. Because you and your whole family is snout-deep in a blood orgy. You people killed my brother. Turned my mom and dad. You made my grandma kill her own daughter. I came to exterminate you, you filthy fucking mutt!” Blanche said, full-on crying now.  

“Oh, so it’s a revenge plot. Did you ever stop to think that maybe we went after your family for…gasp…revenge? Do you have any idea how many grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers and sisters, how many mated pairs your family has exterminated over the years? The infamous Dudley Dooright Dantes. Goody two-shoeing your way through one pack after another from B.C. to Baja. Trying to make us extinct. What is any living thing going to do in that situation, Blanche? Here’s your biology lesson, though you won’t get a chance to use it: there’s no instinct stronger than self-preservation. Even a virus can do it.”  

“You are a virus.”  

“You. Are dinner.”  

At this a baleful howl punctured the silence of the woods. Jane’s large brown eyes locked on Blanche’s, shimmered mustard-yellow—no mistaking it this time—as the rest of the chorus joined in from every direction, from the crest of Landis Ridge to the banks of the river in the valley below. They formed a resplendent, stacked chord, quavering in and out of harmony, and cut out in an instant, the echo still ringing in Blanche’s ears as hot, furious tears met on her chin.  

“Okay, sweetie,” Jane said, leaning forward, “you have about thirty seconds. I’m right here. You have a perfect shot. So do what you came here to do. Take one of us down with you.”   

“Thirty seconds to what?” she said, pointing the gun at Jane’s chest, cocking the hammer, but her index finger wouldn’t or couldn’t squeeze the trigger.  

“You’re still not sure, are you? That’s why you can’t do it. You’re still not sure if you’re a superhero monster slayer or if you’re just some psycho who’s about to murder a pitiful cancer kid. In a wheelchair, even! I can hear that seed of doubt growing, blooming. You can’t pull the trigger because if you’re wrong, you’ll be a murderer. You’ll be even worse than those you claim to hate. So. Much. Then you’d have no choice, would you, Blanche? You’d have to flip that thing around and set things right the only way a monster really can. See, I clocked you, too. The second I saw that nasty scar all along your right arm. The one you tell everyone came from a car accident when you were little. It looks like it’s blinking at me in the light, because your hand is shaking so bad. You were there that night, gun in hand, just like now. Is it—ohmygod, is that the same gun? Going for a little narrative symmetry there, huh, girlie?”  

At this Jane laughed, her eyes at once human and beast as her frail frame shook with amusement. Blanche could hardly see through her burning tears of fury and impotence and humiliation.  

Her finger was on the trigger. But she just…couldn’t…  

“I guess you didn’t think about the fact that it could end up just like last time. When you choked. Just like you’re choking now. You’re not a real Dante. Too soft to be one of them. And I don’t think you want to be. I think you’d rather be one of us. But you can’t decide for yourself. You always freeze, Blanche, you always will. Call it your fatal flaw.”  

Jane whooped, startling Blanche back a step, causing her to waste a round over Jane’s shoulder. A puff of drywall drifted from the wall behind her to the carpet. Jane spun her chair to reveal the finger-length strip of thick black bristles running up the back of her scalp.  

“Time’s up,” she said, and sank her fingers into the hissing bristles of what Blanche’s grandfather called the Snoopy Stripe.  

Jane’s fingers peeled it wide, exposing a mat of course hair and pushing upward through the hole, as if standing out of her skin, like a diver removing a wetsuit, great triangular ears popping erect, one, two, followed by the profile of her short, thick, whiskered snout. It reminded Blanche of a malformed pit-bull.  

Then the generator sputtered out. The darkness returned.  

Then Blanche understood. The lights weren’t to help her see. They were a signal to the ones waiting in the woods—a dinner bell. An announcement that there was no need to go out and hunt tonight.  

-6- 

Jane titled her head back and bellowed, shaking every musty inch of the crumbling hallway. Blanche clapped her hands over her ears. She’d forgotten earplugs, a staple piece of kit. Putting them in was always the first thing Grandma and Grandpa did when they went to liquidate a den.  

No sooner had Jane’s bellow faded than the response arrived, that mournful chorus rising from every direction and closing in like a giant furry fist. The howls turned to yips, growls, grunts of effort, of anticipation as the undergrowth crashed and the moon filled the corridor with its mottled auburn glow.  

Blanche had dropped her phone screen-down. She waved the gun, not wanting to waste another bullet but needing to know if Jane was still there.  

Thuds against the outer walls. Claws raking the doors.  

She fired a round in Jane’s general direction. In the muzzle flash, she saw that the wheelchair was empty. She ducked into the nearest doorway.  

A rumble beside her. Blanche could make out shapes, outlines in the poor light, suggestions of things that all seemed hostile and hungry.  

The second time, she recognized the rumble. Jane’s stomach.  

Blanche rolled away just in time to see the silhouette of a long shaggy arm slicing another chunk of wall to powdery smithereens. The Jane-creature connected to it was taller than Grandpa, and he was 6’4” and proud of it. Her shaggy frame seemed to fill the room, her raking movements mixing stenches of rotten meat-breath and wet fur, of the brimstone coals of deepest hell. The moon caught her eyes, and they gleamed like twin gobbets of fire. Her breath sounded like pounding surf, like tumbling boulders, like the earth itself splitting in two. The beast seemed to swim through the moonlight, to bask in its transformative embrace.  

Shadows outside. Enormous, even bigger than the one standing over her. Blanche could hear them sniffing her out, communicating in yawps and clacking teeth.  

Jane was a shadow, claws clicking on warped hardwood, hauling harsh slaking tugs of air into her cold wet snout. A throaty rumble joined that of her stomach. Blanche crab-crawled back out the door.  

Blanche saw the wan rectangle of blue light describing the outline of her cell phone. She snatched it, held the flashlight up.  

It had been long enough that must have forgotten just how horrid, how repulsive they were, that uncanny mingling of features at once human and savage. Now she saw. Screamed.   

Jane’s talons swung down, leaving three slashes up Blanche’s arm, red Adidas stripes carved in flesh. Now it matched the other arm, and Jane seemed to enjoy this, lapping at it with her long, gravelly tongue.  

Blanche’s phone clattered to the floor in two asymmetrical shards. Jane crouched, drool patting onto the floor, passed that hand-sized tongue over her muzzle.  

Jane pounced. Blanche fired.   

-7- 

“Goddammit, Dee, I lost the signal,” Grandpa said, tossing his phone in disgust as the giant tires of the Wolfwaster screeched up the mountain to Landis Ridge.   

“For the tenth time, you shouldn’t have been tracking her phone in the first place. She’s a good kid, Larry. Better than I was at thirteen, shit.” Grandma said, lighting a fresh cigarette.  

“And for the tenth time, I agree with you, but this is not back then. You can’t be too safe these days. And look how it turned out! This is your proof that it was a good idea. How the hell else would we have found her? You want to trust Chief Sayles and his bumblefucking Barney Fifes to find our missing kid? Got half a dozen they can’t account for already. And now we lost the signal.” he said.  

“Just because it worked out this once, doesn’t mean it was right to do it in the first place. She’s a teenager, not a sea turtle in a research program. I’m telling you, she’s just off at some little friend’s house smoking pot or drinking beer, watching You-sta-tok videos or whatever they do. Probably forgot to charge her phone and the battery died. Apart from you and me, Blanche knows better than anyone in this town how to look after herself. You, old man, are overreacting, like you always do,” she said, brushing Camel Wide ashes from her pink bandoliers and purple daishiki.  

“There is no overreacting with a moon like that,” Grandpa said, nodding at the deep orange moon that appeared to rest atop the lumpy summit of Landis Ridge, like a perfect circle of unblinking ember.  

“Stop! Back up,” Grandma shouted, head out her window, “look!”  

He squeaked to a stop on the last bend, coming to rest before a rough, overgrown path. Grandma hopped out and snatched something from the roadside. She tossed it into his lap.  

A purple lunch-bag. When he opened it, a baggie fell out. For a second, he expected drugs, but when it picked it up, four silver .38 Special bullets tinkled into his lap.  

“Fuck,” Grandma said, pitching her smoke, “all right, Larry. You called it.”  

“Why—”  

“Because she found them. And she thought…after everything I told her, she thought she could handle it alone?!” Grandma said, her voice quavering, with equal parts fury and despair.  

“That’s why I couldn’t find Old Shorty last night. She took it,” he said, fingering one of the silver-tipped cartridges between the three remaining fingers of his left hand.  

A howl. Two. A chorus. Grandpa killed the headlights and eased onto the side of the road.  

They were halfway through loading up when they heard thrashing in the trees, advancing from all sides. Then came the shot, its muzzle flash describing the smashed, vine-draped windows of a long, low building uphill.  

“She’s alive,” Grandma said, racking the pump of her favorite shotgun and hurrying into the dark.  

-8- 

Jane was only a pup. Instead of pinning her quarry to the ground, only one razor-tipped paw found its mark, opening an oozing double-gash from Blanche’s navel to her hip. She felt little pain, only a funny cold sort of itch inside the cuts, then hot wet flow down her leg confirming that damage was done.  

 Blanche’s second shot had smashed one of the few remaining shards from the window to their right, and they both turned as a second set of paws tore through the frame and another howler, lighter in color but larger and with a pointier snout, dragged its bulky frame into the room. A great thump on the other side of the house.  

Another tore at the front door. All around the building, wood rent and whined and crumbled. In they poured.  

Hearing still muted from the howling, the shooting, Blanche crawled into the hallway. Using the wall, she righted herself and hobbled, hand pressed to her flayed hip, telling herself it was only the claws, not the teeth—she might bleed out, but at least she’d die a human.  

A large, burbling form blocked the end of the hallway. The main room was filled with more of them than she cared to count.  

How many rounds did she have left? Three? Two?  

For a heart-stopping moment, their faces were illuminated by flashlights or headlamps bouncing over the driveway. The nearest one had one eye, and one flap of its snout was snagged at the pink-black speckled gumline, giving her a view of the full length of a massive yellow fang jutting at such an angle as to register in Blanche’s mind as a tusk. They heated the cool humidity, rendering the air a choking funk of dog-that-rolled-in-carrion.  

Shouts outside—human shouts. A gunshot. A volley of shots. Shrill squabbling.  

