Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 8
March 29, 2024
The Master Magus – Titus Crow
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Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
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A Doctor, Darkly – Dr. Hesselius
March 13, 2024
The Black Cat (1934)
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Invisible Man (1933)
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White Zombie (1932)
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Psychomanteum #2
EDITORIAL
Yeah, I tweaked the name. Why, you may ask? I say why not? It sounds better than ‘Newsletter [INSERT DATE]’. Generic is all well and good, but a bit of pizzazz every now and then can’t hurt. Spruce things up a bit, you know?
And, of course, the name is appropriate, I feel. I’ve always felt there’s a whiff of talking to oneself around blogging as a concept. These days, we’re all modern day Samuel Pepys, recording our every meandering thought and offering it up as a witty bon mot to an audience that might well be made up of nothing but sophisticated bots and AI data-scrapers. You can point to your follower count and your recipient lists as proof you’re being heard, but there’s no guarantee that its anything other than smoke and mirrors. We’re all just sitting in the psychomanteum, hoping someone is listening.
So, with that in mind, if you are just joining us, welcome to Psychomanteum, my new (old) newsletter. I’ve got some new news and a new (old) monthly story. All your favourites. On that note, I was reminded recently of some of my favourite stories when author Brian Lumley died last month.
Lumley was one of those writers who seemed to be everywhere; there was a time you’d have been hard pressed to find a Cthulhu Mythos-adjacent anthology without his name somewhere in the table of contents. Given his prodigious output, it’s no surprise that some of his stories were better than others. But even if his execution faltered at times, the ideas were always solid. I never read a Lumley story that bored me – and maybe that’s the best compliment you can pay a jobbing writer. You may suck, but at least you ain’t boring.
That’s my guiding ethos when it comes to writing. I’m just trying not to bore people. My output might be rough at times, but I hope it’s always entertaining.
And with that, on to the news…
NEWS
As of this month, I’ve just finished the first round of edits on the newest Daidoji Shin Mystery, A Bitter Taste, which has largely freed up my schedule until May (please preorder a copy, by the way. I’d appreciate it), barring some stuff I can’t talk about.
While I’m tempted to dive into another big project (I have about three novels at various stages of completion) I might just take it easy for a few months and plunk away at some short stories instead. I have the privilege of being able to do that and I might as well take advantage of it, right? Right. Maybe. We’ll see.
Anyway, how about some new releases?
New Novel – Zombicide: Do or Die
My latest (and sadly last, at least for now) Zombicide novel, Do or Die, is now available in the UK from all good retailers. I’m very proud of this one, as there are two moments in it that made my editor cry and that’s the best compliment any author can receive. If you’d like to read about swamp-zombies, backwoods cults, and kaiju-sized snapping turtles, this is the book for you. Grab a copy from the publisher.
New Short Story – “Regions of Fancy”
This is the last story I wrote in 2023, and possibly the best one I’ve written in a while. It’s part of Becky Books new Bigfoot anthology, Knocks & Howls and it concerns the possibly-fictional meeting between artist John James Audubon and Daniel Boone on the banks of the Kentucky River, the skull of an unknown animal and the shadows between the trees. Grab a copy from Amazon or one of its subsidiaries.
New Short Story – “Orphan of Bones”
Appearing in the Winter 2024 issue of Old Moon Quarterly, the newest Amina Algol short story finds our sword-wielding heroine and her ghoulish siblings on the hunt through the deserts of the Dreamlands for a pair of suspiciously familiar-but oh so different rogues. I’m considering this one a retroactive tribute to the late Brian Lumley, given the influence his works had on these stories in particular. Nab your copy from Amazon or its subsidiaries.
MONTHLY STORY
This month’s story, “How the Professor Taught a Lesson to the Gnoles”, first appeared in 2015 in the Constable-Robinson anthology, The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty. It’s a pastiche of sorts, combining the worlds of Lord Dunsany and Arthur Conan Doyle – specifically the sinister oddities known as the Gnoles, and the wicked Professor Moriarty – and is an unofficial sequel to Dunsany’s “How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles”.
For Dunsany and Doyle
“A most peculiar problem, Mr. Nuth, I do agree,” the Professor said, in his sibilant way, as I sipped at his bitter tea. It was of his own devising, or so he assured me, brewed from the leaves of a certain flower that grew only on the most remote crags of the Scottish Highlands and mixed, improbably, with a jelly culled from the nests of wasps. “And they snatched him right through the knotholes, you say?”
“So I perceived, Professor Moriarty,” I said, setting the tea aside, somewhat gratefully. It was not to my taste, but I had drunk enough, I thought, to avoid insult. It was not wise to insult the Professor, or to otherwise cross him. For as I was, in my own sphere, so too was he, in his. And even cunning Nuth knew better than to test the patience of the Napoleon of Crime, in his own apartments, no less. “They were…quite swift. Poor Tommy barely had time to scream.”
“Such things often are. I have heard of the gnoles, though never have our paths crossed, for I do not much venture out of the city, and when I do, it is often to the continent, rather than the countryside.” The Professor twitched his head. “I do know something of their methods, of course, and the fear that they incite in others, though they rarely leave their little dark house, in their dark woods.” He looked at me. “You say you recorded certain details in your notebook? May I see it?” He held out one pale, thin fingered hand, and I drew my notebook from the pocket of my waistcoat.
I was not surprised that he knew of it, or of my habit of recording my impressions, though writing was a task for which I had little patience. The Professor was a keen one, and sharp as an adder’s fang. He took the notebook and flicked through it one handed, his long thumb stabbing each page in turn. At certain points, he paused and his head oscillated slightly, as if in consideration of some point or other.
Eventually, he tossed the notebook back to me. “A problem, yes,” he said, drawing out the sibilants in a peculiar manner. “But not an insurmountable one, I think.” He met my gaze. “Your name is known to me, Mr. Nuth. You are well spoken of, in certain circles. You do not advertise, for like my own, your skills are consummate.”
I nodded, accepting the compliment. Moriarty smiled. “I seem to recall some outrage in Surrey, of late. The pilfering of Lord Castlenorman’s shirt-studs…” I said nothing, for there was little to say that would not be viewed as boasting. And I am not, as a rule, inclined to the boastful. I am Nuth, and Nuth is me and all men know Nuth. Even the gnoles know Nuth, and I daresay that thought has kept me up at night.
“Tell me again,” the Professor said. He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped together before him. “Spare no detail, however inconsequential.”
And so, I told him again of Tommy Tonker and how the youth’s mother had brought him to me, in order to apprentice him so that he might learn a worthy trade. Moriarty nodded at this, for to him, the trade of thievery was an old and honoured one, with a storied history. After all, do we thieves not trace our lineage to Slith, and before him, Prometheus? The history of thievery is as storied as that of any noble house in Ruritania or Cephelais, and Nuth is said by some to be its grand culmination; though not me, for I am not, as I have said, inclined to the boastful.
Tommy was a likely lad and he learned quickly how to cross bare boards without making a sound and how to go silently up creaky stairs. The business prospered greatly while Tommy was apprenticed to me, and after the affair of Lord Castlenorman’s shirt-studs, I judged it was time to try something more…extravagant.
To burgle the house of the gnoles had long been a going concern of mine. And not just mine, for the rumour of the great emeralds which the gnoles were reported to possess had drawn thieves of all stripes and reputations to that dreadful wood. Of course, none save Nuth had ever returned from the attempt.
The Professor smiled thinly as I spoke of young Tommy’s hesitation as we entered that dreadful wood, and took the crooked, unmapped path to that narrow, lofty house where the gnoles and their fabulous, possibly fabricated, treasure waited. It was not a pleasant journey. One did not trespass twice in the dells of the gnoles, if one was caught, and there were many grisly memorials to those who had fallen afoul of them, nailed to the unwholesome trees. At those words, Moriarty snickered, as if at some private jest.
He leaned forward as I drew to the climax of my tale, his eyes bright with interest as I described how Tommy had climbed up to the old green casement window. And then how, as I watched from the corner of that dreadful house, young Tommy Tonker came to his predestined end. The gnoles had watched his approach through the knotholes of the trees that loomed close about the house, and they had taken him, even as he reached the window. Finished, I sat back. The Professor licked his lips. “How many?” he asked.
“How many what?” I replied, though I knew well what he meant.
The Professor held up a finger, as if in warning. I sighed. “Tommy makes four,” I murmured. Four times I had tested the defences of the gnoles and four times I had come away empty handed and lighter by an accomplice. Thus, rather than waste a fifth likely lad, I had come to the Professor in search of a solution. For he was considered, among certain parties, to be a man who could provide solutions to even the thorniest problems.
He gave a peculiar titter and shook his head. “I am in awe at your audacity, Mr. Nuth. To sacrifice one, or even two young men on the altar of chance takes a chilly soul. But four? Ha! My respect for you grows in leaps and bounds.” He leaned forward, his hands clapped to his knees, and chuckled wetly. When he had calmed himself, he looked at me expectantly.
“Half,” I said, without hesitation.
He laughed, and my spine tingled. No, it was not wise to insult the Professor in his lair. Better still to steal the jewelled eyes of the spider-god, or lean close and hear the words of the sphinx than risk the wrath of Moriarty, who was both sphinx and spider in equal measure, and more terrible than both, when roused.
“Two-thirds,” I amended, spreading my hands. “I must have something, or else what for my reputation? Were I to receive less than a third of the potential proceeds from the proposed endeavour, Nuth needs must step aside, and allow some other to take his place at the top of the pyramid of thievery—shall I allow the foreigner Rocambole or the dissolute Raffles to wear the crown which is rightfully mine, then?”
Moriarty gestured sharply. “Your pride does you credit, Mr. Nuth. It is a vice allowable only in great men, I think. A third, then, for you, and two thirds for the grand old firm.” He held out his pale hand. I took it, and tried to hide my wince at the sudden, albeit brief, crushing grip which enclosed my fingers. In my trade, fingers were everything. Moriarty knew that, and his grip was equal parts agreement and warning to me to play straight with him. Moriarty taught lessons with even the most innocuous gestures.
“When do we begin?” I asked, as I surreptitiously rubbed my hand.
“Why my dear Mr. Nuth…we have already begun,” Moriarty said, as he sank back into his chair like a cobra back into its basket. He closed his eyes and tapped his prominent brow with two fingers. “The problem, such as it is, is three fold. To wit, how to approach undetected, how to enter safely, and how to depart unmolested. You have accomplished the first, and the third–.”
“Not without cost,” I interjected.
