Bohemians of Sesqua Valley (14 page)

Roguishly, Arthur chortled. “Aye, Leonidas, we have trespassed the sacred rock. We found a bust there, rather similar in style to some of these here. Perhaps it is the work of this Edith York.”

“Unlikely. Miss York is a child of the shadowland. She would never surmount that prohibited place. This bust of which you speak…”

“Is Edith York still among us, or has she returned to shadow?”

“She is entirely reclusive since the demise of her brother. I hope you’re not thinking of disturbing her.”

Arthur picked up one of the small sculpted satyrs and examined its countenance. “Are any of these for sale? This one could be one of the children, look at that ugly mug. No, for display only? Pity. But what the devil is that supposed to be?”

“That is called ‘Shub-Niggurath,’ one of her most complex works. As one gazes on it, one almost fancies that it moves, however subtly, that is expands and contracts like some sentient cloud.”

Monique touched the thing with timid hand. “Are those faces etched within it? Damn, it’s creepy, like a beast of vapor in which the visages of trapped souls cry out for mercy.”

“No,” Arthur countered, “not mercy. I mean, they are almost undistinguishable as faces, but they suggest, somehow, elation more than misery. A twisted kind of ecstasy, perhaps, but ecstasy nonetheless.”

“I believe they symbolize the thousand young of the black goat of the wood. Ah, you aren’t familiar with that particular legend. A minor Outer God, so legend says, and curiously wedded to terrestrial regions. I know very little about it, actually. Simon could tell you all there is to know.”

But Monique wasn’t listening. She was utterly captivated by the outré object, and by her sudden desire to become acquainted with the one who created it.

II

The bent, grotesque creature listened again to the timid knocking, and then used her cane to move through a corridor to the front door of her large old house, slightly alarmed that someone would be invading her privacy, which had never happened before. Slowly, she opened the door and observed the pretty girl who stood there, an outsider dressed in a gown of simple beige cotton, whose sleek black hair was tied up in a piece of white cloth. And there, held in one hand—the violet chapbook.

“Hello. Please pardon the intrusion. Are you Victoria York?”

“I am not.”

Monique paused, uncertain how to proceed, hoping that her real intention wasn’t obvious. “Oh. I found a copy of her book of poetry, and was hoping maybe I could get her to sign it.”

“My sister has escaped mortality,” was the woman’s queer reply.

“Ah. Are you Edith York, the sculptress? Leonidas showed me your pieces at the curio shop a few weeks ago.”

“Do you sculpt, Miss…? Would you care to come inside? I am just having my afternoon tea.”

“Oh! Thank you. I’m Monique Lambert. No, I’m not artistic at all.”

She followed the hunched woman into a comfortable sitting room, where a pot of tea and tray of cake slices sat on a low table before a petite settee. Edith motioned for Monique to sit, and then went to a sideboard and fetched a second tea cup. “What is it that you do, Miss Lambert?”

“I’m a daemonologist, studying with Simon,” the young woman answered as she watched the other pour tea into a cup. “Umm, that smells good. I was so impressed with your work on display. And I was struck with the goat-like features of some of your figurines. There’s a bust with similar features on Mount Selta, chiseled from a boulder. Could that possibly be your work?”

“My kind cannot trespass on mountain ground.”

Monique observed her new acquaintance as she sipped from her tea cup. “But you’re different from the others. Your features are more caprine than wolf-like. And your eyes, although silver, are tainted with a yellow element that the others lack.”

“You’re very observant. Yes, I have issued from a different pocket of shadow than most of the other children. I was a child when I arrived, and adopted by the York household. I think Simon set it all up, although I have never inquired. I tend to avoid that unpleasant beast.”

Politely, Monique laughed, and then quickly changed the subject. “There was one piece of your work that particularly intrigued me. Leonidas said it represented an entity called Shub-Niggurath. It’s piqued my curiosity.”

