Dark Hollow (21 page)

All three—O’Connor, the boy, and the dog—were covered with some kind of weird fungus. Don’t know what that’s all about. Neither does the law. Coroner’s report hasn’t come out yet. News didn’t say they’d found his books, so I reckon O’Connor must have squirreled them away somewhere, like I do. If they find them, they should burn them. Some things just shouldn’t be.

He always said he wanted to find doorways to other worlds and go through them. Now I reckon he has. I wonder what he saw in the flames inside that burn barrel? Did he see the world he expected to see on the other side?

I found a doorway to another world, too, right down yonder in the hollow. I didn’t go through it. But something else come through, into our world. Something that walks around on hoofed feet and plays the Pipes of Pan.

It didn’t come alone, either. Other things came through with it, and they’ve gotten inside the trees. I’m thinking they could be Elilum, which I’ve read about in my books. They are kin to Legion, I think, and led by a demon named Ab, who’s another one of the Thirteen. They possess plants. But I don’t know for sure if that’s what they are, and I can’t do anything about them without knowing their names. Names are power. If you know something’s name, then you can bind it or banish it. Naming gives you control. But if you don’t know its name, or if you take a guess and wind up calling it by the wrong name, then you can make things worse.

The hollow ain’t safe no more. And if it spreads to the rest of the woods, then there’s no help for anyone.

I don’t know the names of what’s gotten into the trees, but I know the name of the other thing. Hylinus. I looked the name up in my books, but couldn’t find it. Ain’t no mention of him. But that must be his name, because that’s what Patricia called it while she was…

I need another drink.

Patricia.

We went down to the hollow that morning just after the kids caught the bus for school. Matty was sleeping over at a friend’s house for a few nights (the pastor’s kid—I thought that might straighten him out a bit). The girls would be back in time for dinner. That gave us plenty of time for what needed to be done. In truth, I’d reckoned to have it finished before noon. Eleven ten was the appointed time, when everything had to align.

Even though we’d been all right the night before, and I thought maybe things were changing again, Patricia groused the whole way to the hollow, making fun of me, making fun of the old ways. I reminded her that her own folks believed in these ways, and that she’d believed too, once. She said something mean, and we didn’t talk after that. But she come along just the same. On the way I noticed the spring was all dried up now, too.

We got to the clearing. I was weak and tired, and hadn’t had any food, on account of the fasting for preparation. Patricia hadn’t fasted, but I didn’t need her for the actual ritual, so I figured it would be okay. I just needed her help setting things up.

I put our things down in the middle of the clearing. A magician’s tools, what was needed for this particular powwow. A coffee can filled with salt and powdered limestone; three strands of goat hair bound together with a single human hair (my own); two new candles, made of beeswax from our own hives and mixed in the moonlight with the menstrual blood of a virgin (I nipped one of Gina’s tampons from the garbage pail in the bathroom); a bone, found by accident while walking through the forest (because, according to O’Connor, the book said if I was purposely looking for it, the bone wouldn’t be no good. My eyes had to settle on it by accident); a willow branch, one that had been pointing to the sunrise and was cut in one swoop after winter’s thaw; pine shavings and sage sprigs to burn; a small copper urn to burn them in; and olive oil.

We raked the leaves clear. Then we poured the lime and salt on the ground, copying the sigils O’Connor told me to use. I used the willow branch to draw them into the soil. O’Connor was specific about that. Nothing else would do. It took a couple hours, getting everything just so, dotting our Is and crossing our Ts. Then we were ready.

I placed a drop of oil on my forehead, and another on Patricia’s. I told her to stay out of the circle. I made sure I was clear of it, too. Then I lit the sage and pine shavings and waited for the smoke to build. When it had, I picked up the bone and began chanting the words, just as O’Connor had told me they were pronounced. My tongue had a fit trying to say them. Twisted itself into knots almost.

The hollow grew dark, but when I looked up there weren’t no clouds over the sun. The powwow was working. I lit the candle and put it at one end of the circle. Then, while saying the rest of the words, I had Patricia throw the goat hair into the urn. It stank as it burned. But then I smelled something else. The inside of a barn. A horse sweating after a run, or a sidewalk after a thunderstorm. How your bedroom smells after you’ve been with your wife.

