Happy Hallowe'en, dear readers!
Last year, I began what I hoped, and still hope will be a Hallowe'en tradition: publishing a free spooky story just in time for my favourite holiday. I love the spookiness, the humour and the way people evoke, bend, merge and play with ancient mythologies to create all sorts of new myths.
Last October, I published "Dark Clouds," about Helen, the Queen of all the Witches, and her son, Matt, the only man in the world who is immune to magic. At the time, I thought about turning it into a novel, even a series, so I put on the cover of the e-book version the series title The Witch's Son, and the novel title, The Mandrake Ruse. Mandrake features prominently in the story.
Now, time to confess: at the time, I had no idea about the plot of a full novel-length story about Helen, Matt and his pretty wife, Teri. Well, a year later, I have worked it out. I have a complete plot (well, almost) that picks up where "Dark Clouds" leaves off. "Dark Clouds" becomes Chapter 1 in The Mandrake Ruse; "What Made Me Love You?" will be Chapter 3.
And below is Chapter 4, which takes our hero and heroine, plus a new character named Julian, to the lonely Alberta prairie at sunset, looking for clues as to why Helen and her coven raided the Prime Minister's residence. It will be available soon as a stand-alone story through Smashwords, iBooks and Amazon, as well as the other usual e-book retailers.
Followers of the Guild of Dreams fantasy writers' cooperative blog may recognize part of this; I posted it as a teaser for my contribution to the "works in progress" theme. But it's changed since then, and I have to ask my fellow iAi member, Gary Henry (author of American Goddesses) for a pre-publication review and story edit.
Read it and leave a comment!
Happy Hallowe'en!
The Mandrake Ruse
Chapter 4: The Graveyard
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| Sundial Butte Medicine Wheel, Alberta, photo courtesy travelingluck.com |
“What’s wrong, Matt — afraid of the dark?” Julian turned off the ignition and let the clutch out at the same time, making the gears grind and the whole jeep shake.
“I have no reason to be afraid,” Matt said.
“I’m not afraid, either,” Teri said and got out of the back seat. Matt knew she had very good reason to be nervous about cemeteries, but she strode with long steps and swinging arms to the fenced graveyard, her ponytail swaying. The failing light made her brown hair look black. She pushed the waist-high gate hard as if she were picking a fight with it. Matt saw her jump just a little when the gate squeaked loudly, but she strode through, looking at headstones.
The driver’s door slammed shut much too loudly for Matt’s liking, and he scowled at Julian. But the pudgy warlock did not notice and followed Teri into the cemetery.
Matt twisted in the bucket seat and fumbled to get a flashlight from the bag in the back. Teri or Julian may not have needed one to see in the dark, but he did.
He pulled the satchel’s strap over his shoulder as he climbed out of the Jeep. He closed the passenger door as quietly as he could, but the clunk echoed off something he could no longer see. He felt tingly all over and walked as quietly as he could toward the fence.
The light was failing fast. He looked to his left, where the sun had left behind an angry red smudge along the horizon. He marveled again, briefly, at the prairie's flatness. His thighs connected with something and he bit back a curse: he had bumped into the iron fence around the cemetery while admiring the sunset. He could now barely make out Teri’s slight form and Julian’s rounded silhouette among the headstones, but for a reason he could not express, he did not dare to turn on the flashlight. He groped until he found the gate and jumped, too, when it squeaked.
“What are we looking for?” he asked in as low a voice as he could when he came up to Julian.
“What?” said Julian, in a normal tone, which made Matt jump again. “Why so jumpy, man?”
“What are we looking for?” Matt repeated, a little louder. “And I’m not jumpy. I’m just trying to be careful, that’s all.”
“Careful? Careful of what? Who do you think is way out here in the middle of nowhere at dusk?”
“I don’t know, but neither do you. So let’s just be careful, okay?”
Julian shrugged. Just as Matt was about to ask “what are we looking for” again, Teri said, “I think this is it.”