The pack scattered into the gloom to set up an ambush. She tried to call out that there were too many, but a growl dead ahead cut her off as the pointy-snouted one filled the hallway. Blanche held out the revolver and fired her third round into its shaggy chest.  

Her hand was slippery with her own blood, the recoil caused her to fumble the revolver. Outside, blasting, howling, splashes of gravel. Cries that might be human or beast.  

Ahead of her, something yelped and panted. Blanche dove to the floor, fumbling in the poor light for the gun with its final round.  

“What? No, no, no,” she said, patting and patting and finding nothing.  

  A snarl behind her. Then a half-second of quaking floorboards and her face was on fire.  

The force of the blow lifted her into the nearest doorway. Only this one didn’t open into a barren room. In the hazy moonlight, she could make out a staircase. The creature in pursuit sliced one of her shoes open, punctured her ankle, her calf.  

She pulled herself headfirst down the stairs, banging and bouncing before spilling across icy smooth cement. The top step creaked as the beast started down after her, panting and snorting. She tried to stand, dragged something heavy onto herself, and the moonlit basement went black.   

-9- 

“—only a scratch!”  

“Lawrence Dante, that thing’s muzzle was right there—”  

“Jesus Bungee-Jumping Christ, Dee, I know the difference between a claw and fang. Check out the tooth dents on my knife, if you don’t believe me,” Grandpa said, tossing the ruined dagger, its blade an alloy of stainless steel and sterling silver, which the large she-wolf had destroyed when she went for his leg.  

The bent weapon plunked into the gravel beside the huge lupine form that had ruined it. Grandma had pumped her full of Furbuster Express—3 1/2 -inch 12-gauge shells handloaded with silver pellets. The creature gave a final whimpering spasm, pawing at the night sky as if trying to swim away into it, then fell limp and still.  

Grandpa was still cursing under his breath as he aligned another stripper clip with the receiver of General Patton, the M1 Garand his father had brought home from France and taught Grandpa to maintain well enough for it to continue vanquishing monsters 80 years later.  

The silver mixed into the 8 rounds in the clip caught the moonglow and gave a luminous blue cast as he fed the battered rifle. Grandma scanned the trees with the barrel of her shotgun. They moved toward the claw-ravaged door.    

“You know that place is probably jammed with them,” she said.  

“I know, doll. But Blanche is in there.”  

After checking to make sure there was no wolf-blood on her face, she went on her tiptoes and kissed him. He kissed her back, as he hadn’t in a long time. He didn’t like the look in her eyes when he opened his. The knot of electric snakes in his gut wound tighter.  

“It’s awful quiet in there, isn’t it. Taking up ambush positions, no doubt. Wily bunch. Might even be clever enough to keep her alive, use her as bait. She wasn’t in there, I’d say just light this place up and pick em off as they come out, one by one, like that farmhouse in Sonoma,” she said.  

“Sonoma? That was down by Eugene. Either way, as much as I want to play this like Butch and Sundance, I think we’d better keep it tight. Can’t risk hitting her.”  

“Half a century of spraying for canids, Larry. And this might be the single dumbest thing we’ve ever done.”  

It was. It felt like…it. The end. His bones squirmed and his balls hid inside his body.  

“Hallway goes to the right, I’ll take that. You take left.” he said, switching on his headlamp.  

In the initial melee, she hadn’t taken the time to switch on the flashlight mounted beneath the barrel of her beloved short-barreled pump, Old Thumper. She did this now and held it to illuminate her face.  

“Larry,” she said, “before we go in there, I want you to know, we left in such a hurry, I didn’t have time for underwear. If we don’t end up as red stains on the ceiling, this night could get even more interesting when we get home.”  

“Jesus, woman, you’re even crazier than I am,” he said.  

“That’s why I run this circus. Now. Let’s shave some fur.”  

-10- 

Blanche’s eyes popped open. Lights flashed, wolfen shadows rushed through them at the top of the stairs, high above. The cacophony of gunfire and howling and roaring and reminded her of the tornado that hit the summer Grandma and Grandpa dragged her out to Oklahoma in pursuit a mated pair of redneck outlaw-types, whose real names, incredibly, were Talulah and Grover.  

For an instant, she couldn’t move. She tried to prop herself on an elbow but the bolt of pain when it took her weight drove her into a ball.  

She knew the searing pain from her neck to her ribs all too well. Same as when she’d fallen racing Alex Price and Karen White across the monkey bars in third grade, back East. Dislocated shoulder. Ribs bruised for sure, maybe even broken.   

Her left knee didn’t feel right, either. Nor her left ankle.   

She spat blood to the side as a horrible cry came from upstairs. She couldn’t tell if it was Grandpa or one of them. She sat up and tried to scoot herself toward the steps. Every part of her seemed to bark protest at the effort. She took frequent breaks, but she kept inching, inching.   

A low growl from the shadows behind the stairs more felt in the sternum than heard with the ears. Blanche froze, one scoot from the bottom step.  

A single high, rectangular window admitted a shaft of moonlight, casting a kind of trapezoidal spotlight on the ground just beside the stairs. Into it emerged lithe, hunched, shaggy form. Its claws slicked across the cold cement as it lowered and crept toward her on all fours. Ropes of white saliva swung and plopped from lips as black and slick as leeches. These parted into a grotesque sort of grin, and its gray snout jittered side to side and up and down as it huffed her in.  

This close, her teeth were enormous. Her eyes great golden rings in the moonlight. Her two front teeth were bucked, and the proportions of her paws were as gawky in this form as her hands and feet were in human form.  

“Jane, please,” Blanche said, knowing it was useless.  

Rustling behind her, in a debris-strewn corner. She didn’t have time to turn before Jane was on her.  

-11- 

Grandpa took down as many as he could, but it was a house of shadows with claws and fangs. The barnyard musk of the creatures exerting themselves mingled with the eggy fart stench of gunpowder and the metallic brine best known to surgeons and soldiers and hunters, until the crumbling bungalow at the last bend of Landis Ridge Road reeked like a portal to some seething underworld where an endless, pointless war rages in pitch dark. He ran through his ammunition in under a minute.  

He and Grandma lost sight of each other in the churning fray. She could no longer tell what blood came from her and what came from the howlers. 

 A squat one with a big half-pink, half-black nose had sent three of her fingers flying into the dark with a single swipe of its paw. She thrust her silver bowie into its shoulder twisted the blade, leaning her meager weight into it, another paw came from behind. It still had a firm grip on her bandolier and she could not move in time.  

Another had flanked her—a wiry, silver-tinged male with a chipped fang on the lower right and a long scar across his muzzle, so tall he couldn’t stand inside without stooping—popped Grandma’s severed fingers into his maw and crunched them like pretzel sticks as their two pairs of savage hazel eyes met.  

“Found you, fucker,” Grandma whispered.  

The same pack leader who had hit them at the camp that night. The one who had mauled Blanche’s parents. He hoisted her off the ground, claws punching into her gut until she felt his paw pressing against her belly as he held her aloft with one ropy, auburn, orangutan-like arm.  

At this height—Grandma’s head scraped the flaky paint of the ceiling—she saw over the melee and surveyed the pack members who lay dead, shriveling and convulsing back to human form. There were many, they had done their job and done it well, perhaps as well as it could be done in these circumstances. A handful of pack members they hadn’t felled now surrounded the blood-soaked Grandpa, nipping at him as he pulled his final weapon, what he called his Emergency Fund—a sawed-off side-by-side shotgun loaded with her Fur Trimmer shells.  

The pack leader latched onto her leg, shaking his head and moaning with pleasure as her blood cascaded down his tongue. Grandpa saw her get bitten, cried out.  

He saw her see him. The howlers circled, weaving around his line of fire. He stood, back-to-the wall, raised the weapon, eyes mad, and mouthed “love you” before putting both barrels into the pack leader.  

Then the rest were on him. The snapping and ripping and chewing soon drowned out his final scream.  

The pack leader gave a brief expression of shock, like a dog spooked awake by a noise outside. He stumbled once, twice, and dropped her.  

She thumped not to the swampy red carpet, which now resembled a bog of blood with lily pads of fur and stark white petals of bone shard, but into a chair—a wheelchair. She watched as the pack leader, the one who had killed her daughter, forced her to lie to Blanche that her father was dead too, instead of the worse fate he had truly suffered.  

She rolled forward and hocked up a bright red loogy that sounded like a hopping bullfrog as it plopped onto the pack leader’s chest. In a moment, it ceased to rise and fall, and it shrunk back to the nude, gunshot form of their former howler-hunting buddy, the “Bayou Buccaneer,” Paulo Dumas, he of the fan boat and crossbow and musical Cajun cusswords.  

She rolled the chair toward the feasting pack. In the middle of the hallway, she rolled over something. She stooped and retrieved Old Shorty—Larry’s .38 snubby.  

The four rounds from Blanche’s lunchbox were still in Larry’s pocket—hopefully one of them would eat them and croak. But when she flipped open the cylinder, her heart leapt. One round left.   

 They were so preoccupied with their feeding frenzy that they didn’t notice her approach until she was right on them. She raised the gun, cocked the hammer.  

A limb shot out—a prehensile paw—instinctively, lifting her out of the chair and against a doorframe with enough force to send her bouncing across the floor. She didn’t even have time to scream, tumbling ass over teakettle down the basement steps. 

-12- 

Grandma landed with an awful crunch and her momentum carried her clear to the wall opposite the stairs. At once she smelled the unmistakable musk and knew she was not alone.  

She could not move without her right side feeling as if she was being torn into two. She’d broken bones before, but this time it felt like they were all broken. She slumped to the right, hating the sucking sensation in her side when she tried to draw breath from that vile air.  

A hoarse cry escaped her as she grabbed the edge of a broken workbench with her left and adjusted herself so she could see the staircase straight ahead. In her right was the .38 with its final silver bullet. Raising that arm was out of the question—you don’t need a medical degree to know elbows are not meant to bend that way. She took the gun in her left and scanned the darkness.  

Between wet coughs, she told whoever was down there with her to show their mangy pelt and get what was coming to them. She did not notice Blanche’s shredded clothing, red hoodie and all, trailing away from where she sat.  

