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Explanation

The following is somewhat of a ramble on a genre that I define and refer to as campfire gothic. It may be interesting, I hope so, but it is not at all an essential prologue to these stories and poems. If you have any interest in reading them, please go ahead. Reading this preface won’t make the selections any better than they are, it just attempts to explain the overall title.

So, what do I mean by campfire gothic? To begin with, this is not a reference to a particular post-punk subculture. I make no judgments with regard to that subculture or its attendant lifestyle, it’s simply not what I’m referring to. Gothic, here, is an imprecise literary reference. I’m not sure that anyone has ever come up with a concise and satisfactory definition of gothic literature, so I’m not going to attempt that myself beyond stating that most gothic tales incorporate elements of the grotesque, the supernatural, and the non-rational, with portions of darkness and gloom thrown in for atmosphere. There, now, as to the campfire part: stories and poems told outdoors around fires at night or in darkened rooms at a late hour. Pretty basic. We have all heard them and been frightened, amused, or disgusted by them. There are great ones like some of the Yukon poems of Robert Service, Carl Stephenson’s Leningen Versus the Ants, Richard Connell’s classic The Most Dangerous Game, Jack London’s To Build a Fire, Algernon Blackwood’s The Wendigo, The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. With the possible exception of the Poe, none of these works is esteemed for outstanding literary quality. The characters are not particularly complex or dimensional, and whatever moral lessons they provide are neither revelatory nor profound. Probably no one but a postmodernist critic could find much to ponder or elaborate on. These works have become well known simply as stories that excite our interest and engage us in the struggles and perils that afflict the usually unfortunate protagonists. They are best read aloud or recited from memory, and sometimes a storyteller’s own personal version can be as effective as the original. Sometimes it’s an improvement.

How do the selections posted here fit in with my definition of campfire gothic? To be perfectly honest, some of them don’t. A few, like The Road to Osaka and The Emu are too upbeat in their tone, although they do incorporate elements of the supernatural and the non-rational. Well, they were written for kids, so I didn’t want to get too dark. I might refer to these as campfire gothic lite, which is close enough to get them included. The poem about the owl is a bit of a stretch, but I like it so I included it anyway.

In conclusion: There is nothing posted here that is meant to be instructional, topical or overtly political. Whatever satire they contain is aimed at the genre itself, or at the peculiarities of human nature in general. Whatever morals they may imply are commonplace. They are stories told primarily for the sake of storytelling. The main thing about campfire gothics is that they are fun. Whether they frighten us or make us laugh with their combinations of horror, irony, imagination and humor, when done well they are thoroughly enjoyable. I hope that the selections I have chosen measure up to that, even if they fall short of the classics mentioned above.

As a final disclaimer, I don’t mean to imply that writing that avoids philosophical and psychological complexity is somehow preferred or superior. Such a notion would be antithetical to all of literature.

Rick Fine

Santa Paula [1875]

This is the beginning of a chapter from the novel Campfire Gothic. It was taken out because of problems with chronology, so I put it here.

SANTA PAULA [1875]

A few days before Christmas the residents of Santa Paula woke up to the sight of snow coming down heavy and wet. Far up in the thin air of the Sierra snow had blanketed the peaks and closed off the passes. There it was expected. Even nearby Hines Peak would get a dusting this time of year. But here, down on the floodplain of the Santa Clara, it should have been rain. Not that there hadn’t been rain. Since the beginning of November rain had been falling in torrents. And wind. Farther down the valley fierce winds had forced ships out of the harbor at San Buenaventura and blown over the mission cross that had stood as a landmark for ninety years. So far the winter of seventy-five had been a triumph of the erratic over the predictable, of weather over climate, a trend that was disheartening the most stalwart of the town’s citizens.

Santa Paula was essentially a work in progress rising on the site of an old Spanish hacienda. A handful of newly completed houses with their wooden clapboard still looking fresh from the mill, a provisional hotel, several shops that had been finished enough to lay in some stock and make an attempt at display, and a liquor store. But the germinal town saw its future. The good loamy soil of the upper valley between the Topatopa and Santa Susana Mountains was being groomed into farmland so systematically that a person might have stood on a hilltop and watched the tilling of new fields, row after row, materializing on the landscape like carpets slowly weaving out on a loom. This was the town’s front porch view.

At the town’s back, beyond the neighborhood of platform tents that housed the workers and some brave prospective residents, stood the mountains, the Topatopa hook of the Coastal Range, rising to over six-thousand feet. The mountains were the past, scarred from the picks and shovels of prospectors who swarmed out of the overflowing camps of the North to scour and burrow every inch of ground they could reach before their insensate frenzy for gold was at last put down by failure and exhaustion. The Great Rush was over. The Argonauts were gone, and the elephant was last seen somewhere in the Dakotas. There were still mines up in the mountains. There was still gold. But the veins were deep, and the mines were corporate concerns owned by stockholders in San Francisco or the East. The profits went elsewhere, and the men who worked in the shafts and stamping mills weren’t the sort who were inclined to live in towns. Santa Paula was being built as a place for people to settle down and raise families, people whose dreams of prosperity were based on fruits and grains and commerce. If they were going to dig anything out of the ground it would be something they had planted themselves, something sensible, like carrots.

Throughout the summer and fall of the past year the air had been filled with sawdust, the smell of paint, the sounds of hammers and saws, wagons rattling their cargo and clattering over the unpaved streets. Meetings had been held, plans discussed, contracts drawn up — there would be a school, a church, a bank. Things were on the move, figuratively speaking. Figuratively, that is, until rains of biblical proportion began to shift part of the enterprise, along with the ground it stood on, to some undetermined point slightly closer to the river. The river, in turn, was expanding out onto the plain. And now it was snowing. Construction was at a standstill, and the workmen were off either attending to their own problems, or trying to drown those problems at the hotel bar. The enforced holiday was not just the result of snow, but of an entire atmospheric upheaval that came with it. The temperature had dropped to below freezing, the wind was raging from every point of the compass at once, and the snow was intermittently mixed with every form of water, liquid and frozen, that ever fell from the sky. It seemed that whatever powers maintained the usually benign climate had succumbed, entirely, to chaos.

Despite the holiday, there were two people out and at work this day, a building contractor, Tom Wells, and his top foreman, Bill Mawley. These two, soaking wet, nearly frozen and entirely miserable, were involved in a hopeless attempt to save what was going to be the feed store. The more or less completed framing had been roofed over to allow work to continue in the rain, but water had undercut the shallow foundation, and now the snow piling on the roof, along with gusts of wind blowing with the force of a cyclone, were promising to either send the roof sailing off into the clouds, or else collapse it under the excess load. Mawley had been in the building trades for enough years to reckon himself a little old to be out doing this sort of thing, and he was shouting himself hoarse trying to convince his boss that it was pointless to get themselves killed trying to prevent something that was going to happen no matter what they did. The contractor, a younger man with the implacable determination of a entrepreneur about to see his money and reputation go tumbling into an unrecoverable heap, disagreed. He clung to the shaking timbers like a sea captain weathering a typhoon, hurling curses at his foreman and ordering him to make one more harebrained attempt. “Secure it from the top! Up there damn you!” He shouted against the roar of wind, and he pointed to the beam where the leading edge of the roof was attached to the frame. “Throw a rope on it! We’ll pull it back and…!” His last words were obscured by the wrenching sound of the floor sliding forward on the heeled over foundation. The roof began to buckle and a great slab of half-frozen slush landed at the foreman’s feet with a lethal thud that vibrated his bones and left a momentary stillness hanging in the air. “For Christ’s sake!” Wells implored, “Don’t just stand there, throw the goddamn rope!”

The belabored Mawley was trying to make out exactly where and how he was supposed to throw the rope. He looked up, and above him just beyond the quivering edge of the roof he saw a gray mass of cloud that seemed far too heavy to hold itself aloft for long. Below it smaller clouds were hurtling in all directions like flocks of frightened birds. He heard a rumbling in the distance, then a bright flash lit up the clouds as a crack of thunder blasted his ears and loosened another avalanche from the doomed roof. He tried throwing the rope. It flew into the air, whipped and sailed. He held onto the end while it took to the wind and trailed out like a kite string. “What in hell are you doing, you moron! You can’t throw it like that! Jesus! Tie a rock onto it or… ” Wells’ voice was swallowed up by a roar that came out of some nearby woods as the trees bent over and started letting go of their branches. Mawley tried to steady himself by grabbing onto the framing as another burst of wind drove a volley of ice pellets straight into his face, followed immediately by a barrage of profanity from Wells. What next, he wondered. He turned his face away from the onslaught of meteorological and verbal abuse and saw something moving in the street. A shadow of a man, it appeared, looming out of the storm like some Norse god emerging from the elements, slogging through mud and slush deep enough to mire a team of oxen up to their yokes.

The figure appeared to made of the same stuff as the weather. Dark and threatening as the sky, misshapen as the clouds, a man of sleet, rain, wind, and mud. “Now! Get the… ! Sweet mother of God…!” The contractor let go his death grip on the swaying timbers, staggered and worked his way grabbing one board after the next to where his foreman was standing fixed. “Now what! Just what, what in blazing hell are you… !” The foreman pointed. “Jesus! What the hell is that?” They both watched as the figure approached, straight on, steady, a cloud of steam blowing out of his mouth with each step. As he got closer they saw that he was huge, and that the odd shape was caused by a bundle thrown onto his shoulder. There was also something he was pulling behind, a burro, a large dog, whatever it was it wasn’t cooperating, and each time it lagged he gave a sharp tug without bothering to look back.

Wells cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, Mister! You alright there!” If the man heard him he didn’t give any indication. He just kept coming. When he was even with them, not more than ten or fifteen feet away, they were able to get a look at part of his face between the brim of his hat and a beard as coarse as a wad of mattress stuffing. What they could see appeared to be carved out of wood or stone, too rough and ridged for flesh. He shifted the bundle on his shoulder and gave a another pull on the object in tow. They could see it clearly now. It was a child.