Matt followed Julian to the darkest corner at the very back of the graveyard where a stand of trees, now almost completely bare of leaves, leaned over the back fence, casting a shadow that blocked out what little light filtered through the ragged clouds. Matt stumbled three times until Julian took his elbow.
Teri was looking at the trees. Matt had to shine his flashlight at the ground in front of her before he realized that there was no fence here; the trees marked the cemetery’s boundary.
Teri pointed to two whitish rocks on the ground in front of her. “Look at the inscriptions,” she said.
Even with the flashlight, Matt had to bend down close to see what she was talking about. On the rock on the right, he finally made out: “A bird?”
“A Thunderbird,” she said. “And look at the other.”
Matt moved the light. “A cross?”
Something about it bothered him. It was worn, yes, the way only crumbly century-old carved stone can be worn, but …
“Someone’s defaced the cross,” Julian said, his voice as low as Matt’s now. He was right: it looked like someone had scrawled some kind of carving tool across the symbol several times in an attempt to erase it from stone.
“Why would someone carve these two symbols in rocks on the ground, then deface one?” Matt said. He raised the light to see a gap in the trees, an opening to a path lined with a row of white stones on the ground on each side.
Together, Julian and Teri walked down the path marked by the white stones, drawn by something that Matt did not feel. He followed, afraid for and exasperated by his wife at the same time.
He shone the flashlight left and right. As they walked down the path between the white stones, the trees became more and more stunted, more and more twisted.
“These trees aren’t just bare for winter,” Teri whispered. She had to force the words out. She felt her throat constrict until it was hard to breathe in the chill air. “They’re dead.”
Julian snapped off a dead branch. “They’ve been dead for centuries.”
“Then why are they still standing?” Matt asked.
Teri had to stop and drag breath into her lungs. Julian was having trouble breathing, too.
"It must be a spell making it hard for you to breathe," Matt said. He took his wife and Julian by the arms and pulled them along the path until their breathing became normal again.
Julian stopped suck air into his lungs. "It was a gateway spell," he said. "Put there to convince anyone who's not serious about coming here to turn back. We're through the gate, now." He tilted his head slightly. “Do you hear that?” he whispered. He started down the path again, a look on his face suggesting he was following a sound that Matt could not hear.
“What language are they speaking?” Teri whispered back. A sibilance drifted by her ear, words at the edge of hearing and comprehension. She followed Julian.
“Well, I don’t hear anything, so they’re not natural,” Matt growled. Julian and Teri didn’t slow down, so he added, “They’re supernatural.”
Teri and Julian still ignored him. Somewhere, far away, a coyote’s howl made the skin on the back of Matt’s neck tingle.
The moon disappeared behind a cloud and the flashlight dimmed. “Damn. I just put in fresh batteries,” Matt muttered.
Teri did not mind. She wasn’t using the same light to see that Matt was. As they progressed, she could see the trees shrinking, being replaced by dead bushes that merged into the prairie. She could see that the grass was dead, too.
Matt shone the dying flashlight around. White stones on the ground receded on either side in curving rows. “We’re in a circle.”
“It’s a medicine wheel,” said Julian. “I didn’t think there were any this far north.”
“What’s a medicine wheel?”
“They’re rings or circles marked in stone on the grasslands,” Julian answered. “They were made by the Cree thousands of years ago on sacred or important sites all over the prairies. As I recall, there are more in Alberta than anywhere else. But I thought the northernmost was well south of here. I’ve never heard of this one.”
“How do you know so much about medicine wheels?”
“Shut up, you two,” said Teri. In the centre of the wheel was a cairn of grey stones, as high as Matt’s head, set on a patch of gravel and sand.
Matt caught her arm just before Teri touched the cairn. “Haven’t you noticed that everything here is dead?”
The flashlight went out completely. The wind whispered in Teri’s ear again, but she could not make out the words. It was maddening — she felt like she should understand them, as if she once had, but could not longer remember. The sound faded like a dream in the morning, then circled her head to come at the other ear.
“Can you understand what the voices are saying?” asked Julian.