The full moon had passed free of the clouds, its amber—and reddening—beam now a lurid spotlight, just in front of Grandma’s feet. Into it emerged an enormous frame, clicking claws, gleaming teeth. At first, she thought it was some new evolution she’d never seen before—a three-headed howler, or perhaps even Cerberus, guardian of Hades’ gates, come to drag her down to the scorching abyss of eternity himself. They watched her, and as they did, her eyes made out three separate forms.  

The two on the flanks had finer features, larger eyes, more slender shapes than the huge, bulky male between them. A pair of juvenile females and a huge male—a male she assumed would be next in line to lead the pack.  

The females had not yet fed—their stomachs snarled as loud as their throats. One of the youngsters cocked her head as if in recognition.  

Had she stared a moment longer, Grandma might have noticed the clever emerald eyes, the gentle upward slope of the snout, the wide gap between the two front teeth—the pentagonal pewter locket now fitted more like a thin collar than a necklace.  

“Eenie meanie,” she coughed, “mynie-mo. Catch a howler by its toe…” she said, panning the barrel of the .38 back and forth across the advancing trio.  

Before she finished the rhyme, she stopped on the one in the middle, and pulled the trigger. The big male dove in front of the others, taking the round just below the ear.  

It landed on her legs, all 400-plus pounds of it pinning her legs to the floor. The other two howled their outrage.  

As the weight began to lift and the massive beast seemed to melt, shrivel, and husk up, its hair disappearing into thin air to reveal a tattoo she hadn’t seen in many moons—a portrait of Blanche as a baby, grinning and crawling through a field of vibrant wildflowers.  

She had always admired the tattoo, and the young man who wore it. She could not help but weep as she turned the ruined head to behold the unseeing, unblinking, eyes of her son-in-law, David—Blanche’s father.  

Grandma watched with dawning horror as the smaller of the two females crouched and nuzzled the fresh corpse, lapping at his face as if trying to revive him. Then her muzzle was in Grandma’s face and she saw those emerald eyes widen with bewilderment, with recognition, then narrow into burning slits of human hate. 

 Blanche waited long enough to be sure that Grandma gasped and croaked “no” and recognized the girl inside the wolf, understood that in the morning, the wolf would be inside the girl, and so it would be until the end of time, or until someone else like the soon-to-be-extinct Dantes found her and snuffed her out in a hail of silver bullets and gnashing fangs by the light of yet another brilliant, watchful moon.  

Then Blanche tore Grandma’s throat out. She paused, as if deciding whether to leave it at that and give the old woman a chance to die and come back as one of the pack. Then she glanced down at the baby tottering blissfully through the flowers, now spattered in her father’s blood. Turning Grandma would be the ultimate punishment, true, for lying about her father, for cutting short their family reunion. 

 She knew she should. She was just too hungry.  

When only Grandma’s tooth-dented bones remained, the girls climbed the stairs to find the only other survivors—a pair of young males—and together the four slipped into the night. Blanche could still remember her mother’s touch, and it seemed the early spring dark felt the same, running affectionate invisible fingers through her freshly-sprouted coat.  

Forming a crescent atop Landis Ridge, they lifted their snouts to the night sky and bayed in mourning for their fellows, in celebration of their inheritance as masters of the full moon night. And so, baptized in blood and moonlight and the slick, fetid aroma of the awakening forest, a new pack is born.  

###

 Ty Green’s fiction has has appeared on the No Sleep Podcast and in Coffin Bell Journal. His horror-comedy short story “Hugs N Kisses, Kelli-Ann” was longlisted for the NC Literary Review’s Doris Betts Fiction Prize and received an honorable mention in the 2023 Writer’s Digest Short Story Competition. 

The post When the Moon is Full and Bright by Ty Green first appeared on Every Writer.

Questions For Vampires 

By Anastasia Gustafson 

Marcus didn’t mean to kill Angelina. Not really. But she was dead as a doornail, alright, and white as a sheet. In his candle-lit studio apartment, strewn with white rose petals and piles of books, Angelina Zanovich lay frozen in time on his kitchen tile, her perfect blonde curls soaked deliciously ripe with red. It took him a minute to gather himself, but once he did, Marcus shook her at the shoulders, watching her little cross necklace glisten under the smattering of their shared ecstasy, and then hastily wiped his mouth clean. In a final attempt at hope, Marcus held a quivering hand over her nose and pressed his ear to her chest just to be sure, and it was as he suspected: the girl had no pulse, no breath, no nothing. And to make things worse, they both had a worship service to lead at St. Anne’s Chapel in just under eight hours.  

“Shit.” He pressed his fingers into his cheeks, pulling the transparent skin down from his sullen eyes. “Heavens above. Fuck me.”  

On one hand, Marcus considered himself an ethical vampire. Many moons ago, he had been a simple, hardworking locksmith who could often be found surveying the ever-growing international cookbook section in his local library. He wasn’t of the opinion that much had changed since then. So up until that moment on his kitchen floor, his convictions had successfully shielded him from killing of any kind. It wasn’t without difficulty, of course. He had soldiered on for the past six years as a wallflower and night-shift custodian at the Transfiguration Hospital, which meant he had grown painstakingly accustomed to quietly cleaning up bodily ooze. He didn’t love it, but it was the best job for someone with his rather unfortunate and sun-sensitive condition. It also made sneaking into the blood bank refrigerator far easier than it should have been. But on the other hand, this was no bodily ooze. This was no blood bag. This was Angelina, the only soft-hearted nursing intern that Transfiguration Hospital currently boasted among its crone-infested ranks. At twenty three years young and at just five foot four, she had eyes like blue roses and smelled of spring sunshine, which was why Marcus, an unlucky immortal imprisoned forever at the ungodly age of forty six, was so surprised five weeks ago when she of all people approached him in the hospital break room for what seemed at the time like no reason at all.  

“So, you’re into vampires?” She plopped her white lunchbox down beside him without asking. He’d responded by rigidly flinching. Then Marcus, clumsy even in undeath, almost dropped his dog-eared copy of The Historian onto the gum-ridden linoleum below. 

“What?” His gaze darted to the girl who so easily and unknowingly poked right at his most well-kept secret. He watched as her slender wrist withdrew a single green apple from her bag. The pulse he heard in his ears was not his own, and he swallowed the familiar dry lump in his throat. 

“That book,” she spoke with a Russian accent and gestured with the apple in hand. Marcus had to look at the book’s cover to remember its name. 

“Oh.” He raised both his eyebrows. “I, uh. Yes. You could say that I am.” 

“Me too.” She smiled at him. “I think they get a bad reputation in books, you know? All romance. No guts. It’s ridiculous.” 

A strange part of him suddenly felt less heavy, as if a window had been opened. 

“I’m Angelina.” She began cutting her apple into slender, even slices.  

“Marcus.” He set the book down and watched her fingers working the butter knife. After a while, he realized his silent staring had gone on for a moment too long. But she filled the emptiness with words before he could figure out what to say. 

“I heard you singing today. In the morgue.” 

Marcus felt a chill run down his spine. That wasn’t good. In fact, that could be very bad. Did she know something? See something? Had she found him out? The truth, of course, was that he was singing in the morgue today. But it wasn’t for fun. He had long surmised that the sound of his voice was just loud enough to cover the clinking of jars as he rummaged through the organ donation fridge, where he would sometimes find blood fresh enough to drink. But maybe that night he had gotten a bit carried away with his volume. He did rather like the chorus. But that couldn’t be it. She must have seen something, or at least suspected it. Marcus frowned. 

Angelina’s wide blue eyes moved away from her apple slices and studied his face, noting his concern with immediacy. 

“You sounded lovely, I mean. I’d die for Elton John,” she blurted out awkwardly,  twirling the butter knife. “Is ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ your favorite song?” 

Marcus rigidly tilted his chin up as he considered the question, still unsure if the ground of this conversation was more of a minefield or meadow. 

“It is.” 

Then she did something he didn’t understand. Suddenly confident and composed once again, she clicked her tongue at him. Three times. Slowly, too. Marcus furrowed his brows and waited for the inevitable, for her to come out and say something like ‘Don’t lie to me, you elderly vampire. I know what you are’. But she didn’t. Instead, the words she chose stunned him in ways no sunlight or silver ever could. 

“Actually,” she punctuated the sound. “‘I’m Still Standing’ is the only right answer. But I’ll forgive you just this once because you sounded so nice while being so very wrong.”  

Then, she let out the most contagious and private giggle, as if she were sharing a juicy secret for his ears only. He found himself joining in. 

“In all seriousness,” she began. “I have a question for you.” 

“Oh.” Marcus felt himself leaning in to listen.  

Angelina set down the butter knife and spoke with her pretty, pale hands. 

“My church, St. Anne’s–you know the one off Maple Street–we need another male vocalist for our Easter service. Just the one show. Badly. I wouldn’t normally ask, but our guy, Carl, I think he got caught cheating on his wife and doesn’t want to come back. He said it’s just mono, but it’s a real scandal–and a darn shame because I thought Carl did such a nice job regardless of that, but you know how people can be. You should have heard the way he belted. An unreal tenor. But anyway, when I heard you today, I just had a special feeling that maybe…well, that maybe I should ask you.” 

Marcus felt his face contort in ways it hadn’t since he realized he couldn’t see his reflection anymore.  

“What?” 

“Before you say anything, it’s a paid position,” she poked the butter knife again. “And I can drive you. I think we live in the same building, which is wicked convenient. I’ve seen you in the elevator.” 

He winced at how childish it sounded to call something ‘wicked convenient’. But he knew, of course, that this was true. They did live in the same building. He would sometimes catch himself staring at her hands as she fumbled with hangnails and consequently perfumed the air with the scent of her honeysuckle blood. Though, he was surprised that she was even mildly aware of his existence. Most people looked through Marcus with glassy eyes, not at him with wide ones. 

“Angelina, I’m not exactly the church-going type.” Marcus frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Unless you’d like to watch the building go up in flames, perhaps?” 

She laughed so loudly that some of the other nurses and doctors and custodians gave them a sideways glance. Marcus felt the air hum from the attention. But really, he had only been half kidding. Marcus hadn’t tried to walk into a church since long before that prostitute he shouldn’t have taken home left him drained and undead in some unforgettable rat-infested alleyway, and that was ten years ago. His last church visit? More than four decades ago. 