It smelled animal.

I kept up with the words, talking faster and louder. Waved the bone around. The smoke got thicker. Didn’t seem like such a little fire could make so much smoke, butthat’s the way of it. There was no wind, but the smoke drifted toward the circle and seemed to swirl around in the middle of it like a cloud.

The hollow got real still. Even Patricia was quiet. She watched. Licked her lips. She looked excited, and I reckoned that maybe she was remembering how good this could be when it was working right. Maybe things would be okay after all.

The darkness went away, and at the same time the smoke seemed to spread out like tentacles or snakes maybe, and it was sucked up into the trees. Where it had been, there in the center of the circle, stood a wood spirit. I’d seen pictures of them before, and
The Golden Bough
talks about them a bit. Some folks call them satyrs. That’s what we’d caught. A satyr. It looked at me like it wanted to kill me. No doubt it would have if it could have gotten out of the circle. Then it noticed Patricia, and its face softened. I happened to look between its legs, because there weren’t no real way to ignore what was there. I daresay Patricia had an effect on it. The satyr stepped toward her, and then shrank back with a growl when it hit the boundary.

“You can’t pass the circle,” I told it.

The satyr’s voice was deep, and sounded like a goat’s. “I was asleep. I was…elsewhere. Who calls?”

“I do.” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice. “And you are bound, as you can see.”

It snorted. Looked down at the circle. “By whose name do you bind me?”

O’Connor hadn’t covered this with me, so I switched to what I knew from the Book.

“Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” I said. “By his blood do I bind thee; and by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and by my name, Nelson Amos LeHorn.”

“Why am I summoned?”

“Hard times is coming for my farm. I command you to bless this planting season and make it fruitful and bountiful.”

“Only this, and nothing more?”

I nodded. “Only that, and then I’ll release you back to where you came. You can go back to sleep.”

“Very well.”

The satyr raised his hand to his lips, and it was then that I noticed he had a pipe. He started to play, and the music was beautiful. I reckoned this was how he worked his blessing. Played a song and the drought wouldn’t happen. I stood there, kind of swaying to the music. Something started happening down below in my pants, something better suited for the bedroom. Embarrassed, I looked over at Patricia and saw she was feeling it, too. She took a step forward and licked her lips.

The satyr stopped his playing. “Come.”

He motioned to her. She took another step. I started to shout, but it was too late. Her right foot broke the circle. Smudged the salt and lime. There was a flash of bright light as the barrier went down. The satyr moved fast as lightning. He grabbed Patricia, bent her over, tore off her clothes, and…

Need another drink. Bottle is getting low. Be empty soon. That’s okay. Got some cough syrup around here somewhere. I can drink that.

She enjoyed it. It took her right there in the circle. No foreplay. Just like the horses and cows do out in the field. He slid into her with a grunt and she slammed her hips back to meet him. They rutted in the middle of the hollow, right there in the dirt in the middle of the summoning circle, and Patricia smiled at me while they did it. Blood was running down her thighs, but she didn’t seem to mind. I thought I might be sick, but I wasn’t.

It looked at me. “Will you join us? Will you celebrate the season?”

I daresay I wouldn’t. I tried then to send it back, using the words from the
Daemonolateria
, just like O’Connor had told me to do, but it was no good. Nothing happened. O’Connor give me the wrong words. The satyr must have realized what I was about because it laughed. Then it laid my wife down on the ground and stepped toward me. Stepped out of the circle. Dropped the pipe and reached for me. Its breath stank like a pigsty. Claws tore into my skin, right above my heart, and drew blood. The wound burned.

I stepped back and hit it with the sign of the cross. Said, “Dullx, ix, ux. Yea, you can’t come over Pontio; Pontio is above Pilato.” The Book says that’s to prevent wicked or malicious persons from doing you an injury, and it’s always worked for me before. But it didn’t this time, maybe because that thing weren’t no person. The spell had no effect. The satyr kept coming, and I kept walking backward, staying out of reach.