“No.”
Matt fought to keep his voice down. “I told you, they’re not real!”
“They may not be natural, but they’re definitely real,” Teri said sharply. “Look, there’s another Thunderbird inscription on the rock.”
Without the flashlight, Matt could not see any inscriptions. “Just don’t touch anything,” he said.
Teri walked around the cairn, Julian at her side like a dog. “I’m afraid...” he said.
Teri stopped. “Me, too.” An unaccountable fear chilled her from the inside out. Both Teri and Julian began to tremble.
Julian fell to his knees. “Yes, yes,” he whined. “Just stop whispering.”
“It’s a trick,” said Matt. He pulled Julian to his feet. “It was one of my mother’s favourites. She used to do it to my dad all the time.” He put his arm around his wife’s narrow shoulders to quell her trembling. “Don’t worry. Nothing here can hurt you.”
“Nothing here can hurt you, maybe.” The weight of Matt’s arm chased some of the fear away. At least her hands weren't shaking anymore.
“I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Teri shook his arm off her shoulders. “Matt, you may be immune to magic, but you’re not invulnerable.”
A gust revealed the moon and at the same time brought a new sound that did scare Matt: a deep growling that came from all around them, all at once, rising up from the hostile ground itself. The sound woke memories deep in the ancient, back of his brain, memories he never imagined he ever had, ancient, undeniable. His skin was suddenly covered in a thin layer of sweat from his scalp to his toes.
His eyes darted around. In the moonlight, he could now see that there were rows of small white stones radiating out from the central cairn to the stone ring, like spokes of a wheel.
“That’s why it’s called a ‘medicine wheel,’ said Julian.” Then he caught his breath as he looked beyond the ring. “Oh my, are those coyotes?”
Matt could not see past the rock ring, but the ancient part of his brain knew: “Those are wolves.”
Unconsciously, Matt crouched a little, feet seeking security on the dead grass, muscles loose, every sense alert. He felt as if he was confronting an ancient enemy.
Then he saw them with senses adrenalin-sharpened: wolves standing just beyond the ring of white rocks—at least a dozen, big, very big, calm. None of the grey shapes had bared its teeth, but a constant growl came from the pack, steady as surf on a beach. Matt, Teri, Julian and the wolves all knew: there could be no escape for three humans from their oldest competitors.
“It’s time to get out of here, Teri,” said Matt.
“You’ve always said that wolves don’t attack people!” she answered, but she wasn’t looking at them — she seemed to be studying the cairn.
“What if these wolves don’t know about that,” said Matt.
“Look: something is missing,” said Teri, pointing at a spot on the north side of the cairn.
“Come on, Teri!”
“No, look — there’s a place for something there. This cairn, this whole medicine wheel, was made to hold something, and now it’s gone.”
Teri was pointing at a flat spot half-way up the north side of the cairn. Matt couldn’t be certain in the dark, but Teri and Julian could see clearly a flat stone, obviously chiseled, and other carved stones arranged on three sides: a kind of stone box, almost like a trophy case in a school.
“That’s very interesting, Teri, but something doesn’t want us here,” Matt insisted. “Those whispers were a warning, and now they’ve sent the muscle!”
“I thought you were immune to magic,” Julian said.
“I’m not immune to teeth and claws.”
“Give me the drumsticks,” Teri said, holding out her hand but still looking at the cairn.
“Teri, never mind that — we’ve got to go, now!”
Teri just held out her hand like a queen, eyes intent on the cairn. Matt fumbled with the satchel’s flap and pulled out the decorated Cree drumsticks. The wolves growled louder.
“Matt, Teri, they’ve crossed the ring!” Julian whined. He grabbed Matt’s arm in both hands, and even Matt could see his wide eyes darting. “Come on!”
Teri ignored them. Matt wondered if she had been hypnotized — no, enchanted by the cairn. She carefully put the drumsticks on the flat stone in the side of the cairn. Immediately, the wolves stopped growling. They stepped closer, but they did not seem as threatening anymore. Matt took the chance to look away from them, toward the cairn.
