MicroHorror

Myranda held her mobile phone close so he could see the pictures but Pete wasn’t really paying them much attention.

“My mother, Prisca. My father, Apatos, hiding behind a newspaper as ever… Did I mention the dogs?”

“No.”

“Raptor, Stego and Carny. Aren’t they sweet?”

He gave them a glance. They were of that variety of fluffy small dog that he particularly disliked. “Very cute. Pity about the red-eye…”

“It’s not terribly good as a camera,” she said, quickly closing it down. She blinked to adjust her contacts.

Stego–must be a pretty confused mutt, he thought

Pete wasn’t about to pop the question quite yet but he took the invitation to meet the family as encouragement. God, she was gorgeous! He liked her teeth when she laughed–neat, sharp. “What will you have?”

“Steak. Rare, please,” she added for the waiter. “I just hate it when they spoil good steak, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” He ordered chicken and spent most of the meal staring at her–except when she caught him looking. It was heartening to meet a girl who relished her food.

“About Saturday,” he ventured.

“You’re still coming…?”

“Yes. I was just wondering what to bring. For your mother, I mean.”

“Flowers, if you like–not roses, though. Mother doesn’t like thorns. Waste of good blood, she says.”

He laughed. “You never call them Mum and Dad…”

“No.”

He didn’t pursue it.

Armed with a bunch of deep red carnations, Pete rang the doorbell. He could hear the dogs yapping inside and being shooed away from the door. He was somewhat relieved not to be greeted by the mutts. Myranda looked more mesmerizing than ever in deep purple velvet which clung to her figure and gave her usual pallor an alabaster quality.

“Welcome.” Myranda’s mother, a striking woman who looked too young to be her mother, clutched his arm and ushered him into the lounge. “Blood red carnations. How nice!” But she was eyeing Pete, not the flowers, which made him slightly uneasy. “Sit,” she said.

There were no chairs, only low, soft leather beanbags, but it would be rude to refuse and so Pete folded his legs as best he could.

“Father will be down in a minute.”

“Myranda tells me you live all on your own.” Her mother was direct and effusive.

“Yes, I have a flat near…”

“No family?”

“No close family, no.” There was something about her eyes…

“Well, then… How very nice to have guests. Myranda, I’m sure it’s okay to let the rest of the family in now that Peter has settled.”

The dogs came bounding towards him as soon as the door was opened–little, white, bouncy, mustachioed mutts with pink eyes. Pete overcame his aversion and held out a hand. In an instant, the smallest snapped at him and bit a finger clean off. He looked on horrified, strangely detached, as it commenced to chew the digit just like a munchy.

Such was his sense of shock that for a moment Pete didn’t notice the lack of appropriate reaction from his hosts. Nor could he stand up immediately because his legs had gone to sleep.

“Here, let me see that,” said Myranda and he allowed her to grasp his injured limb. She raised it, sucked at the stump and then her sharp little teeth bit down hard on the next finger. She tossed it to another of the dogs.

By the time this latest shock registered, Prisca was standing over him too with a look of barely concealed lust. Pete summoned all his will, all his strength. Myranda had him by the wrist and was about to bite off another of his fingers.

“No!” he yelled. He struggled free and made for the door.

Apatos filled the doorway. Seven feet tall he stood, grimacing, with rows of sharp, lacerating teeth, reptilian jaws, red eyes. Pete turned. Two red-eyed women and three little dogs with bloodied maws stood slavering with expectation.

“Going somewhere?” said Myranda.

Shadows follow time. Have you ever watched them as they move across a room, across a field, cast slanting rainbows through glass? Have you? I have. A day of shadows is indiscernibly slow. I have watched them very closely and with dread for I know what it is they do. Many think that shadows are driven by time. They are not.

It happened the night Button died. I looked at her little broken body in the hospital. I watched the hours tick by and the angles change until there was no more light to see by and even hope darkened. When they switched that machine off, a shadow crossed my heart, a darker shadow than I had ever known, a thing of hatred and rage–a vengeful clamor that would not be silenced. It was a shadow in deep shade, a pit of blackness within the dark, bitter and slow–so slow it clung to the floor and demanded my attention.

