Chapter 8 – The Autumn King
The next
day the Widow Biggs came over and stood in my living room. Despite her small
stature she could be a rather imposing figure. I provided her with some black
tea. She examined my shoulder and applied her ointment to the bite area. Some of
the tissue had grown back. It itched like crazy now.
Then we
discussed my health. She focused upon diet, indicating that I needed more
protein intake and suggested that I steer towards turkey and fish with lots of
green vegetables. We also touched on a
new issue, emotional well-being. Dorthy believed that there might be an
important connection between suppressed anger and my inability to summon and
sustain “The Change.”
We talked
while Knuckle Butt and Tim made no small amount of noise. They were
attempting to install a weathervane on my very steep roof. Billy had glided
through the ceiling and down to the first floor four times to tell me that they were almost through, only
to vanish each time before I could reply.
It was beginning to make me tense. I was starting to grind my teeth.
Dorthy glanced
at me and suppressed a smile. “You need to relax a bit today, I think.” She
said in a playful manner. “When was the last time you ‘actualized your other
nature’?” she asked. She wanted to know when I had last transformed.
“When Big
Mary and I fought Cletus Tylor.” I replied.
“So lately
the reason for changing your form has been to fight or protect someone else?”
“Frankly,
yes.”
Could emotional problems interfere that
strongly with my physiology?” I mused.
“I’m a
necromancer by training, so I’m no expert in psychiatry. I’m qualified to treat
your wound because it was inflicted by one of the undead. Emotions are not my
specialty area. However, I’ll do some
research, and we might ‘kick it around’ next time.” She replied as she sipped
her tea. “When was the last time you ‘actualized your other nature’ to just go
for a run or chase rabbits Kyle?”
“Quite a
while ago. Before we came to Dusk Thorne.”
* * *
The noise
on the roof continued. It was nearly midday after Knuckle Butt and Tim Fury had
installed our new weathervane and free lightning rod on the north side of my
old blue trimmed Victorian house.
Dorthy,
dressed in a floor length black frock that looked like it was from the 19th
century, had finished her tea and now leaned on her oaken cane and cleared her
throat. She stood by two of the living room windows. The rest of us were seated
on the floor or on various pieces of furniture. I had parked myself next to
Knuckle Butt, who seemed to be the only one in the room (besides Dorthy) that
could tolerate the odor emanating from a fresh application of her balm for my
shoulder.
The room
grew silent. Alice scooted closer to Joe who kept glancing at his wristwatch.
She gave him a quick shot in the ribs with her elbow. He winced and stopped.
Admittedly, even I was getting annoyed by the delay. We were all waiting for
one last member of the group to arrive. Suddenly and with absolutely no
fanfare, he just appeared. I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess maybe I
assumed he would just knock or ring the doorbell.
First his
large feline eyes floated into view. Then his mysterious smile, and finally his
large black furry body. His tail twitched a bit as he materialized in full. The
Wampus appeared in full and sat before us in my house.
“Freaky.”
Muttered Naydene.
Alice
giggled and clapped her hands as if The Wampus was doing sleight-of-hand tricks
at a children’s party. Naydene overcame her astonishment and stuck her fingers
in her mouth and blew a shrill whistle. With that, the rest of us spontaneously
applauded. The Funerary God took the group’s applause in stride. He once more
flashed a friendly grin and lowered his shaggy head for a moment as if taking a
bow. Chester, laying on Joe’s lap, never even looked up.
Billy
floated next to me and pointed at the spectacle. He was in full view of Petey,
but the kid was still the only one of us that couldn’t see him. Joe had been in
the house for about ten minutes last night before he was able to see Billy,
first as a blur but then later he said that Billy looked completely solid. I
scratched my head over the discrepancies. He still looked transparent to me. Go
figure. The room got quiet once again.
Dorthy
Biggs began. “This is an old tale that I first heard in Britian centuries ago. Perhaps
it is as old as time itself. It is about an entity called ‘The Autumn King’.
“The Autumn King was an ancient and unknowable power reborn every year with the
thawing frost of early spring. He ascended to full majesty when the oak leaves
turned gold. His very presence was a signal of the change of seasons.”