Tree limbs rustled above me, and at the time I didn’t think nothing of it, but now I know. They were waking up.

Patricia lay there on the ground, her legs spread out and her womanhood showing. I’d loved that place. Watched my children be born from it. Now I almost didn’t recognize it. She looked ruined, and the satisfied expression on her face turned my stomach. Wanted to scream, but instead I kept trying. Using what I’d memorized from the Book, I tried to bind it, charm it, turn it, and slow it. I used every prayer, spell, and benediction I could think of, but nothing worked. The satyr kept coming at me. I hollered at Patricia to run, but she just laughed at me. Said she’d found someone who could finally satisfy her. That hurt in ways I never imagined. The whole time she said it she was playing with herself. Both hands. Her fingers were wet and red.

When I reached the edge of the hollow I’d gotten a good lead on the satyr. It hung back, then turned and loped off to my wife. Reckon it figured on getting me later. It had other things on its mind, and Patricia seemed willing enough. I thought about going after it, but that was foolish. It pained me to leave her, but there was no help for it. I run back to the house instead.

First thing I did was stop the bleeding. I’d lost a good bit. Felt woozy. Took four different charms from the Book before I could get the blood flow stopped. Even then my skin still burned. Went to the medicine cabinet and poured peroxide over the wound. Watched the bubbles and tried not to pass out. Felt a little better after that, so then I charmed the house against evil spirits and all manner of witchcraft. Took a white piece of paper, as the Book says to do, and wrote:

I.

N.I.R.

I.

SANCTUS SPIRITUS

I.

N.I.R.

I.

That’s the only Latin I know; what’s in the Book, and what O’Connor give me. Wish I knew more. Said the benediction over the paper, “All this be guarded, here in time, and there in eternity. Amen.” Then I taped the paper up over the front door and made another one for the back door. That way the satyr couldn’t get in the house. All I had to do was get Patricia back inside. It was pretty plain that she was under its spell. Get her back here to the house, where that thing couldn’t tread, I could undo that charm.

It got into my head that silver might hurt it. Silver’s good for hurting things of that kind. But I didn’t have no silver bullets, and no time to make them, either. Had a silver knife that I used in some powwows, and I tucked that down into my belt. Then I went back to the hollow.

The trees kept me out. They’d grown closer together while I was gone, and they made a wall around the hollow with their trunks. Each time I tried to get between them they’d groan and their limbs would grasp at me, or fall off, aimed at my head. I tried several charms from the Book, but they weren’t no good. Whatever was inside those trees was because of the
Daemonolateria
, and spells from the Book were useless against them. I needed their names and their banishing rituals. I had both, but they were in Latin.

I hollered for Patricia, but she didn’t answer me. All afternoon I edged my way around that hollow, and the trees kept me out. Sometimes I’d hear my wife inside, laughing with that thing, and making other sounds that I don’t want to write about. Sounds she ain’t never made with me in all our years of marriage. She cried out its name over and over again. Hylinus. That’s what she called it.

Listening to them I got angrier and angrier. Tried to shove my way through the tree line, but the branches tore at me, raking my skin. I stabbed one with the knife. The blade sank into the trunk and the whole tree started shaking something fierce. I reckon it didn’t like the silver too much. There was a sound like the wind was screaming and then the tree was still. The rest of them started grabbing at me worse. I tugged on the knife hilt but it was stuck fast. I tore away from the branches and went stumbling back out again.

I was beside myself. Judging by the sun the girls would be home from school soon. I didn’t know what to do next. Thought about calling the police, thought about calling my neighbors, thought about burning the whole damn woods down. Eventually I reckoned on my chain saw. That would even things up a bit. Silver seemed to have done good on them that was inside the trees, and I wished I had silver teeth on the chain. But still, the chain saw would even the odds.

While I…

Can’t write about it yet. I’m tuckered out. Tired. Been awake a long time and my fingers are starting to hurt from holding this pen. Later. I’ll write about it later.

Later

Passed out for a bit. Liquor must have done its work after all. My head hurts. Somebody is screaming upstairs. Not sure who. Matty will probably be home soon. Phone’s been ringing, but I ain’t answered it.