Imp (Day Two)

Short Serial Fiction - Horror

Greetings, Talebones Readers!

DISCLAIMER: This is a horror tale, and therefore may contain themes and situations that are darker than my average fare.

Reader discretion is advised.

This is the second part of a multi-part short story.

Read Day One here.

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Photo by Laura Lefurgey-Smith on Unsplash

DAY TWO

As he had expected, Cal found the world alive with a thin rime of shimmering frost when he bundled up and left the cabin the next morning. The cold this close to the mountains was biting, effervescent; it tingled on the skin, and the world was bright in a ghastly way, a sickly pale light. The air smelled of snow. 

Cal crammed a knit hat over his ears and stuffed his hands in his parka pockets. He stood on the porch for a moment and looked down the trail, deeper into the woods, where he could just barely make out the empty cabins locked and shuttered with no guests to animate them. Something about the sight reminded him of images he had seen of the Oregon Trail, pale ox bones and gutted wagons left by the wayside, weary testaments to despair.

Shaking off the morbid thought, he braced himself against his coat collar and walked quickly up the trail to the lodge, hoping the speed would warm him. As he passed Richard Avalon’s cabin he paused momentarily, considering whether he should wait for the old man so they could walk together. But the lights in the cabin were dark, and Cal figured that the painter might want to sleep in after the events of the early morning. 

Did you hear it, Mr. Thornton?

Making his decision, he continued on. 

It turned out that he shouldn’t have bothered to wonder. Richard was at the lodge already, sitting in one of the big leather couches by the fireplace, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. Cal couldn’t see the cover. 

At the sound of Cal’s approaching footfalls on the hardwood floor, Richard turned and smiled. “Good morning, Thornton! Cold enough for you?”

Not a hint of reservation or shame about the previous night. Not even a glimmer. Cal decided to play along, sloughing off his coat and removing his hat. “My dad used to say it was brisker than a witch’s tit, days like today.”

Richard laughed heartily. Maybe a little too heartily, considering it wasn’t that funny. “It’s the mountains. They have a way of magnifying everything. Heat, rain, wind, cold. I imagine that to live here year-round requires hearty proof of worth.”

Cal was too busy hanging his coat off the back of a chair to really think about what Richard was talking about, but the word “worth” caught his ear curiously. 

He didn’t have much time to consider before Eileen swept in. Today, she was wearing what appeared to be multiple dresses of varying earthy colors all layered on top of each other, hemlines stacking like archaeological strata, and her long wooden earrings clacked with every movement of her blonde head. 

“Breakfast is served, gentlemen,” she said, flourishing her arm toward the hall. “My but it’s cold, isn’t it?”

In the dining room—once Eileen had served them, chatted amiably about the weather, and then finally left them alone—Richard asked Cal, “So what’s on the docket for today?”

The big window bathed the table in milky light. Cal paused over his eggs benedict, fork poised in mid-air. “Publisher wants a new book, so. I guess I need to get a start on that. I have a handful of ideas to play with...”

A lie, but it fell easily out of Cal’s mouth. 

Richard grunted, somewhere between humor and cynical bemusement. “Dance, monkey.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Cal allowed himself a chuckle. “What about you?”

Richard’s eyes lit up. “I’m working on a new piece. A series, actually. My work deals mostly with deconstruction of the artistic norms, taking things apart into pieces. Component parts. The visceral. The guts.”

As Richard continued on, thrilled to have found a captive audience, Cal felt the stirring of instant regret. This was why he didn’t run in visual art circles. Something about the way artists talked about craft went right over his head. Novelists were bad, too, but at least the mechanics of their pedantry—words, grammar, meaning itself—were something Cal understood. When artists started talking technique he felt his eyes glaze over and a desperate desire to sleep for hours.

“...the nature of ephemerality in the humus of the body. The soul-organ, as it were. You know what I mean?” Richard looked at Cal with expectant eyes, echoing the way he had looked the night before, standing on the porch. 

A shiver passed through Cal. “Yeah, I think I follow.”

Richard smiled gratefully. “I know artists are prone to exaggeration, but I really do think this might be my best work.”