One round eye cracked open, and I fell silent. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, and the eye closed again. “Cost is subjective,” he murmured. “A pound for one man is but a pence for another. No, it is to the second prong of the matter which we must attend. That particular house is guarded more ferociously than any bank, and more cunningly than any museum. Subtlety will avail little, I fear. Thus, we must turn to the brute arts. The gnoles…what do we know of them, Nuth? What is their shape, their mien, their physiognomy? How many limbs, and their allotment?”
“No man knows, for no man lives to say,” I said.
“But you observed them in action, did you not? And you have done so more than once. You are the best man to hazard a guess,” he said, and motioned as if to a hesitant student.
I chewed my lip, considering. Then I said, “They are not large, or else are possessed of protean proportions. The swiftness of their movements put me in mind of an octopus I saw once. But they have eyes, and need very little light. They also have an…odor.”
The Professor nodded as I spoke, and his finger twitched in the air, as if scratching out calculations. “Strong too, I should say,” he added, when I had finished.
“I thought that went without saying,” I said.
“Mm.” Moriarty leaned back, eyes still closed. “What of their nature? What drives them? Is it hunger alone, or are they possessed of more than their share of malevolence? Why lurk in a black house, in the black woods, so far away from their chosen prey? Answer that, and we may have them.”
“I cannot speak to their nature, I fear,” I said. “Only to mine.”
Moriarty’s head bobbed. “Of course, of course. It is of no import, not for this trifling matter. We do not need to understand them to burgle them.” He twitched his head, towards the grimy single window of the Soho flat in which we had chosen to meet, and looked out, over the wilds of London. “Still…to understand a thing is to own it,” he said, after a moment, in a musing fashion. “I understand London, Mr. Nuth. As you understand the ways of property and its redistribution.”
“Your ownership is not in dispute,” I said. “I am content with my fiefdom, small as it is.”
“Yes, the finest house in Belgravia Square, save the pipes, I am informed.”
I tensed as the words left Moriarty’s lips. Was it a warning? Or more akin to the unsheathing of a cat’s claws, as it stretched in contentment? In the end, I decided it was neither. It was merely Moriarty amusing himself, and again, teaching me a lesson. I inclined my head again, and he smiled.
“Leave it with me, Mr. Nuth. I shall have your solution by week’s end, I feel. And then, together, we shall take a trip out of town, into the country, and these old dark woods of yours. We shall visit the gnoles, Mr. Nuth, and teach them a lesson that they will never forget.”
And true to his word, and warning, it was by week’s end that one of the Professor’s aides, an inconsequential man by the name of Parker arrived at the house in Belgravia, and slipped in through a second story window. Parker, a garrotter by trade, or so he proudly informed me upon arrival, had brought news—the Professor had solved my problem.
We caught the train from Victoria, Parker and I. As the iron snake wound its way towards a certain village, on the edge of a dark wood, Parker provided entertainment of sorts, after proving himself to have remarkable skill with the Jew’s harp. When we reached the station nearest the village which backed upon the forest of the gnoles, we found transportation awaiting us in the form of a horse and trap.
It was late afternoon by the time we reached that peculiar village, where all of the houses face away from the raw, untilled fields which separate it from the grim forest. Not a window or door is allowed to open on those trees, for reasons best left to your imagination. Having some small experience with the forest in question, and its masters, I found myself in sympathy with the dull-eyed villagers, who watched the goings on in their market square from behind half-closed doors, and curtained windows.
The Professor had made the square his classroom and workshop, and stood atop a long dry fountain, gesticulating with his cane as his men scurried about a cumbersome cauliflower of iron and brass. As Parker and I drew closer, I saw that the cauliflower was anything but, for what member of the Brassicaceae family had ever possessed great grinding treads and an armoured shell the likes of which to put any crustacean to shame?
“A borrowed design, of course,” the Professor called out, over the noise of the preparations. “A stew, you might say, from the hands of several cooks—a bit of Da Vinci and Brunel, a dollop of Archimedes and a smidgen of Oriental knowhow from a certain Sikh of my acquaintance.” The Professor slithered over to meet us, head bobbing in excitement. “Parker, distribute the firearms—one to a man!—and get aboard.” Moriarty extracted a pocket watch from his waistcoat and eyed it, and then the sky, suspiciously. “The sun sets quickly here, Mr. Nuth. Dashed quickly, but we shall make good time, once we are under way.”
“Under way,” I exclaimed. “You cannot mean–?”
“Oh but I do, Mr. Nuth, I do indeed. Get aboard with you man,” he said, gesturing with his cane towards a round hatch in the great monstrosity’s side, where the ever-gregarious Parker was waiting for us. “Our time draws short.”
The interior of the beast was as uncomfortable as I had imagined, a cattle car of hard surfaces. Most of the space was taken up by the wide bank of controls—levers, pistons, cords and the like, the purpose of which I could scarcely fathom, set beneath a reinforced and barred slit which allowed one to see what lay directly in front of the machine. Moriarty took up a position before this odd conglomeration like a captain at the helm of his vessel and signalled for Parker to seal the hatch.
Behind us, the men Moriarty had hastened aboard took their seats on the hard benches that had been provided for just that purpose. “I took my inspiration from the Bohemian Hussites, who waged war from armoured wagons,” the Professor said. “History, of course, is full of such lessons for those with but the wit to learn.”
“An armoured wagon,” I said, as a great rumbling roar set the whole conveyance to shaking. From somewhere within its depths I heard the tell-tale gurgle of a boiler, and knew that the machine was powered by steam and coal, like a train compacted into a third the size and twice the mass. “Surely we cannot think to sneak into the house of the gnoles with such a device,” I said, as the world gave a lurch and a rattle and the great machine began to move. Like a snail, at first, and then with a tortoise’s lumbering pace.
“I told you, the problem was threefold,” the Professor said, over the noise of the great engine. “How to approach undetected, how to enter safely, and how to depart unmolested. The answer, of course, was to do none of those things, but to plan for the reverse. As I said, subtlety will not serve in this instance…thus, the way of the brute, the basher, and the bagger.” He reached up and hauled on a dangling whistle cord, filling the open field before the forest with a keening shriek. We were moving faster now, at a wolf’s lope.
“You think they will hear us and leave?” I shouted, fighting to be heard over the infernal engines. “That they will flee, leaving us free to pick their lair clean?”
“Ha! No,” he said. “Cast your mind to my second question, Mr. Nuth…why do they live where they do, so far from their preferred source of sustenance? The answer, when considered carefully, is simple—they cannot go anywhere else! No, they will not flee, because they cannot. It is often the way of such folk. So they will muster their defences, our gnolish foes, and prepare for war. For war is what I intend to wage—total and unrelenting. I shall teach them the lessons of Troy, of Sarnath, and of Peking. Where guile fails, force prevails. We shall smash through their knotty walls and shoot, stab and burn them in the best piratical tradition.” He swung out a hand, indicating Parker and the others, all of whom were armed and certainly fierce enough for the comparison, I judged.
“That answers the first two parts of the problem,” I said, “What of the third part? How will we escape? Unless you intend to exterminate them root and branch?” The thought filled me with no small amount of trepidation. Even armed and armoured by the monstrous engine, I felt the forest bearing down on me as we drew near to it. It was old and hard and wild in a way that not even Moriarty’s diabolical sciences could defend against. And from the look that passed quickly across his face, I knew the Professor felt the same way.
“The third part,” he said, “is well in hand, Mr. Nuth. Such is the guarantee of the grand old firm.” Then he turned away and leaned over his levers and cranks, urging his war wagon forward. For some time afterward, the only sound, besides the gurgle of the boiler and the growl of the engines, was the crash of falling trees and the noise of their splintering beneath our remorseless treads.
It took us little time to smash a path through those close set and unruly trees. When one moves without care, dark paths do not take so long to tread. As we drew close to the narrow house of the gnoles, Moriarty hissed an order and his men lurched to their feet to man the narrow firing slits that lined the armoured hull of the machine. Carbines were aimed, and Parker played a cheery tune on his Jew’s harp. My palms were damp, and my throat dry. The Professor, for his part, hunched over his controls like a conductor over his sheet music.
A pair of crooked trees, blistered with knotholes, were ground under and suddenly the house came into sight through the viewing slit. Moriarty released one lever and pumped another, bringing the machine to slow, onerous halt. The boiler audibly shuddered, and the whole contraption shook like a man afflicted with ague.
There was no sign of life from the house. There was no birdsong in the trees, not even the hum of insects, only the steady, dull grind of the engines and the breathing of the men in the rear of the war wagon. Nevertheless, I knew that we were being watched, sized up and somehow found wanting. I glanced at the Professor, and I saw that he knew it as well. His lips peeled back from yellow, thin teeth and his eyes sparked with an ugly light as he reached for the lever which would propel his construct forward. He hesitated, head cocked, as if listening. With every moment that passed, I expected some reaction from the gnoles, but none was forthcoming. It was as if, knowing of the Professor’s expectations, they had decided to confound him by simply staying hidden.
His head oscillated, his eyes scanning the house, the green casement window where poor Tommy had met his fate, and his thin shoulders shook with what I suspected to be frustration. I wanted to speak, but held my tongue. This was the Professor’s pitch, and I was but an observer. “Fine then,” he said, so softly, I almost missed it. “If you will not come out, we shall come in.”
The great machine groaned as he threw the lever, and it lurched forward, at all speed. Wood cracked and splintered as the war wagon crashed into the house, rupturing its aged face in a single, titanic motion. The uppermost levels swayed drunkenly as the Professor jerked and slashed with the arrangement of levers. Roof-tiles, covered in centuries’ worth of moss, pattered across the hull of the machine like hard rain. Old furniture, mildewed and puffy with mould, burst like toadstools as the war wagon forced itself deeper into the house, like a wolf gnawing on the innards of a deer.
When the first gunshot came, it was a surprise. I whirled, hands clutching uselessly at nothing. There was nowhere to hide within the belly of the beast, and I had not brought a weapon. Nuth is not a man for conflict, but the Professor’s crew seemed to thrive on it. Parker led the others in a rousing hymn of repeating fire that would have done the South Wales Borderers proud. I spun in place, searching the nearby gun-slits for any sign of gnoles, but if they were there, they were moving too swiftly for me to see.
I turned back to the Professor, where he stood before the controls, and saw that his attentions were fixed upon something ahead. He muttered to himself—calculations, I thought. Then, I heard the sound of wood creaking, and the war wagon lurched in an unpleasant fashion. Moriarty threw a lever and stepped back, straightening his waistcoat as he did so. “As I suspected,” he said, as he made his way towards the hatch. “Mr. Parker! It is time to disembark.”