The Wampus
continued the story. "It is true. He is a metaphysical being. He can be in
several places at once and even take human form. I have seen him in human form
before, but although he looked like a man, it was only an illusion. He is no
mere human. Most of the time, to my eyes his skin is like the bark of the
oldest trees on the great isles of the Old Country. His hair is a tangle of
vines and crimson foliage. But I am a god. My vision is not like yours. When
last I saw him in his true form he wore a robe spun from the leaves of a
thousand autumns embroidered with gold and copper filigree. When he moved, the
air filled with the scent of dark earth and bonfires.
“Dang!
Sounds like royalty to me.” Knuckle Butt exclaimed.”
“Indeed,”
said The Wampus. “When I last saw him in his true form, it was centuries ago
right before the first snow. At this time of year his fierce eyes only
shimmered like the last ember of a dying fire. They held all the secrets of the
previous seasons. All the old secrets of nature. But this was the way of things
many years ago.
In the Old
Country, he was born anew each year, and each year gracefully returned to the
earth to die and yield control of the world to the powers of winter. Somehow,
when your ancestors came to the New World, this place, they brought their
beliefs, traditions and a few living legends with them, albeit in altered form.
Somehow now,
in the New World, the Autumn King is only born every seventeen years. His
presence in this area is heralded by the emergence of cicadas. He now seems to
be fond of taking human form and has possessed many local humans over these years.”
Dorthy
continued. “The last host he possessed was a thirty-year-old man named Josiah
in the early summer of 1892. Since this Josiah/Autumn King being now exists
beyond the Great Mist and only travels this earthly plane every seventeen
years, he has only aged five years since he took this new human body.
Then
Dorthy looked at me. “Kyle, you need to know that Josiah Pandemonium went by
the name of Warner, Joe Warner. Joe Warner was a greedy, foul individual who
made a bargain with the spirit of the Autumn King. The deal was immense power
and wealth for Warner in exchange for immortality for the Autumn King. This was
not the first bargain the Autumn King had made with a human for longevity.”
When
Josiah (or Joe) finally grows old, the spirit of the Autumn King will abandon
his old body and make a bargain with yet another younger host. In doing so over
the centuries the Autumn King has remained immortal but didn't surrender his
personality…his ego, or sense of self, if you understand my meaning. No longer
is he ‘born anew’ only to die with the coming of winter each year."
The Wampus
finished the tale. “However, in his new type of immortality provided through
taking many human forms, he has tainted himself with the all-too-human
weaknesses of greed, envy, lust and pride. He fears death now because he fears
loss of ego…loss of sense of self. He fears oblivion. The Void.
“Couldn’t
he just exist beyond the Great Mist and remain ageless?” I asked.
“Yes
werewolf, but he has had a taste of what it is to live with all the joys and
pleasures of a human being yet none of the physical limitations of aging. That creates an unnatural
situation that defies certain rules that I am not permitted to speak to the
living about.”
“It’s like
having your cake and eating it too!” Naydene suggested.
“Hmm.” The
Wampus looked thoughtful. “Similar on the surface perhaps. Stick a pin in that
one young human.”
Alice spoke up. “Sounds like existence must be
somewhat slow living behind the Great Mist.”
“Time is relative,
Existence is what you make of the time you have on this side.” The Wampus
winked at her. “Dorthy, you should tell Kyle about this house.”
“Kyle,
this house used to belong to a gangster and bootlegger during prohibition.”
“Yeah,
‘Fat Vinnie' Roma.”
“Who told
you that, Connie?” Dorthy looked puzzled. Connie Bradford, now deceased, wa. my
realtor when I purchased the old house.
Annie came
in from the kitchen and was delighted to see people sitting on the floor at nose
level. She made a bee line for me and licked my ear.
“No Phil
Marr at the Mar-Fill-Us Mart grocery store gave me the info when we first got
into town.”
“Yes, he
bought the house for his mistress Sally Guterres. Vincent Roma was part of the
Denver Cosa Nostra. You also need to know that Sally had another business
partner and lover besides Fat Vinnie Roma. His name was Joe Warner.” Dorthy
studied the look on my face.
They made
a lot of money together back during Prohibition. The basement of this house was
used to stockpile liquor and move it for transport. There are tunnels between
this house and Little Pine Acres cemetery across the street, the motel property
and even Isadora Browning’s bookstore.
“The Ghost
Pirate money is bootlegger money!” I said wondering what else this might imply.
“It was
money that Josiah used to start up his traveling Carnival.” Dorthy explained.
