Sourmouth (12 page)

             
“Somebody whether intentionally or not, I think screwed you two over. Just
knowing the word, speaking it aloud, you’ve given its owner just a bit more
strength than it had before. And according to the legend, the more you know
about it, the more that you put yourself at risk to the owner turning its gaze
upon you,” Anna explained.

             
Riley guffawed, perhaps a bit out of nerves.

             
“And what if we don’t believe in words having powers? If we don’t care about
the legends and this so-called owner? What if we just want to know about the
thing that’s in our damned mirror?” Riley asked.

             
Violet took a second to pause. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she did
not believe in such things as magic. But she didn’t quite believe in it either.
To her it seemed silly to dictate her life on a small inkling of doubt in the
back of her head.

             
Anna exhaled deeply, sweeping her hair from the sides of her face.

“The being you speak of,
Sourmouth
...it’s
said that it’s a spirit from old Squamish legend. Their history tells of how
our world was created, about how the spirits of the stars came together to
bring us into existence in a giant storm that swept the land. But there was one
star that was left out from the discussion, one who got no input in our
creation...and that was the Wolf Star. The Wolf Star was always known amongst
the other stars as being incredibly intelligent and cunning. Why he was omitted
wasn’t known, but the reason wouldn’t have made his exclusion any less of a
great insult. In retaliation for this slight, he sent a wolf down to Earth to
steal the bag that contained the storm to create life from the spirits, so that
he might include what he wished in this new world. But what the Wolf Star
wasn’t expecting was that the human race had already seeped out from the bag
and would prevent the wolf from accomplishing its mission. That the humans
would slaughter the emissary and leave the Wolf Star embarrassed yet again.
It’s said that to this day the spirit of the Wolf Star delights in wreaking
havoc on us humans in revenge. While I can’t say where the name came from, it’s
said that
Sourmouth
is the modern day agent of the
Wolf Star, tasked with destroying humans as it sees fit. Of course...all just a
fireside legend”.

             
The
Tylers
took a moment to stare at each other in
silence as they thought about what they were just told. Neither believed in
things like spirits and gods, not since they were children and they learned
that Santa was just a fat Asian man in a cheap suit and a shellfish-stained
beard at the local mall. But the fact of the situation was that they were
facing something that they weren’t even close to being able to understand. They
were facing off with an entity that didn’t seem to be a part of their world at
all, so their previous concepts of how the world worked were slowly becoming
null and void. Whether the creature’s origin story was true or not, they didn’t
have much else to base their next moves on.

             
“Let’s pretend that this is all real. That whatever it is that we saw, that
might be related to the book and the word and ancient stars, is actually more
than fiction. What do we do about it?”

Violet asked her question frantically as if the idea
was suddenly hitting her, an urgency brought on by the notion that her world
might not be as simple as she thought it was.

             
Anna laughed in a way that made her nose twitch like a rabbit’s, “Do about it?
There’s not much you can do,
hun
. If there is a spirit
and it wants to reach out to you, it’s going to reach out to you. There’s
nothing you can do to stop it. The sun will rise and the sun will fall no
matter how hard you wish one way or the other. All I can suggest is that if the
legend is real, and that is a big if, then you stop so much as thinking about
it and get as far away from here as you can”.

             
Riley shook his head, “I’m sorry. But we’re on vacation. We’re not running away
from a mirror and a campfire story”.

             
Violet continued on like she hadn’t even heard her husband, “Is it really
something dangerous? You say ‘spirit’, but what does that even mean? Like a
poltergeist? Should we actually be worried about it at all?”

             
Anna’s smile slowly descended into her thin lips, “I can’t say for sure what it
is or what it could do. I’m certainly not an expert on these things; I just
like the history. And even if I could be an expert on this kind of stuff, I
wouldn’t be. My weary heart isn’t made for the supernatural. But if you have
stumbled onto what I hope that you haven’t, I really do wish you the best of
luck”.

Chapter 6

The ride back to Killarney Lake was a
sombre
one. Neither of the
Tylers
could quite put a finger on the emotions that they were feeling. Violet in
particular felt uncomfortable with the whole situation, with the odd sensation
like someone was watching her that made the hairs on her neck stand on end. She
was aware of the irony that it was her goading her husband into opening the
book and now it seemed like she was the one regretting it the most. Riley on
the other hand was caught between being annoyed for having wasted his day
searching for answers that he didn’t find and still being excited by the minute
possibility of having contact with the paranormal. 

             
Having said their goodbyes to Anna the Museum-Woman and promised that they
would return with the book in the future, they stopped into a small supermarket
to grab some bottles of water and groceries for the cabin figuring that it
would be cheaper and easier than visiting the Red Wolf every day. The sugar
rush they got from the Canada-exclusive coffee-
flavoured
chocolate bars and ketchup-
flavoured
chips also
helped mitigate the tensions they were feeling.

             
It was still early in the afternoon when the pair returned to their rented
abode, which seemed illogically more ominous than it had before. Nothing at all
had changed since they left it. But suddenly having heard more about the fabled
origins of ‘
Sourmouth
’ it took an otherworldly
presence in the otherwise docile landscape.

