The Bog (26 page)

David’s understanding of the world was once again assaulted, but this time the mental siege that followed was short-lived. With Grenville’s last revelation he laid down what remaining vestiges of skepticism he possessed and stood ready to face whatever lay ahead.

“What are you?” he asked.

Grenville’s eyes narrowed as he at last seemed relieved in being able to reveal his true colors. “In colloquial terms you might say that I’m a sorcerer.”

“How old are you?”

“My precise age is not important, but I am very old, certainly as old as the bodies you are digging out of the bog.”

With this final surrender to the strangeness of Grenville’s world David also discovered new courage, and he looked his adversary fixedly in the eye. “I know what has preserved them all of these years. What has enabled you to weather the centuries?”

“Why, Julia, of course,” Grenville said, folding his hands and walking around the side of the table. “Surely you must be cognizant of the relationship between a magician and his demon? Since time immemorial it has been understood that there is great power in the world of darkness. It has long been the role of the thaumaturgist to break through into this world and bring one of its inhabitants under submission. It is true that one must have some innate talent to accomplish this, but the brunt of a sorcerer’s power comes from his enslavement of the demon and his channeling of the ocean of unfathomable energy available to that darkling creature.”

“So it was you who made the candelabrum vanish the other evening?”

Grenville smiled. “A simple trick, really.”

“What other powers has Julia enabled you to wield?”

“Oh, a vast number of them. Even more power than most who have preceded me in my profession. You see, under normal circumstances the magician is only able to allow the demon to manifest on this plane of existence for a short period of time. But long ago I discovered a way to make Julia manifest permanently, to give her actual physical form. That is what has enabled the two of us to survive so long. It is the perfect symbiotic relationship. I provide her with physical form and allow her to sate her needs, and she functions as the energy source, the conduit through which all of my powers flow.”

“And what do you want with us?” David asked. “Ahh, here we come to the meat of the matter. To begin, I want you and your family to remain in the hunter’s cottage and I want you to continue with your work.”

“That won’t be possible,” David retorted quickly. “My family is leaving this very afternoon.”

Grenville looked at him quiescently. “You don’t understand. I’m not giving you any choice in the matter. The truth is, I’ve never had any intentions of ever letting you leave this valley. It is regrettable that you forced my hand in this matter because I wanted to apprise you of this fact more slowly, but I’m afraid that this is the case nonetheless. You see, as you are no doubt aware, I have quite a number of human servants to take care of this house, the grounds, and in general maintain the standard of living to which I am accustomed. When they grow old and die, I need replacements. Normally, I get them from among the villagers, but as you may have noticed the people in this valley are becoming quite pithless. The trouble is that, as the years have passed and times have changed, the valley has become an almost totally closed community, and inbreeding and incest have become quite a problem. To put it bluntly, I need new blood. That is why I gave you the hunter’s cottage. I want you to stay, and ultimately I want your children to intermingle and marry into the community.”

“Forget it!” David cried.

“But you have no choice.”

“What if we just refuse and pack up and leave?”

“I have ways of stopping you. Just because Julia has been temporarily downed does not mean that the flow of my power has ceased. I have eyes everywhere and there is nothing in this valley that I do not know about.” He looked at them smugly. “Do you remember the moth in the Swan with Two Necks? Do you wonder why the villagers were so afraid of it? Well, I’ll tell you. You see, the moth too was one of the ways I have of keeping an eye on things around here. The moth was Julia. I had her assume that form so that I could send her there to spy on you. That was how I knew that Winnifred Blundell so foolishly tried to warn you to leave.”

“So you did murder her?” Melanie interrupted.

“I had Julia kill her,” Grenville replied. He turned to David. “As you have seen in your exhumations of the bodies in the bog, it is a task she does with unusual relish.” He smiled. “And please be advised that Julia is only one of the tools of surveillance I have at my disposal. There are others. And so, if you tried to leave you would never know what set of eyes watching you might really belong to me, a tiny moth between the folds of the clothing in your luggage, a gnat following a discreet distance behind, or even a flea sequestered amongst the hairs of your scalp, any one of them might actually be one of my little emissaries.”