The Professor caught my arm and shoved me towards the hatch. “We have only a few moments, Mr. Nuth. Best be quick.”
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“This house is but a shell—an overgrown knothole, if you will, in a thoroughly rotten tree. And we have cored it out and put much strain on the roots. So, now…”
“The tree is coming down,” I said, as I squeezed out of the hatch and dropped to the ground. The Professor followed me, walking stick in hand. As I stood, I looked about, keenly conscious of the fact that I was at last in the house of the gnoles. In many respects, it was a normal house, save for the damage caused by the wagon. A rotten house, a house that had seen better years, but a house.
That, if anything, only added to the strangeness of it. Moonlight pierced the trees and sagging, shattered roof, pinning the shadows in place. In that darkness, as deep as Roman wells, things moved. Things without shape, but more substance than I was comfortable with. They were humanoid at first and then rather like Jerusalem artichokes, and as they humped and slumped and slunk about us, their shapes billowed and shrunk like shadows cast by a fire. One of these shadows detached itself and slithered forward on too many legs, or perhaps too few, and I had the impression of many teeth and eyes winkling like emeralds.
I leapt, and rolled, avoiding the claws I felt, more than saw. The gnole turned on a dime, eyes blinking, and then one went out as the Professor taught it its first lesson—never come within arm’s length of a man with a walking stick. I had not seen him draw the thin blade from its sheath of walnut, but as he swept it out, it caught the moonlight and drew the gaze of the gathered gnoles. They learned their second lesson then, about not ignoring men with carbines in favour of a man with a sword.
At Parker’s cry, the disembarking criminals fired a ragged salvo, and gnolish eyes winkled out as the dark was pierced by tongues of flame. Over the sound of this fusillade came the eerie groan of oft abused joists and popping nails. The war wagon heaved, shimmied and then…fell. All at once, and promptly, as the floor gave way beneath it. It took men with it, down into the dark, and their screams trailed up and up, much as poor Tommy’s had done.
The gnoles came in a rush then, a tide of slavering shadows that seemed to blend together into one. The Professor rattled off firing solutions with chill precision, and where he gestured, gnoles died, or at least fell. But there were so many, boiling up out of the dark like ants; I had never, even in my most extravagant fantasies, conceived of such numbers and I knew then that the rumours of emeralds in the house of the gnoles were just that. I knew then that what men had claimed to see had been nothing more than the eyes of the gnoles themselves, watching from the corners and casements.
Parker caught my arm, his face as white as flour, and the Webley in his hand smoking. “The Professor says to run, Mr. Nuth—run!” And, as if to lead by example, he did so, bounding away from me like a rabbit. I did not need to be told twice, and I too took to my heels. I was not alone. Men streamed past and around me, running for their lives, all thought of plunder forgotten in the mad rush of fear. They scattered through the crooked woods, but I kept to the path, running for the free field and the village beyond.
As I ran, the night was punctuated by screams and cries as men were taken, one after another, by the gnoles. I am not ashamed to admit that I leapt over one such struggling knot of fell shapes and anguished cries, and did not look back. I ran and ran, and all the while, something kept pace, following me unerringly through the trees. Gnoles, I knew, were very fast, and I heard them slashing through the trees on either side of me, their emerald eyes glinting at me. No man had ever caught Nuth, but gnoles were not men, and I wondered, in those moments, whether my legend was to end like Slith’s, in grandeur and painful mystery.
Then, within sight of freedom, calamity. A root, or perhaps a claw, caught my foot and graceful Nuth, catlike Nuth, went end over end in the dirt. As I scrambled upright, a black shape flowed towards me, teeth shining like stickpins. There was a flash, and a sound like a boiling teakettle, and the shape receded, dripping something foul.
“Up, Mr. Nuth,” the Professor intoned, sword-stick extended. Sweat creased his withered features, and I realised that it had been he who had been on my heels. He glanced down at me and smiled, as if he’d read my thoughts. “You have been here before, Mr. Nuth. I am no fool, to wander in the dark without a guide.”
As I got to my feet, I saw that we were barely a hairsbreadth from the forest’s edge, but I knew that if we made for it, the gnoles would surely pull us down. The Professor knew it as well, and made no move to run. Instead, he said, “Quite something, that.”
“What?”
“The house—it is not theirs. Or, not their lair. No, they live beneath it, beneath this whole dratted wood, like rats in the walls, or worms in the earth, burrowed down deep in the soil. They stretch down as deep as the tree roots, I expect.” He paused and raised his sword-stick as a gnole drew too close. “Back away, sir. Thank you. But they go down, not out. Only to the circumference of this wood, else all of London would be as a molehill. Curiouser and curiouser.” He looked at me. “There are no emeralds.”
“No,” I said.
“A shame. But treasures are a trifle, compared to knowledge.”
“What of survival?” I asked hoarsely, as the gnoles closed in on us, hemming us in.
“Ah, even better.” Moriarty eyed the gnoles the way a hyena might eye a circling lion; wary respect, tinged with cunning calculation. Moriarty, as I had come to learn, was always calculating. Always thinking, always weaving his schemes, plots and stratagems. That was his art, as thievery was mine. He held up two fingers, and gestured curtly.
The shot, when it came, made no sound. I heard it nonetheless, for I have long practiced the skill of hearing what is not there. In the empty space between the breeze and the rasp of creaking branches, I heard the whisper of the bullet as it passed over my shoulder. And then, more loudly, I heard the pumpkin-groan of the lead gnole’s head as it split open and spilled out its dark contents on the forest floor. I blinked in shock, and I fancy the gnoles did as well.
Moriarty held up his hand. “Mr. Nuth, take one step back. You are in Colonel Moran’s line of fire, by several millimetres.”
I hesitated. The gnoles watched me. Moriarty watched me. Then I took one step back. The gnoles began to move. Moriarty gestured again, and another indistinct shape slumped, strange skull split by the passage of a bullet.
“There is a line, gentlemen,” Moriarty called out. “A line you cannot cross. I have moved it by several paces, as you can observe. It will return to its original place when we are safely away. You understand?” He twitched his hand. It was the gnoles’ turn to hesitate. Then, as one, they shuffled back. His smile was more terrible than any undulation of the gnolish physiognomy I had yet observed. He nodded. “Yes. You can be taught. Good. Perhaps there is a future for you yet in this world.” His smile faded. “Then, perhaps not.” He lowered his hand.
A third and final shot stretched out from the unseen shooter’s weapon and struck a branch, dropping it at the feet of the gnoles. Moriarty held them with his gaze, slightly stooped, hands behind his back, his sword-stick held loosely. Then, without a word, he turned away and strode past me. “Come, Mr. Nuth. It has been a tiresome day, and I would be done with forests and the things which creep within them.”
We did not have far to walk. A trap and horse was waiting for us, a man holding the reins. He tipped his cap to Moriarty, as the latter climbed aboard. He ignored me. I did not speak until the horse had plodded along for some time. “What of the others?” I asked.
“I fancy there will be no others. If I am wrong, they will seek me out and I will compensate them accordingly,” he said. Something of my feelings must have crossed my face, for he said “Cost is subjective, Mr. Nuth. And treasures but a trifle. You know that as well as I, I fancy.”
“You knew that they would defeat your machine,” I said.
Moriarty oscillated his head towards me. “I planned for it, yes. That is what I do, Mr. Nuth. I plan,” he said. He tapped his veined brow for emphasis. “The devil, as they say, is in the details.”
“You knew that they would pursue us,” I continued. “You wanted them to. You practically taunted them into it, with all your crashing and shootings. Why?”
Moriarty cocked his head. “You tell me, Mr. Nuth. You are observant, sir. Surely you have come to some conclusion of your own.”
I met his gaze. He had the air of a tutor, waiting for a student to unravel some theorem. The Professor, at his art. Then, I had it. “You wanted to see if your theory were correct,” I said, slowly. He smiled, and I knew instantly that I had guessed wrong. He patted my shoulder, as if comforting a particularly dull-witted child.
“Stick to your trade, Mr. Nuth. And I shall stick to mine.”
And so I did.
And, you may ask, did I ever discern the true motivations behind the Professor’s lesson to the gnoles?
Oh no, my friend.
No one ever learns what the Professor does not wish them to know.
And that’s it for this month. If you made it this far, thanks for giving it a read and possibly even subscribing. I hope you enjoyed this back-to-basics newsletter. Check back next time for more new releases (hopefully) and a new (old) monthly story.
But for now, to paraphrase the estimable Carnacki – out you go!
Subscribe to stay up to date on all of Josh’s current and forthcoming work, as well as get sneak-peeks of his future projects!
January 31, 2024
Psychomanteum #1
EDITORIAL
Okay, let’s try this one more time.
I’ve been on the internet for – Lordy – more than twenty years. I’ve had some form of blog for around fifteen of those, and been haunting message boards and social media for nearly all of it. Ever since I started this writing gig, every few years I’ll try and optimise my online presence through a variety of synergistic tactics and brand strategies. Or, more simply, I keep starting blogs and newsletters and what have you.
None of them last. Nothing lasts, really. The longer I’m on it, the more I’m convinced that the internet is a vast psychomanteum…it’s all mirrors and darkness and reflected candlelight. You scratch out messages and hope that someone, somewhere, sees and understands them.
This time around, I’m keeping things simple. Every month, at the end of the month, I will post a newsletter. Free to read, free to subscribe to. Each one will contain the same mix of stuff – an editorial, the latest news, and a monthly story. The latter will be mostly, if not all, reprints. Simple and to the point.
Since this is technically a blog and not a proper newsletter, there may come a day where I post other stuff. Essays, reviews and what not – things I have done before and would like to do again, but can’t be arsed at the moment.
The sad fact is, I’m tired. I’ve had Covid three times in three years and I no longer possess the mental resilience of my misbegotten youth. My brain is barely limping along and I cannot be having with extra work at this point. I’ve got a kid and a dog and a garden that needs weeding. I’ve got books that need reading and movies that need watching. I mean, I finally found a copy of Dark Intruder (1965), starring Leslie Nielsen as occult investigator and playboy, Brett Kingsford, that I’m looking forward to watching but haven’t yet because of deadlines.
So, this is it. The last stand. This far, and no further. My back is to the sea, my boats aflame, and my sword heavy in my hand. Here, I plant my flag.
At least until something shinier comes along. Or I decide to become a social media hermit, which is looking more appealing with each passing year.
But until then, here we are. Me and hopefully thee.
Welcome to my psychomanteum. Mind the candle.