“You see that?” Wells jabbed his foreman with an elbow and pointed. “He’s got a damn kid with him. Out in this!” The child’s age and sex were indeterminable, but its proportions were trifling compared to the giant that pulled it along. Bundled into an oversized blanket coat tied around the middle with one end of a rope, the child half-stumbled, half-ran, trying to keep up with the other end. Wells took another shot at making contact. “Hey, Chum! Everything okay there, eh!” The man turned his head. His eyes were wide open and didn’t blink as the snow blew into them. He glared at the two workmen, unclenched his jaw, fired out a wad of tobacco juice and continued on. The contractor took exception. “ Now hold on there! You… !” The foreman laid a hand on his arm and shook his head. He’d run into men like this before and had learned that it was never a good idea to provoke them. Besides, something was happening to the building. The roof was making a slow clockwise rotation. The frame, secured between unevenly diverging points, was starting to groan like a man stretched on the rack.

There was no great crash when it came down. No shattering and splintering of timbers. No cloud of dust. It simply laid down into the mud and slush, and that was that. The contractor and his foreman stood in the mired street watching the snow settle over the remains. “It’s a damn shame,” Wells said. “That’s what it is, just a goddamned shame.” “Nobody’s fault, really.” said Mawley. Through the falling snow they could make out the shapes of the two travelers heading towards the hotel. “Guess we’re done for now,” Wells said. “Sort it out when the weather clears up. If it ever does.” Mawley reserved further comments.

In the lobby of the hotel the dim light bleeding in through the windows was mixing with the yellowish glow from oil lamps to produce an atmosphere even gloomier than the mess outside. A small gathering of workmen in canvas overalls and flannel shirts were standing at the bar applying themselves to the consumption of cheap whiskey and the telling of bad jokes. Conditions in the tents where they quartered were beyond unbearable, and they wanted to ensure that when they went back for the night they’d be immune to all discomfort. When the door swung open they turned in a group to welcome a fellow sufferer with good cheer. A notion that only lasted an instant. The appearance of the enormous man with the dismal looking kid left little doubt that any laughter was going to be construed the wrong way. The two stepped inside the door and stood in an expanding puddle while the large man surveyed his surroundings with the confused look of an animal that’s just stumbled into a camp, not sure if it should bolt or attack. As the rest of his face began to emerge through the melting slush they noticed that his nose and cheeks were aglow with the orange-red color of freshly fired brick, and steaming like they were probably just as hot. After a few moments of silence and tense stillness he stamped his feet, set a course, and with the light of pure madness blazing from his eyes, stepped up to the desk. The bartender, a slender young man who just that moment had a disquieting insight into his own mortality, adjusted his paper collar and hurried around to take his alternate role as desk clerk, and, if required, the bouncer.

Standing orders at the hotel were for any potential troublemakers to be turned away. Particularly if they appeared to be miners or prospectors. Those were welcome to buy liquor when they passed through, as much as they wanted, but then had to move on and make trouble someplace else. The same went for any other trangent trash that drifted by.

The new arrival threw down some paper currency. “How long will that do me?” he said. That was all he said, although later there were different opinions on the exact wording. The bartender started to inspect the bills, issued by a San Francisco bank he’d never heard of. Wildcat money, probably worthless, or if it had any value at all there was no way of knowing what it was. “Anything wrong with it?” The bartender was trying to quickly think of some way he could explain the situation and still survive when the obvious occurred to him. “As long as you like,” he said, affecting a smile reserved for gentlemen in suits. Someone else could tell this gorilla that his money was no good. Someone who might be less attentive to the throbbing veins on the man’s forehead, or the size of his fists, or the distinctive bulge of a large sidearm inside his coat.* “Yes Sir,” he said just as pleasantly as you please. “You stay as long as you want. And if there’s any problems I’m sure Mr. Bradley, the owner, he’ll be happy to work something out in the morning.” As far as the bartender was concerned the owner was a rotten prick who’d hardly be missed. He took a key off a hook and put it into the stranger’s calloused hand, convinced from the look and condition that if it was clenched it could bash the life out of a steer. “That’s you. Number four. You’re in room number four. Down that hall to your left. You’re number four.” Speak softly and clearly, he thought. No sudden movements or alarming gestures.

The tension was making it hard for the boozed up men at the bar to keep from laughing — as it would if some thug pulled a knife and said, “I’ll cut the throat of the first man that laughs.” It could only be a matter of time before a scene like that came to a blood splattered finale. Watching the bartender’s excruciating efforts to keep the situation under control made it even worse, and a few of the men had to bite on their knuckles or stick their faces against their shoulders to keep from bursting into hysterics. As the stranger grabbed his scruffy kid and plodded into the rear hallway to find his room, they all sighed in relief, and they prayed in their hearts that this would not turn out to be a drinking man. If they claimed later that they had seen trouble coming, their foresight could hardly have been termed remarkable.

The door opened again, and the workmen turned with some apprehension. The way things were going it could be anything — a Yokut war party, the dreaded Moralles gang, a grizzly with a loaded rifle in its teeth. But it was Bill Mawley, arriving with a report of the newcomer’s first notable accomplishment since showing up in their community. “Seen him? Yeh, I seen him. Son-of-a-bitch spit so hard it knocked over the feed store. Now, who’ll stand me a peg of that kerosene.”

And so McKusker’s reputation was off on its usual course, with almost no effort at all on his own part. This time he didn’t have to murder anybody, thrash anybody, eat anybody,** or burn anything down; all he had to do this time was show his face and spit. Civilization was getting picky.

*It is noted in previous chapters that McKusker is armed with a LeMat grapeshot revolver, a devastating contraption with a cylinder holding nine 44 caliber slugs and a lower barrel loaded with buckshot.

**Following the unsavory events that transpired in 1846 while crossing the Sierra with the notorious Donner party, McKusker was accused of having eaten Tamzene Donner. He didn’t, although he may have eaten someone who did. A fine distinction.

R.F.

LADY NÁMIDA

Chapter One

LADY HARUA

The first time Lady Harue saw the ghost she wasn’t sure that it was anything at all. She was by herself looking out into the garden when she had a sense of another presence in the room. There was a movement just at the edge of sight. She turned her head; nothing was there. No one had entered or left the room, she was certain of that. It might have been her senses playing tricks on her, as they sometimes did, and under other circumstances she would have dismissed it as nothing more. But at that particular moment she was looking for something peculiar or out of place, something to confirm that the world around her was a fraud, and that the impossible things that seemed to be happening were not actually happening at all. That none of it was any more real than the events of an unpleasant dream.



This had occurred on the day of her father’s return from Kyoto to their home on Lake Kasumigaura in what was then the Shidanosho region of Hitachi provence. The year was 1600, the fifth year of Keicho. It was autumn, still too early for snow, but the mornings were crisp with frost. The late summer haze that softened the view across the lake and trapped the rich smell of cedar and pine, had been driven off by air so pure and clear that now the double peaks of distant Mount Tsukuba stood out against the blue sky, and its surrounding rows of wooded hills could be seen as distinctly as the reeds and waves close by.

The clarity had an unsettling effect, as if things meant to be concealed were coming into view, or possibly things that hadn’t existed at all might be emerging in the landscape. The entire world was undergoing a change at this time, and change invites the unknown, the unexpected, even the unimaginable. The Great Taiko, Hideyoshi, omnipotent warlord of Japan, had died. The insuing power struggle had developed into a civil war. This, in itself, was not unusual. There had been other civil wars; it was assumed there would be more. There always were. Then, at the dawn of a recent morning near a small mountain village, the Great Army of the East and the Great Army of the West came together. The battle began in rain and fog, and when the day was done, when the cannon fell silent and the last crackel of musket fire echoed away into the surrounding hills, the victorious general surveyed his harvest. Through smoke that clung to the ground and with the growing darkness hid the ruinous scene from Heaven’s view, Tokugawa Ieyasu rode with his retainers across the field of Sekigahara, taking account. Sixty-thousand heads. Who was there to stand against him now? No one was left who had the power. It was a victory so final that there could be no more war.

This was the unimaginable. In a world where everything had hinged on the fortunes and hazards of war for centuries, there was to be no war. The established order of all things was suspended, waiting for some sign of what was to come. For everyone, the thoughts of what might emerge through the vanishing haze were troubling.



Although there was no war, there was the aftermath of war. There were winners and loosers. There were accounts to be settled. There were punishments and rewards to be dealt out. That was why Lady Harue’s father had been in Kyoto. Lady Harue’s father, Lord Nakasada, had not been involved in the final battle, although his clan, the Satake, had been supporting what was now the wrong side. Their leader, the Head Daimyô, switched the his clan’s allegiance at the last moment, but by missing the battle, due to logistical complications, they were unable to demonstrate their new loyalty. The triumphant Ieyasu, being nobody’s fool, suspected that the Satake had simply decided to take the less risky course of sitting this one out. Whether that was true or not, it seemed to set a poor example, and people needed to understand that risk could not always be so avoided so easily. That was why Lord Nakasada, like other lesser Diamyô of his clan, found himself listed among unsettled accounts.

The assembly in the Imperial City of Kyoto was a demonstration of Ieyasu’s newly won power. Although he hadn’t yet been granted the title of Shogun by the Emperor, that was taken to be a matter of formality. Already Ieyasu had assumed the role of absolute military ruler. Events got off with the execution of the opposing general, Mitsunari, who had neglected to commit suicide during the interval between loosing the battle and being captured. Next was General Ekei, who shared the misfortune of being taken alive, and then General Yukinaga, who had been unable to kill himself because of religious convictions. Yukinaga was a Christian. The executions were performed in the riverbed as a public spectacle. Attendance was required, personal sensitivities notwithstanding. Lord Nakasada was disturbed by the proceeding. The message, uncomfortably pertinent, sent a wave of foreboding through him that caused the blood to drain from his face as if his head was already preparing itself for the impending removal. As the crowd withdrew a man next to him took note of Nakasada’s pallor.