The two of them lapsed as they ate, let those words hang in the air with the reverence they were due. While Cal couldn’t give two shits about a soul-organ, he knew how it felt when a work seemed important. When it felt truly seismic. That didn’t happen often. It had happened with The Leaves of Midnight, and he tried to hold the pride of that accomplishment close to his heart, no matter how badly Hollywood had bungled his vision. 

It was a challenge, though.

Trying for casual, Cal asked, “Richard, last night…uh…”

He half-hoped that Richard would interrupt him, explain or apologize or something, but the old man just continued eating, eyes inscrutable. 

“Last night, do you remember…knocking on my door?”

The old man’s thick white eyebrows dropped, bewildered. “Good Lord, Thornton. What do you mean?”

Cal explained. Waking at three in the morning, seeing Richard, their brief exchange, then making sure he got safely back to his cabin. 

The old man listened intently, then shook his head. “I’m so sorry for causing you such a scare. I truly don’t remember it, but then again…my ex-wife told me I used to sleepwalk, so I imagine that must have been what was happening. I really am sorry. There’s a reason she’s my ex-wife, you see.”

It was a joke, but Cal only managed a smile. A wave of relief passed through him, mingled with a new unease. Sleepwalking made sense, and was significantly less sinister than the onset of dementia or some other decline. But he really wasn’t looking forward to being awakened every night by a half-asleep old man in his pajamas, and he really hoped the nocturnal wanderings would stop. Things were unsettling enough as it was in this place. 

And there was another thing. A quiet, nagging voice in Cal’s head. Richard hadn’t looked asleep, the night before. He had seemed wide awake and haunted.

Cal shook that aside and waved away Richard’s apology. “Hey, as long as you’re okay, that’s what matters. You’ve got important work to do, right?”

Richard nodded, wistful. “I’ll tell you, Cal, that there’s…there really is something about this place. Graft Creek.” He paused, and something passed over his face, then…it was almost like a shiver of terror, of awe, turning the dining room into a cavernous expanse, void and empty as space. 

But it passed swiftly and he said, “Do you know the word imprimatura?”

Cal shook his head. “I know imprimatur. A mandate to publish, back when someone in authority needed to sign off on book production. It’s Latin for ‘let it be printed’.”

Richard cocked his head. “Funny, I never considered the connection there. How odd.”

He trailed off for a moment, then came back. “Imprimatura is a painting technique. You lay down a layer of paint or glaze on the blank surface to tone it, to give the rest of the colors depth and dimension. Especially the light, because few things are more difficult to capture in paint than light. It’s the baseline. It’s what gives the rest of it depth and meaning.”

Cal braced himself to hear the term soul-organ again, but it didn’t come. Instead, Richard gave him a strange look over the congealing hollandaise sauce on both of their plates. 

“Imprimatur. Let it be printed. The permission. The mandate. Interesting.”

Then, quietly, “Who gives you permission, Mr. Thornton?”

*******

Walking back to the cabin, eggs benedict digesting uncertainly in his lower belly, Cal was suddenly grateful for the enforced silence. He had tried to laugh off Richard’s question, had made some offhanded joke to soften it, and Richard had, at least, chosen to drop the subject. But it nagged at him for reasons he couldn’t explain. 

Who gives you permission, Mr. Thornton?

If the painter had been trying to lead Cal somewhere in the conversation, it had not worked. Cal only felt a bit lost. Not for the first time he considered just packing up and leaving. Letting Richard Avalon get on with things, his deconstructionist whatever-the-hell. 

But every time he considered leaving, he would recall in vivid detail the latest email from his publisher, recommending that he get some time away to find himself again. There were things they had chosen to say, and things they had decided not to say, because they didn’t need to. His agent had taken to talking in gentle, soothing circles, like she was speaking with a terminally ill patient. 

He had to face facts. His career was on life support, and everyone with a hand in his pockets knew it. 

I need this, he thought, looking up at the place where the foothills should have been, now wreathed in cloud and invisible. I need to get something on the page. 

Somewhat galvanized by this goal, he increased speed down the trail, almost eager to get started. 

The feeling evaporated as soon as he took off his coat, brewed a cup of instant coffee at the hot plate with packet creamer that smelled less than fresh, and sat down at the too-empty desk. Opening the laptop felt like watching the maw of some creature yawn wide, the instant flicker of the blank page waking on the screen like a white throat. The cursor ticked, mocking him. 