NEWS
It’s early days yet in 2024, but things are a-changing. As of today, a few of my long-term contracts are coming to a close, leaving me with that most dreaded of foes – free time. I’m finishing up my next novel for Aconyte – A Bitter Taste, noted below – and preparing for the one I’ll be writing over the summer (Return of the Monster-Men) for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. But more on that later.
I’m not certain what I’ll be working on when I finish up A Bitter Taste; I’ve got a few short stories on the go that I’d like to finish before the summer, as well as a two novels in progress. But even so, my schedule is relatively light at the moment. It’s an odd feeling. I haven’t had this much free time in – oh, years. Years and years.
I’m not certain that I like it.
Anyway, here’s this month’s new releases.
New Novel – A Bitter Taste: A Daidoji Shin Mystery
The fifth Daidoji Shin Mystery will be out later this year, but its up for preorder now if that’s the sort of thing you’d like to do. The novel ties together a number of the dangling strands from previous books and introduces some new ones, just to keep things interesting.
This time around, Shin is accused of a crime he didn’t commit and must go on the run, pursued by a posse of Crane auditors and a dogged Kitsuki investigator. It’s a bit of a spoiler, not to mention a cliché, but after this one – things will never be the same. If you’d like to catch up on the story thus far (and I encourage you to do so if you haven’t), be sure to check out the rest of the series.
New Reprint – “A Tiger’s Heart, A Player’s Hide”
Not really a new short story, but a reprint, courtesy of Occult Detective Magazine’s Cthulhu Mythos Special 2, which will be out soon-ish. Still, possibly new to someone reading this. One of my favourites, as a matter of fact. It’s a Royal Occultist story, but one that takes place during the tenure of the first to hold the office, Dr. John Dee, and sees him matching wits with a cosmic horror known as Sebastian Melmoth.
Melmoth, of course, first appeared in an earlier Royal Occultist story, “The Gotterdammerung Gavotte”, set a few centuries later. “A Tiger’s Heart…” originally appeared in 2016, in the Snow Books anthology, Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.
MONTHLY STORY
This month’s story is a firm favourite of mine – “The Campo”, which first appeared in 2020, in the Pavane Press anthology, A Winter’s Tale. It’s equal parts M.R. James homage, Manly Wade Wellman pastiche and a love letter to La Serenissima. Venice has a weird power over me; I’d live there, if I could, aqua alta and all. That said, this story perhaps does not portray it in the best of lights, but hey-ho…
Venice in winter is a solemn sight.
The colors are muted, the canals dark. A sort of resigned solemnity hangs over the city. Tourists are thin on the ground and a pervasive silence shrouds the twisty streets. The city is a shadow of itself, and I said as much as my companion and I ambled along the empty, winding paths of the Cannaregio.
“I love this time of year,” Moultrie drawled, in amiable disagreement. He was a few years older than me, though you wouldn’t know it despite the silver in his hair. My hair hadn’t gone gray yet, but I’d lost so much of it, it didn’t matter. “One can breathe and see, without the threat of crowds of sweaty tourists and their gelato.”
“I thought you liked gelato.”
Moultrie chuckled. “I admit, I’m particularly fond of that place we went over near the Misericordia earlier.” He patted his stomach and smiled contentedly. “Still, sometimes it’s hard to see the city for the people, if you follow me.”
“Is that why you invited me along, then? To see the city?” I pulled my coat tighter. The sky was still a smear of pink and orange overhead but night came swift to Venice, and brought a biting Adriatic chill with it. “Not that I’m against a vacation,” I added.
Moultrie gave me a lazy look. “You didn’t think twice about coming with me, Fowler. Not looking forward to spending the holidays alone?”
Being recently divorced, the jab hit home. I grunted and shook my head. “Sometimes I wonder why you and I are friends.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a sudden cry. It was thin and sharp – a child’s yelp, abruptly truncated. We looked at one another, all thought of our burgeoning disagreement forgotten. “This way,” Moultrie said, and took off. I followed with only a moment’s hesitation.
The cry came again, closer this time – or so it seemed. Around us, the shadows lengthened as the sun shrank. The city was so small in the daylight. But as night came on, the streets unfurled and it became something vast and unknowable.
We followed the echoes across one of the little footbridges that connected the islands and down a narrow, unfamiliar street. I had no idea where we were, or whether we were even still in the same sestiere.
Finally, we slowed, listening. But the only sound we heard was that of our own footsteps on the damp stones. “Whatever it is seems to be over,” Moultrie said, his tone doubtful. “It might have just been kids roughhousing. I think – wait, what’s that?”
I spied the church even as he spoke. It nestled between several taller buildings at the end of the narrow alleyway, as if trying to remain inconspicuous. It was the smallest such structure I’d seen in Venice – barely more than a chapel with a square, gothic façade. “Odd place to find a church,” he continued. “They’re usually located on or near the campi.”
Curious now, we drew closer. A pair of stone angels guarded the doors, slouched like weary sentries, their wings folded, heads bowed. I paused, struck by their expressions – there was weariness there, but also a fierce alertness.
Moultrie must have had similar thoughts. “Sentries on the walls of Paradise,” he murmured, as he gave a cursory rattle of the doors. “Locked.”
“Is that so surprising?” I realized that the church wasn’t quite centred. Instead, it was angled slightly, so that the eyes of the angels were turned towards the all but hidden entrance to an unobtrusive side-street.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Moultrie said, when I directed his attentions to it. “I wonder if that’s where our crier in the night is. Or was.” As he spoke, he patted absently at his coat and then sighed. He’d stopped smoking the year before on orders from his doctor, but hadn’t shaken the habits of a lifetime. “Maybe we should check it out.”
“It’s getting dark,” I said. “Let’s head back to the flat. Or, better, go find dinner.” My stomach gurgled as if in agreement. Moultrie gave me an amused smile.
“Just a quick look.” He started down the side-street. “Just in case.”
I wanted to argue, but knew better. Moultrie had a passion for the outré, the stranger the better. Like me, he was a folklorist, though his interests were more wide-ranging than mine. He wrote on everything from ancient ballads to thoughtforms, and did the odd bit of consulting for friends in Hollywood.
I kept to more respectable paths, hoping to reach the end of the tenure-track before I was too old to appreciate it. But even so, I envied his freedom. Perhaps that was why I jumped at every opportunity to accompany him, my responsibilities permitting. Or why I followed him down dark alleys, when I damn well knew better.
A building blocked off the end of the street, but a thin, claustrophobic archway had been cut into the foundation. An iron gate hung ajar, its hinges rusted and a loose chain looped about it. I wanted to turn back, but Moultrie tapped his lips for silence. A moment later a thin, light sound trickled out of the passage.
I realized that it was muffled laughter, childish and shrill. I began to wonder if this were all some form of elaborate prank. “Let’s leave them to it,” I said. “Whatever this is.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious? Come on,” Moultrie said, as he made to squeeze through the gap. I considered abandoning him, but only for a moment. With a sigh, I followed him and we soon found ourselves in a smallish campo.
There was a disconcerting absence of the usual newsagents, cafes and the like. The few visible doorways were boarded over, and the windows bricked up. Odder still, there were no other entrances. It was as if the campo had been utterly severed from the city by common agreement.
The only occupant of the square was a lonely wellhead sitting at its heart, equidistant from the surrounding buildings. Something about it put me on edge, though I couldn’t say what. Perhaps it was the way the shadows cast by the setting sun danced across the nearby stones. Moultrie seemed equally discomfited. “The buildings look as if they’re leaning away from it, don’t they?” he murmured.
“This is Venice. Everything is leaning or sinking or both.”
Moultrie shrugged. “Maybe. You never read de Castries, did you?”
“I’m not familiar with the name, no. Why?”
“No reason. Not your field, really. He theorized that the stones of cities held onto memories – bad ones especially. That they played them over and over again, refusing to let them fade. Sort of a precursor to the stone tape theory.”
“I don’t see anyone,” I said, refusing to be drawn into another argument about residual hauntings. My words fell flat on the air. It was too quiet here. The only sound was the slap of water against the sides of the canals.
Moultrie looked around. “Maybe it was a cat.” He was hunched slightly, hands thrust into his pockets, head bent, shoulders folded. I thought maybe it was just the cold. I felt it myself, seeping through the material of my coat. A piercing damp, and the taste of salt on the tip of my tongue. The chill I’d felt before hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had only gotten worse. Feeling nervous, I cleared my throat. “Come on. Let’s go get dinner.”
Moultrie started across the square. “I want to take a closer look at that wellhead first.”
“It’s just a well. There are hundreds of them in the city.”
Moultrie didn’t reply. I hurried after him, and as I caught up to him, the thought struck me that the stillness of our surroundings was not simply silence, but somehow anticipatory. As if some unseen giant had inhaled suddenly at the sight of us. I tried to dismiss the thought as we neared the wellhead, but I couldn’t shake my growing unease.
My grandmother had always maintained that she had a touch of the sight. Sometimes I wondered if I had it as well, for I was unduly sensitive to certain quirks of atmosphere and temperature. But I’d never seen a ghost, and had no wish to do so. I’d been inside one or two supposedly haunted houses in the course of my research, but never felt anything like what I was feeling now.
It was as if we were being watched – though by who or what, I couldn’t say. There was nonetheless a definite air of observation about the campo. A watchfulness that I found increasingly oppressive. “It will still be here in the morning,” I said, as we reached the wellhead. “We can come back. Unless you think it’s Venice’s answer to Brigadoon.”
Moultrie laughed. “Hardly. I doubt either of us will find a new love here.”
I felt a sharp pang at his words. I missed Ellen more than I cared to admit. Moultrie saw the look on my face and sighed. “It’s no use moping, Fowler. Like they say, if you keep picking at it, it’ll never heal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, sourly. “And I’m not moping.”
Moultrie laughed again and crouched down in front of the wellhead. He pulled off a glove, and gently traced a faded grotesquery carved onto the front of the wellhead, his expression intent.
For my part, I felt only revulsion as I studied the faint sheen of mould that clung to the whitewashed Istria stone. It was on the stones and walls of the nearby buildings as well. But it rose thickest around what I thought must be faint cracks in the foundation of the wellhead. An image of what it might look like inside rose up unbidden and my stomach gave a querulous twitch. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
I spied several nearby drains that might once have collected rainwater. Upon a closer inspection, I realized that they had been filled with lead, effectively sealing them. “Moultrie – take a look at this.”
He grunted, wholly focused on his study of the grotesquery. Shaking my head, I took in the curved metal lid and the smooth grooves around the rim where ropes had been used to haul up buckets. My eyes strayed to the trio of heavy padlocks that kept the lid sealed. It was usually done with bolts or melted lead. I wondered why this one was different.