Alice
said, “We found some of that money in the basement. Petey’s and his bike club
knocked down a wall down there. There are two passageways with doors barely ajar. Doc
wouldn’t let us explore them yet.”
“Whoa!”
Petey spoke up. “That money belongs to, a former bootlegger that was seeing Fat
Vinnie Roma’s mistress. He was like an old timey mob boss...like a Godfather! Imagine the ‘balls’ on that Warner dude. And now he is some
kind of…what? Immortal evil carnival owner operator?”
“With all
the powers and privileges of the ancient Autumn King!” The Wampus declared.
* * *
Ralph Green
shuffled out of the front door and moved beyond his current residence, the Old
Baily place. Even though this was a Saturday he hadn’t slept in. Sleeping was a
problem now for Ralph. It began as a bout of insomnia that lasted a week or two.
During these episodes, Ralph would fall asleep easily enough but wake around
three o’clock in the morning, unable to sleep for several hours. He would
doze off again, but needing to be at work by nine o’clock, he would have to
hustle to make that deadline. Ralph was a financial advisor at First National
Bank of Dusk Thorne.
The lack
of sleep had backlogged on Ralph, leaving him exhausted in the mornings. The
insomnia came and went. Whenever it returned it was now accompanied by odd
dreams. Ralph was seeing a psychotherapist in Denver every two weeks now for
his problems and taking Prozac for, what his doctor believed were symptoms of
depression. He was supposed to be keeping a dream journal. Whenever Ralph began
to write about his dreams in the morning, he seemed to lapse into a fugue state
and wake somewhere near Jerry Paloma’s house.
In a daze,
Ralph shuffled down Oak Street towards Jerry’s house once again. In a word, he
looked “bad”. Ralph hadn’t bathed or shaved in two days. He had felt poorly as
of late, and had waved off work, calling in sick. Ralph clutched a letter he
wouldn’t remember writing. He was dressed in pajama bottoms, a T-shirt,
slippers and an old house coat that was flapping open. He shuffled past a pair
of strangers without even looking up at them.
“What
about that one?” Lucian pointed at the shuffling figure. The other shook his
head in disgust.
“Can’t you
tell it is sick.” Lukus said discreetly out of the side of his mouth. You can
smell it from here! It’s gone ‘off’…passed
its expiration date. Besides we aren’t cruising for brunch. Stay on the ‘mission’.
The two
look very much out-of-place in Dusk Thorne but would have drawn attention even in
a large metropolitan setting. They looked like bookends. Both figures were the
same height and weight. Both wore pinstripe suits, and while not identical, the
clothing looked as if it came from the same British fashion magazine. Expensive
and well-tailored.
Both
sported shoulder length blonde hair and had porcelain complexions. Although
they were simply referred to as “The Twins” by those that worked in Josiah
Pandemonium’s carnival, Lucian was a year older than his brother. They easily
passed for identical twins to most seeing them for the first time, walking
side-by-side.
To the public,
they introduced themselves as associates of Josiah Pandemonium and were
knocking on doors and handing out complementary tickets to the grand opening of the
carnival. But, make no mistake, they were dangerous predators on a manhunt.
* * *
Alice
turned to me with frantic eyes. “Doc, we’ve got to open up those doors to the passages.
There could be a fortune in Ghost Pirate money…I mean Bootlegger money down
there.”
I rolled
my own eyes and began to explain once again why this would be a very bad idea.
Billy turned to Alice and emphatically said “No.”
“Why the
fudge not?” Alice retorted. She folded her arms and tried to stare Billy down.
Joe pinched the area between his forehead and nose again.
I shot a
look over at Petey who appeared to be baffled. He still acted as if he could
neither see nor hear Billy.
I have a
rather inquiring mind, so I took a chance and spoke to Billy in front of Petey.
“Billy, why not?”
“Because
of the Giant Head!” Billy blurted out trying to not make eye contact with Alice's glare.
“Come
again? Is there a Giant Head down in the passages? Alice said slowly.
“Careful
how you answer that question Billy.” I cautioned. I didn’t want to deal with Alice’s
reaction to yet another basement mystery.
“Yes, that
is why I’ve been staying down there. To protect Petey.” Billy confessed.
“What are
we waiting for!” Naydene whooped.
Suddenly,
there was a knock on the door.
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