“You don’t have to be devout to sing,” Angelina leaned in and lifted her hand up to her mouth as if to whisper something no one else should hear. “Our drummer is an atheist, believe it or not. And I’m pretty sure the man upstairs has seen everything under the sun, if that’s what you’re worried about. Church was made for sinners.” 

Marcus felt a smile twinge on the side of his lips. 

“I’m flattered, really. But I’m afraid I will have to decline.”  

She took another slice of apple and examined it. He watched her throat as she bit in. 

“Perhaps you’ll come just to see me sing then? If you’re nice, maybe I’ll let you take me out afterwards.”  

She took another nibble from the slice with one hand. With the other, she pushed a pink post-it note toward him that slid nicely beneath her two red and freshly lacquered fingernails. The note contained ten bubbly numbers written in a pungent black ink. Marcus raised a single graying eyebrow. His index finger pulled the sticky note closer, and he memorized the figures with record speed. 

“What are you doing?” The question felt important, so he said it.  

“Asking you out.” She patted her mouth with a napkin peppered with light pink cherry blossoms. Everything she said sounded so matter-of-fact, so wrapped up in a bow.  

“Yes, I see that.” He raised an eyebrow at her. He didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t sure why she would be doing that. He was a custodian, eternally middle-aged, and quiet. What else was there to know? 

“You like Elton John, you can sing, and you like reading about vampires,” she said, as if seeing inside his mind. “Trust me, those stars align far less often than you would think.” 

A beat of silence. 

“How old are you?”  

“Twenty four this October.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “And single.” 

“Do you know how old I am?” Another important question. He imagined her mouth as he asked it. 

Angelina rested her chin in her palm and began twirling the butter knife on the tabletop.  

“When I need that answer,” she said, smiling into the formica. “I know who to ask.” 

# 

 When Marcus arrived home, it was just past four in the morning. After dozing off on the bus and making two thoughtless wrong turns, he floated into the shabby brown doors of his apartment building before the first beams of light jutted their way through the trees. His seventy-five-year old neighbor, Magdalena, was out smoking a cigarette in the hallway as he approached with his keys.  

“Look what the cat dragged in,” she murmured over the course of a single, raspy exhale. “They still treating you good at that hospital, baby? When are they going to give you something other than the graveyard shift?” Magdalena crossed her legs and leaned against the wall. The bells on her tiger slippers jingled in the haze of the hallway. Marcus waved at her politely.  

“I love the graveyard shift,” he said, fumbling with the ancient lock. “Keeps me young.” 

She squinted at him. 

“So you say. But, now that you mention it, you do look sort of chipper today.” 

Marcus decided to change the subject. It was hard to talk about something you didn’t understand. 

“How are the boys?”  

Magdalena had two grown sons. One was a teacher. The other was a drunken marine who was dishonorably discharged from both the corps and her household. Magdalena, bless her heart, also took care of his two sons, Carlos and Dwayne, with something between a militant iron fist and a grandmother’s heartfelt doting.  

“Same old, same old. Dwayne won the spelling bee, and Marcus got a girlfriend.” 

“Who?” Marcus glanced over his shoulder as the lock finally unlatched.  

“Carlos. He fixed up the courage to finally ask that girl he’s been chasing to prom.” 

“You must be proud.” Marcus nodded as he jostled the door open. “Have a good day, Magdalena.” 

“I am. I am. You too, baby.” 

With the door tightly shut behind him, Marcus let out a single, shaky breath. Mostly because it felt like the right thing to do. Next, he pulled out a first, then second, then third blood bag from his satchel, carefully avoiding the nail file he used on his incisors and his emergency umbrella, and set them evenly on the wire racks in his yellowing and otherwise empty fridge. When he turned back to the counter, the pink slip at the bottom of his bag called out to him from the cream-colored tile floor. He knelt down to pick it up and pressed the fragrant paper to his chapping lips. 

“What a day.”  He shook his head as he imagined the face of Angelina, pale and blue-eyed, then her neck and her thighs. “What a goddamn day.” 

# 

The logistics of the Sunday service in question would be the death of him if he wasn’t careful. So Marcus tried to hold out on setting a date for as long as he could, but she worked him over like oil on a stubborn lock.  

The three-week long marathon of anxious, yet endearing text messages from Angelina consumed him more than his determination to exercise reason. Reasonable vampires would not talk to curious young women. Marcus knew that. Reasonable vampires would eat girls like this. And it’s not like he didn’t consider it. There was a risk in getting close to a coworker, let alone a neighbor, after all. But it was as if she wanted to know everything about him in a particular way, to consume his inner thoughts like they were her most addictive candy. His hobbies, his passions, his ideas. She liked them. And he liked that she liked them. So he let her–one after another, one bite at a time–enjoy them. And, if he was being honest, he didn’t mind her attention or her questions that ranged from the mundane to the intimate. Whether he liked Anne Rice or whether he ever wanted to have children. Yes and no. She always listened. She liked to listen. And what a rare thing that was. It might have even been nice, for once, to be noticed by someone. More than to be noticed, but to be seen.  

All of this, coupled with her intoxicatingly innocent hallway glances at work had more than solidified his fate. 

 Marcus stood at the entrance to his local Trader Joe’s on a rainy Saturday evening, trying to weigh the romantic differences between blue carnations and white roses. They were somehow all out of red ones. Perhaps it was because it was the night before Easter, so all the well-to-do housewives and holier-than-thou grandmothers had raided the floral section for their tabletop centerpieces. Maybe it was just a cruel twist of fate. But in the end, he decided on the roses because he felt like they were the kind of thing a man should buy for a pretty woman. Carnations were more of a chaste performer’s reward, and Marcus wanted to be very clear about his intentions.  

With the proper bouquet in hand, he went over the plan in his head. Marcus had just a few hours before the sun was going to make things very difficult. He would have to get to the church in the middle of night, somehow make it inside and remain unseen until the service, and he would have to do it all without setting off any alarms, figurative or otherwise. But that was ok, he reasoned, because he knew how to pick locks. And it would just be a few hours of waiting. It could have been worse. 

Everything went off without a hitch. Marcus walked three blocks from his usual stop and arrived at the church just as the sky started to careen with churning and unruly thunder. It was a brick building with two ornate stained glass windows that stared down at the onlookers from their wide and chiseled steeple. A little sign out front read ‘Sinners Wanted: Apply Within’, which Marcus shrugged at and took to be an invitation as good as any.  

He made swift work of the lock on an unassuming side window, propped it open, and pulled himself inside. Though, he had miscalculated how far down the drop would be, and promptly plummeted into the echoing wood with a loud and clumsy thud. Thunder rang out from the sky, which masked some of the noise he had been making, or so he thought. 

“God,” he groaned, his face pressed against the hardwood. That was going to bruise. Marcus looked over to his side, examined the roses in the dark, and found them to be perfectly unscathed. Just when he was going to accept the fleeting feeling of relief, a voice wandered into the air like a mist. 

“Hello?” A deep voice echoed. “Who’s there?” 

Marcus felt his eyes widen at the sound. He quietly scrambled to his knees and perked up his ears. Usually, Marcus could hear a pulse from a room away and by proxy locate a whole person. Or at least detect them. But over the rain and his own racing panic, Marcus could only hear the footsteps in the dark as they patterned in calculated ticks across the floor.  

Think, Marucs, think. The vampire studied the room, making note of the large, wooden pews currently obscuring his view and the door just to the right of the aisle. It looked to be a closet. He could get there without being seen, so long as he moved fast. The footsteps suddenly stopped, and Marcus, thinking quickly, snatched the roses from the floor and darted into the closet, moving more hastily than any human could ever hope to see. With the door tightly shut, Marcus backed into the corner. No sounds came from the outside. Nothing but the puttering of rain against the roof and a tight, cottony panic as it packed itself firmly into the channels of his trembling ears.  

# 

Against all odds, the rest of that Sunday went on as planned. Marcus somehow emerged from the closet, noted the sign that read ‘confessional booth’, and straightened his tie without so much as a sideways glance from anyone around. There were too many people to notice, at least, and far too many people to care. Like worker bees in beige suits and blue dresses, the churchgoers around Marcus buzzed with a familial sort of excitement that he could neither place nor understand. But when he spotted her, that feeling drifted away like a breeze–and so too did the memory of being cramped in that airless room. 

“You made it!” Angelina waddled between limbs and bodies to squeeze her way over to him. She wore a short white dress that cinched at the waist. And while he watched her walk, he noted a little bruise on her ankle. The vampire licked his lips. 

“I did. But are you sure this is a church?” He feigned ignorance. “This place should be cinders with me standing in it. And yet–” 

He gestured to the air. She giggled. 

Angelina led him by the hand to a pew where she told him he’d have the best view. His only issue was that the massive crucifix on the wall behind the pulpit sort of gave him a headache to look at. It whirred and simmered on his irises if he stared at it too closely. But he kept that information to himself as she kissed him on the cheek. 

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. If he hadn’t done so already, he thought he might have died. “White is my favorite.”  

He sat stunned and wordless for the entirety of the service. The songs, of course, were catchy enough. The sermon was fast enough. But the way Angelina would smile and sway as she strummed her little guitar made Marcus’s mind wander out of the church, far from the streets, or their city, or their lives. Marcus’s mind was in the clouds, amidst the stars themselves, and it remained there for the next three blissful weeks.  

He snuck in every Saturday night, and stayed until sundown on Sundays, hiding in the basement or making himself comfortable in the attic where he would drink or read or sleep. The only trouble was, the more time he would spend with that girl, the more blood he would drink. He was going through bag after bag, more than one a day. The hospital even held a staff meeting about ‘missing specimens’. But there was no stopping him now. When the day had given itself up to the night, Marcus would emerge from the church basement and slink out the window, texting Angelina immediately and inviting her out for an evening stroll, or a movie, or the mall. It was an easy little routine. And no one was noticing. Marcus, after all, was highly trained in the art of remaining invisible. Or at least, it felt that way for a while. 

On the night of the fourth Saturday, Marcus arrived at his usual window, only to find it strangely open. Nothing came of it, thankfully. But at the end of the usual service, the priest walked up to him quietly, long after Angelina had left for her car, and caught him by the arm just as he was headed for the stairs. 

“Marcus, is it?” An eerily familiar voice asked. “Angelina’s Marcus?” 