I lifted one of the padlocks, and something – a loose sliver of metal, perhaps – stung my palm. I drew it back and saw that rust and mould stained my hand. Disgusted, I wiped it on my coat. “I’m ready to go,” I said, palm still smarting.
Moultrie glanced up. “Not yet. Look at this.”
“It’s just a carving.”
“Not the carving. Below it.” I stooped and saw that letters had been carved into the stone beneath the grotesquery. “How’s your Latin?” he asked.
“Worse than my Italian.” I gave it a shot regardless. Even with the aid of the flashlight app on my phone, I couldn’t make out the words.
Moultrie had better luck. “Hic…jacet…something,” he sounded out, tracing the letters with his fingertips. “Last word is too faded to make out.” He sat back on his heels, clearly frustrated.
“Here lies,” I translated, after wracking my memories of high school Latin. I stood abruptly, suddenly aware of the cold and the shadows that surrounded us. The sun was almost gone now, and the last dregs of light drifted across us. Soon the campo would be shrouded in darkness. “Here lies whom?”
“That is the question, ain’t it?” Moultrie pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to take some pictures.” He began to rummage for his phone.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll come back tomorrow. When the light’s better.”
“What’s the hurry?” Moultrie said.
“I’m hungry,” I lied. “Aren’t you?”
Moultrie retrieved his phone. “Dinner can wait.”
“So can this.”
He paused and turned. “Something wrong, Fowler?”
“Low blood sugar,” I said, letting a bit of sharpness creep in. My hand still hurt so it was easy enough. Moultrie got a familiar mulish look on his face and made as if to argue.
Salvation came in the form of a priest, or so I judged him to be from his vestments. An older man, with flyaway white hair and lined features, he shouted something in Italian, so quickly I couldn’t catch it. From his gestures he looked to be haranguing us. Indeed, he seemed desperate to get our attention.
Moultrie slid his phone back into his pocket and went to intercept the newcomer. His Italian was better than mine, and soon they were chatting away. Moultrie could be charming, when he put his mind to it.
As they talked, my attentions strayed to the edges of the campo, where the shadows were deepest. For an instant, I thought I glimpsed something – a flash of movement, or maybe a face – but it was over and gone before I could tell what it was.
I realized that it had gone quiet, and that the priest was looking at me. So was Moultrie. Both of them had queer looks on their faces, and I wondered if they’d seen it as well. “We’re being asked to leave,” Moultrie said.
“How unfortunate.”
Moultrie smiled. “But he’ll show us around the church tomorrow, if we like.”
I sighed. “I assume we do.”
Moultrie’s smile widened, but he didn’t reply. The evening shadows stretched across the campo as we headed back the way we’d come, led by the priest. It was as if they – or something – were following us. I imagined a stealthy, catlike padding in our wake, and, unable to help myself, I looked back.
The campo was utterly dark, utterly still. A sudden metallic clang startled me. It sounded as if something heavy had fallen to the ground. I thought of the padlocks, though I could not say why. Maybe they weren’t as solidly fastened as they’d appeared.
I wasn’t the only one who heard it, for the priest whirled. His face was pale, his eyes wide. “Lei si agita…” he murmured, and hastily crossed himself. Moultrie glanced at me, eyebrow raised, but said nothing as the priest pushed past us and hurried back through the gate. He urged us on with frantic gestures and slammed the gate shut after we’d squeezed through it. He hauled the chain tight, and snapped a shiny new padlock in place.
“The old one broke,” Moultrie explained, as we walked back to the church. “He was out getting a new one before the shops closed. That’s why he wasn’t around to tell us off earlier when we went in.”
“Before we trespassed, you mean.” I paused. “Did you tell him about the children?”
“Didn’t seem relevant.”
“They might still be in there.”
Moultrie shrugged. “I doubt it.”
It was only when we reached the little church that I felt able to relax. The sensation of pursuit faded as we passed beneath the stony gaze of the two guardian angels and I allowed myself a sigh of relief. The priest seemed equally relieved. He spoke to Moultrie again, and they shook hands. He didn’t offer to do the same with me, for which I was peculiarly pleased.
“What was that he said as we were leaving?” I asked, as Moultrie finally joined me. “Something about someone getting angry?” I rubbed my hand as I spoke, trying to ease the growing ache. It felt as if a sliver of metal was stuck in my palm.
“Or waking up,” Moultrie said. “My conversational Italian isn’t much better than yours. Maybe we disturbed someone in one of the houses near the campo.”
“Hard to believe. I didn’t see any lights.”
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”
I looked back towards the campo, half expecting to see a child’s face pressed to the bars of the gate. But there was nothing there, save shadows.
After we left the church, we had a satisfying dinner at an establishment that Waugh had referred to as ‘the English bar’ in one of his novels. Or so Moultrie claimed. I’d never gotten on with Waugh, being more a Wodehouse man. Despite our differing opinions on literature, I tried the shrimp risotto on Moultrie’s recommendation. I wasn’t disappointed. Then, if there’s one thing Venetians do well, it’s sea food.
The meal was expensive, as were the drinks, but Moultrie was covering both, so I didn’t give it much thought. The place was a tourist trap, but we were tourists, so it seemed fitting. We’d gotten seats near a window, and I had a good view of the waterfront.
As we ate, Moultrie expounded his theories about the iron hook set at the apex of one of the city’s bridges – how you were supposed to tap it for luck, and if you refused, you invited disaster. I only half-listened, watching the last embers of the sun vanish into the wide, black sea. Idly, I thought of other sunsets and the wood frame mill house in West Columbia where Ellen and I had lived. Where I still lived.
We’d spent the better part of a decade turning the place into a home, but without her, it felt empty – hollow. As if she’d somehow taken all the joy with her when she’d left. Given how much I’d taken for granted during our marriage, a part of me thought it was only fair that she be allowed to keep the happy memories, few as they were. Fair or not, it hurt all the same. Perhaps Moultrie was right, and I’d gone with him to escape being alone.
I was still thinking of my broken marriage when I saw the woman. I almost mistook her for Ellen at first. She had the same dark hair, the same olive complexion. It was only when I took a second glance that I realized my mistake. Her eyes met mine for an instant and slid away. I felt there was something odd about her, but couldn’t say what. My hand throbbed suddenly and I turned my attentions back to my food.
I pushed the thought aside and, feeling somewhat bolstered by our well-lit surroundings, said, “So what were you two chatting about? You and the priest.”
“Hmm?” Moultrie said, as I interrupted his train of thought. “Oh, I asked him about the wellhead. I wanted to see if he knew what the inscription meant.”
“And?”
“He does.”
“And did he tell you?”
“He did not.” He traced thin lines of condensation on the table as he spoke, as if drawing a map. “In fact, he seemed quite agitated by the question.”
I recognized the look on his face immediately. “Is that why you want to go back?” I glanced out the window. The movement of the water made me think of the shadows in the campo. Suddenly no longer hungry, I pushed my plate aside.
“Part of the reason.” Moultrie took a swallow of his beer before continuing. “The wellhead…the campo…it reminds me of something. A story, I think.”
“What sort of story?” I heard a low laugh and turned. The woman again, talking to someone perhaps. She laughed again, and I felt the sound deep in my bones. She was attractive, but that wasn’t it. Unnerved, I looked away.
Moultrie shook his head. “I’m not sure. I seem to recall it was about someone being immured, like Fortunato, but I might be confusing it with something else.”
“For the love of God, Montresor,” I said, and finished my drink.
“Something like that. There was a crime committed – something nasty. Nastier than warranted a clean execution, I guess.”
I shivered slightly at the thought. “Not a good way to go.”
Moultrie laughed and signalled for the bill. “Is there such a thing?”
I was about to reply when I caught what I thought to be a hint of furtive movement at the window. At first, I took it to be a reflection, but there was no one behind me. It was as if someone were peering in at us. Then, between one moment and the next, it – she – was gone, and there was only the night pressing against the glass. The waitress came over then, and I forgot what I’d been about to say.
The walk back was quiet, save for a brief moment’s disruption. A sharp sound echoed through the streets, and we stopped, startled. There had been a definite metallic quality to the noise, but I could not think what it might be. At the instant it had occurred, my hand had spasmed. There was no blood, no sign of a wound, but it still hurt nonetheless.
As the spasm faded, I thought I heard someone singing. Far away at first, but drawing closer. A gondolier perhaps, or a drunk. The song was in Italian – must have been in Italian. It seemed at once plaintive and demanding, and then it was fading away, fading north into the convolutions of the Cannaregio. Moultrie was talking about something inconsequential and didn’t appear to have noticed. I said nothing. What was there to say?
By the time we got back to our little rented flat in the Cannaregio, the pain had faded to a dull ache. The alcohol had likely helped. I choked down a pair of aspirin and bid Moultrie a good evening. I was asleep so quickly, I barely had time to shed my shoes.
That night I dreamed of the wellhead.
Or, to be more accurate, I dreamed of Venice. Of narrow streets and lagoon mist, of deep shadows and muffled voices. I half-stirred, thinking Moultrie had fallen asleep with the television on again, but as I sank once more, I realized they were the voices of children. Laughing, singing, crying out. Running along the canals, and I was chasing them. I didn’t recall leaving the flat, but I must have done.
I tried to catch them, but they slipped away from me just as I got close. Just as my hand – was it my hand? – snapped shut, shy of an arm. It felt as if they were all around me, pressing close and then whirling away, like leaves in a strong wind. I called out, but they only laughed all the louder. I thought they might have been calling out a name – but not mine.
Ellen and I had never discussed children. It was something other people did, having a child. But hearing their laughter, a pang cut through me. Made me wonder what if.
They led me on a riotous gallop through the streets until I was once more standing in the empty campo, with no idea how I’d gotten there or why they’d brought me. Before I could ask, I heard a clang and my tormentors went instantly silent.
I turned. The wellhead sat in the center of the square. Three padlocks lay rusted and forgotten on the ground. Somewhere, a child began to weep. Then another, and another, until the stones echoed with disconsolate wailing.
Someone began to sing. Softly at first, and then more loudly. As if they were drawing steadily nearer over some vast distance. As they did so, the wailing faded and soon was drowned out entirely by the unseen singer. I thought it might have been the same song I’d heard earlier.
It was coming from the wellhead. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move, but ignored it. The wellhead was the whole of my world in that moment and I went to it, stumbling on numb feet.