“A little squeamish, eh?” Lord Nakasada turned and saw a broad smile behind a black beard. “At least when it’s your own head you don’t have to watch it rolling around.”

At that moment Lord Nakasada took some comfort from being in the company of someone so obviously indifferent to death. He introduced himself and learned that his companion was a samurai commander from Kyushu, Lord Higekuro, a man known throughout Japan as one of its most ferocious warriors. In the hope of absorbing some of the man’s legendary courage he stayed at the great warrior’s side and made conversation as they walked through streets crowded with vagrant samurai, prostitutes of various status, Portuguese merchants in European dress, Buddhist monks, lords, ladies, and vendors of everything from halberds to hairpins. Everywhere people recognized Higekuro, whose enormous eyes and bristling hair were almost as frightening as his reputation. He was acknowledged with respect and a wide berth.

When they passed by a tavern Lord Nakasada asked Lord Higekuro to join him in a cup of sakê. The offer was accepted, a cup was followed by another, and to his delight Lord Nakasada discovered that his companion’s courage was indeed rubbing off on him. When Higekuro suggested they amuse themselves with a game of dice, Nakasada ordered a full bottle and said he could think of nothing more enjoyable. Between each throw they drank a cup to avail their luck, and when the bottle was emptied they sent for another. Lord Higekuro seemed as indifferent to the effects of drink as he was to the sight of bloodshed, but Lord Nakasada found that his head was becoming progressively lighter as his anxieties drifted off into the shadowy oblivion of faces, noise, and strong aromas that filled the space around him.

When Lord Higekuro suggested raising the stakes, Lord Nakasada could hardly refuse. So the stakes went up, and then up again, and then again, and when the next bottle was emptied Lord Nakasada’s courage was complete. He wagered like a true hero, as though all the world could be won or lost and mean nothing to him at all.



The next morning Lord Nakasada took stock of what he owed, and was astounded by the amount. Not that it troubled him. Even if he should survive the judgment of Ieyasu, he knew that Lord Higekuro would not. Higekuro was a principle retainer of Yukinaga, the Christian general whose head was now decorating the end of a pike by the riverbed. Higekuro was also a Christian, which was why he hadn’t killed himself. Why Ieyasu hadn’t killed him yet was presumably just a matter of scheduling. Much of the respect being shown to Lord Higekuro was for his honor, or perhaps arrogance, in coming there of his own accord to accept Ieyasu’s judgment.

That judgment, it turned out, was more shrewd than vengeful. The Christian Daimyô controlled the port of Nagasaki and the Portuguese trade. They were an influence Ieyasu would eliminate when the time was right, but for now he chose to conceal his intentions by showing them some favor. Ieyasu had known Higekuro from the time they fought together in Korea under the Taiko. He didn’t believe the man was deeply spiritual, and he assumed the religious conviction was mostly a matter of loyalty to his former commander. But he knew Higekuro to be honorable, so rather than having him executed, Ieyasu forgave him his recent errors — for the sake of their past association, he said — issued a token fine, and gave him a new command, enrolling him into the reorganized army at the rank of general. A very capable and Christian general.

For Lord Nakasada this unexpected turn was a catastrophe. His own case, it turned out, was not important enough to warrant a judgment at that time, but he was informed by one of Ieyasu’s aids that there would at the very least be a fine involved, and it would certainly be substantial. His life was spared, for now, but the debt he owed Lord Higekuro would reduce him to poverty. Whatever payment Ieyasu required would be impossible to raise, and a default could mean death or slavery for his entire family. His only hope was to appeal to Lord Higekuro for compassion.

Despite his Christian affiliation, Lord Higekuro did not feel inclined toward compassion. He understood that Nakasada had assumed that the debt was meaningless. He had thought so himself. But then again, wasn’t that part of the wager — that the creditor wouldn’t live to collect. And on that count Nakasada had legitimately lost. On the other hand, he knew that with a judgment still pending, it might seem underhanded to make a preemptive claim on Nakasada’s assets. Still, it didn’t seem proper to just drop the matter. Honor and custom both demanded settlement, and so something meaningful would have to be paid.

.....

“Don’t you understand what a fantastic honor this is?” Lord Nakasada adjusted his stance to appear more resolute. “An honor. Yes. And I won’t hear a word against it. Not a word.”

Lord Nakasada was not an imposing figure. He had a smooth, round face, narrow shoulders, and a belly that hung over the sash of his robe. It was the look of a well fed priest or The Jovial Buddha. To compensate for his appearance he relied on assertive posturing and a manner of speaking that was fortified with gutturals and growls. His show of resolve at this moment was directed toward his much more formidable looking wife, Lady Yanagi. She was sitting on the mat with her back straight and her legs folded under a low table that had been prepared for the Ceremony of Tea that had become part of the routine in every respectable home. She glared back at her husband. Her face, powdered white and painted for the occasion, showed no more expression than the stoneware pot steaming with hot water.

“Better than we could have hoped for, that’s all I can say.” Which was about all he could think of saying, not knowing how to force an issue against such damning silence. He tried shifting his posture again.

Lady Harue had been watching from the doorway. She steadied herself against the shoji screen while her father pressed on with his feeble attempt to make the situation sound reasonable.

“The alliance is brilliant. It gives us—” he grasped for the appropriate words. “Power— Protection— Yes, protection. Ieyasu would look much more favorably on us if we were connected with one of his generals. He would!” Lady Yanagi was unmoved. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why you’re not as enthusiastic about this match as I am.”

Lady Yanagi finally stifled her anger enough to speak. Her voice was calm, but with a slight quaver suggesting the strain. “It is a poor alliance when only one side stands to gain.” Her eyes were fixed on the table as her hands worked mechanically at whisking the powdered tea and pouring the water. It was enough that she would criticize her husband, to look at him while she did it would be indecent. “Whatever Tokugawa Ieyasu allows us to keep out of deference to Lord Higekuro will become Lord Higekuro’s. We get nothing, and Higekuro gets control of our remaining lands and revenues.”

“There! Now there I think you’re wrong.” At last this gave Lord Nakasada something to respond to. “You are wrong.” He took a combative stride forward. “Lord Higekuro is much too involved with his army and all that to go mixing up in our affairs. He’ll be off in the mountains. Off fighting bandits and renegades for Ieyasu. Who knows where?” he gestured with his hand to indicate someplace far removed.

“And his managers and overseers? Where will they be?” His wife’s face was starting to war with her cosmetics, and the shadows of creases stood out against the white foundation. “Looking after his estates. Will they not? And that will include us. His in-laws. You’re a fool if you don’t see that.” She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. His face went red at the impertinence. “Please, excuse me. But why else do you think he would make such an arrangement? Out of generosity? This is an acquisition, a bloodless conquest. Or nearly so.” She cast a suggestive glance at Lady Harue, then poured the tea into two small cups and held one out as an offering to her husband. He looked at her and she bowed her head. The gesture was entirely perfunctory. He took the cup from her hand and set it back on the table as a rebuff, then immediately regretted it. That was going too far. He knew that his wife was right, and it was unworthy of him to shame her like that. His posture deflated.

“I don’t see how there’s an alternative.”

Lady Harue had remained silent through this whole exchange. One hand still clung to the side of the shoji screen while the other rubbed nervously at the cool silk of her kimono. It was the finest she owned, the color of fresh cream. Over the kimono she wore a robe of red and orange brocade, embroidered with hollyhocks and trimmed with gold. The front of the robe was open so that the hem had trailed behind as she stepped into the room. It was a spectacular entrance, meant to impress her father. But her father had barely glanced at her. He hadn’t even given her a greeting or explained what was going on. Not that it took more than a moment to figure that out. She knew that it was not her place to voice an opinion on the matter, but when she heard her father say that there was no alternative, the strict rule of filial piety was no longer enough to hold back her tongue.

She addressed her father respectfully. “Otôsan….” Lord Nakasada gave her a surprised look, as if he had forgotten she was in the room. “What if Lord Higekuro should find me unacceptable?” She thought that at least it might be a hope. She could make herself appallingly unpleasant when she wanted to.

Her father ran his hand over his balding head and tugged at the thin topknot, gathered and tied in the samurai fashion. “If Lord Higekuro isn’t pleased,” he said matter-of-factly. “Well, then he won’t have you. That’s all. The settlement will default, we will be required to pay a debt that exceeds our worth, and we will incur the wrath of Ieyasu. We will certainly be exiled or forced into servitude.” He didn’t mention execution, although the possibility was implied.

This didn’t leave much of an alternative. Exactly how her father had incurred this debt hadn’t been mentioned, but the expressions on both her parents’ faces indicated that he had done something atrociously stupid. Now she was going to have to suffer for it. Everyone knew about Lord Higekuro. He was called Ôni, the Demon, Ôni Higekuro. People said that he cared for nothing but war, rejected all comforts as unmanly, and was as coarse and hairy as an ape. That he lived on millet and radishes, and slept in his armor with the severed heads of enemies beneeth his knees. He even worshiped a barbarian god and engaged in blood feasts. This was no match for a thirteen-year-old girl with all of the refinement that good breeding and proper instruction could produce.

“And why would Lord Higekuro find you unacceptable?” her mother said. “When you have so much to offer to a man of such rare sophistication.” Her voice was so cold and sarcastic that it made her husband wince. Lady Harue registered nothing. She looked back and forth at her parents, then bowed and begged to be excused.