The sticks' placement on the cairn seemed somehow just right. Despite the presence of a pack of gray wolves at his back, Matt felt calmer when he looked at the sticks on the cairn.
“Matt, Teri, can we get out of here? Now? The wolves are getting closer all the time!” Julian whined.
The wolves had formed a semi-circle and stepped forward, closer, deliberately and slowly. To Matt, they looked calm, almost … well, not friendly, he thought. How could a wolf look friendly? Not immediately threatening.
“I don’t want them any closer than they are,” he said, and pulled Teri by the arm around the cairn, away from the pack and toward the trees.
“The path is gone!” Julian said.
They had entered the medicine wheel by a gap in the ring, but where the parallel rows of stones intersected the wheel, the ring continued, unbroken, around the cairn as far as they could see.
Pulling Teri by the hand, Matt stepped over the stone ring toward where he thought the path was. Teri fell back as if she had hit a wall.
“Teri, what the hell?”
She rubbed her forehead. Julian held his hands in front of him and pushed like a mime at a make-believe barrier. “Matt, we can’t get past the ring. We’re stuck in the medicine wheel!”
Matt stepped back into the ring, then out again, unhindered. “This is ridiculous!”
Teri shook her head. “We can’t get out, Matt. That’s what the gap in the stones was for.”
Matt ran several steps along the ring in one direction, looking for a gap, until he could see the wolves near the cairn. He turned and ran back in the other direction until he saw the wolves from the other side; no gap either way. He wrapped his arms around Teri’s slim body from behind and pulled. He could step over the stones, but as soon as Teri’s shoulder came even with the stone ring, he felt something stop her. He pulled harder until she cried out.
“It hurts, Matt!” She pulled out of his grasp and rubbed her shoulder.
Matt stepped back into the medicine wheel. “Okay, Teri, get us out of here your way. Can you take us back to the Jeep?”
Teri pulled off her jacket and dropped her pants. “We all have to be naked.”
As she unhooked her bra, Matt looked nervously at Julian. “Teri, it’s freezing!”
“Don’t worry about me getting a cheap thrill from this,” said Julian, already down to his boxers. Every inch of his skin was covered with dark hair, even his back. “Now get your britches off.”
Matt scrambled to take off his clothes, feeling the chill of the October night. Teri lifted her arms over her head. Despite the situation, Matt could not help but watch her breasts rise as if to follow her hands up. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the transportation spell. Minutes went by; clouds shrouded, then revealed the moon. Teri’s brow furrowed, but nothing happened. She could not find the energy, the place where she had found the power before. “It’s not working,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Matt wasn’t sure whether he should be afraid or relieved; he hated traveling by Teri’s spell.
“I don’t know. I cannot see the Jeep, or anything beyond this … this place.”
“I can’t help you, either,” said Julian.
Matt looked at Julian, at his wife, at the cairn. Were the wolves coming closer? he wondered.
There was no flash, no bang, no smoke. One moment, Matt was looking toward the cairn; the next, a woman stood in front of him. It was hard to see her features in the dark, but she wore a toque with long tassels on the sides to tie it under her chin — undone — and what looked like a shawl.
Teri and Julian could see better than Matt: the colours in her woolen shawl, the beads, four bands thick, around her neck. She was young, beautiful, with smooth skin and long dark hair hanging from under her hat.
“What the hell are the three of you doing out here in the middle of the night, naked?” she demanded in the flat tones of a First Nations accent. “Didn’t you see the No Trespassing signs?” A wolf nuzzled the woman and Matt, Teri and Julian knew what she meant by “No Trespassing.”
Matt’s hands went in front of his crotch and he shivered. But neither Teri nor Julian was embarrassed to be naked in front of the stranger.
“I was trying to cast a spell,” Teri said, as if it were as common as “I was looking for my watch.” “Something is blocking me.”
“Why did you come out here to cast a spell?” the stranger asked.