I could hear only the singer now, and her voice – it was a her, I was certain – was unsettlingly familiar. Ellen, or maybe the woman from the restaurant. In my head, they became one and the same. But what was she doing here? I called out to her, softly at first. The singer paused, and then started anew.
I reached out with my aching hand. The unlocked lid scraped against its rim, as if something were pressing insistently against it from below. Was she trapped down there? I don’t know why the idea had occurred to me, but suddenly I couldn’t shake it. I knew – I knew – she was down there.
She was down there and she needed me. Needed my help. She was calling out to me. But still, I hesitated. Something held me back. The whispers of children, the feel of small fingers plucking at my legs, my elbows. The singing became a raw, red rasp of sound. It didn’t sound like a woman anymore. Instead, it reminded me of an animal’s growl. It sawed at the air and my ears. Demanding. Greedy.
Something that panted in my ear, just over my shoulder. A low laugh, but not that of a woman. Eyes like twin lamps caught mine, and shaggy hair brushed against my cheek.
I smelled – God, that smell…
Then I heard the bells of the little church sounding as if from a great distance. And wings – pigeons, I thought, but so many and so loud it was like soft thunder. The rasp of sound rose to a shrill shriek and I was falling back – back…my head connected with something hard and the pain jolted me awake.
“Fowler. Fowler!”
I was on the ground. Moultrie crouched above me, shaking me. Nearby, the priest was watching, his lined features set in a solemn expression. It was morning, early enough that the sky was a blur of pink and purple. I was wet – cold. I tried to push myself up, and a jolt of pain pulsed through my hand. I gasped and pulled the injured limb to my chest. “Where – what…?” I croaked, utterly bewildered.
I was in the campo. But it had only been a dream – hadn’t it? Moultrie leaned close, concern etched onto his face. “You were gone when I woke up. Thought you’d gone out for coffee, but you hadn’t bothered to put on your shoes.” He gestured to my feet, and I realized they were bare and aching. As if I’d been running across cold stones all night.
“I don’t understand. Was I sleep walking?”
Moultrie hesitated and glanced at the priest. The old man looked away, his eyes straying to the wellhead. His expression was one of resignation. I wondered if it had been him ringing the bells I’d heard in my dreams.
“In a sense.” Moultrie helped me to my feet. “We found the padlock on the ground. Broken just like the last one.”
“It wasn’t me,” I protested. Again Moultrie looked at the priest, and I had the feeling that some understanding had passed between them.
“Era lei,” the priest muttered and made the sign of the cross in the direction of the wellhead. Moultrie nodded and looked at me.
“No, he knows.”
“What was I doing? Why was I on the ground?”
“You fell – I think we startled you. As to what you were doing, no need to worry about it. You didn’t manage it, whatever it was.” As he spoke, the priest replaced the padlocks reverentially, his lips moving in what I took to be a silent prayer. When the last one was clicked shut, I felt a sense of relief that I could not explain.
“I don’t understand.” My head felt foggy. I looked at my hand. My palm was raw and bleeding, as if the flesh had scraped – or gnawed.
Moultrie was looking at my hand as well. “This has happened before, I think. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He helped me back to the church, the priest following us. As the angels came into sight, I thought again of the sound of wingbeats. I could barely recall the dream now, though it had seemed so vivid while it was occurring.
“Someone was singing…a woman?” I said, hesitantly.
The priest spat on the ground. I realized somewhat belatedly that he must understand English. He shook his head. “Non una donna,” he said solemnly. “E morto da tempo, inoltre.”
I looked back at Moultrie. “The children…I heard them too. Just as we did earlier. I – I followed them, I think.”
Moultrie did not meet my gaze as he helped me sit on the church steps. “No children come here, Fowler. Not for a long time. They know better, these days.” He looked at the priest. “The only ones at risk are tourists.”
“At risk from what?”
The priest smiled sadly. “Il ricordo di una corsa malvagia.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, as they helped me inside. Moultrie glanced back towards the passage, his expression solemn.
“Just a bad memory,” he said, softly. “One that refuses to fade.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s see to that hand and go get a coffee.” He forced a smile.
“I don’t know about you, but I could use one.”
And that’s it for this month. If you made it this far, thanks for giving it a read and possibly even subscribing. I hope you enjoyed this back-to-basics newsletter. Check back next time for more new releases (hopefully) and a new (old) monthly story.
But for now, to paraphrase the estimable Carnacki – out you go!
Subscribe to stay up to date on all of Josh’s current and forthcoming work, as well as get sneak-peeks of his future projects!
January 2024 Newsletter
EDITORIAL
Okay, let’s try this one more time.
I’ve been on the internet for – Lordy – more than twenty years. I’ve had some form of blog for around fifteen of those, and been haunting message boards and social media for nearly all of it. Ever since I started this writing gig, every few years I’ll try and optimise my online presence through a variety of synergistic tactics and brand strategies. Or, more simply, I keep starting blogs and newsletters and what have you.
None of them last. Nothing lasts, really. The longer I’m on it, the more I’m convinced that the internet is a vast psychomanteum…it’s all mirrors and darkness and reflected candlelight. You scratch out messages and hope that someone, somewhere, sees and understands them.
This time around, I’m keeping things simple. Every month, at the end of the month, I will post a newsletter. Free to read, free to subscribe to. Each one will contain the same mix of stuff – an editorial, the latest news, and a monthly story. The latter will be mostly, if not all, reprints. Simple and to the point.
Since this is technically a blog and not a proper newsletter, there may come a day where I post other stuff. Essays, reviews and what not – things I have done before and would like to do again, but can’t be arsed at the moment.
The sad fact is, I’m tired. I’ve had Covid three times in three years and I no longer possess the mental resilience of my misbegotten youth. My brain is barely limping along and I cannot be having with extra work at this point. I’ve got a kid and a dog and a garden that needs weeding. I’ve got books that need reading and movies that need watching. I mean, I finally found a copy of Dark Intruder (1965), starring Leslie Nielsen as occult investigator and playboy, Brett Kingsford, that I’m looking forward to watching but haven’t yet because of deadlines.
So, this is it. The last stand. This far, and no further. My back is to the sea, my boats aflame, and my sword heavy in my hand. Here, I plant my flag.
At least until something shinier comes along. Or I decide to become a social media hermit, which is looking more appealing with each passing year.
But until then, here we are. Me and hopefully thee.
Welcome to my psychomanteum. Mind the candle.
NEWS
It’s early days yet in 2024, but things are a-changing. As of today, a few of my long-term contracts are coming to a close, leaving me with that most dreaded of foes – free time. I’m finishing up my next novel for Aconyte – A Bitter Taste, noted below – and preparing for the one I’ll be writing over the summer (Return of the Monster-Men) for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. But more on that later.
I’m not certain what I’ll be working on when I finish up A Bitter Taste; I’ve got a few short stories on the go that I’d like to finish before the summer, as well as a two novels in progress. But even so, my schedule is relatively light at the moment. It’s an odd feeling. I haven’t had this much free time in – oh, years. Years and years.
I’m not certain that I like it.
Anyway, here’s this month’s new releases.
New Novel – A Bitter Taste: A Daidoji Shin Mystery
The fifth Daidoji Shin Mystery will be out later this year, but its up for preorder now if that’s the sort of thing you’d like to do. The novel ties together a number of the dangling strands from previous books and introduces some new ones, just to keep things interesting.
This time around, Shin is accused of a crime he didn’t commit and must go on the run, pursued by a posse of Crane auditors and a dogged Kitsuki investigator. It’s a bit of a spoiler, not to mention a cliché, but after this one – things will never be the same. If you’d like to catch up on the story thus far (and I encourage you to do so if you haven’t), be sure to check out the rest of the series.
New Reprint – “A Tiger’s Heart, A Player’s Hide”
Not really a new short story, but a reprint, courtesy of Occult Detective Magazine’s Cthulhu Mythos Special 2, which will be out soon-ish. Still, possibly new to someone reading this. One of my favourites, as a matter of fact. It’s a Royal Occultist story, but one that takes place during the tenure of the first to hold the office, Dr. John Dee, and sees him matching wits with a cosmic horror known as Sebastian Melmoth.
Melmoth, of course, first appeared in an earlier Royal Occultist story, “The Gotterdammerung Gavotte”, set a few centuries later. “A Tiger’s Heart…” originally appeared in 2016, in the Snow Books anthology, Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.
MONTHLY STORY
This month’s story is a firm favourite of mine – “The Campo”, which first appeared in 2020, in the Pavane Press anthology, A Winter’s Tale. It’s equal parts M.R. James homage, Manly Wade Wellman pastiche and a love letter to La Serenissima. Venice has a weird power over me; I’d live there, if I could, aqua alta and all. That said, this story perhaps does not portray it in the best of lights, but hey-ho…
Venice in winter is a solemn sight.
The colors are muted, the canals dark. A sort of resigned solemnity hangs over the city. Tourists are thin on the ground and a pervasive silence shrouds the twisty streets. The city is a shadow of itself, and I said as much as my companion and I ambled along the empty, winding paths of the Cannaregio.
“I love this time of year,” Moultrie drawled, in amiable disagreement. He was a few years older than me, though you wouldn’t know it despite the silver in his hair. My hair hadn’t gone gray yet, but I’d lost so much of it, it didn’t matter. “One can breathe and see, without the threat of crowds of sweaty tourists and their gelato.”
“I thought you liked gelato.”
Moultrie chuckled. “I admit, I’m particularly fond of that place we went over near the Misericordia earlier.” He patted his stomach and smiled contentedly. “Still, sometimes it’s hard to see the city for the people, if you follow me.”
“Is that why you invited me along, then? To see the city?” I pulled my coat tighter. The sky was still a smear of pink and orange overhead but night came swift to Venice, and brought a biting Adriatic chill with it. “Not that I’m against a vacation,” I added.
Moultrie gave me a lazy look. “You didn’t think twice about coming with me, Fowler. Not looking forward to spending the holidays alone?”
Being recently divorced, the jab hit home. I grunted and shook my head. “Sometimes I wonder why you and I are friends.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by a sudden cry. It was thin and sharp – a child’s yelp, abruptly truncated. We looked at one another, all thought of our burgeoning disagreement forgotten. “This way,” Moultrie said, and took off. I followed with only a moment’s hesitation.
The cry came again, closer this time – or so it seemed. Around us, the shadows lengthened as the sun shrank. The city was so small in the daylight. But as night came on, the streets unfurled and it became something vast and unknowable.
We followed the echoes across one of the little footbridges that connected the islands and down a narrow, unfamiliar street. I had no idea where we were, or whether we were even still in the same sestiere.