As she stepped out of the room and drew the screen, Lady Harue heard her father calling for a servant to bring sakê. The sound of his voice struck her like a gust of wind that seemed to thrust her down the corridor. There were other voices. Footsteps. She started to run, but the hem of her kimono was tangling her feet so that she stumbled and lurched like a drunkard. But she couldn’t slow down, her legs wouldn’t stop moving. Turning a corner she fell and slid along the mat, the woven straw scraped the skin off her knees where the kimono had ridden up. The pain made her furious. It was everything, she thought, her family, her house, even her clothing, everything was conspiring against her. She scrambled along the mat until she was able to get back on her feet, then she forced herself on with no idea where she was going.

When she found herself in a far room by the main garden she collapsed into a heap and lay there, her face buried in her sleeves, her long hair trailing out like a black stream flowing from her head. I could keep on running, she thought. But where? And how would I live? And wouldn’t I be caught? And wouldn’t that make things even worse?

Then she would kill herself. Why not? She knew how. Whatever remorse and misfortune might plague her father as a result would be no more than he deserved. But would it end there? And was killing yourself really as quick and painless as she had been told? The pain in her knees led her to imagine a knife cutting her flesh, and that was enough to prompt a less drastic train of thought. The alternative existence. It meant that the course of her life, which didn’t include impossibilities like this, had somehow become entangled with some other life that did include them. A wayward and disconnected life that was reshaping her whole world with impossibilities. And that meant there could be a way out. She had escaped from nightmares by finding something in the dream that would tell her that it was a dream. Some inconsistency, something out of order. Then she would wake up. If she could find such a thing now it would expose this apparent world for the twisted imitation that it was. She would be able to break free.

She thought of the garden. That would be the place to look for it. The key. The impossible flaw. A flower blooming out of season. A ripe apple on the bronze-leafed plum. A bat swimming in the pond, or a fish sitting in a tree. She had seen things as unusual in her dreams.

Nothing of the sort revealed itself now. No matter how hard she looked the garden showed her nothing but its relentless perfection with everything correct to its season and habit. That was when she felt the presence in the room. Or thought she did. It raised her hopes for a moment, but when it passed without revealing anything she turned back to the garden. It was still the same. Still a flawless mimic of the persistent world. Nothing was out of place. There was no key. There was no way out.

But there was a ghost.

This is her story.

.....

Chapter Two (beginning)



LADY NÁMIDA

The story begins eight hundred years before the time of Lady Harue, on the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh moon of the eighteenth year of Jôgan, year of the Elder Fire and Monkey. On that day in the Imperial city of Heian-kyô, Crown Prince Sadaakira ascended the Throne and became the Emperor Yôzei-Tennô. On the same day, at approximately the same time, Lady Shôshô, principle wife of Taira-no-Ason-no-Yorinaka, a court official of the Junior Fifth Rank Lower Grade, gave birth to a daughter.

When the new emperor was informed of this remarkably synchronistic event, he was convinced that his destiny as a ruler was in some way linked with the Taira child. The matter was referred to the Bureau of Divination where the Yin-Yang Masters read the signs, and where the court astrologers made an exhaustive study of the heavens. And while it appeared that the prospects for this child were not very bright, they could find nothing that connected her with the affairs of the empire. This made the emperor suspicious. He believed the astrologers and the Yin-Yang priests were lying so that certain parties at court could manipulate the fated child to serve their own purposes. To thwart his presumed enemies he demanded an immediate betrothal so that she would grow up under his personal guidance and control.

The selection of Imperial wives was a matter for the Great Council of State, which would usually concur with an emperor’s choice out of deference to his authority as God King. But in this case Yôzei’s authority was preempted by his uncle, the regent. Because of the emperor’s age (he was only eight years old at the time) no imperial demand could go forward without the regent’s approval. The regent, Fujiwara-no-Motosune, had his own plans. The Fujiwara held high positions at court and were on the way to establishing a monopoly on power. One of their strategies was marriage. An emperor’s first wife would be a Fujiwara so that the principle heir would have a Fujiwara mother and a Fujiwara grandfather along with lots of Fujiwara aunts and uncles. Regents and Chancellors would, naturally, be appointed from among the trusted members of the family. This accumulated influence, unburdened by the customs and protocols that constrained the reigning emperors, would make the Fujiwara virtual rulers of Japan. Up until now it had been going well, and so Fujiwara-no-Motosune was not going to see the process disrupted by the new emperor’s first wife being a Taira. No matter how young she was. The Taira were of imperial lineage. They had been removed from the line of succession, but the blood of past emperors nourished their ambitions. Certainly they would attempt to capitalize on any matrimonial priority. Yôzei’s demand was overruled.

The emperor raged. The high ministers and counselors averted their eyes while he ran up and down the wide stairs that rose from the vast inner courtyard to the imperial throne, howling defiance and flapping the voluminous black sleeves of his robe like wings. When he finally gained enough equilibrium to stand still he brandished the imperial scepter. In his shrill voice he ordered his high ministers and counselors to prostrate themselves like obsequious dogs. And dogs is what he called them. Dogs and scoundrels and traitors. He shouted at their bowed heads and eminent bottoms. He swore that no one would undermine his destiny by making him relinquish his claim on the newborn child. It was an embarrassing display. When the outburst subsided Lord Motosune went to the emperor, straightened the front of the child’s robe and discreetly instructed him to behave in a more dignified manner. Yôzei withdrew to an inner chamber to sulk.

The immediate desire of all of the assembled nobles was to forget what they had just witnessed. The emperors behavior was so unseemly that simply mentioning it would be a breach of decorum. Not even the Taira ministers, whose interests stood to benefit from the emperors demand, were willing to broach the subject. Everyone remained silent, until Uji Fearsome Minister of the Left Kazuhira spoke up with a matter of business regarding the selection of some young ladies to grace an upcoming ceremony of medicinal offerings. Names were suggested for a list to be submitted to the Ministry of Protocol, and the mood of the court was almost back to normal when the order was called for everyone to grovel. The Son of Heaven had returned.

While he had been brooding in the inner chamber Yôzei had concocted a plan. He seemed more composed now, and was so eager to present this plan that the regent took the risk of letting him address the council.

“She has not been born,” he said.

Lord Motosune was perplexed by this. “Indeed, it would appear that she has,” he protested.

Yôzei was undeterred by the regent’s opinion. “Exactly when a person is born is a matter for the Emperor to decide,” he said. “I have decided that she has not been born, and therefore she has not. And will not be until I have decided otherwise.”

“And when might that be?” the regent asked, suspecting that the young emperor merely intended to transfer the recorded day of the girl’s birth to a calendar date that was less portentous.

“When my reign is complete and my heir is seated on the throne.”

Lord Motosune could have dismissed the emperor’s plan as nothing more than the delusional raving of an angry child, but was afraid that doing so would provoke another outburst. Still, he had to respond somehow. The council was waiting for a decision. Then it occurred to him that as ridiculous as the emperor’s plan was, it would solve the problem. Or at least put it out of the way. The Taira lords would be unhappy, but the other prominent families, Minamoto, Ariwara, Tachibana, none of them would even want to deliberate on a matter so absurd. It would be confirmed, then put out of mind, impossible to discuss without impugning the fitness of the emperor. And no one would ever to do that. An emperor attained the throne after having upheld the Ten Virtuous Acts in his previous life, so no one could question his fitness without assailing the whole karmic framework of existence. At least not publicly.

To everyone’s astonishment the regent gave his consent. After a bit of subdued grumbling The Great Council of State agreed that a proclamation should be drafted for the Ministry of Central Affairs, then it went back to discussing the relative virtues of their favorite young ladies. The Child Emperor sat contentedly on his throne, the Fujiwara hegemony was firmly on track, and a course of events had been set in motion that would come to a grim culmination at a wedding feast hundreds of years in the future and hundreds of miles away.

… … …

The end of this selection.

Selection from Chapter 5

YAMA-HIME

Scavengers were hard at work this night. The battle had left bodies strewn across the narrow valley, now groups of men, some with wives and children in tow, flocked like crows to get at the remains. The burning pitch of torches sent shadows sweeping across the ground and flickers of light leaping like sprites into branches. The flames coming from all directions stirred the darkness into a dizzying confusion where the trees, the stones, even the dead, appeared to be moving. The scavengers faltered and stumbled, spoke in whispers, and cut the throats of the wounded to keep from hearing their cries. It is an awful business. Everything about it frightens them. They are afraid of the dead and of the dying. They are afraid of ghosts, of obake, of shiryou, jikininki, buruburu, and kubikajiri, afraid of vampires, kyonshi and hone-onna, and demons, oni and tengu. As far as they’re concerned the war-torn valley is so populated with supernatural beings associated with death that it is hardly less dangerous than when the actual fighting was going on. And now, to make matters worse, it is being whispered around that someone has seen the Yama-hime.*

The Yama-hime, as everyone in the district knew, was a yurei, a ghost who appeared as a young woman during the day, but at nightfall transformed into a monstrous witch. They said her father was an evil Mountain King, an aragami who had been murdered by the child he abused. And they said the scars on her face were from the flames of hell where she had been held by a demon until she killed him to escape. They said that she could draw men’s souls from their bodies with her breath, that she could stretch her neck like an arm and grab with her teeth. They said that she had no feet. In daytime if the strange, white-haired woman approached a farm or village the people threw stones or sent out a priest to hurl curses and drive her away. No one gave her food and no one gave her shelter, but they knew she didn’t need those things. And they said that in the aftermath of a battle she would be there, walking among the bodies, conjuring their ghosts, using them to work revenge for whatever evils had been done to her.