“Who are you?” Matt demanded. He wondered if he should pull his clothes back on. He could barely suppress shivers, but would that be a sign of weakness in front of a stranger? Would he be vulnerable with one leg in his pants and one out if the wolf beside her suddenly rushed him?
The woman held his gaze for a long pause. “Who are you?”
“We’re from the government,” he answered. It’s not really a lie. He tried not to be obvious about looking for his clothes on the ground.
“Canadian government has no say here. This is Grizzly Bend Nation land. First Nation land. Nêhiyawahk land.”
“We brought back the sticks for the medicine drum,” said Teri.
Oh no! You shouldn’t have said that! Too late, now, Matt thought. He remembered that they had left the drumsticks on the cairn, where they looked so right.
The woman in the shawl looked almost impressed. “Really? Who told you to bring anything here?”
“We put them on the flat stone on the cairn,” Teri said.
The woman disappeared, just as she had arrived: no flash, no smoke. Matt blinked and stared at the spot where the woman had been standing.
“Where did you find it?” she said from behind him. “How did you bring it here?” Matt turned and stumbled over his own heaped clothes on the ground.
Teri stepped up to face the woman directly. Julian summoned all his courage and stood beside her while Matt tried to find his footing in the dark. “We took it from Ottawa,” she said calmly.
The woman turned to Matt. "You look strange. The other two, I understand why they are here. But I do not like you."
Matt did not know what to say.
“Go,” the woman said.
“But we brought the drumsticks back!” Julian protested.
Matt could not believe what Julian and Teri did then: they stood absolutely still, staring at the woman in the shawl, mouths slightly open until Julian fell onto his bare butt.
But what Teri saw was very different. She felt as if she had no more control over her own body. She could do nothing but watch the woman change. The shawl became fur, thick and shaggy, the hat disappeared, the hair became a mane that reached over her head, animated by a will of its own. Her face morphed, jaw stretching into a snout, mouth gaping, long fangs drooling.
And she grew, legs and arms and torso lengthening and thickening. She grew until she towered above them, reaching toward them with claws that glimmered in the red light from her eyes.
Julian fell onto his naked butt on the cold ground. Teri’s knees shook, but she could not will her feet to move even as the claw came toward her and touched her bare chest. The tip traced a red line from her collarbone down to her navel, but all Teri could do was to look into the beast’s red eyes.
The beast’s head came closer. Its jaws opened impossibly wide, but Teri still could not move as it took her hand in its mouth and slowly closed its jaws. Pain flashed up her arm, replaced immediately by a blank numbness. The beast drew its bloody snout away and Teri saw her hand between its teeth. Blood, her blood, dripped from the beast's jaws. She watched, unable to make a sound, as more blood spurted from the stump of her arm, bright red in the dark night.
Matt watched the strange woman step closer to his trembling wife, and realized they were the same height. When the woman lifted Teri’s hand in her own and lifted it to her face, Matt decided that was enough. To hell with the wolves, he thought. He stepped between the women. “What is the medicine drum for?” he demanded.
The woman stepped back, outrage on her face. Now that he was close, he could see she was middle-aged, with creases from her nose to the corners of her mouth and deep crinkles at the corners of her eyes. She was as short as Teri, but stouter, and there were strands of grey in her long black hair.
“Go!” she said again. She stepped aside and a wolf took her place, and Matt was suddenly conscious of its mouth at his crotch level. He backed away, pushing Teri farther behind him.
To Teri, the beast vanished, replaced by the familiar sight of her husband’s naked back. Beyond him was a huge gray wolf, teeth showing. Behind it were the rest of the pack and the woman in the shawl. She could hear the wind again, as if she had not heard it for a long time, or as if she had become aware of a different sound only after it had stopped.
Teri gasped when she looked at her arm: her hand was intact. She flexed her fingers, fascinated by the way the little scar on the back moved. She looked down: no scratch on her chest, no blood. "It was an illusion," she whispered.
Matt wondered whether the wolves would really attack or were just putting on a show, a display to scare them. The question became moot as Julian scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could.