He took a swig of the coffee and winced. “Okay,” he said aloud. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

But before he could begin, something behind the closed door of the tiny bathroom made a sound. 

Very faint, but persistent. 

Cal, open to distraction in a way that only writers on a deadline can be, stood from the desk and crossed to the bathroom. He opened it, and his shoulders relaxed. The source of the sound was a brown spotted moth, fluttering against the glass of the narrow, frosted window. 

It was kind of big. For a moth, anyway. The sound of its wings was almost deafening in the silence, a helpless tapping like gloved fingers on the pane. 

Cal, not sure why the thing made him so nervous, reached out and pulled up the small window’s latch, pushing it open just slightly. The moth lurched against the glass, missed the opening, fluttered high against the ceiling, and then seemed to drop through the gap and out of sight. 

Cal quickly closed the window again, just in case the thing decided to fly back up and in. He didn’t like the creature’s chances in the frost, but he couldn’t stand the sound while he was trying to work. 

Sorry, dude. Priorities. 

The silence reigned once more, and Cal went back to the desk.

*******

Hours passed. Cal worked. 

He worked through lunch. No one came to get him, and that was fine. This is what silent retreats were for, he realized. It was for living in your own pocket of time and space. He drank multiple cups of coffee until his vision swam. He typed, he made notes on his legal pad, he tore pages out to ball them up and three-point them into the small trashcan by the door. It was like old times: the start of an idea, then an outline, blossoming out into character sketches and scenes in living color. 

He worked so long and so pointedly that the early dark drew into the corner of the windows like the vignette edges of old photos, and he checked his watch. It was nearly five o’clock in the evening. 

Cal pushed his chair back from the desk and rubbed his sore eyes. He had to admit: that had been one of the most productive writing days of his life. 

Maybe there’s something to this place after all.

He was hungry. Starved. And he could use fresh air and stretched legs. He had an impulse to read back over the day’s work, but he knew better: no writer ever felt better doing such a thing, especially with tired eyes, an empty stomach, and a caffeine buzz. 

Cal closed the laptop with a decisive snap, yet left his materials where they were to clutter up the desk. It felt like something he had earned, this untidiness. It felt like the remnants of a battle, the proof that a skirmish had been fought and won. 

Permission. 

The word rose in his mind in Richard’s voice and hovered there, but he wasn’t sure why. But it lingered as he bundled up again and left the warmth of the cabin. 

Somehow, the temperature had dropped even lower than the morning, and Cal hissed when he stepped out onto the porch. He headed up the trail at a brisk walk, shivering in his parka.

The lights were blazing in Richard’s cabin, and the shadow of the old painter’s movements along the wall and against the front curtains hinted at a man fully absorbed, standing at a canvas, in his element. Cal continued on, not wanting to disturb a fellow artist in a state of flow. 

Just past Richard’s cabin, however, was when Cal heard something behind him. 

He turned.

The trail was empty, stretching down and into the dark along the line of empty cabins. But the sound was still there. Soft and frantic fluttering, helpless, the drumming of gloved fingers on window glass. It was difficult to tell where it was coming from.  

Cal stood for a moment, waiting. He wasn’t sure what for. Waiting for something to appear, maybe, or reveal itself, but nothing did, and the twilight simply deepened around him, cloaking the trail in gloom. 

Cal swallowed, throat feeling dry in the frigid air, and forced himself to turn away.

He headed up toward the lodge, but decided to take a quick detour while the light was still good enough and crossed the grounds toward the shore of Graft Creek at the far end of the parking lot.

The creek was nothing to write home about, really. About seven feet wide and maybe four feet deep in places. Cold and clear, it moved unhurried over round, sludgy stones, caressing fallen tree limbs on its way down from the mountain foothills. Cal stood on the edge for a few minutes, listening. He had grown up near a creek and had always loved the murmuring sound of it, the way it bubbled and frothed, the way it laughed in seasons of high rain. 

But Graft Creek was strangely quiet. Even in the places where it ran over exposed stones, the water seemingly refused to express itself.

It just slid by, taking its secrets with it. 

*******

The lodge was warm and golden, a haven in the chill, and Eileen insisted that Cal sit down for dinner early. 

“Mr. Avalon often skips meals when he’s here,” Eileen said. “Best not to wait for him if you’re hungry.” 