Edith raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Certainly one who studies unclean sprites with the beast of Sesqua Valley is aware of the Outer Gods. No? Has he never mentioned his passion for Nyarlathotep? Remarkable. What then is the nature of your studies with Simon?”

Monique set down her empty cup and leaned back onto the comfortable settee, setting the chapbook beside her on the cushion. “We study the elementals that are especial to the valley, and he has conjured some of the local imps to partake in our rituals, the strange dark folk and the frogs with human infant faces. He feels that my art has a rare potency that may enable me to summon creatures from secret pockets in the valley, fiends with which Simon is unfamiliar.”

“And have you?”

“I felt a presence in the woodland that affected me curiously. Strangely, I experienced the exact same sensation when I was studying your sculpture.”

“Ah, that is splendid. You have tasted the aura of the Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Young that lurks within our woodland. My sister experienced that eidolon as well.” Edith motioned to a corner of the room where a life-size statue stood, the quality of which was so stunning that Monique could not resist rising and going to inspect the figure’s workmanship. “Of course, you know of Victoria’s passion for that particular Outer God from having read her poems. If, indeed, you have acquainted yourself with her work.”

There was a pregnant pause, and then Monique couldn’t help but snicker. “Damn, you’ve found me out. But of course you would. I’m not here because of Victoria. I spent the past few weeks learning more about you from the locals, and then an acquaintance gave me her extra copy of the chapbook. I’m here because of your sculpture of Shub-Niggurath and its spell over me. It’s triggered some uncanny instinct inside my soul.”

“Then you are here because of Victoria, in ways you may be unable to imagine. There are no accidents in Sesqua Valley, Miss Lambert. I advise you to read my sister’s poetry and let it instruct your dreaming.”

The young woman gazed at the statue. “She had an almost regal beauty.”

Edith nodded. “She was majestic in every way.”

Monique turned to her. “Are you entirely reclusive? I could come and visit, if you like, and help alleviate loneliness.”

For the first time, the ancient woman smiled. “One is never alone in Sesqua Valley, child. Especially my kind. I am visited by evening mist, wherein I hear the pleas of my shadow kindred to return to the realm of origin. I shall probably be returning before long. Not that I have much to do with those of the common swirl, being the fruit of unconventional pocket.”

“It’s so captivating when your kind speaks of the realm from which you came to our mortal clime, although none of you seem to have any clear memory of that other region.”

“Oh, I remember it—every bit.”

“Is it entirely different—from here?”

“As dream differs from the waking world. Don’t forget to take your chapbook, dear. You are quite lovely. Perhaps you’ll come again and sit for me.”

“I’d be honored, Miss York.” She went and took the chapbook from the elder creature’s hand and quietly exited the house. The day was mildly warm and bright, with a slight breeze that felt comforting as it played with her strands of glossy hair. Removing her shoes, Monique walked past the center of Sesqua Town and stopped to lean against the mammoth sculpture of a sphinx, the stone of which was comfortably warm against her bare arms. Opening the chapbook, she squinted as the bright light of day was reflecting from its pages onto her eyes. Blinking, she began to consume poetry.

“What do you have there, Lambert?” asked a familiar voice.

“The poetry of Victoria Elizabeth York.”

“Ah, yes, a very curious case,” Simon Gregory Williams replied. “She vanished from the valley after an intriguing supernatural manifestation. Quite curious indeed. Her brother died a few years ago. Edith—now she’s rather interesting. She slipped into this mortal realm from an infant pocket of shadow and came to us in the form of a child. She’s not like others.”

“Her eyes are different—slightly.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “You’ve encountered her?”

Monique nodded. “I’ve just come from visiting her. She wants me to sit for her, for a work of sculpture, I think.”

“You little nymph, how quite remarkable. Well, you’re as much an oddity as she is, thus it shouldn’t surprise one that you would find common ground.” He looked at the chapbook and frowned. “I lack that in my collection at the tower. You will donate it, of course.”

“Perhaps. What is this part here, these two lines in Greek?”