As I watched, it took form, lifted itself up onto the wall, wavered before my eyes welled with tears and held me still in my sorrow and despair.

“What would it be?”

I didn’t really hear a voice. It was more like a breath exhaled.

“What would it be?”

“What?” I asked.

“Your will. Speak it,” breathed the shadow.

I felt a sob rise in my throat, stifling the words I thought to speak.

“Speak it.”

“That bastard should die!” I said. “That damned driver should die for the death of my child!”

“You will this?” said the breath. “You would see it done? And in your turn you would aid others?”

In that moment revenge was all my heart, was all my soul, was all I had. But the shadow needed me to speak the words and it drove me on.

“You will it…?”

“I do will it,” I said, “with all my heart!”

What happened then was as a dream. I saw the man enter a cell. His head was hung with remorse but I felt no pity. He lay on the bed. My little girl did too but she breathed no more. He stirred suddenly and looked around him as if he caught a glimpse of… something. I witnessed the approach of many shadows and his eyes grew round with terror. They crawled velvet black across the floor and he recoiled, drawing away to avoid their pall. He called out but his voice was muffled by this darkest of clouds. They pooled around his feet and crawled upwards paralyzing him slowly from the feet up with icy cold, fearful fingers, reaching his torso, then his throat. He screamed horribly as blackness filled his eyes. I saw them there inside him, the shadows, filling his whole being. They turned his flesh to blood and rendered him lifeless on the floor.

I found myself once more by the bedside of my beloved daughter but the moment I beheld the innocence of her face, I knew I had done a great wrong in her name.

Half a century I watched the shadows creep until they came for me and I became one with them. I had learned their discipline. Shadows are not driven by time. They are outside of it. Eternity is their plaything. But they are not permitted to act alone. They must await the summons of a vengeful heart and exact from it a terrible price. Yet there are always those willing to pay. God help me, I cannot warn them for the promise binds me and all darkness is blind.

Mayor Crouch ho-ho’ed like Claus himself as he threw the switch that lit up the town. A million sparkling lights reflected off his chain, playing on his three chins. A sudden cascade of sparks enveloped him. They fizzled and zizzed and the mayor danced until he was blue and his arms hung limp at his sides. Women and children screamed in terror. Anyone who jumped on the podium was repelled by shocks. The mayor’s lifeless corpse lay singed on the marble floor and the tree twinkled just like any normal tree, innocent as you please.

Now, nobody liked the mayor. He was a mean- spirited exhibitionist, but public execution is brutal and that’s what this was. They put it down to a feedback surge but I was sure it weren’t no accident. It was me installed them circuits. Besides, I’d seen a mean look come over that tree… its green got real dark and its lights, livid bright just before… I was giving that tree a wide berth.

Some days later I caught sight of a tramp hanging around by the grotto. I didn’t need to smell him–I could see he hadn’t washed since last Christmas and since most folks was ignoring him, he decided to help himself. I had to hand it to him, he was subtle too! He snuck a hand inside this woman’s bag from behind and whipped her purse quicker’n you could say Kringle! Just as quickly the tree responded. A bolt of electricity laid him out colder than a leftover ham. I wasn’t the only one saw it, but nobody was saying nothing ’cos stealing from folks at Christmastime’s just plain nasty. Plus I didn’t fancy gettin’ the wrong side of that tree! Next day the newspaper reported, “Two More Christmas Tree Deaths.”

As Christmas approached the tree got bolder. It zapped four people in one day. One was a spoiled child who persistently made his mother’s life a misery because she couldn’t afford the particular toy he’d set his greedy little heart on. Another was a charity collector with real sticky fingers. The manager of one of the largest stores, “Now Offering Free Credit and Nothing to Pay until Next Christmas,” didn’t make it to work that morning neither. Its final victim was a Santa. I never found out for sure why he got it but you betcha he was up to no good!