The notion that Julia could shrink down and become the size of an insect once again challenged David’s reason, but given what he had witnessed so far he did not doubt that it was true. He shook his head. “But I have my work, my reputation. If I do not return to Oxford people are going to start wondering why. They’ll come looking for me.”

“I’m sure something can be worked out,” Grenville returned. “You must understand, we are not totally cut off from the outside world. Some intercourse is allowed. For example, when we need a new vicar I always arrange a way for one of the villagers to attend seminary.” He paused. “In fact, I see no reason why you could not come and go as you please as long as your wife and children remain here to remind you that you must ultimately return.”

“What about Brad?” Melanie asked.

“Good point,” Grenville said. “I’ll tell you frankly that I would prefer that he didn’t stay. Two outsiders at a time I can handle with ease. Three makes me uncomfortable and might bolster your courage and inspire you to dissent and rabble-rouse. However, I warn you, if you say one word to him about either Julia or myself, at the very least he will become a prisoner in this valley as well. At most, I might even decide to let Julia have her way with him. She’s most intrigued by the fact that he’s a vegetarian.”

Melanie looked horrified.

“The same goes for your housekeeper,” Grenville went on. “And anyone else you may be in touch with in the outside world.” He looked at them harshly. “Please don’t underestimate the range and scope of my power. Others have made that mistake in the past, and all who have are among the bodies you are now unearthing from the bog.”

David and Melanie just sat staring at the ancient magician.

“One final word,” Grenville murmured. “I am aware that I have just given you a great deal about which to think. On the brighter side let me add that life need not be so grim for you here. To begin, when I say we need new blood in the valley that does not mean I am going to force anything. So please do not feel any undue pressure on that count. Just relax and I’m sure as the years pass nature will inevitably take its course.” Grenville paused and looked distractedly at his fingernails. “If I am not mistaken, the floodwaters of womanhood are already beginning to flow through your daughter. Who knows, she may fall in love with one of the village boys on her own accord.”

The thought of one of the scrofulous boys he had seen in the village laying a hand on his daughter filled David with revulsion.

“Never!” he shouted, lunging at Grenville. He was halfway to him and filled with enough venom to strangle him barehanded, when the old sorcerer suddenly raised one of his hands and passed it swiftly through the air in front of him. Then something invisible hit David with the force of a bag of concrete and sent him flying across the room into a row of chairs.

Grenville stormed forward and glared down at him as Melanie rushed to his side.

“Do not try my patience, Professor Macauley. I am in control of forces far beyond your ken and I have enough power in the tip of my little finger alone to rend you asunder.” His eyes flashed with fury as he spoke, but then something curiously respectful came into his gaze. “But do not think it has escaped my attention that you are a man of unusual spirit and intelligence. Who knows, perhaps in time, as I become persuaded of your loyalty, there may even be things that I would be willing to teach you.”

And with that he ended.

Although his insides were twisting with rage and defiance, David found that this last remark by Grenville plucked something deep within him. He knew that nothing would ever get him to sell out his family, or induce him to accept Grenville’s tyranny, but his insatiable curiosity, the part of him that always strove to know more and more, could not help but be allured by the possibility of learning even a fraction of the fantastic knowledge that Grenville apparently possessed.

He was still lost in this thought when he looked up and saw that Melanie was gazing at him terror-stricken. Grenville stood back, and as Melanie helped David to his feet the silence in the room was abruptly punctuated by a sound in the distance. Curious, Grenville walked back out into the drawing room, and after David had brushed himself off he and Melanie followed.

By the time they reached the drawing room Grenville was already standing at one of the windows and looking out, and cautiously both David and Melanie walked up behind him to see what was going on.