To Lady Námida the setting had become familiar. Dead and wounded, scattered in some places, in others heaped and tangled like snags on a riverbank. Most of them were peasant conscripts, pike soldiers, hardly different from the scavengers. They knew nothing, not even why or who they had been fighting. But a few were professional warriors, bushi, in the employ of the various contending families. These were the ones she was looking for, the tsuwamono who might have information that could lead her to Atsumori. Several months before, a wounded officer had told her about a warrior from Heian-kyô who had taken the name Kagetora because he was on the run after committing an unforgivable crime against a prominent lady. The officer didn’t know what the renegade's true name was, but allowed that it could just as well been Atsumori as anything else. Following a battle in Hitachi a warrior with exquisite black armor and a pike in his chest informed her that Kagetora switched sides and now was with a Minamoto faction in the Shimôsa district. He might have given her more information but a grubby man with blood on his hands and a good eye for quality, pushed her aside to get the armor. From there she continued traveling wherever the rumors of war led. In the aftermath of a battle in Shimôsa, while searching for anyone who was still alive and not too grievously wounded to talk, she first noticed that the spirits of soldiers seemed to hover briefly over their corpses. At the time she hadn’t had anything to eat for longer than she could remember, and cold endless rains had kept her from sleeping at night. Everything was looking strange, and she was suspecting that some of the things she saw might not really be there. So when she saw a spirit actually rise up out of a body like a wisp of smoke, then float there as if reluctant to go any farther, she ignored it. But it didn’t ignore her. While it appeared to be oblivious to everything else, it acknowledged her. When she passed by, it seemed to speak. She thought it asked her if it was dead. She told it that it was, then it vanished.

On this night she was again looking for signs of life, for breathing or wounds that still bled. All around her she could hear the whispering of scavengers, groans of the wounded, and now the forlorn laments of spirits giving up their ruined bodies and disappearing into the darkness. Other sounds came to her, the customary sounds of night in the countryside, the chatter of frogs and crickets, the shrill piping of a mountain owl, the chirping of a nightjar, all as if nothing unusual had happened in this place, as if the killing and destruction had no connection to their natural world. Then a voice, quite clear: “I know who you are.” It came from a soldier lying partway in a ditch. She thought he might have stumbled there during the battle, or maybe his horse had thrown him; there was a horse nearby with arrows in its neck. She knelt beside him. A boy on the prowl for loot saw them, stopped and watched nervously. From the light of the boy’s torch Lady Námaida could see that the soldier was on his back with no visible wounds, and the quality of his armor made it clear he was someone important. The armor was beautifully laced with a deep blue threads, it didn’t seem to be at all damaged, but so much blood had run into the ditch that the water looked black. She assumed he had been struck from behind. “Has someone told you about me?” she asked.

He didn’t answer that. “You’re looking for Kagetora,” he said.

“Yes.”

“He’s with Fujiwara-no-Hidesato, camped at Choshi. You’ll go there?”

“I will,” she said.

“Good. He’ll be pleased to see you. I want you to give him a message.” Lady Námida leaned her head close to his lips. “Tell him that Gohiro sends his regards. We fought together many times. He was a good friend. Tell him that I applaud his honor.”

Then the voice went silent, and she knew that he had nothing more to say. As she stepped back the boy rushed over to begin stripping off the armor. He planted the end of his torch in the ground, drew a knife out of his sash and brandished it as a warning. There was no danger from the soldier — obviously dead and probably had been for some time. But the woman with the scars on her face, there was something that wasn’t right about her. When he looked up she was watching him, the knife didn’t seem to phase her. Then he realized, of course, the knife would be useless. As he felt the panic start to take hold he grabbed the torch, hurled it at the woman, then ran off to tell his father about a narrow escape from the Yama-hime.

* Lady Námida is a ghost story and so lots of ghosts get themselves mentioned throughout. Ghosts and other supernatural beings were vastly abundant in old Japan, and distinctions between one type and another can be confusing. The peasant farmers scavenging the battlefields no doubt had their own understandings of what was what since their descriptions of the yama-hime incorporate a number of inconsistencies. The list below covers the spooks and goblins named in this selection. Definitions are brief and probably not reliably accurate.

obake - the broadest category of supernatural or ghostly beings
yôkai - a class of obake with particular powers - demons, ghosts, monsters, imps
yama-hime - mountain princess, a yôkai (similar to yama-uba, mountain witch)
yurei - wandering ghost with unfinished business
kubikajiri - head eating ghost
jikininki - corpse eating ghost
shiryou - ghosts of those who died violently
buruburu - ghost that kills with fear
hone-onna - skeleton vampire
kyonshi - hopping vampire
oni - ogre or demon
tengu - the Mountain Demon
aragami - a Shinto spirit, or kami, gone bad.

The terms bushi ( 武士 ) and tsuwamono ( 強者 ) refer to trained warriors. The word samurai for warriors did not come into usage until later during the Sengoku era. Tsuwamono translates into something like big-tough-guy, they were the elites, often the sons of prominent families. They fought from horseback and their principal weapon was the bow and arrow.

An excellent illustrated primer on Japanese ghosts by Tim Screech of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies can be found at: http://www.mangajin.com/mangajin/samplemj/ghosts/ghosts.html

R.F.

Circular Tales

This excerpt is from a story called The Wezeer and the Sapphire. The aged wezeer, or more conventionally, vizier, on a quest to recover a stolen jewel, has found himself in India where he has been brought before a great maharaja. The maharaja embarks on a series of tales in order to make a point that he is uncertain of. The tales are told in the manner of The Arabian Nights, in which stories are nested in a group, first working their way in, and then back out.



Al-Maharajan’s eyes swept the Divan, seizing the attention of all present. When the murmuring died down he once again addressed the anxious Wezeer. “Does it not seem to you that the situation is much like that in The Tale of the Camel and the Sand Flea?”

“O King of the Age,” said the Wezeer. “What tale would that be?”

Al-Maharajan answered as follows:—

The Tale of the Camel and the Sand Flea

Once, in the land of the Kafirs, there was a camel who had grown so weary of the daily toil that plagued his life that he escaped from his master and set out across the mountains and the desert to find the land of his birth. It was his intention, when he arrived there, to comfort himself in the green oases that he remembered from his childhood, and to spend the rest of his days in idleness and contentment.

On a particular morning, as he was traveling through a wilderness of sand and scrub, a sparrow came and perched on his back to rest its wings. The camel felt the weight of the bird and called out, “What’s this!”

“A traveler,” came the answer.

This incensed the camel, since he had not escaped and endured the hardships of his journey to be used in such a manner. “And why should I give passage to you?” the camel asked. “I am no beast of burden. Make your own way across this wilderness, as I make mine.”

So the sparrow flew off, cursing the camel for his rudeness.

A short while later a botfly, weary from struggling against the desert wind, settled onto the camel’s neck. The camel shuddered when he felt the weight and called out, “What's this, another traveler!”

“For just a short ways,” the botfly replied, “Until I have my strength back.”

The camel bristled at this. “Do you take me for some beast of burden. I'm no such thing. Make your own way as I make mine.” Then he snapped his tail and spat.

The botfly, offended by such an uncourteous welcome, took off back into the wind.

Before the camel had gone much farther a sand flea jumped onto his leg. When the camel felt the weight of the flea his temper flared. “You there!” he cried. “Looking for a free ride too, I suppose?”

“If you don’t object,” said the sand flea.

“Indeed I do object!” said the camel. “I am no beast of burden. Make your own way, as I make mine.”

But the sand flea merely laughed. “If you are no beast of burden, then why do you carry this great hump on your back? It would seem to me that you are both suited and accustomed to burdens.”

At this the camel stopped and planted his feet in the sand. “That’s it,” he said, “Not another step till you get off.” Then he shook himself from head to tail while he bellowed out the most horrible sounds that wind and throat could ever produce. But the sand flea dug his own feet into the camel’s hide and didn’t budge. And when the camel had finished with his fit of rage, the sand flea nipped him with his jaws and said, “Hut-hut! walk on!”

That was the final straw. Sooner than concede to a new master the camel would destroy himself and all the world along with him. He roared to the heavens, calling down fire and lightening. He commanded the earth to open, the hills to tumble, the sands to swallow him up. And when none of these things came to pass he began to toss his head, rolling his neck in a great circle, faster and faster until the sky and the ground and all the desert around him were nothing but a smear of blue and brown. And faster still, he spun his head until he felt his neck stretching out like taffy, and each of the joints from his head to his shoulders popped like a tent flap snapping in the wind.

"You'll break your own neck if you keep that up," said the sand flea.

"Indeed I will," said the camel gasping for breath, “and here I’ll lie till the wind blows the hide off my bones and the sun burns them white as ash, so you might as well get off and start walking now!” and he spun his head even faster.

“Now just a moment,” said the sand flea. “While I can appreciate your determination, I think you’re missing a point here.”

“Wh-what p-point?” asked the camel, his tongue fluttering like a bird caught in a whirlwind.

“The p-point, ignorant camel, is that death will negate your victory, and I’ll be no worse off than I was before you came along.”

“Th-then g-g-get off!”

“I probably will after you’ve killed yourself, and then won’t you look a fool, lying dead here in the middle of nowhere, and for no good reason at all. If I were you I’d consider the lesson of The Spider and the Melon.”

The Camel stopped spinning his head and turned his neck, which was now somewhat longer than usual and as kinked and limp as an old rope. He twisted it around until he was looking right at the spot on his haunch where the sand flea had bit him. “And what would that lesson be?” he asked.

So the sand flea answered as follows:—

The Tale of the Spider and the Melon

Once, long ago, in an oasis on the edge of the great Nefud, a spider crept out from under a log to set about his business of snaring flies. The spider spun his web neatly between a stone and a twig, then waited for a hapless fly to become entangled. The morning passed without result, and the spider’s patience was strained by the long hours of fruitless waiting. In the afternoon several flies came and hovered nearby, but they eyed him suspiciously and not a single one flew near the web. This destroyed his patience completely, and the spider began to pace and grumble to himself about the futility of life’s efforts.