Marcus’s head turned slowly as if he were an owl and stared down at the hand on his elbow. 

“Uh,” he stuttered, “Yes?” 

“I think you should join the church choir,” the priest said, pushing up his glasses. “That way you’d have reason to be here so late on Saturdays.”  

Marcus swallowed, feeling the whole world stop around him. He blinked, completely stunned, and said nothing. 

“Churches aren’t places for deadweight, son,” the priest tried again. “And Angelina said you’re a natural.” 

Marcus stared forward, too stunned to speak. 

“I’m trying to help you son, if you’d let me.” The priest patted Marcus’s arm. “So, what do you say?” 

And that’s how, without another thought, Marcus nodded and became the best lead tenor that the St. Anne’s Chapel had ever seen. 

# 

“Angelina?” Marcus asked, squeezing her hand under the milky lamplights of the Trinity Oaks Park. “What would you do if you couldn’t die?” 

“You mean other than going to heaven?” She asked. 

“Yes.” He nodded. “Other than heaven.” 

“You always ask such fun questions.” She pursed her lips as she thought about it. “I think I would buy a plot of land somewhere. Maybe out in Washington state. In the woods. Then, I’d open a library for night owls and collect my favorite books. Or buy lots of Apple stock. I’m sure God would let me know.”  

“You seem ambitious,” Marcus chuckled. 

“I am.” She squeezed his hand. “Speaking of which, I want to see your apartment. Perhaps even make you a meal. I think it’s about time, don’t you think? I’m rather good at cooking. And we could practice that hymn– ‘New Wine’ was it? Until you get that third stanza right.”  

“I don’t see why not.” Marcus blinked. “No need to cook, though. But I’d love to do just about everything else.” He pressed her hand to his lips and shuddered at the honeysuckle ache biting at the back of his throat.  

# 

The very next Saturday, Marcus rolled out of bed early and scrubbed his whole studio down to its bones. He cleared his throat as Angelina arrived around noon, just after he lit the candles and set his Spotify playlist to a thoughtfully curated collection of Elton John and Eddie Murphy.  

“Oh my God.” Angelina paused between each word and blushed. He watched her as she pressed both her hands to her cheeks. “Marcus, I had no idea you were a hopeless romantic.” 

“I have my secrets.” He repressed a cough and gestured for her to enter, and so she did. So perfectly. So willfully. So well. He closed the door behind her and locked it without thinking. And when she turned around, without a prompt or a prayer—it happened. 

“I love you,” she said, taking his face in her hands. His nostrils flared. 

“What?” 

“I love you,” she pressed his cheeks. “So, are you going to kiss me or not?” 

Marcus swallowed and tripped over the words. “I am.” 

And so he dove in with his face, hoping to find her lips, but did so at such an angle and with such force that he clobbered her right in the nose. She winced and fell backwards, slamming her head against the corner of his kitchen countertop. Then, as if in slow, lifeless motion, she thudded to the floor, red rivers pouring out from both her perfectly small nostrils.  

Everything next was a blur. The red, the slurping, their shared little moans. He couldn’t help it. Until he stumbled back shivering, his mouth sopping wet. All trembling. All aching. All horror. 

“Shit.” He pressed his fingers into his cheeks, pulling the transparent skin down from his sullen eyes. “Heavens above. Fuck me.” Marcus scrambled backwards. 

“Angelina?” His voice wavered slightly as he studied the fading blue roses in her eyes. But she was not there. The light of her was snuffed out like a match. He brought his face to his knees and shivered. Think Marcus, think. 

# 

Marcus had no idea what to do. He paced his apartment floor for hours, glancing at her unseeing eyes every now and again. At some point, he reasoned there was no solving the issue of her body now. As the clock ticked past three in the morning, the best thing he could do was act normal, and normal meant leaving for church and securing his alibi. 

“I’m going to hell,” he muttered, grabbing his coat and keys. “I’m absolutely going to hell.” 

 # 

 He insisted she was sick, that it was just a bad case of mono and that she would be fine in due time. The band offered their prayers, which made him feel ill. 

“No prayers needed.” He raised both his hands. “She will be fine.” But the words stuck in his mouth like sharp razor wire, and his unbeating heart throbbed like a fresh wound.  

The service came and went, and he was eager to be done with it. But just as Marcus darted for the basement door, a familiar tap prodded at his shoulder. 

“My son?”  

Marcus paused, frowned, and glared at the priest, who was smothering a piece of bread in jelly with a dirty butter knife. Patience was in short supply that day, but Marcus held his tongue. 

“You don’t look well.” The Priest turned the knife over slowly and wiped the blade clean. “Maybe you should eat something.” He handed Marcus the limp slice. Marcus stared at it silently.  

“Thanks.”  

“All good things to the glory of God.” The priest nodded. “See you next week.” 

# 

On the account of some undeserved miracle, Marcus made it home. As he stood outside his door, fumbling with his keys, his neighbor Magdalena leaned against the wall smoking yet another silky cigarette. It wafted into the air like a spiders bending web. 

“Those things will kill you, you know,” Marcus said, fidgeting with the keyhole. 

“Your girlfriend seems to like them,” Magdalena exhaled as she spoke. Marcus’s head snapped back to face her. She raised an eyebrow at him and rubbed her swollen ankle against her calf. 

“What’s her name?” Magdalena pointed with her two fingers. “Anabella or something? You never told me. She sounded Russian.” 

Marcus blinked at his neighbor slowly, waiting for her to continue. 

“Angelina.” 

“That’s the one.” Magdalena nodded. “She came out here soaking wet, banging on my door, asking for paper towels and a cigarette. Gave me thirty dollars for the trouble before she went back inside. Called me a doll.” Magdalena puffed a little ring from her wrinkled lips. “I like her.”  

With his whole body feeling like a freshly shaken soda can, Marcus turned back to the door. He shoved the key into the hole with a newborn and violent intensity. 

“Have a good day, Magdalena,” he mumbled as he forced the key to move. 

“Oh–one more thing!” She called out to him. Marcus sighed and turned his head. 

“I’m in a bit of a hurry.” 

“I’m sure you are,” Magdalena coughed. “Some men from the hospital came by earlier. Asked me if I’d seen you with any hospital property. I told them no. Obviously.” 

She raised a mother’s eyebrow up at him. Marcus swallowed. He said nothing. 

“Stay out of trouble, baby,” she said, but her voice was just a blur.  

Marcus slammed the door shut behind him, his arms pressed to the wall. He stared at the scene before him with freshly wide eyes to find that the blood was all gone, but the candles were still lit. And then, it happened. Again. 

Angelina Zanovich, in all of her glory, sat long-ways on his sofa, legs crossed and lips humming, wearing his clothes. In her hands was a dog-eared copy of some book he had already forgotten to finish. And though Marcus parted his lips, the words never came. At least, not from him. 

“Hello, Marcus.” She lowered the cover, her red eyes peeking over the pages. “I have a question for you.” 

Anastasia Gustafson is a graduate student at Northwestern University studying creative writing. She has an undergraduate degree in English and education. Her work has appeared in the National Council for Teachers of English, in 1/10th of a Second (an Amazon Documentary). She writes vampire fiction for thousands of readers on Archive of Our Own.

The post Questions For Vampires by Anastasia Gustafson  first appeared on Every Writer.

The Many Laments of Dagda Lichfield

by Kit Zimmerman 

Dagda could hear the mob beating on the many dilapidated entrances of Ashview Manor. Sweat, dripping from his aquiline nose, conspired with wheezing, panicked coughs to extinguish the flame of his tenuously held candle as he lit the wicks of others lining the tiered shelves of the cellar’s cool stone walls.  

His fears dissipated when candlelight revealed his wife’s withered, decomposing body—clothed in a clean white shift—resting on a tall wooden table in the center of the chamber and intersecting ley lines drawn in chalk and bone powder on the granite floor. Inhaling, Dagda delighted in the sweet aroma of decay, appreciating it as Renee’s way of letting him know she was present. 

By his account, her death had been much like his parents’—unexpected and undeserving larceny of the highest order. The illness he’d suffered in childhood had robbed Dagda of both his health and family, and only Renee’s unwavering support had seen him through his formative years, notwithstanding the vast wealth of his inheritance. If only she had not tried to leave me, her life might not have been stolen by that murderer, he reasoned. Life in the wake of Renee’s loss so soon after their destined wedding had been unbearable. But death, he’d learned, was a temporary state if one only had the wit and will to see it ended.  

Another round of hammering from the ground floor broke Dagda’s reverie, reminding him why he’d been forced into attempting the ritual. He knew why the misguided peasants of Sableton had come; regular deliveries of food and supplies to his intentionally understaffed home had enabled Dagda’s survival and assured his self-imposed isolation immediately following Renee’s undisclosed death. Nevertheless, there’d been a recent change in who handled the deliveries—a change, it seemed, that hadn’t been without consequence. I’ll have that loose-lipped lackey whipped for inciting these imbeciles to interfere with my work! 

Circling the table, he ignored—as he had for quite some time—a glimpse of his emaciated form in the nearby standing mirror against the wall by the door. Chin-length, unkempt hair—white, despite youth—parted, revealing jaundiced blue and bloodshot eyes in their gaunt sockets. Dagda also ignored the scuff of his feet through threadbare, hole-ridden socks and the chaffing of his pale and bruised skin against the coarse, tattered remnants of his once finely tailored attire. Halting, he assessed the items covering a desk beside the table: a glass bottle filled with alkahest, an ebonite rod with a glimmering green baetyl socketed into the grip, and a black-handled dagger—carved from the thigh bone of a cleric—rested near two metal spheres situated atop the points of a U-shaped copper stand connected to a gearbox by a single wire. A tall, lamp-like contraption—its long, sturdy pole made of yew with a thin, circular lens of clear quartz bracketed at the end—rose above the rest. Relieved to see everything in order, Dagda poured alkahest over the lens and swiveled the pole, pointing it at Renee’s body. He flipped the brass toggle on the gearbox, and the spheres began rotating in opposite directions.  

Reaching for the dagger with his right hand, Dagda upturned his left. His gaze traveled from his black onyx wedding band to the bulbous scar marring his palm.  

Glass shattered upstairs.  