In the distance David saw Luther Blundell tearing up the drive on his motorbike. From the speed he was going and the wild expression on his face, it was clear that he was very upset about something. David could only imagine that the discovery of his mother’s body had been more than he could bear.

For several seconds they all just watched as Luther continued to race toward them.

“I knew that boy would be trouble someday,” Grenville muttered. “But no matter.” He looked at David and Melanie with priggish self-satisfaction, and then turned and unlatched the double windows and calmly flung them open.

By this time Luther was a scant few hundred yards from the house, and Grenville watched for just a moment longer. Then, as Luther was about to rip up onto the lawn, Grenville flung his hands out as if he were shaking something off of them, and a mist rolled out of his fingertips as they snapped in the air beyond. As David and Melanie watched, the inchoate mist coalesced a few feet beyond into a blue-white ball of coruscate energy that crackled and went roaring off with lightning speed. The fireball hit both Luther and the motorbike with hammerlike force, but instead of knocking them backward it froze them motionless, the energy ball expanding and enshrouding both the boy and the motorbike in a glistening cocoon of intense white light. Luther screamed, but his scream was quickly truncated, as first his skin and then the red ligaments underneath vaporized. For a few seconds his skeleton sat motionless on the now-melting bike, the brilliant fire glowing dazzlingly from his eye sockets as it incinerated his brain and other internal organs. Finally, it consumed his bones and the metal of the bike and then vanished, sending an oily black mushroom cloud pillaring ominously into the air, the only sign that anything had been there in the first place.

Grenville shut the window and turned back to his guests. His gaze fixed on David. “Please think about all that I have said, and three days from now I’d like you to visit me once again. That will give you a chance to more fully absorb all that you have seen and heard today, and we will at that point continue our conversation. Until then, I bid you adieu. I will see that the chauffeur gets you home.”

Grenville turned to once again face the window, and as if on unseen signal, the butler appeared. He led them out of the drawing room and back through the entrance hall. As they passed through the cavernous enclosure, unnaturally dark because it too had all of its curtains drawn, David once again became aware of the susurration, the mysterious rustling that he had heard on their first visit to the old manor house. Neither Melanie nor the butler seemed to register it, but he was sure that he heard something moving in the shadows against the wall. His eyes scanned the darkness, but again he saw no trace of what was making the sound.

It was when they were almost to the front door that the sound grew louder and David realized that it was coming right for him and at incredible speed. He turned suddenly, expecting to see some wraith or ghostly apparition closing in on him, but still he saw nothing. As he squinted into the half light, however, he felt something invisible touch his skin. For a moment it danced like a midge across his face and arms, and then, like a rotted drapery passing swiftly over him, it was gone. He turned, his eyes wide with alarm, but the expressions on both Melanie and the butler’s face remained impassive; they sensed nothing. The butler held the door open and stared at him vacantly. David turned and looked into the empty darkness one more time, wondering what other unseen energies inhabited the old house, and then, not knowing what else to do, he departed.

For several hours after they got home they scarcely spoke a word to each other, and it was only after they had recovered from their shock that they discussed all of their options. At first David was sorely tempted to simply pack up his family and get them out of the valley as quickly as possible, but in the end he realized that this entailed a risk he was not willing to take. Although he would never have believed it a few weeks previous, he now accepted that they were engulfed by forces far beyond his fathoming, and given that he had no real measure of their sweep or magnitude, combined with his memory of what had happened to Luther Blundell, he reluctantly concluded that he should take all of Grenville’s threats seriously until he had reason to believe otherwise.

In the end, Melanie also came around to this point of view although she did so with considerable resistance. David had not expected her to deal with the matter well, but he also had not anticipated the reaction she displayed. He had thought that she would be wild and hysterical, but instead she behaved as if all of the life had been drained out of her. Her gaze was blank and defeated and she lapsed into long stares as if she knew or understood something about what was happening that he did not, something that spoke even more forebodingly about what fate lay ahead for them.