By Christmas Eve it was obvious that these incidents were not the result of some electrical fault but I guess nobody had the guts to admit it and nobody wanted to try and switch that tree off. I pretended to have a look at the switches and wiring, which was my job, but I talked to the tree the entire time.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, buddy. You just stay calm and I’ll say there’s nothing wrong, which there ain’t… but tell me, aren’t you Christmas trees s’posed to be all soppin’ over with good will to all men?”

That’s when it spoke.

“Good will to all men of good will,” it said (in a kind of a deep green voice, you understand).

There was something about its tone set my nerves a-janglin’. I could feel its bristling electrons all around me and my hairs stood on end. “I ain’t never wished no ill on nobody!” I urged, cursing my own curiosity and hoping all the negatives didn’t spoil my defense none.

Anyhow, I lived to tell the tale. The tree let me be. It set me down gentle as a baby on the marble floor and told me to step well back.

“See you ’round,” it said.

Then, so help me, it rose on a plume of streaky colored lights, right up through the roof of the mall and into the starry sky, just like a rocket!

‘See you ’round.’ It’s somewhere for sure! Could be in a mall near you.

Gee, thanks, straight bourbon, please. Cheers! And Merry Christmas!

She was so beautiful–so very, very, beautiful. What father would not do all he could to protect her? And so Dioscorus built a high tower and forbade anyone to enter except for himself and one maidservant.

Barbara grew more beautiful year on year but only her father saw it. He was determined that none should sully his daughter. The slobbering youths he saw outside his walls were all unworthy of her charms. He only… only he could love her as she deserved.

She escaped once but was discovered and brought back. Found by some good shepherd and penned.

Susanna brought her food and comfort and also a catechism and told her that her father was wrong to keep her thus locked up for his own pleasure. Dioscorus found the book and was furious for he was a committed pagan. He forbade her to pray.

But when he went away on business, Barbara had a third window put in the tower to represent the Holy Spirit. She swore it was a miracle sent from God. Did she really believe or was this the only voice she could put to her despair?

Her father’s fury now reached greater heights. He denounced her. She was imprisoned once again and this time at the mercy of strangers. Perhaps Dioscorus suspected she was no longer his alone. Sent before the prefect of the province, Barbara was condemned to burn.

Her gaolers had never seen such beauty and they swore that when they’d tried to burn her they found she would not burn. Every time they tried their torches would extinguish, so they said. And so once more she was kept alive. Surely another blessed miracle…

At length she was released back to her father who decided to carry out the death sentence himself. He took Barbara up to a high mountaintop and there he hacked her head off with his sword.

On the way down the mountain, God struck the pagan sword with a lightning bolt. Thus it is told did Barbara become the Saint of all who work with fire or explosives, because she would not burn, while her father was consumed by fire.

One might perhaps observe it was a pity God wasn’t “ahead of the game.” Then again perhaps the making of saints just excuses the worst excesses of man and has nothing whatever to do with God. At any rate Barbara’s story is no longer considered authentic and so the 4th of December is no longer her official saint’s day.

Who knows the brief brutality of the life that Barbara led?

One thing I have discovered. You excavate the story. You examine the finds. Sometimes you hear the distant echo of a scream. But history and legend are written by the victors. Thereafter it’s the archaeology of interpretation.

Not everybody gets to be a ghost. It requires strong motivation and iron determination to haunt whatever it is you intend to haunt possibly for centuries. It is certainly within one’s power to frighten people but that is not usually the sole purpose of the uneasy spirit. It is considered bad form. Such souls are shunned by those of us who truly walk the paths of shadow. This is not merely my lot. I remain by choice, as does every ghost. The Powers allow us to linger only at extreme persuasion.

I am–was–very much attached to the house. Generations of my family had been born there; lived, loved, died there. The fabric of it was infused with the history of our lineage–our “house,” if you will.

Randal, Randy, my great-great-grandson by all accounts, had a different view. He inherited just few years ago. I was at his father’s bedside as he passed over, as I have been there for all my sons’ sons. Tried to persuade him to stay here with me–not to abandon our heritage to his wastrel son–but he would not listen.

“I’ve always known you were there,” he said to me.