Spurred by the cacophony, Dagda sliced. A red ribbon bloomed, and the scar burst open. Blood gushed, but a surge of adrenaline kept him from swooning as he reached for the ebonite rod. Setting his wound against the baetyl, he withdrew from the desk and aligned the rod between the spheres—tip pointed at the lens. 

Invading footfalls battered the floor above. 

A moment of doubt seized Dagda as he recalled a snippet from the grimoire where he’d learned the ritual: “For the dead to walk, one soul is required for each vessel raised.”   

“Down there!” a man shouted. “Look in the cellar! You lot, check upstairs! Everyone else, spread out! Find him!” 

Though he finally possessed all the proper tools, the unresolved question of a soul’s existence was all that’d forestalled Dagda’s second attempt at the ritual.  

Until now. 

We are nothing more than flesh, bone, and sinew, he decided.  

Visible electric currents ignited between the spheres. Unpredictable bursts of violent, crackling blue energy ionized the air and illuminated the room. 

Footsteps thudded on the stairs outside the cellar. “I hear something!” a shrill voice called. “He’s in here!” 

“Step back,” the man from before said. He pounded on the door. “Dagda Lichfield! You’re under arrest for necromancy and murder!” 

Chest heaving, arms shaking, Dagda stepped forward and brought the rod within inches of the spheres.  

“It’s locked! Break it down!”  

Bodies rammed against the door, bending it inward, and additional disembodied voices joined the others—a choir of ignorance unworthy of recognition insofar as Dagda was concerned. 

“Put your backs into it!”  

“For Renee’s sake, stop this!”

The air snapped and sizzled. 

“Gods! Hurry! He’s going to try it!” 

Dagda’s arm hairs stood erect.  

Flesh . . . 

Electricity whipped and popped.  

“No, Dagda!” 

. . . bone . . . 

“Don’t do it!” 

Revolving metal hummed—shaking the desk.  

. . . and sinew . . . 

“Open this door immediately!”  

Renee . . . 

Dagda plunged the rod between the spheres.  

Searing pain ignited in his palm, traveled like lightning up his arm, and erupted between his shoulders as a green beam of light sprouted from the rod’s tip and into the lens. Blood and bile pooled in Dagda’s mouth. Convulsing, the acrid stench of burning flesh and heated metal invaded his nostrils. A kaleidoscope of colors erupted before his eyes. His vision blurred, then faded . . . 

A chorus of muffled shouts stirred Dagda awake.  

Disoriented, he rose from the table. He nearly toppled when he swung his legs over to stand, but his strong grip on the table’s edge kept him upright on trembling legs while he surveyed the room. 

Smoke, rising from the smoldering remains of the nearby desk and the shriveled husk of a body on the ground, caught his eye.  

The door rattled on its hinges. 

I burned her, Dagda thought, numb. I’ll have to try again . . . He ventured forward from the table, but fell when his foot caught the hem of his long white shift. 

Confused, he glanced down from where he sat on the floor.  

His left hand had healed—the skin of his palm smooth and hale. A wedding ring—engraved with the intricate, swirling lines of a leaf motif that symbolized his noble house—adorned a bizarre, elegant finger. He tugged at the shift, revealing bronze legs bespeckled with tiny, healthy brown hairs.  

The cellar door split at its center, and the repeating thud of a ram resonated throughout the chamber, each blow punctuated by people heaving in unison. 

No . . . Crawling, Dagda lunged toward the mirror. No, no, no, no, no! 

Splinters skittered across the floor, and a burly hand thrust through the door’s widening rupture, reaching for the sliding lock.  

Dagda froze.  

He had intended to offer the mirror as a gift for Renee upon her waking so that she might see herself as he always had, dead or otherwise.  

But what Dagda saw in the reflection was no gift. 

The doe-brown eyes staring back at him through brunette locks were not his own, nor was the voice that issued a strident, agonized scream when the cellar door flung open.  

Kit Zimmerman is a debut Texan author and college writing tutor pursuing a BA in Creative Writing and English with a concentration in Fiction.

The post The Many Laments of Dagda Lichfield by Kit Zimmerman  first appeared on Every Writer.

For the Blood is the Life

by F. Marion Crawford

We had dined at sunset on the broad roof of the old tower, because it was cooler there during the great heat of summer. Besides, the little kitchen was built at one corner of the great square platform, which made it more convenient than if the dishes had to be carried down the steep stone steps broken in places and everywhere worn with age. The tower was one of those built all down the west coast of Calabria by the Emperor Charles V early in the sixteenth century, to keep off the Barbary pirates, when the unbelievers were allied with Francis I against the Emperor and the Church. They have gone to ruin, a few still stand intact, and mine is one of the largest. How it came into my possession ten years ago, and why I spend a part of each year in it, are matters which do not concern this tale. The tower stands in one of the loneliest spots in Southern Italy, at the extremity of a curving, rocky promontory, which forms a small but safe natural harbour at the southern extremity of the Gulf of Policastro, and just north of Cape Scalea, the birthplace of Judas Iscariot, according to the old local legend. The tower stands alone on this hooked spur of the rock, and there is not a house to be seen within three miles of it. When I go there I take a couple of sailors, one of whom is a fair cook, and when I am away it is in charge of a gnome-like little being who was once a miner and who attached himself to me long ago.

My friend, who sometimes visits me in my summer solitude, is an artist by profession, a Scandinavian by birth, and a cosmopolitan by force of circumstances.

We had dined at sunset; the sunset glow had reddened and faded again, and the evening purple steeped the vast chain of the mountains that embrace the deep gulf to eastward and rear themselves higher and higher towards the south. It was hot, and we sat at the landward corner of the platform, waiting for the night breeze to come down from the lower hills. The colour sank out of the air, there was a little interval of deep-grey twilight, and a lamp sent a yellow streak from the open door of the kitchen, where the men were getting their supper.

Then the moon rose suddenly above the crest of the promontory, flooding the platform and lighting up every little spur of rock and knoll of grass below us, down to the edge of the motionless water. My friend lighted his pipe and sat looking at a spot on the hillside. I knew that he was looking at it, and for a long time past I had wondered whether he would ever see anything there that would fix his attention. I knew that spot well. It was clear that he was interested at last, though it was a long time before he spoke. Like most painters, he trusts to his own eyesight, as a lion trusts his strength and a stag his speed, and he is always disturbed when he cannot reconcile what he sees with what he believes that he ought to see.

“It’s strange,” he said. “Do you see that little mound just on this side of the boulder?”

“Yes,” I said, and I guessed what was coming.

“It looks like a grave,” observed Holger.

“Very true. It does look like a grave.”

“Yes,” continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. “But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it. Of course,” continued Holger, turning his head on one side as artists do, “it must be an effect of light. In the first place, it is not a grave at all. Secondly, if it were, the body would be inside and not outside. Therefor, it’s an effect of the moonlight. Don’t you see it?”

“Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights.”

“It doesn’t seem it interest you much,” said Holger.

“On the contrary, it does interest me, though I am used to it. You’re not so far wrong, either. The mound is really a grave.”

“Nonsense!” cried Holger incredulously. “I suppose you’ll tell me that what I see lying on it is really a corpse!”

“No,” I answered, “it’s not. I know, because I have taken the trouble to go down and see.”

“Then what is it?” asked Holger.

“It’s nothing.”

“You mean that it’s an effect of light, I suppose?”

“Perhaps it is. But the inexplicable part of the matter is that it makes no difference whether the moon is rising or setting, or waxing or waning. If there’s any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on top.”

Holger stirred up his pipe with the point of his knife, and then used his finger for a stopper. When the tobacco burned well, he rose from his chair.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll go down and take a look at it.”

He left me, crossed the roof, and disappeared down the dark steps. I did not move, but sat looking down until he came out of the tower below. I heard him humming an old Danish song as he crossed the open space in the bright moonlight, going straight to the mysterious mound. When he was ten paces from it, Holger stopped short, made two steps forward, and then three or four backward, and then stopped again. I know what that meant. He had reached the spot where the Thing ceased to be visible–where, as he would have said, the effect of light changed.

Then he went on till he reached the mound and stood upon it. I could see the Thing still, but it was no longer lying down; it was on its knees now, winding its white arms round Holger’s body and looking up into his face. A cool breeze stirred my hair at that moment, as the night wind began to come down from the hills, but it felt like a breath from another world.

The Thing seemed to be trying to climb to its feet helping itself up by Holger’s body while he stood upright, quite unconcious of it and apparently looking toward the tower, which is very picturesque when the moonlight falls upon it on that side.

“Come along!” I shouted. “Don’t stay there all night!”

It seemed to me that he moved reluctantly as he stepped from the mound, or else with difficulty. That was it. The Thing’s arms were still round his waist, but its feet could not leave the grave. As he came slowly forward it was drawn and lengthened like a wreath of mist, thin and white, till I saw distinctly that Holger shook himself, as a man does who feels a chill. At the same instant a little wail of pain came to me on the breeze–it might have been the cry of the small owl that lives amongst the rocks–and the misty presence floated swiftly back from Holger’s advancing figure and lay once more at its length upon the mound.

Again I felt the cool breeze in my hair, and this time an icy thrill of dread ran down my spine. I remembered very well that I had once gone down there alone in the moonlight; that presently, being near, I had seen nothing; that, like Holger, I had gone and had stood upon the mound; and I remembered how when I came back, sure that there was nothing there, I had felt the sudden conviction that there was something after all if I would only look back, a temptation I had resisted as unworthy of a man of sense, until, to get rid of it, I had shaken myself just as Holger did.

And now I knew that those white, misty arms had been round me, too; I knew it in a flash, and I shuddered as I remembered that I had heard the night owl then, too. But it had not been the night owl. It was the cry of the Thing.

I refilled my pipe and poured out a cup of strong southern wine; in less than a minute Holger was seated beside me again.

“Of course there’s nothing there,” he said, “but it’s creepy, all the same. Do you know, when I was coming back I was so sure that there was something behind me that I wanted to turn around and look? It was an effort not to.”

He laughed a little, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and poured himself out some wine. For a while neither of us spoke, and the moon rose higher and we both looked at the Thing that lay on the mound.

“You might make a story about that,” said Holger after a long time.

“There is one,” I answered. “If you’re not sleepy, I’ll tell it to you.”

“Go ahead,” said Holger, who likes stories.