Finally, we slowed, listening. But the only sound we heard was that of our own footsteps on the damp stones. “Whatever it is seems to be over,” Moultrie said, his tone doubtful. “It might have just been kids roughhousing. I think – wait, what’s that?”
I spied the church even as he spoke. It nestled between several taller buildings at the end of the narrow alleyway, as if trying to remain inconspicuous. It was the smallest such structure I’d seen in Venice – barely more than a chapel with a square, gothic façade. “Odd place to find a church,” he continued. “They’re usually located on or near the campi.”
Curious now, we drew closer. A pair of stone angels guarded the doors, slouched like weary sentries, their wings folded, heads bowed. I paused, struck by their expressions – there was weariness there, but also a fierce alertness.
Moultrie must have had similar thoughts. “Sentries on the walls of Paradise,” he murmured, as he gave a cursory rattle of the doors. “Locked.”
“Is that so surprising?” I realized that the church wasn’t quite centred. Instead, it was angled slightly, so that the eyes of the angels were turned towards the all but hidden entrance to an unobtrusive side-street.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Moultrie said, when I directed his attentions to it. “I wonder if that’s where our crier in the night is. Or was.” As he spoke, he patted absently at his coat and then sighed. He’d stopped smoking the year before on orders from his doctor, but hadn’t shaken the habits of a lifetime. “Maybe we should check it out.”
“It’s getting dark,” I said. “Let’s head back to the flat. Or, better, go find dinner.” My stomach gurgled as if in agreement. Moultrie gave me an amused smile.
“Just a quick look.” He started down the side-street. “Just in case.”
I wanted to argue, but knew better. Moultrie had a passion for the outré, the stranger the better. Like me, he was a folklorist, though his interests were more wide-ranging than mine. He wrote on everything from ancient ballads to thoughtforms, and did the odd bit of consulting for friends in Hollywood.
I kept to more respectable paths, hoping to reach the end of the tenure-track before I was too old to appreciate it. But even so, I envied his freedom. Perhaps that was why I jumped at every opportunity to accompany him, my responsibilities permitting. Or why I followed him down dark alleys, when I damn well knew better.
A building blocked off the end of the street, but a thin, claustrophobic archway had been cut into the foundation. An iron gate hung ajar, its hinges rusted and a loose chain looped about it. I wanted to turn back, but Moultrie tapped his lips for silence. A moment later a thin, light sound trickled out of the passage.
I realized that it was muffled laughter, childish and shrill. I began to wonder if this were all some form of elaborate prank. “Let’s leave them to it,” I said. “Whatever this is.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious? Come on,” Moultrie said, as he made to squeeze through the gap. I considered abandoning him, but only for a moment. With a sigh, I followed him and we soon found ourselves in a smallish campo.
There was a disconcerting absence of the usual newsagents, cafes and the like. The few visible doorways were boarded over, and the windows bricked up. Odder still, there were no other entrances. It was as if the campo had been utterly severed from the city by common agreement.
The only occupant of the square was a lonely wellhead sitting at its heart, equidistant from the surrounding buildings. Something about it put me on edge, though I couldn’t say what. Perhaps it was the way the shadows cast by the setting sun danced across the nearby stones. Moultrie seemed equally discomfited. “The buildings look as if they’re leaning away from it, don’t they?” he murmured.
“This is Venice. Everything is leaning or sinking or both.”
Moultrie shrugged. “Maybe. You never read de Castries, did you?”
“I’m not familiar with the name, no. Why?”
“No reason. Not your field, really. He theorized that the stones of cities held onto memories – bad ones especially. That they played them over and over again, refusing to let them fade. Sort of a precursor to the stone tape theory.”
“I don’t see anyone,” I said, refusing to be drawn into another argument about residual hauntings. My words fell flat on the air. It was too quiet here. The only sound was the slap of water against the sides of the canals.
Moultrie looked around. “Maybe it was a cat.” He was hunched slightly, hands thrust into his pockets, head bent, shoulders folded. I thought maybe it was just the cold. I felt it myself, seeping through the material of my coat. A piercing damp, and the taste of salt on the tip of my tongue. The chill I’d felt before hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had only gotten worse. Feeling nervous, I cleared my throat. “Come on. Let’s go get dinner.”
Moultrie started across the square. “I want to take a closer look at that wellhead first.”
“It’s just a well. There are hundreds of them in the city.”
Moultrie didn’t reply. I hurried after him, and as I caught up to him, the thought struck me that the stillness of our surroundings was not simply silence, but somehow anticipatory. As if some unseen giant had inhaled suddenly at the sight of us. I tried to dismiss the thought as we neared the wellhead, but I couldn’t shake my growing unease.
My grandmother had always maintained that she had a touch of the sight. Sometimes I wondered if I had it as well, for I was unduly sensitive to certain quirks of atmosphere and temperature. But I’d never seen a ghost, and had no wish to do so. I’d been inside one or two supposedly haunted houses in the course of my research, but never felt anything like what I was feeling now.
It was as if we were being watched – though by who or what, I couldn’t say. There was nonetheless a definite air of observation about the campo. A watchfulness that I found increasingly oppressive. “It will still be here in the morning,” I said, as we reached the wellhead. “We can come back. Unless you think it’s Venice’s answer to Brigadoon.”
Moultrie laughed. “Hardly. I doubt either of us will find a new love here.”
I felt a sharp pang at his words. I missed Ellen more than I cared to admit. Moultrie saw the look on my face and sighed. “It’s no use moping, Fowler. Like they say, if you keep picking at it, it’ll never heal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, sourly. “And I’m not moping.”
Moultrie laughed again and crouched down in front of the wellhead. He pulled off a glove, and gently traced a faded grotesquery carved onto the front of the wellhead, his expression intent.
For my part, I felt only revulsion as I studied the faint sheen of mould that clung to the whitewashed Istria stone. It was on the stones and walls of the nearby buildings as well. But it rose thickest around what I thought must be faint cracks in the foundation of the wellhead. An image of what it might look like inside rose up unbidden and my stomach gave a querulous twitch. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
I spied several nearby drains that might once have collected rainwater. Upon a closer inspection, I realized that they had been filled with lead, effectively sealing them. “Moultrie – take a look at this.”
He grunted, wholly focused on his study of the grotesquery. Shaking my head, I took in the curved metal lid and the smooth grooves around the rim where ropes had been used to haul up buckets. My eyes strayed to the trio of heavy padlocks that kept the lid sealed. It was usually done with bolts or melted lead. I wondered why this one was different.
I lifted one of the padlocks, and something – a loose sliver of metal, perhaps – stung my palm. I drew it back and saw that rust and mould stained my hand. Disgusted, I wiped it on my coat. “I’m ready to go,” I said, palm still smarting.
Moultrie glanced up. “Not yet. Look at this.”
“It’s just a carving.”
“Not the carving. Below it.” I stooped and saw that letters had been carved into the stone beneath the grotesquery. “How’s your Latin?” he asked.
“Worse than my Italian.” I gave it a shot regardless. Even with the aid of the flashlight app on my phone, I couldn’t make out the words.
Moultrie had better luck. “Hic…jacet…something,” he sounded out, tracing the letters with his fingertips. “Last word is too faded to make out.” He sat back on his heels, clearly frustrated.
“Here lies,” I translated, after wracking my memories of high school Latin. I stood abruptly, suddenly aware of the cold and the shadows that surrounded us. The sun was almost gone now, and the last dregs of light drifted across us. Soon the campo would be shrouded in darkness. “Here lies whom?”
“That is the question, ain’t it?” Moultrie pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to take some pictures.” He began to rummage for his phone.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll come back tomorrow. When the light’s better.”
“What’s the hurry?” Moultrie said.
“I’m hungry,” I lied. “Aren’t you?”
Moultrie retrieved his phone. “Dinner can wait.”
“So can this.”
He paused and turned. “Something wrong, Fowler?”
“Low blood sugar,” I said, letting a bit of sharpness creep in. My hand still hurt so it was easy enough. Moultrie got a familiar mulish look on his face and made as if to argue.
Salvation came in the form of a priest, or so I judged him to be from his vestments. An older man, with flyaway white hair and lined features, he shouted something in Italian, so quickly I couldn’t catch it. From his gestures he looked to be haranguing us. Indeed, he seemed desperate to get our attention.
Moultrie slid his phone back into his pocket and went to intercept the newcomer. His Italian was better than mine, and soon they were chatting away. Moultrie could be charming, when he put his mind to it.
As they talked, my attentions strayed to the edges of the campo, where the shadows were deepest. For an instant, I thought I glimpsed something – a flash of movement, or maybe a face – but it was over and gone before I could tell what it was.
I realized that it had gone quiet, and that the priest was looking at me. So was Moultrie. Both of them had queer looks on their faces, and I wondered if they’d seen it as well. “We’re being asked to leave,” Moultrie said.
“How unfortunate.”
Moultrie smiled. “But he’ll show us around the church tomorrow, if we like.”
I sighed. “I assume we do.”
Moultrie’s smile widened, but he didn’t reply. The evening shadows stretched across the campo as we headed back the way we’d come, led by the priest. It was as if they – or something – were following us. I imagined a stealthy, catlike padding in our wake, and, unable to help myself, I looked back.
The campo was utterly dark, utterly still. A sudden metallic clang startled me. It sounded as if something heavy had fallen to the ground. I thought of the padlocks, though I could not say why. Maybe they weren’t as solidly fastened as they’d appeared.
I wasn’t the only one who heard it, for the priest whirled. His face was pale, his eyes wide. “Lei si agita…” he murmured, and hastily crossed himself. Moultrie glanced at me, eyebrow raised, but said nothing as the priest pushed past us and hurried back through the gate. He urged us on with frantic gestures and slammed the gate shut after we’d squeezed through it. He hauled the chain tight, and snapped a shiny new padlock in place.
“The old one broke,” Moultrie explained, as we walked back to the church. “He was out getting a new one before the shops closed. That’s why he wasn’t around to tell us off earlier when we went in.”
“Before we trespassed, you mean.” I paused. “Did you tell him about the children?”
“Didn’t seem relevant.”
“They might still be in there.”
Moultrie shrugged. “I doubt it.”
It was only when we reached the little church that I felt able to relax. The sensation of pursuit faded as we passed beneath the stony gaze of the two guardian angels and I allowed myself a sigh of relief. The priest seemed equally relieved. He spoke to Moultrie again, and they shook hands. He didn’t offer to do the same with me, for which I was peculiarly pleased.
“What was that he said as we were leaving?” I asked, as Moultrie finally joined me. “Something about someone getting angry?” I rubbed my hand as I spoke, trying to ease the growing ache. It felt as if a sliver of metal was stuck in my palm.