I knew then he could see me and recognized my presence. He’d been an affable child and I used to pay him visits in the night but I’d never shown myself openly. Sometimes when he was older, he used to stop and listen intently when I was in the room and I felt he knew me and I, him.

“My parents thought I had an overactive imagination,” he laughed.

“So stay with me now. Help me protect the house.”

“Sorry, Great-Grandfather,” he said. “I want to be at rest. Don’t you?”

And his spirit departed.

Well, this Randy started knocking walls down, renovating, rebuilding, putting windows where they had never been. Something called a loft conversion. He destroyed my attic, threw out my things and moved some harlot into my home. I could hear them knocking about at night. Disgusting brat! Whore! There was no sanctity of wedlock and no promise of legitimate heirs in this… this… My house had become a brothel!

I tried to scare them–something I abhor. It didn’t work. He thought a ghost would “put value on the old place.” There was practically nothing of the old place that I could recognize. Anyway, when, by his words, I knew he intended to sell, I took the ultimate step. I showed myself. I took corporeal form and summoned my gravest tones. “You will not sell. You will die before I let you sell!”

I don’t know why I said that. I couldn’t bear his smug expression a moment more. He looked vaguely alarmed for a moment, and then do you know, he looked at me and said, “Are you a genuine ghost, old fella?”

“I am.”

“Ooooh, not half scary!” he said and he guffawed.

They both laughed at me–laughed! That was when I knew I meant it.

Now I preside over charred remains.

It gives me no great satisfaction to have put an end to the family line. I lost control and with it, everything I valued. The Powers recalled me to review my spiritual status. I asked to remain a while, to contemplate what I have done and its consequences, though it torments me. I have been lessoned by young Randal, his father, his father’s father. I see now what I should have seen long ago. There is perhaps wisdom in letting go of the past.

Randy saw me clearly as his soul departed. I made sure he did. And I can tell you–he looked frightened then. But that is not the image that haunts me. No, what I can never forget is the confusion in his eyes. Why would anyone choose this living death?

There is nothing left for me to cling to. Yet I cannot let go.

Is the present secure?

Affirm.

You’re sure because…

Affirmative. How many times, Starski?

And you remember the greeting?

We come in peace. Still sounds a bit overdone to me.

It’s what they like. It’s what they want to hear.

Yeah, whatever… Are you getting any readings? We’re within one light year.

Negative. I’m receiving noise but no communications.

We come all this way. Suddenly it’s like they stop transmitting.

Not suddenly. I mean we’ve been traveling towards the telemetry so it’s been getting closer all the time, but even so I haven’t seen any coherent communications for the past several hundred light years. They may be covert but…

So we abort?

Aren’t you curious?

***

Okay, we’re here. Scan for the bipeds.

Negative scan.

People of planet Earth, we come in peace. I repeat, we come in peace. What’s going on down there? Maybe we should just take a look.

Negative. I’m reading high levels of toxins.

Life forms?

Arachnids.

Spiders? Well, that does it. I hate spiders!

Agreed.

What do you suppose happened?

My guess is it just took us too long to get here. We missed civilization.

Yup. Looks like they wiped themselves out.

***

What now?

Go home, I suppose.

You do realize that by the time we get there…

Shit, you’re right. Centuries will have passed. Nobody we knew will be there any more. They may never even have heard of Starski and Bach… Look at all those points of light out there, Bach. Amazing, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s a beautiful sight.

I didn’t mean that. I meant the vast horror of it–that no matter where you look, you’re looking into the past.

Time. You mean it’s all about time. All this space and there’s no future in it.

So you think maybe we should just go on out there? Do a little prospecting?

Why not? We still have the present.

Some trees are all bark, no bite. Their center, a hollow bole enough to shelter in, but the tree itself is dead; home to ivies and lichens; a nesting hole for rats.

This tree was just the opposite. It had been stripped by time and harsh conditions, yet was as vital as it had been two hundred years before and would perhaps continue so for centuries. It was a survivor.

“Why’s it called the Boney Tree,” asked one of our group. As if a child could not see from its form, devoid of bark, that looked much like bone?