Old Aderio was dying up there in the village beyond the hill. You remember him, I have no doubt. They say that he made his money by selling sham jewelry in South America, and escaped with his gains when he was found out.. Like all those fellows, if they bring anything back with them, he at once set to work to enlarge his house, and as there are no masons here, he sent all the way to Paola for two workmen. They were a rough-looking pair of scoundrels–a Neapolitan who had lost one eye and a Sicilian with an old scar half an inch deep across his left cheek. I often saw them, for on Sundays they used to come down here and fish off the rocks. When Alario caught the fever that killed him the masons were still at work. As he had agreed that part of their pay should be their board and lodging, he made them sleep in the house. His wife was dead, and he had an only son called Angelo, who was a much better sort than himself. Angelo was to marry the daughter of the richest man in the village, and, strange to say, though the marriage was arranged by their parents, the young people were said to be in love with eachother.

For that matter, the whole village was in love with Angelo, and among the rest a wild, good-looking creature called Cristina, who was more like a gipsy than any girl I ever saw about here. She had very red lips and very black eyes, she was built like a greyhound, and had the tongue of the devil. But Angelo did not care a straw for her. He was rather a simpleminded fellow, quite different from his old scoundrel of a father, and under what I should call normal circumstances I really believe that he would never have looked at any girl except the nice plump little creature, with a fat dowry, whom his father meant him to marry. But things turned up which were neither normal nor natural.

On the other hand, a very handsome young shepherd from the hills above Maratea was in love with Cristina, who seems to have been quite indifferent to him. Cristina had no regular means of subsistence, but she was a good girl and willing to do any work or go on errands to any distance for the sake of a loaf of bread or a mess of beans, and permission to sleep under cover. She was especially glad when she could get something to do about the house of Angelo’s father. There is no doctor in the village, and when the neighbours saw that old Alario was dying they sent Cristina to Scalea to fetch one. That was late in the afternoon, and if they had waited so long it was because the dying miser refused to allow any such extravagance while he was able to speak. But while Cristina was gone matters grew rapidly worse, the priest was brough tothe bedside, and when he had done what he could he gave it as his opinion to the bystanders that the old man was dead, and left the house.

You know these people. They have a physical horror of death. Until the priest spoke, the room had been full of people. The words were hardly out of his mouth before it was empty. It was night now. They hurried down the dark steps and out into the street.

Angelo, as I have said, was away, Cristina had not come back–the simple woman-servant who had nursed the sick man fled with the rest, and the body was left alone in the flickering light of the earthen oil lamp.

Five minutes later two men looked in cautiously and crept forward toward the bed. They were the one-eyed Neapolitan mason and his Sicilian companion. They knew what they wanted. In a moment they had dragged from under the bed a small but heavy iron-bound box, and long before anyone thought of coming back to the dead man they had left the house and the village under cover of darkness. It was easy enough, for Alario’s house is the last toward the gorge which leads down here, and the thieves merely went out by the back door, got over the stone wall, and had nothing to risk after that except that possibility of meeting some belated countryman, which was very small indeed, since few of the people use that path. They had a mattock and shovel, and they made their way without accident.

I am telling you this story as it must have happened, for, of course, there were no witnesses to this part of it. The men brought the box down by the gorge, intending to bury it on the beach in the wet sand, where it would have been much safer. But the paper would have rotted if they had been obliged to leave it there long, so they dug their hole down there, close to that boulder. Yes, just where the mound is now.

Cristina did not find the doctor in Scalea, for he had been sent for from a place up the valley, half-way to San Domenico. If she had found him we would have come on his mule by the upper road, which is smoother but much longer. But Cristina took the short cut by the rocks, which passes about fifty feet above the mound, and goes round that corner. The men were digging when she passed, and she heard them at work. It would not hav been like her to go by without finding out what the noise was, for she was never afraid of anything in her life, and, besides, the fishermen sometimes come ashore here at night to get a stone for an anchor or to gather sticks to make a little fire. The night was dark and Cristina probably came close to the two men before she could see what they were doing. She knew them, of course, and they knew her, and understood instantly that they were in her power. There was only one thing to be done for their safety, and they did it. They knocked her on the head, they dug the hole deep, and they buried her quickly with the iron-bound chest. They must have understood that their only chance of escaping suspicion lay in getting back to the village before their absence was noticed, for they returned immediately, and were found half and hour later gossiping quietly with the man who was making Alario’s coffin. He was a crony of theirs, and had been working at the repairs in the old man’s house. So far as I have been able to make out, the only persons who were supposed to know where Alario kept his treasure were Angelo and the one woman-servant I have mentioned. Angelo was away; it was the woman who discovered the theft.

It was easy enough to understand why no one else knew where the money was. The old man kept his door locked and the key in his pocket when he was out, and did not let the woman enter to clean the place unless he was there himself. The whole village knew that he had money somewhere, however, and the masons had probably discovered the whereabouts of the chest by climbing in at the window in his absence. If the old man had not been delirious until he lost conciousness he would have been in frightful agony of mind for his riches. The faithful woman-servant forgot their existence only for a few moments when she fled with the rest, overcome by the horror of death. Twenty minutes had not passed before she returned with the two hideous old hags who are always called in to prepare the dead for burial. Even then she had not at first the courage to go near the bed with them, but she made a pretence of dropping something, went down on her knees as if to find it, and looked under the bedstead. The walls of the room were newly whitewashed down to the floor and she saw at a glance that the chest was gone. It had been there in the afternoon, it had therefore been stolen in the short interval since she had left the room.

There are no carabineers stationed in the village; there is not so much as a municipal watchman, for there is no municipality. There never was such a place, I believe. Scalea is supposed to look after it in some mysterious way, and it takes a couple of hours to get anybody from there. As the old woman had lived in the village all her life, it did not even occur to her to apply to any civil authority for help. She simply set up a howl and ran through the village in the dark, screaming out that her dead master’s house had been robbed. Many of the people looked out, but at first no one seemed inclined to help her. Most of them, judging her by themselves, whispered to each other that she had probably stolen the money herself. The first man to move was the father of the girl whom Angelo was to marry; having collected his household, all of whom felt a personal interest in the wealth which was to have come into the family, he declared it to be his opinion that the chest had been stolen by the two journeymen masons who lodged in the house. He headed a search for them, which naturally began in Alario’s house and ended in the carpenter’s workshop, where the thieves were found discussing a measure of wine with the carpenter over the half-finished coffin, by the light of one earthen lamp filled with oil and tallow. The search-party at once accused the delinquents of the crime, and threatened to lock them up in the cellar till the carabineers could be fetched from Scalea. The two men looked at each other for one moment, and then without the slightest hesitation they put out the single light, seized the unfinished coffin between them, and using it as a sort of battering ram, dashed upon their assailants in the dark. In a few moments they were beyond pursuit.

That is the end of the first part of the story. The tresure had disappeared, and as no trace of it could be found the people supposed that the thieves had succeeded in carrying it off. The old man was buried, and when Angelo came back at last he had to borrow money to pay for the miserable funeral, and had some difficulty in doing so. He hardly needed to be told that in losing his inheritance he had lost his bride. In this part of the world marriages are made on strictly business principles, and if the promised cash is not forthcoming on the appointed day, the bride or the bridegroom whose parents have failed to produce it may as well take themselves off, for there will be no wedding. Poor Angelo knew that well enough. His father had been possessed of hardly any land, and now that the hard cash which he had brought from South America was gone, there was nothing left but debts for the building materials that were to have been used for enlarging and improving the old house. Angelo was beggared, and the nice plump little creature who was to have been his, turned up her nose at him in the most approved fashion. As for Cristina, it was several days before she was missed, for no one remembered that she had been sent to Scalea for the doctor, who had never come. She often disappeared in the same way for days together, when she could find a little work here and there at the distant farms among the hills. But when she did not come back at all, people began to wonder, and at last made up their minds that she had connived with the masons and had escaped with them.

I paused and emptied my glass.

“That sort of thing could not happen anywhere else,” observed Holger, filling his everlasting pipe again. “It is wonderful what a natural charm there is about murder and sudden death in a romantic country like this. Deeds that would be simply brutal and disgusting anywhere else become dramatic and mysterious because this is Italy, and we are living in a genuine tower of Charles V built against Barbary pirates.”

“There’s something in that,” I admitted. Holger is the most romantic man in the world inside of himself, but he always thinks it necessary to explain why he feels anything.

“I suppose the found the poor girl’s body with the box,” he said presently.

“As it seems to interest you,” I answered, “I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

The mood had risen by this time; the outline of the Thing on the mound was clearer to our eyes than before.

The village very soon settled down to its small dull life. No one missed old Alario, who had been away so much on his voyages to South America that he had never been a familiar figure in his native place. Angelo lived in the half-finished house, and because he had no money to pay the old woman-servant, she would not stay with him, but once in a long time she would come and wash a shirt for him for old acquaintance’ sake. Besides the house, he had inherited a small patch of ground at some distance from the village; he tried to cultivate it, but he had no heart in the work, for he knew he could neer pay the taxes on it and on the house, which would certainly be confiscated by the Government, or seized for the debt of the building material, which the man who had supplied it refused to take back.

Angelo was very unhappy. So long as his father had been alive and rich, every girl in the village had been in love with him; but that was all changed now. It had been pleasant to be admired and courted, and invited to drink wine by fathers who had girls to marry. It was hard to be stared at coldly, and sometimes laughed at because he had been robbed of his inheritance. He cooked his miserable meals for himself, and from being sad became melancholy and morose.

At twilight, when the day’s work was done, instead of hanging about in the open space before the church with young fellows of his own age, he took to wandering in lonely places on the outskirts of the village till it was quite dark. Then he slunk home and went to bed to save the expense of a light. But in those lonely twilight hours he began to have strange waking dreams. He was not always alone, for often when he sat on the stump of a tree, where the narrow path turns down the gorge, he was sure that a woman came up noiselessly over the rough stones, as if her feet were bare; and she stood under a clump of chestnut trees only half a dozen yards down the path, and beckoned to him without speaking. Though she was in the shadow he knew that her lips were red, and that when they parted a little and smiled at him she showed two small sharp teeth. He knew this at first rather than saw it, and he knew that it was Cristina, and that she was dead. Yet he was not afraid; he only wondered whether it was a dream, for he thought that if he had been awake he should have been frightened.