“Let me see,” he demanded, holding out his hand and clutching the offered booklet. “Hmm, yes; it’s an antique chant to the Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Young.” Monique jumped at the sudden sound of Simon’s loud voice declaiming old Greek, and the sun lit his silver eyes with greater intensity. It was always thus when he participated in some arcane rite, when his malformed mouth spoke magick. There was such vibrancy in his tone, and authority. It was at moments such as this that Monique knew she was dealing with a wizard of monumental potency. How strange that the sun seemed to darken at the continued sound of his chanting. A bestial thing howled from some distant place, and she detected an edge of cruelty in the sound—malice laced with unwholesome appetite. Simon, soaking it all in, grinned wickedly as he came to the end of his chanting. “Oh, that was fun. Whatever did we evoke, I wonder?”

“We evoked poetry—sublime poetry. Did you know her?”

“Victoria York? Not well. She and her brother were brought to the valley by mistake, by their foolish parents. They were very young, the children, and the boy was pathetic and spineless. He was an outsider to his very last day. They planted him yonder, in the Hungry Place. The mother was a child of shadow who had a sickening desire to remain mortal and so she left the valley and married. But she could not stay away, and eventually they came here to live. He lasted longer than any of us expected he would, but eventually he went mad and deserted the family.”

“And the mother?”

“Returned to shadow long ago. As for her eldest daughter—Victoria’s fate has remained an enigma, and little hunchbacked Edith has remained entirely reclusive, until obviously overpowered by your charms.”

The young woman pushed away from the sphinx and shielded her eyes. “I’m in need of shade. Wander the woodland with me, Simon, and help me to memorize those Greek lines from Miss York’s poem. I like the way they sounded. I like their potency.”

“Yes, they shimmer with influence, those words. How charming to see them work on you. You have disappointed me with being so unadventurous. Daemonology is a fascinating study, but a study of animism is mere theology unless put into some kind of practice. The best way to research and analyze devils is to evoke them, to feel their presence on one’s eyes, to drink their poison with one’s nostrils. That is the path toward which I have been guiding you.”

“Yes, you have, and your seduction has had its effect. Come on, I need to get out of this sunlight.”

She moved away without looking to see if Simon followed, and walked the distance until coming to a woodland path, onto which she stepped. The effect was instantaneous: the light that filtered through the trees and touched her eyes felt softer, and the air lost some of its cloying sweetness.

“You needn’t tramp so vigorously. One would think you were applying for some military, the way you march.”

“I’ve always liked this,” she said, stopping so as to touch a three-foot tall sculpture of a night-gaunt. “Is it true, Simon, that the woodland of Sesqua Valley connects with the woods of Dreamland, and that the gaunts filter thus into our realm?”

“The woodland here is pregnant with pockets to other realms, with which the wise do not tamper. I live in such a zone, which is why it is impossible for others to locate.”

“You lived there with the poet, Manly, until his strange disappearance. Take me there.”

“Don’t be absurd. I never allow mortals into my home.”

Monique leaned toward him and smoothed his cheek with the back of her hand. “I am no ordinary mortal.”

“Nay, do not touch me, nymph.”

“It’s what I do, Simon. It is my one trait of alchemy. I touch—and seduce.”

“You will remove your hand this instant. No, do not cover my eyes, Monique.”

Her laughter was a gay sound. “Ha, that’s the first time you’ve called me that. You see, you are already under my spell. Show me your abode, beast of the valley.”

“Come then, and follow me.”

She watched him walk a narrower path than the trail she had been following, and she wondered at the sudden sense of uncanny fear that gave her pause. Then he vanished from sight, and the idea of being alone where she stood aroused mild panic, and so she rushed after the beast, through the weird woods. When again she saw him, Simon had stopped to fondle the yellow flowers of the spreading branches of a tree.

“What a lovely laburnum,” Monique said as she joined Simon and fondled one of the hanging blooms. “Oh dear, the fragrance is rather heady—quite similar to the air of the valley. It catches in one’s throat.”