“Go away! Go now!” the woman screamed and the wolf snapped its jaws. Wolf spit hit Matt’s genitals. Matt grabbed his wife’s elbow and ran. She pulled out of his grip to pick up a piece of clothing from the ground. “Never mind that!” Matt snapped and hauled her away. He pushed Teri ahead of him to follow Julian as fast as they could go. Stones and twigs scratched their bare feet, but there was no more barrier at the stone circle for Teri.
Somehow, they found the path through the forest and tried to move their feet even faster. Teri stumbled but Matt held her up and willed his feet to move faster as they heard wolves growling at their heels.
This path was not this long on the way here! he thought.
Something sharp cut into Matt's foot. He fell, gasping. Teri shrieked a little and stopped beside him, but Matt pushed her farther down the path. “Go!”
He pushed himself back up to his feet and tried a step. Pain shot all the way up his leg and out his mouth in a hoarse cry. He heard the wolf pack behind him and fear overrode pain. He ran at top speed, catching up with Teri. His foot felt like it was on fire, and flamed hotter every time it hit the ground.
If I’m immune to magic, maybe my blood will slow them down, he thought. The wolves bayed louder. Great. They smell blood, and now they’re excited.
Which means they’re real wolves, not magical.
His bare toe hit something and he went down again, hard, naked skin scraping over the rough ground.
Teri ran back to him, fumbling with something: his jacket, which she had picked up when they ran from the medicine wheel. She reached his side seconds before the first wolf and thrust Matt’s open knife at its snout. It yelped and sprang back, and hot wolf blood splattered Matt’s legs.
The wolf hesitated only a second and sprang, sinking fangs into Matt’s forearm. Matt screamed and thrashed but the wolf held on and Matt could feel its teeth sinking deeper into his flesh. The wolf shook its head. Matt hit the wolf’s head with his free hand and kicked with no effect. He could feel the fangs hitting bone and a deep fear filling him.
He felt a thud. The wolf let go and fell sideways with a yelp. Julian stood over them, holding a big rock. “Come on!” he panted. Teri helped Matt up and he stumbled behind them. His forearm throbbed and the sole of his foot stung with every step. Scrapes stung his skin on his legs, his side and his back. Blood tickled his skin as it ran down his arm. The smell of the wolf’s musk stuck in his nostrils and sweat stung his eyes despite the cold air on his naked skin. But Teri held his side and pushed him forward, and her hands warmed his skin.
Something scratched his shoulder, then the opposite side. “The path’s getting narrower,” Teri panted behind him.
“The trees are closing in on us!” Julian exclaimed ahead of them. “We have to move faster!”
Somehow, they made their legs move faster. Matt saw Julian hesitate, and then they were out of the little forest and back in the cemetery. They stopped, hands on knees, panting, searching for enough breath. Julian fell to his knees, then onto his back, chest heaving up and down.
Matt looked back. The woman in the shawl stood under the trees at the entrance to the path, a wolf on either side of her. “Never forget how I let you go,” she said in her flat tones. “Now leave and never come back.”
“Who are you?” Teri stammered. Julian was already across the cemetery, heading for the jeep.
“Tell your people that Jessica Piyesiw has warned them!” she screamed, and vanished as she had before. The two wolves looked briefly at the naked trio in the cemetery, then turned and disappeared under the trees as only wolves can.
Teri put her arm around her husband to try to support him as he limped to the jeep. “You always think so clearly, Teri,” Matt said as she fished the keys out of his jacket pocket. She and Julian helped Matt into the car; Julian checked for a first-aid kit while Teri took one last thing from Matt’s jacket pocket: his cell phone.
“Call Racine,” she said.
“And tell him what? That we’ve lost the drumsticks as well as our clothes?”
“Tell him you need emergency medical help.”
As usual, Matt could not argue with his wife. He pressed the speed dial button.
This is going to hurt, he thought. Julian brought out a bottle of peroxide and some cotton swabs. And so will that. But not as bad.
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