Besides, the dead woman had red lips, and that could only happen in a dream. Whenever he went near the gorget after sunset she was already there waiting for him, or else she very soon appeared, and he began to be sure of her blood-red mouth, but now each feature grew distinct, and the pale face looked at him with deep and hungry eyes.

It was the eyes that grew dim. Little by little he came to know that someday the dream would not end when he turned away to go home, but would lead him down the gorge out of which the vision rose. She was nearer now when she beckoned to him. Her cheeks were not livid like those of the dead, but pale with starvation, with the furious and unappeased physical hunger of her eyes that devoured him. They feasted on his soul and cast a spell over him, and at last they were close to his own and held him. He could not tell whether her breath was as hot as fire, or as cold as ice; he could not tell whether her red lips burned his or froze them, or whether her five fingers on his wrists seared scorching scars or bit his flesh like frost; he could not tell whether he was awake or asleep, whether she was alive or dead, but he knew that she loved him, she alone of all creatures, earthly or unearthly, and her spell had power over him.

When the moon rose high that night the shadow of that Thing was not alone down there upon the mound.

Angelo awoke in the cool dawn, drenched with dew and chilled through flesh, and blood, and bone. He opened his eyes to the faint grey light, and saw the stars were still shining overhead. He was very weak, and his heart was beating so slowly that he was almost like a man fainting. Slowly he turned his head on the mound, as on a pillow, but the other face was not there. Fear seized him suddenly, a fear unspeakable and unknown; he sprang to his feet and fled up the gorge, and he never looked behind him until he reached the door of the house on the outskirts of the village. Drearily he went to his work that day, and wearily the hours dragged themselves after the sun, till at last it touched the sea and sank, and the great sharp hills above Maratea turned purple against the dove-coloured eastern sky.

Angelo shouldered his heavy hoe and left the field. He felt less tired now than in the morning when he had begun to work, but he promised himself that he would go home without lingering by the gorge, and eat the best supper he could get himself, and sleep all night in his bed like a Christian man. Not again would he be tempted down the narrow way by a shadow with red lips and icy breath; not again would he dream that dream of terror and delight. He was near the village now; it was half an hour since the sun had set, and the cracked church bell sent little discordant echoes across the rocks and ravines to tell all good people that the day was done. Angelo stood still a moment where the path forked, where it led toward the village on the left, and down to the gorge on the right, where a clump of chestnut trees overhung the narrow way. He stood still a minute, lifting his battered hat from his head and gazing at the fast-fading sea westward, and his lips moved as he silently repeated the familiar evening prayer. His lips moved, but the words that followed them in his brain lost their meaning and turned into others, and ended in a name that he spoke aloud–Cristina! With the name, the tension of his will relaxed suddenly, reality went out and the dream took him again, and bore him on swiftly and surely like a man walking in his sleep, down, down, by the steep path in the gathering darkness. And as she glided beside him, Cristina whispered strange, sweet things in his ear, which somehow, if he had been awake, he knew that he could not quite have understood; but now they were the most wonderful words he had ever heard in his life. And she kissed him also, but not upon his mouth. He felt her sharp kisses upon his white throat, and he knew that her lips were red. So the wild dream sped on through twilight and darkness and moonrise, and all the glory of the summer’s night. But in the chilly dawn he lay as one half dead upon the mound down there, recalling and not recalling, drained of his blood, yet strangely longing to give those red lips more. Then came the fear, the awful nameless panic, the mortal horror that guards the confines of the world we see not, neither know of as we know of other things, but which we feel when its icy chill freezes our bones and stirs our hair with the touch of a ghostly hand. Once more Angelo sprang from the mound and fled up the gorge in the breaking day, but his step was less sure this time, and he panted for breath as he ran; and when he came to the bright spring of water that rises half way up the hillside, he dropped upon his knees and hands and plunged his whole face in and drank as he had never drunk before–for it was the thirst of the wounded man who has lain bleeding all night upon the battle-field.

She had him fast now, and he could not escape her, but would come to her every evening at dusk until she had drained him of his last drop of blood. It was in vain that when the day was done he tried to take another turning and to go home by a path that did not lead near the gorge. It was in vain that he made promises to himself each morning at dawn when he climbed the lonely way up from the shore to the village. It was all in vain, for when the sun sank burning into the sea, and the coolness of the evening stole out as from a hiding-place to delight the weary world, his feet turned toward the old way, and she was waiting for him in the shadow under the chestnut trees; and then all happened as before, and she fell to kissing his white throat even as she flitted lightly down the way, winding one arm about him. And as his blood failed, she grew more hungry and more thirsty every day, and every day when he awoke in the early dawn it was harder to rouse himself to the effort of climbing the steep path to the village; and when he went to his work his feet dragged painfully, and there was hardly strength in his arms to wield the heavy hoe. He scarcely spoke to anyone now, but the people said he was “consuming himself” for love of the girl he was to have married when he lost his inheritance; and they laughed heartily at the thought, for this is not a very romantic country. At this time Antonio, the man who stays here to look after the tower, returned from a visit to his people, who live near Salerno. He had been away all the time since before Alario’s death and knew nothing of what had happened. He has told me that he came back late in the afternoon and shut himself up in the tower to eat and sleep, for he was very tired. It was past midnight when he awoke, and when he looked out toward the mound, and he saw something, and he did not sleep again that night. When he went out again in the morning it was broad daylight, and there was nothing to be seen on the mound but loose stones and driven sand. Yet he did not go very near it; he went straight up the path to the village and directly to the house of the old priest.

“I have seen an evil thing this night,” he said; “I have seen how the dead drink the blood of the living. And the blood is the life.”

“Tell me what you have seen,” said the priest in reply.

Antonio told him everything he had seen.

“You must bring your book and your holy water to-night,” he added. “I will be here before sunset to go down with you, and if it pleases your reverence to sup with me while we wait, I will make ready.”

“I will come,” the priest answered, “for I have read in old books of these strange beings which are neither quick nor dead, and which lie ever fresh in their graves, stealing out in the dusk to taste life and blood.”

Antonio cannot read, but he was glad to see that the priest understood the business; for, of course, the books must have been instructed him as to the best means of quieting the half-living Thing for ever.

So Antonio went away to his work, which consists largely in sitting on the shady side of the tower, when he is not perched upon a rock with a fishing-line catching nothing. But on that day he went twice to look at the mound in the bright sunlight, and he searched round and round it for some hole through which the being might get in and out; but he found none. When the sun began to sink and the air was cooler in the shadows, he went up to fetch the old priest, carrying a little wicker basket with him; and in this they placed a bottle of holy water, and the basin, and sprinkler, and the stole which the priest would need; and they came down and waited in the door of the tower till it should be dark. But while the light still lingered very grey and faint, they saw something moving, just there, two figures, a man’s that walked, and a woman’s that flitted beside him, and while her head lay on his shoulder she kissed his throat. The priest has told me that, too, and that his teeth chattered and he grasped Antonio’s arm. The vision passed and disappeared into the shadow. Then Antonio got the leathern flask of strong liquor, which he kept for great occasions, and poured such a draught as made the old man feel almost young again; and gave the priest his stole to put on and the holy water to carry, and they went out together toward the spot where the work was to be done. Antonio says that in spite of the rum his own knees shook together, and the priest stumbled over his Latin. For when they were yet a few yards from the mound the flickering light of the lantern fell upon Angelo’s white face, unconscious as if in sleep, and on his upturned throat, over which a very thin red line of blood trickled down into his collar; and the flickering light of the lantern played upon another face that looked up from the feast, upon two deep, dead eyes that saw in spite of death–upon parted lips, redder than life itself–upon two gleaming teeth on which glistened a rosy drop. Then the priest, good old man, shut his eyes tight and showered holy water before him, and his cracked voice rose almost to a scream; and then Antonio, who is no coward after all, raised his pick in one hand and the lantern in the other, as he sprang forward, not knowing what the end should be; and then he swears that he heard a woman’s cry, and the Thing was gone, and Angelo lay alone on the mound unconscious, with the red line on his throat and the beads of deathly sweat on his cold forehead. They lifted him, half-dead as he was, and laid him on the ground close by; then Antonio went to work, and the priest helped him, thought he was old and could not do much; and they dug deep, and at last Antonio, standing in the grave, stooped down with his lantern to see what he might see.

His hair used to be dark brown, with grizzled streaks about the temples; in less than a month from that day he was as grey as a badger. He was a miner when he was young, and most of these fellows have seen ugly sights now and then, when accidents have happened, but he had never seen what he saw that night–that Thing which is neither alive nor dead, that Thing that will abide neither above ground nor in the grave. Antonio had brought something with him which the priest had not noticed–a sharp stake shaped from a piece of tough old driftwood. He had it with him now, and he had his heavy pick, and he had taken the lantern down into the grave. I don’t think any power on earth could make him speak of what happened then, and the old priest was too frightened to look in. He says he heard Antonio breathing like a wild beast, and moving as if he were fighting with something almost as strong as himself; and he heard an evil sound also, with blows, as of something violently driven through flesh and bone; and then, the most awful sound of all–a woman’s shriek, the unearthly scream of a woman neither dead nor alive, but buried deep for many days. And he, the poor old priest, could only rock himself as he knelt there in the sand, crying aloud his prayers and exorcisms to drown these dreadful sounds. Then suddenly a small iron-bound chest was thrown up and rolled over against the old man’s knee, and in a moment more Antonio was beside him, his face as white as tallow in the flickering light of the lantern, shoveling the sand and pebbles into the grave with furious haste, and looking over the edge till the pit was half full; and the priest said that there was much fresh blood on Antonio’s hands and on his clothes.

I had come to the end of my story. Holger finished his wine and leaned back in his chair.

“So Angelo got his own again.” he said. “Did he marry the prim and plump young person to whom he had been betrothed?”

“No; he had been badly frightened. He went to South America, and has not been heard of since.”

“And that poor thing’s body is there still, I suppose,” said Holger. “Is it quite dead yet, I wonder?”

I wonder, too. But whether it be dead or alive, I should hardly care to see it, even in broad daylight. Antonio is as grey as a badger, and he has never been quite the same man since that night.

The post For the Blood is the Life by F. Marion Crawford first appeared on Every Writer.