Nearby there was a melon lying on the ground. It had grown overripe, and as it baked and sweated in the hot sun the flies swarmed around it in a frenzy of delight. After a while a bird came and, seeing all those flies gorging themselves and getting drunk on the fermenting juice that bled from the rind, the bird began eating them. When the bird noticed the spider looking out from its web, and saw the hunger in his eyes he said, “What a shame you have to wait for the flies to come to you. You should look more like a melon and less like a spider.”

As he watched the bird eat his fill the spider thought, “What this bird says is true. And perhaps there’s a way.” So after the bird had flown off, the spider went to the edge of the pool and began drinking water. He drank and drank, and soon his body began to swell. At first it swelled to the size of a berry, and the spider felt as if he would burst. But it was a melon, not a berry, that shaped his goal, and so he continued drinking until he was the size of a plum. Good, he thought, a bit more and I’ll have flies all over me.

He forced even more water into his mouth and down his gullet, feeling himself growing bigger and rounder with every gulp. At last he raised his head and let himself roll backward so that he could take a measure of his size. It was magnificent. But when he tried to move around he found that he had made himself so large that his legs were of no use at all. His belly was fully the size of a small melon, and the rest of him merely stuck out of the top like a frayed stem. As the flies came and began buzzing around, he was helpless to do anything more than watch.

At this point the bird returned. “Well, well,” he said. “This is a fine dinner you’ve rounded up for me.” And with that the bird began picking the flies off the spider’s body and eating them. The spider was enraged, and he shouted and cursed the bird. But the bird laughed and went on eating. When he’d finished with the flies he honed the point of his beak on a stone and said to the spider, “My thanks for that, and now I think I’ll see if this rare melon tastes as delicious as it looks.”

At the sight of the razor-sharp beak aimed like a dagger at his stomach the spider’s wrath gave out to despair. “Oh have mercy,” he pleaded. “It was at your own suggestion that I did this. And now you’d take advantage of my helplessness? Please, I beg of you.”

“Covet not life, for death is unavoidable,” said the bird as he looked for just the right spot to make the plunge. “If you’d been content to remain a spider, instead of becoming a melon, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Why should I spare you the consequence of your own foolishness?”

“If the price of foolishness is death, then who shall learn wisdom?” cried the spider. “For do you not know The Story of The Penguin and the Burgoo Chef.”

“I do not,” said the bird. “But at your bidding I would hear it.”

So the spider answered as follows:—

The Tale of the Penguin and the Burgoo Chef

One morning in a land far away, beyond the Al-Hind and beyond the Al-Sind, far across a great sea that marks the end of the regions known to men, a penguin sat on an ice floe enjoying the faint warmth of the dim antarctic sun. It was uncommon there for the sun to show itself at all, for the penguin’s home was the birthplace of storms, where all the world’s tempests arise before journeying off to their destinations.

Because the storms have so far to travel they rise up with monumental fury. An afternoon shower on the shores of the Bosporus would have to begin its life as a typhoon to propel itself for such a distance and still have enough drops of rain to water the gardens and fill the cisterns. And the great monsoons that wash the plains of Al–Hind are borne of such rage between sea and sky that Heaven itself echoes with the crash of thunder, the roar of wind, and the angelic houris cover their gentle eyes in dread.

Living in such a place it was no surprise to the penguin when his brief gleam of sunshine was eclipsed by a mountain of black cloud that towered up before him like an evil Gennee spewing from a bottle. But that morning the penguin was in a dreamy mood. His dream was of the sun, of its light and its warmth. Did it shine more brightly in other lands? he wondered. Perhaps it did. “Take me with you,” he said to the storm. “I would see these other lands.” With that the storm snatched him off the ice and hurled him into its thunderhead.

For days the storm carried the penguin as it blew across the sea and over the mountains and the plains, until finally its force was spent. Then, as it wrung its last drop of water from its last wisp of cloud, the storm set him down in the land of the sun…

The story of The Penguin and the Burgoo Chef was continued up to the point where the perfidious Burgoo Chef has deceived the penguin into believing that a cauldron filled with water is actually a hole in the desert leading to the sea beneeth. The penguin dives in, discovers that he is actually there as an ingredient, and beseeches the burgoo chef to show compassion by comparing the situation to the story of Abu-Murrah and the Seven Kumquats. A story which, of course, the Burgoo Chef has never heard.

And so it went, from within one unresolved story to the next, until the Wezeer began to wonder how the Sultan would ever be able to work his way back to establish whatever point he was trying to make. From Abu-Murrah and the Seven Kumquats it went to Abu-Murrah telling the story of The Oryx and the Flounder. The flounder telling the story of The ’Efreet and the Tortoise. And so on through The Barnacle and the Woodpecker, The Virgin and the Lizard, Maaroof the Harness Mender, Baba Mustafa and The Wonderful Bung, The Hyena and the Kadi, The Hippogriff in the Tallow Vat, The Eunuch and the Gennee. But then, at the point in the story of The Eunuch and the Gennee where Al-Maharajan, speaking now in the voice of a hippogriff imitating a gennee says to the lovesick eunuch: “Why should I use my powers to aid you in deceiving your rightful master?”

And the eunuch replies, again in the voice of the hippogriff, which was actually meant to be the voice of the Kadi imitating the hippogriff who is now imitating the constrained voice of the eunuch, who says: “To restore what was unjustly taken from me. After all, is this not as in the story of The Wezeer and the Sapphire?”

This was unexpected. The Wezeer listened in amazement as his own story was told right up to the point of that very moment. And then Al-Maharajan, still speaking in the voice of the eunuch, who was now imitating both the Wezeer and Al-Maharajan himself, embarked on the story’s conclusion, in which the wise Sultan said:

“May it not be so that the path you take to the verge of death will lead to an outcome commensurate with the course of your actions?” And plucking the stone from off his turban he held it to the light. “What I took to be a flawless gem has an imperfection that was invisible to me until this moment. My pleasure is diminished by this discovery, and so I offer it to you that it may console your master for his loss.” And handing the sapphire to the Wezeer he said, “Such devotion is deserving of reward, and I am certain your master will compensate you well for all that you have endured. But if you would choose to remain here, I would grant you a home and pension to live on for the rest of your days. The jewel would be delivered to your master by my own guards, and your obligation would be fulfilled.” But the Wezeer declined. “My honor decrees that I be duly discharged from one master before I may serve another,” he said. “Grateful as I am, it is my duty to return.” And when the Wezeer was strong enough to travel he was given a ship and men and returned to his country.”

Here the ellipsis of the stories had reached its apogee, and the Sultan began to work his way back. As the sapphire had been restored to it’s rightful owner, so the eunuch’s parts were restored and his love for the harem slave consummated, thus serving as an example to the heartbroken Hippogriff pining away in the tallow vat, which in turn provided a lesson in perseverance for the Kadi to use in attempting to reform the Hyena, thereby giving Baba Mustafa a moral precedent for… .

But it was here, right at this point, that the Wezeer spoke up.



And it is at this point that the longer story resumes.

R.F.

The Wendigo

From the collection, Polyadirondackon, a tribute to my favorite campfire gothic, and to memories of nights at camp when I was too frightened to sleep.

  THE WENDIGO


Let scenes of gruesome death unfold
In tales of terror, grim and old,
   Repeated as they first were heard —
   Hushed voices darkly spinning words
To make a camper’s blood run cold.

But none more dread by campfire glow
Than of the fearsome Wendigo —
   Ravenous fiend of the Frozen North,
   From ancient wilderness set forth,
Soaring where the North Winds blow.

As tall as trees, a heart of ice,
With crushing fangs in a jaw like a vice.
   Frost-glazed horns to crown my head,
   And claws like scimitars to shred,
Then slash and sever, carve and slice.

As on my victims I proceed
With every ghastly, brutal deed,
   Until my hunger for fresh meat,
   With living flesh is made complete.
Then on your wretched souls I feed.

For when your precious blood’s all bled,
And then you think you’re safely dead,
   Your spirit’s still held in my power,
   To savor and by bits devour,
While horror frays the final thread.

So have a care to what I’ll spy
When far above your camp I fly.
   For should I catch a fleeting sight
   Of that which stirs my appetite,
I’ll linger in the trees close-by.

Then silently I stalk and claim
Those snot-nose brats that just complain,
   The loudmouth punks; the dimwit fools
   Who disobey the counselor’s rules,
And all who dare to speak my name.

There’s not a one that’s lived to tell
How his feet were dragged through the coals of Hell,
   His body flung to the frozen sky,
   As he screamed in pain and begged to die,
Till like a meteor he fell.

To those who think I won’t pursue
A camper hidden from my view,
   Then in your tent feel safe and sound,
   As nighttime draws its curtain ’round,
And tell yourself the tales aren’t true —

But don’t think I won’t come
                                                 for
                                                        you.

R.F.

The Selchie (story)

[The setting for this story, taken from a longer work, is the steerage deck of an immigrant ship on it’s way from Liverpool to Boston in the year 1843. The passengers are mostly Irish and Highland Scots. During the day a dolphin had been seen off the bow, and was mistaken by someone for a seal. Later, this led to a discussion of seals and their ability to appear in different forms. This is a tradition in both Scotland and Ireland, and there are lots stories in the genre. There are songs, perhaps the most familiar is The Great [Grey] Selchie of Sule Skerrie, a Child Ballad recorded by Joan Baez, Ewan MacColl, Solas, and others. There is also a film, The Secret of Roan Inish, by John Sayles. Many of these follow similar patterns and include the basic elements that I have used here. My object was not to redefine or reinvent the selchie story, just to tell one. The term, Selchie, by the way, is Scottish dialect and so is never actually used in this story related by an Irish schoolmaster. I use Selchie for the title because it is more familiar than the Irish Rón or Roan.]