On this ridge-way above the river it stood, the countryside spread all around, overlooking Vilnius. I left the tour to admire the view and didn’t hear our guide’s caveat against lingering there. I have to say it looked a pleasant spot. That was my undoing.

They continued unaware of my absence. I ambled up to the tree and stood admiring the panorama. I clicked away with my camera so that I would remember. How I wish now that I could forget!

I first became aware of a low moaning which made me look at the sky. But there was no breath of wind, only spring sunshine. I heard it more clearly a second time and felt as surely as I could that the sound had emanated from the tree. No doubt its fabric expanded or shrunk according to the season. The creaking of the wood was like the timbers of great ship–a ship of the damned. I could hear the chatter of the group drift back from the river. There is safety in numbers.

I had an urgent need to touch the tree and approached closer. I put my hand flat against its trunk. “Hello, old friend,” I said aloud and did not know why. The tree responded with a deeper exhalation than before; such a contented sigh, I felt it knew me. It quivered beneath my touch.

All voices now were quenched. I felt suddenly isolated and afraid. Unbidden tears streamed down my face and splattered the ground, creating an inexorable cold fog that sprang up consuming the landscape. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. I shuddered, put my back to the tree for support and slid to a sitting position at its base.

It was then I saw them: war weary troops, a staggering, spectral army lurching past towards the river with a few emaciated horses in tattered ranks, and many bloated corpses all around. I knew I was seeing through another man’s eyes. The stench of putrefaction was nauseating.

Such misery as I had never known possessed me. The sky darkened. I could no longer feel my legs or stand. I heard scuffling at my feet and as my eyes accustomed to the gloom, I saw the rats. Beady eyed, ravenous, they tore at the cloths which bound my feet. I could do nothing to discourage them. They gnawed away my toes, their ochre teeth tearing strips of flesh.

I screamed a scream that would have startled hell. It did not deter the rodents from their feast. Yet I was aware it did not hurt. Only the pain of hunger seemed to gnaw me to the bone, and bitter cold and utter desolation.

What if I ate the eaters, I thought. If I could grab a rat… but no, for that would prolong the agonies of death. Better let them have their meal in peace. Peace. Ah, peace! I longed for it above than all else. Yet, what peace can there be for souls that die thus in vain, their sufferings nowhere acknowledged? Their only epithet, missing…

I prayed that I might come back to myself. A sob that started deep in my stomach, made its way out in an earnest cry of sorrow. I truly mourned that wretched, nameless victim through whose dying eyes I witnessed these horrors.

In that sacred moment, the Boney Tree released me to bear witness, his living memorial.

“You can’t make me! I won’t!” Billy Marchant’s tone was hysterical and his eyes housed defiance. He thrashed about, flailing wildly at anyone who came near, and he was stronger than his thin frame presaged. Eventually three burly police officers dragged him into the van.

Sergeant Dawn and Doctor Sorenson spoke in low tones. “He’s been admitted here before but he responded well to treatment.”

“So it seems. There is no reason he shouldn’t live normally in the community provided he keeps up his medication.”

“Well, we can’t police that, of course.”

“Of course not…”

“Mr. Marchant, back with us again, I see…” The doc’s tone was friendly.

“You can’t keep me here!”

“Oh, but we can. You’re a danger to yourself and others so the police have asked for another assessment. What was the chainsaw for?”

Billy Marchant folded his arms.

“The chainsaw, Mr. Marchant? Can I call you Billy? What was it for?”

Marchant sat sullenly silent.

“Okay. Obviously you don’t want to deal with this now. We’ll wait until you’re ready. Nurse Fellows and the officer will see you to the ward, see you settled. Get him a wheelchair, Fellows, and see that he’s fed.”

“What’s wrong with his legs?” asked ward manager O’Malley.

“Elective non-ambulance, it says on his file.”

“Non-ambulance. I like that,” he chuckled. “Is this is the one who thinks he’s Napoleon?”

“No, apparently he thinks he’s a Polish soldier fighting in the Napoleonic war–name of Lolek Borisov. Real name’s Marchant.”

“’Cept he won’t march, eh? What are we to call him?”

