'What is the Calacorm?' Extract
What is this wretched word I have found wedged in my literature? Some misprint? An editor’s scrawl? Or perhaps some devious child’s handiwork from a previous era? But no, I have lived alone for thirty years, and nobody besides Jack or Lacey has ever visited me. And yet that damn word has appeared in bloody lettering amongst the pages of Martin Chuzzlewit.
Exasperated, I slipped the book back on the shelf, waited a few seconds and then opened it up again at the relevant page − still there, bold, crimson, and unfathomably inserted mid-sentence.
‘Calacorm’.
I hurled the book away − sending it clattering to the back of my library − and tried to forget about it, but even the promise of a quiet weekend without the pressure of work couldn’t shake my unease. That one word seemed to drip with meaning, unknown and forbidden − I just knew it! I scratched my chin, accessing my memory banks to see if it bred any familiarity, but I felt it was a teasing word, at the edge of my knowledge and yet alien to it.
“To hell with it all! Feeble, irritating word!” I snapped.
The brandy decanter was my next port of call, and I poured myself a generous double and slumped into my armchair, looking into the bookcases where the discarded book stood, spine up against the far wall, spreading itself, almost saying – ‘I dare you to pick me up and look again…you know it will still be there!’
“Maybe so,” I muttered, “but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an errant word.”
In response, something tapped at my window − a sound so invasive it caused me to spill my brandy in fright. Cursing my wet trousers, I looked over, but although the sun shone, the frosted glass obscured any definitive shape outside. I thought about investigating but convinced myself it was a tree branch or some such object projected by the wind into the pane −or even my imagination.
“Spooked by a word and the wind,” I said, forcing a strained laugh. “Nonsense, bloody nonsense.”
A second tap at the window got me up in a rush, slamming the brandy glass down in a temper and striding over to the offending window. I fumbled with the lock and figured I saw a shadow pass outside, but when I finally got the window open there was nothing but the sun throbbing into my eyes − and the house opposite. I leant outside, dusted the windowsill, and then shut it with a bang, but as I turned something black flapped in my face. Disorientated, I screamed, but the buffeting only lasted a second and then something fluttered away into the room, leaving me cowering like a wreck against the wall.
“What on God’s earth!” I roared, instilling bravado through rough words.
Lunging forward, I saw that the invader was only a moth. It flew briefly around my lamp before heading towards the bookcases. Something about it didn’t seem quite right, however, so I cautiously followed, watching it alight on the cursed book I had just read. Fear pricked me – a coincidence? But what a coincidence that it immediately made for the object of my unease; I noticed bold markings on its back, black and dreadful – a patchy skull with two vacuous eyes – and vaguely recalled seeing something similar before in a butterfly book. It was something along the lines of a Death Hawk Moth, or a Devil’s Hawk Moth, but either way it was intimidating as it slowly shook its wings − like two hands inviting me forward, pulling at an invisible fishing line.
Exasperated, I slipped the book back on the shelf, waited a few seconds and then opened it up again at the relevant page − still there, bold, crimson, and unfathomably inserted mid-sentence.
‘Calacorm’.
I hurled the book away − sending it clattering to the back of my library − and tried to forget about it, but even the promise of a quiet weekend without the pressure of work couldn’t shake my unease. That one word seemed to drip with meaning, unknown and forbidden − I just knew it! I scratched my chin, accessing my memory banks to see if it bred any familiarity, but I felt it was a teasing word, at the edge of my knowledge and yet alien to it.
“To hell with it all! Feeble, irritating word!” I snapped.
The brandy decanter was my next port of call, and I poured myself a generous double and slumped into my armchair, looking into the bookcases where the discarded book stood, spine up against the far wall, spreading itself, almost saying – ‘I dare you to pick me up and look again…you know it will still be there!’
“Maybe so,” I muttered, “but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an errant word.”
In response, something tapped at my window − a sound so invasive it caused me to spill my brandy in fright. Cursing my wet trousers, I looked over, but although the sun shone, the frosted glass obscured any definitive shape outside. I thought about investigating but convinced myself it was a tree branch or some such object projected by the wind into the pane −or even my imagination.
“Spooked by a word and the wind,” I said, forcing a strained laugh. “Nonsense, bloody nonsense.”
A second tap at the window got me up in a rush, slamming the brandy glass down in a temper and striding over to the offending window. I fumbled with the lock and figured I saw a shadow pass outside, but when I finally got the window open there was nothing but the sun throbbing into my eyes − and the house opposite. I leant outside, dusted the windowsill, and then shut it with a bang, but as I turned something black flapped in my face. Disorientated, I screamed, but the buffeting only lasted a second and then something fluttered away into the room, leaving me cowering like a wreck against the wall.
“What on God’s earth!” I roared, instilling bravado through rough words.
Lunging forward, I saw that the invader was only a moth. It flew briefly around my lamp before heading towards the bookcases. Something about it didn’t seem quite right, however, so I cautiously followed, watching it alight on the cursed book I had just read. Fear pricked me – a coincidence? But what a coincidence that it immediately made for the object of my unease; I noticed bold markings on its back, black and dreadful – a patchy skull with two vacuous eyes – and vaguely recalled seeing something similar before in a butterfly book. It was something along the lines of a Death Hawk Moth, or a Devil’s Hawk Moth, but either way it was intimidating as it slowly shook its wings − like two hands inviting me forward, pulling at an invisible fishing line.
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