four spindly legs, its glass top filthy with dust and dead flies. I blew on it, sending up a gray plume, then did my best to clean the glass with my sleeve. Set into one side was a small brass tag that read DONATED BY THE HONORABLE EDWARD P. FOOTE, 1964. IN MEMORY OF A FELLOW PLAYER. Inside, upon a bed of ragged velvet, was a frayed, leather-bound copy of Acherley Darnell’s collection of supernatural tales,
I had seen the book before, of course, here and in countless reprints, and like everyone else I had watched the Disney cartoon version of Darnell’s most famous story, “The Dancer at the Burial Ground.” But I had never actually read anything else by Darnell. I sat back on my heels and eyed the case warily, as though it might know what I had in mind. I took a deep breath and began to prise it open. There was no lock, but the hinges were so rusty that for a moment I was afraid I’d have to give up. I could hear a few mothballs rolling around inside it, and I tugged harder. There was a puff of mold and the smell of camphor. The wood strained and creaked, until with a final groan it gave way.
“Okay.” I bit my lip, tasted blood and dust. “Let’s get a look at you—”
I picked up the book, nearly dropping it in my urgency. It was heavy, bound in leather and brown cloth and with the title picked out in gilt letters. When I opened it a pressed leaf wafted from between the pages, tissue-thin, brittle as lichen. I tried to catch it, but as it fell the leaf disintegrated, melting into the air as though it had been made of snow. I sank to the floor and opened to the title page.
The frontispiece showed the author himself, with the legend DARNELL AS PROSPERO. A lean, dark man in a black cape, not at all the avuncular white-haired patroon I had imagined. Old theatrical engravings usually made me laugh, those pursey-lipped images of plump men in wigs as Hamlet, or fat-cheeked matrons playing unlikely Rosalinds.
But there was an unpleasant intensity to Darnell, with his thin, upcurved mouth and piercing eyes, long black hair falling disheveled about his gaunt face. He looked less like Prospero than Caliban. I tried to turn to the first tale, but the pages stuck together, and the book fell open at random to a page illustrated with a drawing of a shrieking man pursued by black shapes with huge glowing eyes.
I do not think that Menheer Vanderbiin ever believed that he would meet his end with his throat torn out within sight of his own doorstep, nor that his wife e’er thought that their children would come to their majority fatherless. I do know that Vanderbiin scoffed at local superstitions, and most especially at those rumors which circulate within the foothills of the Siwanoy Range; namely that the Devil’s own hounds hunt upon those desolate slopes…
I glanced uneasily over my shoulder. Mrs. Langford seldom navigated the steps, but I had a sudden irrational fear that someone else might. Around me the room had fallen almost completely into shadow. A single shaft of pale light streaked a windowpane curtained with cobwebs and insect husks. I thought of what I had seen in my room last night, and decided I didn’t want my back to any more windows, no matter how empty they seemed. I crept behind the glass case, leaned against the chill bare wall and flipped through the book.
“Waitstill Finch, or A Tragic Romance.” “The Tolling of The Muscounth Bell.” “A Tragic Tale of Olden Times.”
Page after page of thick brown-edged paper, interspersed with more gory drawings and the occasional engraving. “Heathen Customes in Modern Dress.” “A Savage Lover.” “The Infernal Hind.”
But then I turned to a plate that made the breath rasp in my throat.
“That’s
A crude black-and-white print showed a maniacally smiling figure, a man with the lurid grimace and goatish expression of a Restoration devil. He was naked, save for a swag of furs and bones around his waist, and capered wildly in front of a bonfire where several dithery-looking captives ineffectually waved their hands as they burned. The demon’s feet were clad in high laced boots, and from his head sprang two branched horns.
“The Wae-Be-No, A Savage Relict,” I read on the facing page.
There is amongst those austere men who have made their dwellings here long centuries before the advent of the European race, a tale that is repeated—nay, not a tale, but a most severe admonition; for such is their belief that they will plead most piteously with any White Man who seeks to ignore their warning, and have been known to slay innocent trespassers, not for malevolent purpose but to spare these unknowing interlopers a fate which the Tankiteke abhor unto death. It is thus that they speak of a devil they call the Wae-Be-No, which takes the form of a horned man dancing in flame. Human flesh is what the devil consumes, preferring it above all other sustenance…
“Charlotte?”
I gasped and looked up to see Mrs. Langford peering at me from the shadows.
“Oh! Jeez, you scared me!” I stumbled to my feet, trying to hide the book under my arm.
“I didn’t know where you were.” She glanced around, frowning at the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, the pallid light that fell through dingy windows. “Good lord, this place is filthy. Hasn’t that girl come to clean?”
She took off her tam and swiped at the thick veneer of dust on a caseful of arrowheads. Then, as though she’d just remembered me, she turned and said, “We’re closing, dear—a little early, but there’s the party…” She stared pointedly at the volume under my arm.
“Right. I—I was just looking at this. I’m sorry. I’ll put it back—”
“Which one is that?”
She flapped the dust from her tam o’shanter and put it back on her head; then crossed to me, her cane thumping loudly. “Oh, yes, the
I handed it to her, shamefaced. “I know—I was just, there was something—”
Mrs. Langford held the volume in one unsteady hand, straightening her glasses as she peered at the illustration of the horned man. “Well!” she murmured. She studied the picture as though she’d never seen it before. At last she gave it back to me and said, “Better put that back where you found it. Thank you, dear. Now, if you don’t mind waiting for me to close up, you can walk me home…”
I replaced the book, making a great show of closing the case. Then I escorted Mrs. Langford downstairs.
“There!” she exclaimed breathlessly when we reached the bottom. “Thank you, dear—”
I followed her to the judge’s dock. It was almost five, already so dim that the shapes of benches and chairs could only be guessed at. I turned on the electric lamp, and sank onto a bench to wait for Mrs. Langford to gather her things.
“I’m just going to finish my tea, dear.” She poured what remained and sipped it noisily.
I watched her, then finally blurted, “What was that a picture of?”
“What picture, dear?”
“In that book. The thing in the Indian legend.” I thought of sneaking in to watch
Mrs. Langford put down her tea and stared at me, her green eyes wide. “The
“No.”
“Well, Acherley Darnell says it was a god.”
“An Indian god?”