“Billy, I think. No point in reinforcing a delusion…”

“All right. We’ll put Billy in the side room with Ferdynand Novak. They should get along fine.”

“Marchant only thinks he’s Polish.”

“It’s the only bed that’s free, okay?”

“Sorenson said he’s to be kept sedated for now.”

Fellows was used to O’Malley’s slipshod attitude but one of these days something was sure to blow.

It was after lunch next day by the time Sorenson did his rounds. “How’s our patient, Fellows? Responding well to treatment?”

“That’s just it. He seemed to be. He’d calmed down, was fine, walking a bit around the ward, which we were glad to see, then suddenly he legged it! About an hour ago.”

“Legged it? He wouldn’t even walk to the ward yesterday–said I couldn’t make him. Wasn’t he sedated?”

“Until this morning, yes, just as you said. Anyway, he’s gone. We’ve called the police. They’re checking his house…”

“Doctor, I think you’d better take this call in my office. They’d like you to attend at General straight away.”

“General? I’m a consultant psychiatrist, not… Who is this…? Marchant? Yes… I know him… Oh dear God, no! Both legs? …a chainsaw? I’ll be there right away.”

“Doctor,” called Ferdynand from the doorway, “is regarding Lolek, yes?

“What is this client doing here? Are you totally incapable of running things properly on this ward?”

“He tell me he is going to do this thing. Is because of the war, you see. His both legs freeze in the war… It hurt so bad… so bad… and he no want walk no more so he cut them off but he born with the same legs, over and over…”

“He told you all this?”

“Yes, Doctor. In my home tongue, too!”

Rather my mother had not borne me than that this grim remembrance be the price of life! I blame myself for horrors seen, my friend–for horrors merely endured. Such endurance was a sin itself. Had I had the courage of my brother Yves to end it, the first time at Smolensk, I ought. I recall the very musket shot that rang out in the woods. I see his tear-stained and beloved face beg for the mercy I could bestow, and I did, and stripped him there on the field and took his clothing for my sorry rags. His feet came away in his boots. I thought I would bring up my very lungs, so great was the stench. My heart I left there with him in the mud and blood and promised I would tell our mother only that he loved her.

We were an army of the living dead. Our glorious songs, long silenced in our parched throats, had been choked in heat and dust. Our eyes, painful and encrusted, saw only death, not battle. Columns before us foraged all they could take. Cattle behind us died of stroke and dearth. Then came the rains and wagons of supplies were swallowed, horses-whole in claggy mud.

Our enemy led us on a-dance. They stood to fight one day, then disappeared like spirits into the night, deeper beyond Smolensk, until we stood depleted in the midst of ruin in Moscow. Nothing of value was there. Great works of art, silver and fine goods there were a-plenty but what are those to hunger? I saw many a wagon laden with suchlike trinkets, abandoned soon upon the road. I took a Russian coat and some good cloth to wrap my feet against the coming cold. I ate a dog that was half starved like me–remembered how we’d thought ourselves so poor, back in my mother’s house where there was bread and beer. Now I wished only to see her face once more and feel her gentle hand upon my head and the warmth of her tears for my brother. That would have been sustenance enough.

We left Moscow burning and turned back along that desolated path whence we had come. Southern lands were full of plenteous harvest but our number was now small. We were forced to follow the Baltic Route west. The bloated corpses of those who had perished on the assault became pillows to bivouac. Discarded weapons littered the way. Men too weak to fight need no weapons. Many I saw drop and never rise again for lack of will. I saw them stripped naked before they’d exhaled their final breath, nor did they curse their looters. We did not smell or taste or feel or weep for we had no saliva or tears. Alas! I would cry yet if I could.

Smolensk the second time was execrable. I have not told you of the freezing cold; minus thirty on November 11th. My feet no longer hurt for want of feeling but remembering my dear brother, I did not remove my bindings; such was my fear. That night I wished to die but I chose to survive. I will never forget that night. I crawled towards a faint snorting noise in the dark and suddenly my body came upon the great bulk of a fallen horse. I felt its breath warm but uneven and knew neither of us might live out the night. So, I took my knife and slit its belly open and it screeched so that I cannot forget the sound. I put my mouth to its warm blood that oozed. I took its entrails in my hands and dragged them from it, living, and inside I crawled for warmth, curled up as it were my mother’s womb.