             
It took some goading from Riley before he could get his wife to step into the
front door, which she did with as much caution as one would step into a
minefield. But other than it being brighter than the night before, it was
entirely the same. There weren’t any household objects floating in the air, nor
were there any spooky voices ringing in their ears. It seemed like for the time
being
Poyam’s
house was nothing but a house.

             
“How did you want to spend our evening?” Riley asked as he plopped down on the
couch.

             
“That seems like a weird question under the circumstances. Maybe we should call
a medium and hold a séance?”

             
“The scary thing is that I’m not sure if you’re joking or not”.

             
“I’m kind of joking. I want to find out more about what’s happening so I can
shut my eyes without half expecting to open them and watch myself getting
stabbed in the throat”.

             
“We tried to find out more, didn’t we? What else is there for us to do? I’d
like to be able to cross my arms and nod my head and make something appear that
just tells us all that we need to know about this ‘
Sourmouth
’.
But unfortunately I can’t and we don’t exactly have access to the internet
right now, do we? Though I doubt it would make a difference if the legends are
passed through story anyway,” Riley ranted.

             
Violet sat idly as she thought. What were their next steps? Helen had given
them Anna as a lead, but Anna was only able to give them information. It seemed
that without more to go on they had come to a dead end.

             
“We need to find some clues,” she said abruptly.

             
“What clues? What are we, the Scooby gang?”

             
“Seriously. We need to find out more about this house and why that book is here
and who might have written it. The only way I can think of doing that is to
turn this place upside down and search for more clues”.

             
“Search? The only places we haven’t looked are the basement and oh my god you
want to look in the basement...” he groaned as he realized her poorly thought
out intentions.

             
“Yeah, in the basement and we can look more in the attic. If it’ll make you
feel better you can pretend that it’s some sort of hide and seek game”.

             
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. And why are you willing to go ghost
hunting in a spooky basement when the entire point of searching is because
you’re scared? If you’re brave enough to try and find whatever it is you think
is down there, then why not just not be afraid of some fairy tale so we can
skip out on the haunted tour?”

             
“I’m not afraid. I’m cautious. I want to know that being in this house is safe.
And the chances of finding something dangerous hidden in the dank basement
aren’t likely. However staying here for an indefinite amount of time while
something is out to get us sounds like the far worse plan. Besides, what harm
could it do?” she tried to rationalize, as much for her as it was for him.

             
“I’ve got the sinking feeling that those words are ones that you’re going to
regret. There’s no outcome here where you get to say something like ‘what harm’
or ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ and something terrible not materialize
out of the ether”.

             
Violet huffed and put her hands on her hips in the same way that his mother
used to when he’d come home after staying out too late.

             
“I’ll take your ramblings as a reluctant yes?” she asked.

             
Riley simply rolled his eyes into the back of his skull and nodded.

             
His wife leaned forward and planted a big wet kiss on his lips while making an
excited squeak. On the surface she was calm and even a little bit happy about
his decision to help her look around. But on the inside she was trembling
apprehensively to say the least. She had an ulterior motive in trying to
convince her husband to play along further than just having an extra pair of
eyes. Quite frankly she was scared, far too scared to go wandering around the
house on her lonesome. Her husband might not have been some sort of warrior
ripped through the annals of time but he’d certainly be more of a force to be
reckoned with than she would should something unfortunate happen during their
expedition.             

With as much zeal as the duo could rally they left the
safety of the couch and headed off to search the basement, when they realized
that they didn’t actually know how to get to it. There wasn’t a way down as far
as they had seen. It took a moment of searching behind the nooks and crannies
of the main floor before they discovered a small door no taller than four feet
built into the side of the staircase that was cleverly hidden behind a small
unused bookcase. A door that size logically must have been some sort of closet
to store junk in. However since they couldn’t find an alternative route to the
area below, they hoped that perhaps it was more than just another small room.

The wood frame looked to have had bloated in its years
and tightened its grip on the door which made it more difficult to open than it
probably was when the house was first built.

Riley pushed the bookcase out of the way with little
effort before pulling open the door with a strained tug. As the
Tylers
had hoped, the staircase hid a descending pathway to
the basement, clouded in darkness as was much in
Poyam’s
house.

“Run upstairs and grab one of the candles,” Riley
ordered.

His wife barely had time to acknowledge her husband’s
sudden assertiveness before she took off upstairs to the room leading to the
attic to grab their supplies. She wasn’t sure if she liked or disliked the
pushier side of her partner, but oddly couldn’t help but be slightly turned on
by it.

             
It was far too dark for Riley to get a sense of what was down the steps or how
far the stairs went. All he could see from his perch was a wall of pure
blackness pushing back at him to try and drive him towards the world of light.
He knew it was irrational as soon as his head began playing tricks on him,
making him imagine that somewhere down below stood the lanky behemoth
Sourmouth
and his faceless terror just waiting for them to
come down. Riley huffed as he pushed his right leg out and placed it on the
first step, testing its strength. He didn’t know much about construction but he
did know that after all these years of neglect it was a distinct possibility
that the wood had worn through. It would either be from the natural dampness of
the Canadian winters or from the termites and other nasty critters that might
have called the place home.