THE SELCHIE



‘A thing very much like this happened near Dungeagan in Kerry, where I come from. It was in my time, and some of you may remember, or you might have heard about it. Some twenty or so years back, maybe twenty-two or three, there was a young man named Peadar McCafferty, who I knew myself as he lived nearby and was a fisherman. And it was Peadar’s wife, Aileen, who was Diarmid Kelsaw’s daughter and who was such a charmer, as anyone would tell you. A pretty girl, which it pleased her to be a blessing for her looks, and always with a smile to make anyone feel better for the sight of it. And didn’t she die, with them hardly wed a year or more? So for all of the joy she brought, it was a sharp sorrow that was left behind.

‘For Peadar McCafferty the loss was the end of all things to come, so nothing that lay ahead seemed even worth the trouble of getting to. Nights he kept alone at his house and was poor company for any who might come to visit, all sighs and laments about the turf too wet to burn, the nights too damp for sleep, and more complaints for every part of him than old Job in the dessert. Mornings he would go and wander down onto the strand and take his curragh off into the bay. There he would row out till he was past from sight, then return in the evening with nothing more to show for the time spent than if he’d been laying about like a duck on the waves.

‘Now I would say, if there’s any who don’t know, that past the reach of our bay there are several small islands. Skelligs they are called, great stony crags that rise up from the water to fearful heights. There once were monks there with stone huts and chapels, but that was long ago, and longer still, before the monks, the skelligs were called Tech Duinn—that is to say, the House of Death, because in the pagan days it was the Lord of Death who was called Duinn. And then it was said that upon these islands were all of the spirits of all of the dead of Ireland—although there is no one would believe such a thing today, and the fishermen will tell you that the ghostly sounds drifting across the water like the howling of departed souls, are nothing more but the cries of seals that live there among the rocks.

‘Now, there were some people who thought that Peadar had grown so deep in sorrow and bitterness that it had ruined his faith in God’s creed, and that he had turned to taking comfort in ancient things which can have no truth beyond the stories that tell of them. And it was the opinion of those who believed this that Peadar McCafferty was going to Tech Duinn to find his wife there among the dead. Myself, I believe this may have been true. At least at the first. That like the king Eochaid of old, who himself was nine years digging into the fairy hill of Bri Leith to claim back his beautiful wife, Peadar would find no peace without he restored his Aileen from the shadow land of spirits. But then, when a mind is bewildered from grief, might it find one thing to be no more hopeless than another, and so set its course to undo the cause of its sorrow?

‘Some of the fishermen when they were working near the skelligs would see him there, and they said that he would be drifting close in on the rocks. And it was Liam McCullers who told me that once he’d seen him throwing fish over the side. Holding them out, he said, and dropping them one by one, so intent upon what he was doing that he took no notice of being watched. Now, it is no way for a man who makes his living from the sea to be putting back whatever he’s taken out. There would be no more sense in that than there would be profit. And this same Liam McCullers, who kept his own curragh drawn up in the same cove as Peadar, it was his daughter, Annie, says to him one day: “Here’s a fine young man, and for having no one to look after him is wandering straight to ruin.” And haven’t we all seen that happen? Or known of such a thing? So who could say that Annie McCullers wasn’t right about that!

‘Some evenings after, Annie goes to Peadar McCafferty’s house and tells him she’s there to clean things up a bit and see to it that he has a decent meal in him. Which she does. And having done, she goes back another evening for the same. And then several more. So there’s talk, of course. And wouldn’t there be, after all? But there was kindness in it, and people said that even if Peadar didn’t look much happier drifting out on the waves each day with no more intention than an empty bottle on the tide, at least he was being attended by a suitable woman. So, they said, there was a chance his life would go on and likely end up no worse than most.

‘Now Annie’s visits went on for some while, and it all seemed to be going about as anyone would have expected. Until one time, when she’s at the door and set to be about her cooking and cleaning, it’s Peadar comes out and says to her that he won’t be needing her that day. Or the next, for that matter, as he’s brought his new bride there and that she’ll be looking after things from now on. Well, you could have blown Annie down with a breath. “Peadar,” she says. “You never told me nothing about a bride, and I would have been grateful if you had. For haven’t I been lookin’ after you with that in mind for myself?” And Peadar, he says, “I’m sorry for that, Annie, and that much is the truth. But it come up sudden, you see, and there was nothing I could do and still call myself an honest man.”

‘“Then who would it be?” asks Annie. And Peadar has nothing to say, so she looks past him through the door. And there tending to the pot that hangs over the turf burning in the hearth, what does she see but a pretty young girl who doesn’t look up at all. And not a word from her, now, but she smiles and looks to what she’s stirring at in the pot.

‘“Well, I guess that’ll do then,” says Annie. And off she goes back to her father’s house. But she thinks there’s something awfully peculiar that’s going on. It was no girl from the village she saw, that was certain. And pretty as she was, there was something odd about her look. She was small, and she was very dark about her face and hair, the way a Gypsy might be, or a Spaniard from things she’d heard. But what troubled her the most was that Peadar McCafferty had never seemed to her as the kind to hold secrets or to go off courting Spanish Ladies. So she thought that her judgment must have been very poor to let herself be so deceived.

‘Now time goes by for six or seven months, and what was going on was all the mystery to most of us. There was a feeling, you see, that Peadar had done very poorly by Annie McCullers. And as we all knew Annie from the day she was borne, and Peadar as well, there was intimation that the blame lay all on the dark stranger. That she must have used her foreign ways to take an unfair advantage. So with people thinking how everyone would be better off if she had never shown her face, there was no one felt disposed to go and make her feel welcome. The girl herself never strayed far from the house, so it was for Peadar to do the marketing and other business, and he was close-lipped when he was about it. But those who passed by the house knew from the sight of the wash-line when a child had arrived. And that was expected, of course, from what Annie had said—and from what everyone would have assumed even if she hadn’t. But it was the fact of it that put fresh life back into the matter.

‘It was Liam McCullers himself who at last paid them a visit. Out of charity he said, and later had an awful row with his daughter when she found out where he’d been. “It’s treachery I’d call it,” she told him. “After him making a fool of your own blood while performing sins for which God will hurl him into hell!” And Liam didn’t have an answer to satisfy her on that, but only said that he had known Peadar McCafferty too many years to think he had been deliberate in doing any harm. And if there was fault with the girl, then what had it brought her but to live an outcast among strangers? Then he told his daughter how the dark girl had taken the child and gone straight up to the loft without a word from her. And that he and Peadar had sat on the bench by the fire in the silence of things wanting to be said. And they listened to the peat burning and the wind blowing, but from up above in the loft he heard the girl weeping from behind the bed curtain. Now Liam didn’t want to seem to meddle, but neither did he want to pretend as if he didn’t hear, or seem to be coldhearted if he did. So he brought himself to ask if the child was unwell. With that it seemed that Peadar would commence to weeping himself. “The boy is in health.” he had said. “But my wife has so great a sorrow over missing her home that it has taken all the comfort from our lives.”

‘Now, Annie remained at crosses with her father for what he had done. But she took a mean satisfaction from knowing that Peadar’s life was not a happy one. It was no better than he deserved, she thought, and she said as much to anyone who would listen. And then, just to be certain that he was truly as miserable as he ought to be, she took to prying around a bit. So, one day Annie is down at the strand looking after her father’s nets when she sees Peadar heading out to do his marketing. And what should be there drawn up on the sand but Peadar’s curragh, still upright and set to go out again. Well, Annie starts nosing about just to see if Peadar’s gear was neglected and his own nets rotting from the damp. Which they were not. And so she’s thinking she might be within her rights to cut a hole or two in the tarred skin that covers the boat’s frame, when she spies a package there wrapped up in an oilcloth and tied with a string. “Now what would this be?” she wonders. Then she lifts it out and takes off the string to have a peep inside. And what does she find there? A seal skin. She opens it out, and it’s the softest most beautiful she’s ever laid her eyes on. The color of a bay horse, and the fur has such a sheen that it seems to glow in the sun with light like an amber jewel. And she sets her cheek against it and it feels as warm as if it were alive. “This is a skin would fetch a price,” she thinks, “So why is it hid away in the bottom of his boat?” And she considers the matter till the notion comes on her that Peadar McCafferty is saving it to make a gift to some woman. Could be his wife, she thought, and he’s saving it for some occasion. Or could it be for some other Gypsy he’s courting on the side? This, she thought, was likely, since he had shown his unfaithful nature as clear as any traitor could.

‘There seemed to be only one thing for her to do. She would take the skin to Peadar’s wife. If it had been meant for her there would be little harm done. And if it were meant for another, it would be the most suitable way to spoil his plan.

‘So on the next day, when Peadar was off at marketing, she went to his house where she knocked and rattled at the door until at last the dark girl came out to stop the commotion that had woke the child and set it crying. She stood there with the child on her hip and had a frightened look on her face, since no one had ever come before when she was alone. So Annie steps in with the package. “I’ve been a poor neighbor,” she says, “and for that I’m sorry and have come to make amends.” The girl strokes the child, who won’t cease with the crying, and she tries very hard to smile, but she says nothing—and in truth there’s neither she nor Liam ever once heard the girl say as much as a word.

‘Now, Annie sees that the girl has no intent of setting the child down, so she lays the package on the table and begins unfolding it for her. “It’s a fine skin,” she says. “And I hope you will take some pleasure from it.” Well, the girl sees the skin and she lets out a cry like she had been struck. Then she puts the child on the table and snatches up the skin as if it were the treasure of all the world. She holds it against herself, then she rubs her face through the fur, and presses it firm across her lips to hold back the sounds that are choking inside of her. When the girl looks up again, and when Annie sees the tears running from her wide dark eyes, she gets uneasy. “Well,” she says, “I guess that will do then. And I hope that I will be seeing you again before too long. Perhaps you’ll pay us a call.” And she leaves the house thinking that something very queer had just occurred. And indeed it had, as you are about to see.