“Or waking up,” Moultrie said. “My conversational Italian isn’t much better than yours. Maybe we disturbed someone in one of the houses near the campo.”
“Hard to believe. I didn’t see any lights.”
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”
I looked back towards the campo, half expecting to see a child’s face pressed to the bars of the gate. But there was nothing there, save shadows.
After we left the church, we had a satisfying dinner at an establishment that Waugh had referred to as ‘the English bar’ in one of his novels. Or so Moultrie claimed. I’d never gotten on with Waugh, being more a Wodehouse man. Despite our differing opinions on literature, I tried the shrimp risotto on Moultrie’s recommendation. I wasn’t disappointed. Then, if there’s one thing Venetians do well, it’s sea food.
The meal was expensive, as were the drinks, but Moultrie was covering both, so I didn’t give it much thought. The place was a tourist trap, but we were tourists, so it seemed fitting. We’d gotten seats near a window, and I had a good view of the waterfront.
As we ate, Moultrie expounded his theories about the iron hook set at the apex of one of the city’s bridges – how you were supposed to tap it for luck, and if you refused, you invited disaster. I only half-listened, watching the last embers of the sun vanish into the wide, black sea. Idly, I thought of other sunsets and the wood frame mill house in West Columbia where Ellen and I had lived. Where I still lived.
We’d spent the better part of a decade turning the place into a home, but without her, it felt empty – hollow. As if she’d somehow taken all the joy with her when she’d left. Given how much I’d taken for granted during our marriage, a part of me thought it was only fair that she be allowed to keep the happy memories, few as they were. Fair or not, it hurt all the same. Perhaps Moultrie was right, and I’d gone with him to escape being alone.
I was still thinking of my broken marriage when I saw the woman. I almost mistook her for Ellen at first. She had the same dark hair, the same olive complexion. It was only when I took a second glance that I realized my mistake. Her eyes met mine for an instant and slid away. I felt there was something odd about her, but couldn’t say what. My hand throbbed suddenly and I turned my attentions back to my food.
I pushed the thought aside and, feeling somewhat bolstered by our well-lit surroundings, said, “So what were you two chatting about? You and the priest.”
“Hmm?” Moultrie said, as I interrupted his train of thought. “Oh, I asked him about the wellhead. I wanted to see if he knew what the inscription meant.”
“And?”
“He does.”
“And did he tell you?”
“He did not.” He traced thin lines of condensation on the table as he spoke, as if drawing a map. “In fact, he seemed quite agitated by the question.”
I recognized the look on his face immediately. “Is that why you want to go back?” I glanced out the window. The movement of the water made me think of the shadows in the campo. Suddenly no longer hungry, I pushed my plate aside.
“Part of the reason.” Moultrie took a swallow of his beer before continuing. “The wellhead…the campo…it reminds me of something. A story, I think.”
“What sort of story?” I heard a low laugh and turned. The woman again, talking to someone perhaps. She laughed again, and I felt the sound deep in my bones. She was attractive, but that wasn’t it. Unnerved, I looked away.
Moultrie shook his head. “I’m not sure. I seem to recall it was about someone being immured, like Fortunato, but I might be confusing it with something else.”
“For the love of God, Montresor,” I said, and finished my drink.
“Something like that. There was a crime committed – something nasty. Nastier than warranted a clean execution, I guess.”
I shivered slightly at the thought. “Not a good way to go.”
Moultrie laughed and signalled for the bill. “Is there such a thing?”
I was about to reply when I caught what I thought to be a hint of furtive movement at the window. At first, I took it to be a reflection, but there was no one behind me. It was as if someone were peering in at us. Then, between one moment and the next, it – she – was gone, and there was only the night pressing against the glass. The waitress came over then, and I forgot what I’d been about to say.
The walk back was quiet, save for a brief moment’s disruption. A sharp sound echoed through the streets, and we stopped, startled. There had been a definite metallic quality to the noise, but I could not think what it might be. At the instant it had occurred, my hand had spasmed. There was no blood, no sign of a wound, but it still hurt nonetheless.
As the spasm faded, I thought I heard someone singing. Far away at first, but drawing closer. A gondolier perhaps, or a drunk. The song was in Italian – must have been in Italian. It seemed at once plaintive and demanding, and then it was fading away, fading north into the convolutions of the Cannaregio. Moultrie was talking about something inconsequential and didn’t appear to have noticed. I said nothing. What was there to say?
By the time we got back to our little rented flat in the Cannaregio, the pain had faded to a dull ache. The alcohol had likely helped. I choked down a pair of aspirin and bid Moultrie a good evening. I was asleep so quickly, I barely had time to shed my shoes.
That night I dreamed of the wellhead.
Or, to be more accurate, I dreamed of Venice. Of narrow streets and lagoon mist, of deep shadows and muffled voices. I half-stirred, thinking Moultrie had fallen asleep with the television on again, but as I sank once more, I realized they were the voices of children. Laughing, singing, crying out. Running along the canals, and I was chasing them. I didn’t recall leaving the flat, but I must have done.
I tried to catch them, but they slipped away from me just as I got close. Just as my hand – was it my hand? – snapped shut, shy of an arm. It felt as if they were all around me, pressing close and then whirling away, like leaves in a strong wind. I called out, but they only laughed all the louder. I thought they might have been calling out a name – but not mine.
Ellen and I had never discussed children. It was something other people did, having a child. But hearing their laughter, a pang cut through me. Made me wonder what if.
They led me on a riotous gallop through the streets until I was once more standing in the empty campo, with no idea how I’d gotten there or why they’d brought me. Before I could ask, I heard a clang and my tormentors went instantly silent.
I turned. The wellhead sat in the center of the square. Three padlocks lay rusted and forgotten on the ground. Somewhere, a child began to weep. Then another, and another, until the stones echoed with disconsolate wailing.
Someone began to sing. Softly at first, and then more loudly. As if they were drawing steadily nearer over some vast distance. As they did so, the wailing faded and soon was drowned out entirely by the unseen singer. I thought it might have been the same song I’d heard earlier.
It was coming from the wellhead. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move, but ignored it. The wellhead was the whole of my world in that moment and I went to it, stumbling on numb feet.
I could hear only the singer now, and her voice – it was a her, I was certain – was unsettlingly familiar. Ellen, or maybe the woman from the restaurant. In my head, they became one and the same. But what was she doing here? I called out to her, softly at first. The singer paused, and then started anew.
I reached out with my aching hand. The unlocked lid scraped against its rim, as if something were pressing insistently against it from below. Was she trapped down there? I don’t know why the idea had occurred to me, but suddenly I couldn’t shake it. I knew – I knew – she was down there.
She was down there and she needed me. Needed my help. She was calling out to me. But still, I hesitated. Something held me back. The whispers of children, the feel of small fingers plucking at my legs, my elbows. The singing became a raw, red rasp of sound. It didn’t sound like a woman anymore. Instead, it reminded me of an animal’s growl. It sawed at the air and my ears. Demanding. Greedy.
Something that panted in my ear, just over my shoulder. A low laugh, but not that of a woman. Eyes like twin lamps caught mine, and shaggy hair brushed against my cheek.
I smelled – God, that smell…
Then I heard the bells of the little church sounding as if from a great distance. And wings – pigeons, I thought, but so many and so loud it was like soft thunder. The rasp of sound rose to a shrill shriek and I was falling back – back…my head connected with something hard and the pain jolted me awake.
“Fowler. Fowler!”
I was on the ground. Moultrie crouched above me, shaking me. Nearby, the priest was watching, his lined features set in a solemn expression. It was morning, early enough that the sky was a blur of pink and purple. I was wet – cold. I tried to push myself up, and a jolt of pain pulsed through my hand. I gasped and pulled the injured limb to my chest. “Where – what…?” I croaked, utterly bewildered.
I was in the campo. But it had only been a dream – hadn’t it? Moultrie leaned close, concern etched onto his face. “You were gone when I woke up. Thought you’d gone out for coffee, but you hadn’t bothered to put on your shoes.” He gestured to my feet, and I realized they were bare and aching. As if I’d been running across cold stones all night.
“I don’t understand. Was I sleep walking?”
Moultrie hesitated and glanced at the priest. The old man looked away, his eyes straying to the wellhead. His expression was one of resignation. I wondered if it had been him ringing the bells I’d heard in my dreams.
“In a sense.” Moultrie helped me to my feet. “We found the padlock on the ground. Broken just like the last one.”
“It wasn’t me,” I protested. Again Moultrie looked at the priest, and I had the feeling that some understanding had passed between them.
“Era lei,” the priest muttered and made the sign of the cross in the direction of the wellhead. Moultrie nodded and looked at me.
“No, he knows.”
“What was I doing? Why was I on the ground?”
“You fell – I think we startled you. As to what you were doing, no need to worry about it. You didn’t manage it, whatever it was.” As he spoke, the priest replaced the padlocks reverentially, his lips moving in what I took to be a silent prayer. When the last one was clicked shut, I felt a sense of relief that I could not explain.
“I don’t understand.” My head felt foggy. I looked at my hand. My palm was raw and bleeding, as if the flesh had scraped – or gnawed.
Moultrie was looking at my hand as well. “This has happened before, I think. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He helped me back to the church, the priest following us. As the angels came into sight, I thought again of the sound of wingbeats. I could barely recall the dream now, though it had seemed so vivid while it was occurring.
“Someone was singing…a woman?” I said, hesitantly.
The priest spat on the ground. I realized somewhat belatedly that he must understand English. He shook his head. “Non una donna,” he said solemnly. “E morto da tempo, inoltre.”
I looked back at Moultrie. “The children…I heard them too. Just as we did earlier. I – I followed them, I think.”
Moultrie did not meet my gaze as he helped me sit on the church steps. “No children come here, Fowler. Not for a long time. They know better, these days.” He looked at the priest. “The only ones at risk are tourists.”
“At risk from what?”
The priest smiled sadly. “Il ricordo di una corsa malvagia.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, as they helped me inside. Moultrie glanced back towards the passage, his expression solemn.
“Just a bad memory,” he said, softly. “One that refuses to fade.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s see to that hand and go get a coffee.” He forced a smile.
“I don’t know about you, but I could use one.”
And that’s it for this month. If you made it this far, thanks for giving it a read and possibly even subscribing. I hope you enjoyed this back-to-basics newsletter. Check back next time for more new releases (hopefully) and a new (old) monthly story.
But for now, to paraphrase the estimable Carnacki – out you go!
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November 1, 2022
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