Ah, God forgive me! I cannot look her in the face again. After that date, I dined on human flesh. So tell me, of those 600,000 souls, can I truly say this soul survived?

The man had to duck as he entered the bar.

“Hi. You do rooms, right?”

All eyes turned. American.

“That we do, sir. How long would you be wantin’ one?”

One of the three domino players laughed and called to the landlord, “Maybe three meters longer than any you’ve got, Michael.”

“And a bit wider, too,” suggested another.

The American looked bemused. He carried his six-foot-seven well.

“Two, three nights, tops. And I’ll need a meal.”

“They stopped serving about twenty minutes ago…”

He was about to protest. It was only nine o’clock.

“…but I’ll talk to Missus. It’ll be no trouble, I’m sure.”

He found the Irish propensity for too much irrelevant information irritating.

“Dom, show this gentleman the room.” Michael turned to the register. “Just come down when you’re ready then, Mister…”

“Yana-browf-sh-ki.”

“Right then, so…” said Michael. “See you in a minute, sir.”

Michael told his wife to serve double portions of whatever was still on and laid a place. The American sat, with his long legs folded to either side of the chair. Having demolished the Irish stew and two helpings of apple tart with whipped cream, he looked a deal tamer.

“So,” ventured Ardel McArdel, “What would you be doing in Kilnaquiln?”

“Lookin’ for my ancestral home, I guess. Kilnaquiln Manor. D’you know it?”

“Everybody knows it,” Ardel said and warning glances told him to leave it at that.

“Was that it among the trees as I drove down into the village?”

Looks were exchanged, this being the fairest excuse for a town within fifty miles–village indeed, ancestral home–“Aye, on Knock Quiln itself.”

“Well, it’s sure been good meeting you folks, but I’ve had a long day so I guess I’ll turn in. I’ll go visit with the folks tomorrow. It looks like a fine house.”

When he’d gone Ardel broke the silence. “He’s joking, isn’t he? Is nobody for tellin’ him? There’s been nobody but wild cats in the auld manor for centuries.”

“Sure, he’ll find that out for himself,” said Michael.

“He’ll be fine,” said Colm.

“He’s maybe not even a Quillan,” added another.

“He’s a Quillan all right, plain as the head on that Guinness,” said the landlady. “Look at the size of him and the grey of eyes of him. That cold, they’d drain yer very soul in a wink.”

“His name’s Yana-browf-sh-ki,” Michael mimicked, and everybody laughed.

“Aye, but he said ‘ancestral’, didn’t he? And he could see it, Michael–like it was a house–not a ruin–a house. I’m tellin’ you–he’s one. It’s where the Quillans come to die.”

“That’s superstitious nonsense, woman. Hold your tongue.”

“Shouldn’t somebody tell him?” said Ardel.

Even the American’s long legs couldn’t make short work of the path up Knock Quiln. He’d had to leave his car several miles below at Felin Farm. From there he cut over stiles and across fields til he reached the lonin that led upwards. This path rose oblique and rocky, back and forth between dry stone walls. Windswept, tenacious trees with twisted bark and gnarled roots dug into the soil for dear life. That and gorse were the only vegetation on the windward side of the hill but they grew thickly together, taking on the appearance of a tangled maze. At last, where the land flattened out on the approach to the house, they closed, impenetrable and hostile.

Quillan Janabrowski woke in just such a thicket. It was now late afternoon. He remembered struggling up towards the house. Then something had attacked him–something that came at him shrieking and yowling. He’d stumbled–hit his head… Eyes… He thought he’d seen hundreds of pairs of eyes… Clearly he had hallucinated.

He shook himself and casually twisted round to lick his balls. The thought crossed his mind that this was… an unusual circumstance. As he looked up, he found himself encircled by cats–peculiarly long-bodied, lithe cats, all with piercing grey eyes–and exceptionally tall tails.