‘On that very same night Peadar McCafferty comes by to Liam’s house. He has brought with him the child. “This is my son,” he says to them. “His name is Otkell,” he says. Which is not one bit an Irish name, or even a Christian one for all that I know. But he looked to be a fine healthy boy. Then he asks Liam and Annie, have they seen anything of his wife, or know anything of where she might be. Now Annie can tell without asking that something wrong has happened, and that it is likely to have something to do with what had occurred earlier on. And she says nothing, but from the look and the manner of her it’s clear to Peadar that she’s keeping something back. So he asks her straight out if she knows anything about a seal skin that was in his curragh. And Annie says she knows nothing at all about any such thing, and why should he be asking her, and what would that have to do with the whereabouts of his wife anyway? So Peadar takes the child and goes, and Annie works it out to herself that the girl has taken the skin to sell so that she might buy her passage back to wherever it is she came from in the first place, which again is not one bit less than what Peadar deserves.

‘For the next days Peadar was no more himself than he had been after his first wife had died. But now there was the child. So each morning he would take the child with him when he went out in his curragh. And the two of them would drift there far off in the bay until it grew dark, and sometimes longer if there were a moon to show some light. And the fishermen who would come within sight of them would report the strangest things. That Peadar, they said, would be drifting there talking to the waves. Or holding up the child and calling out like he were summoning the spirits or beseeching the Lord to draw near. But strangest of all, Rory Sean Eoghain, while rowing up on the far side of the skelligs, saw them there and the child entirely in the water, with Peadar lifting him out like he were a fish that had been caught in his net. And who could imagine why a man would do such a cruel dangerous thing, and the boy being no more than a babe?

‘Of course the child took sick from all of the cold and wet, and with no proper milk to feed him with or a mother to look after him, it’s a wonder he didn’t die right off. But Peadar tended to the child as best he could. And it’s to his credit that he spent many days without leaving it alone, but stayed in the house to keep the fire hot and to look after the wee thing. It was then, for those days that Peadar remained indoors, that Liam noticed there was a seal had come into the cove and was plying about in a troubled way. It was back and forth along the shore, and sometimes even up on the land, but would hurry itself back to the water if anyone approached. Then it would lay off aways, upright in the water, giving a harsh look to whoever had disturbed it. Then, all through the night, the seal would commence to crying and wailing so that there was no comfort or rest for anyone within the sound of it. Nor would there be, for as you may know, the cry of the seal is so like the keening of a young girl sobbing from grief that it will put your heart across you to hear the sound of it.

‘Now to have a seal lingering about is an unfortunate thing for more than just the bawling at night. It takes whatever fish it can catch, and not only for its meals, but kills as many for no more than the sport of it. This is a serious matter that would call for measures. But among the fishermen there’s quite a few have a feeling about the harming of seals. That it is an unlucky thing to do. And some will tell you that the seals are themselves an enchanted folk, like the fairies, and will have revenge for any wrongs that are done to them. But Liam McCullers had killed more than a few seals in his life, and up until then he suffered none the worse. So on one morning, after being troubled all night long with the mournful sounds, he steps out and sees this seal well up on the strand with a mackerel so big that it would have brought half the price of a days catch. “This is enough of this,” he says. He grabs his fowling gun from the house, and before the seal can lumber its way back to the water, he shoots it through the heart. The seal gives out a shriek, turns to him with a startled look, then drops just where the waves are at the line of the tide. Liam goes over to make sure that it’s dead, and looking at the creature it strikes him how the skin is finer than any he’s ever seen, without the blots and speckles that you see on most, and of a rich dark color. It would fetch a price to more than make up for the stolen fish. So then and there he sets about to take the skin. With his knife he makes a slit from the throat right down to the vent, then he slides his hand inside to open it up and draw off the blood before it can stain the fur. But what he feels in there is not at all the veins and flesh of a seal, so he pulls the skin back, and there within is it not the breast of a young woman, pierced through by the gunshot and still pouring out blood. At the sight of this a horror takes hold on him. He covers his eyes from the sight, then he drops his knife and he runs for the village so fast that the wind at his back could not keep up.

‘There in the village he makes such commotion about blood and murder that he needed to be sat down and his furor quenched with pints of porter before any sense could be got from him at all. Now, there was on that day a priest who had been called out to perform the extreme unction for Diarmid Cleerey — who recovered and lived on seven years more. And the priest heard what Liam said, and he decided the matter should be looked into, although himself, he thought it most likely to be the production of a frightful delirium brought on by intemperance, which Liam denied, as he was never one to take more than his senses could command. So the priest, along with several others, including myself, went with Liam back to the beach to sort out what had happened. There we found the seal, just as Liam had said, lying at the edge of the tide and partway in the water now, with a plume of crimson drifting out from where it had bled. We pulled the creature up onto the dry sand, and after we had looked it over carefully we began to cut away the skin, pulling it back to either side as we went. And as the skin came away we saw, as clear as anything, first the face and then the body of a young woman. And Liam gazed at us amazed and asked: “Is it true that we all see what we’re looking at?” And we said that it was true, but who could she be? And Liam said that it was Peadar McCafferty’s young wife! And here she was with her eyes looking dead on the lot of us. Liam cries out to God that he’s done a murder, and he begs for the priest to make intercession for his soul. But the priest says that there’s been no murder here. And Liam cries out to the priest, “Father, I have shot this girl and killed her myself! And with my own hand I have cut into her flesh!” And the priest says to him again that he has not done murder. “This is no woman,” says the priest, “Nor is it any other of God’s creatures that were fashioned by His hand.” And so someone asked the priest if we had not better pray for it then? And the priest says, “Pray for yourselves, but not for that abomination.” Then he tells us in no uncertain terms that there is not one single word in all the bible anywhere about seals turning themselves into ladies, or any such thing, and that we should all thank God for having no more to do with it. Then he tells us to cover it over, as it wasn’t decent to look on even in death. So we folded the skin back over and wrapped it all in a tarpaulin. Then the priest had us weight it down with stones and to take it far out into the deep water.

‘It was the priest himself who went to Peadar on that day and told him what had happened. And the Father preached to him about matrimony with beasts and demons being a sin that the Lord despised, and that any man who had done such a thing might have a great deal to answer for on Judgment Day. And he said that he would pray for Peadar’s soul, but that the soul of the child, if it had one at all, was in jeopardy for want baptism, which he himself would not perform under the circumstance. He offered then to refer the matter to the Monsignor, but Peadar sent him away.

‘A short time later Peadar went to the McCullers’. He was harsh with his words, and he told Annie how giving that skin to his wife was the cruelest thing that could ever have been done. “For all the love she bore in her heart for me and for our child,” he said, “in her soul there was only pain. Those who are borne of the sea must return to the sea, as whatever god it was that fashioned her kind had bound her fate. And there could be no power in all the world could keep her here except that her skin had been hidden away. Not one time did she ever ask me where it was, or go to seek it out. But to see it there before her eyes, there could be no choice for her. She could no more choose than change the blood in her veins.” Then he said to Liam that even if he wouldn’t blame him entirely for his wife’s death, as he’d meant no harm, it was a harm that came of it that was too grievous to forgive. And poor Liam would have taken more comfort of one forgiving word from Peadar than all the absolution from all the priests in the world. So he swears that never again would he harm a seal, even at peril of his own life. Peadar says that he should do no less, and he leaves with no words more comforting than that.

‘On the day after, Peadar took the boy to the McCullers and asked Annie to look after him while he went off. Which she couldn’t say no. Then he went out in his curragh, far out past the skelligs to where the clouds rolling off the sea grazed on the water, and there he vanished, and neither him nor the boat was ever seen again.’

Sounds of astonishment rose from among the listeners, then a woman spoke out. ‘And what was it become of the child?’ she asked.

‘Why, as anyone will tell you, Annie McCullers raised him up, and did as good a job of it as any mother might. And when he was grown he took to the fishing like his father had done. And like his father, he put to sea one day and never came back.’

‘And do you believe, then, that he had taken after his true mother and was one of the seal folk himself?’ someone asked.

‘Who can say that. Isn’t there many a fisherman never returns from the sea? And isn’t there many a good reason for it?’

An old woman said something in Irish, then crossed herself, pulled her shawl closely around her shoulders and clutched the two ends below her chin.

‘So you do recall it, Grandmother?’

The old woman looked up at the schoolmaster like she was making a confession. ‘It was my own Michael, God rest his soul, was there with you and saw it when she were cut open.’

‘Yes, I remember him there. And did Michael tell you about the eyes, then?’

‘Ay, he did, he did. And I would that he hadn’t, for it troubled me awful to hear it.’

‘And so it might, as it troubled us who saw ourselves. You see, the body we cut from the skin of the seal was hardly different from any ordinary mortal—except for the hands and feet, that is, which appeared to have grown of a part with the fins. But her face was as much the face of a young woman as you would ever look upon. Or so you would say, until you saw the eyes. Now, some of you, if you live by the sea, will know how it is that all of the affections that can proceed from a look are to be seen in the eyes of a seal. If it is anger or fear, sorrow or joy, you see it as plain as you would with any person. And this is because, of all creatures, their eyes are the most alike to our own. And yet they are not, for they are the eyes of a beast. And though they can glint with laughter, and in grief or pain shed tears no different from our own, they have a darkness in them that is too deep for us to know. They have a softness too gentle for the lives we live, and a longing too fierce for our modesty. But most disturbing of all, we see there a sadness so great that we could never touch without it breaking our hearts. Those were the eyes that were looking on us from the face of the girl. And even though death had clouded and froze them staring into the empty sky, who was there that saw it and could blame Peadar McCafferty if she had been leading him into the jaws of hell. If the spark of life had lit those eyes again, for even a moment, what man was there that she could not have led?