Cal didn’t argue. He sat down to a big bowl of potato leek soup and homemade bread in the otherwise empty dining room and tucked in greedily. Eileen hovered the way she always did, making small talk, throwing in little bits and pieces about Graft Creek and the lodge, about the many luminaries who had visited over the years. Mostly regional creatives, but some traveled for miles to visit and take in the place’s special aura. 

That was Eileen’s word: aura. Despite Cal’s misgivings about the innkeeper’s earth-mama weirdness, the word fit. The place certainly had an aura. 

The only question Cal felt prompted to ask in the midst of her cheerful monologue was, “Seems like Richard comes here a lot. What’s his deal?”

And Eileen had simply smiled, sort of hesitant, and said, “Richard Avalon and this place understand each other on a level none of us can touch.”

Cal didn’t ask, but she added, as if to clarify, “He can hear it, you see. When it talks.”

Those portentous words did nothing for Cal’s appetite, but he was finished eating anyway. He thanked Eileen and headed back to his cabin in the dark. 

Richard’s lights were still on as Cal passed. The painter certainly seemed passionate about his craft, Cal had to give him that much. 

At his own cabin, Cal took off his coat and got himself ready for another night, closing the curtains and changing into clothes to relax in. No sooner had he slipped an old sweatshirt over his head and pulled on thick socks, but his attention was drawn to the desk. 

Something about it was wrong. 

The clutter was all as he had left it, and the laptop, too. But there was a fine layer of…dust?…on the laptop. As if it had been sitting there untouched for a month. 

Puzzled, Cal approached. He thought at first it was flour, but the color and texture was all wrong. This was dust, pale brown and very fine. It almost shimmered in the light from the desk lamp when he switched it on. 

Cal looked around, for no reason. There was nothing to look at. His laptop was covered in dust, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why, or where it had come from. He looked up at the ceiling, but there was no sign of damage. And even if it was some kind of practical joke, how exactly could someone do this?  

Giving up on solving it, he took a wad of paper towel from the kitchenette and gently cleaned the dust from the computer’s surface, and it came away easily. He was grateful for that. Then, he gingerly opened the laptop. The screen blinked on immediately, all normal. His day’s work was still there. Nothing was different. 

Just the dust. 

Delicate and silent, and now wiped away. 

*******

Sleep was uneasy that night. So when the knocking came, Cal was already half awake. 

Grumbling, Cal slipped out of bed into the chill of the cabin—the little heater was struggling to keep up with the deep mountain cold—and crossed to the door. 

“Richard?” he said. 

“It’s me,” came the old man’s voice in reply. 

Cal sighed and unlocked the deadbolt, opening the door. There was Richard again, this time fully dressed but disheveled, as if he had slept in his clothes. 

“It’s here, Cal,” Richard said. There was a tinge of relief in his voice, and his eyes looked swollen, like he had been crying. “I wasn’t sure it would show this time, but…but it’s here.”

“You’re sleepwalking,” Cal said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt. “You need to get back to bed, okay?”

“It was drawn to us, I think,” Richard said, quietly, mostly to himself. 

Down the trail from the direction of the empty cabins came the snap and rattle of wings, rising in surprise, fluttering away from the voices. 

An owl, Cal thought. Just an owl. 

“Back to bed, Richard,” he said, more firmly. “Seriously. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Obediently, Richard turned on his heel, but before he left the porch he said, over his shoulder, “I’m glad you’re here to see it, Cal. I’m so glad.”

Then the old man left the porch and wandered back, up toward his cabin. Cal didn’t follow this time. He simply waited, listening, until he heard the creak of Richard’s cabin door opening and closing.

He closed and locked his own door against the night. He glanced at his laptop, but it was clean. Then, for no reason at all, he took another paper towel from the kitchenette and dispatched the dead moth on the windowsill, crumpling it into the paper and tossing it—three points—into the trashcan.

That done, he managed to fall asleep. But when he dreamed, he dreamed of frantic wings and bristling antennae, reaching for his breath—his warmth, his voice—like skeletal fingers.

Permission, the whisper of the very earth seemed to say, mouthed words from an otherwise silent creekbed, dark with mountain stone and mire. Permission.

Let it be printed.

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Continue to Day Three…