Page 22 of House of Furies
“It isn’t safe here, either,” I whispered.
“Now, that’s not true.You’resafe here.” At that I made a sound like a sob and a laugh. The absurdity of such a statement, when he had just confessed to arranging murder, to using strange occult things to bind people to a house of death... “Youaresafe,” he reassured me. “You weren’t lured here, Louisa; Mrs. Haylam brought you. You aren’t evil, but you are one of us.”
Inside I was shaking my head, shaking every part of me trying to break this infernal spell as he approached. “No,” I said. “I’m nothing like you.”
There was something wrong with him or something wrong with my eyes; as he walked nearer, he seemed to have an unnerving gait, unnatural to humans, and one I could not have noticed while he stood still behind his desk. I looked from his eyes to his legs and felt the world spin—his feet were like any man’s but they were backward, heels pointed to the front, toes to his spine.
“No.” The word tumbled out again. The warmth of the room, the threat of thisthingcoming close while I could do nothing... My vision whirled sickeningly. “What—what are you? I’m not like you. I’m not...”
The world was going suddenly black, and the last things I felt were his arms catching me and his breath on my forehead.
“You are, Louisa. You will see.”
On the Wailing Bairns of
Ben Griam Mor
To say that I hold the honorable Zachary Moorhouser in esteem is an understatement; however, our opinions on the nature of the so-called screaming subclasses notably diverge. His work on the dervishes of Far East nations is to be lauded, but in his seminal Demonologica, he fails to even mention, much less adequatelydescribe, the smallish, almost pixie-like creatures found on or about Ben Griam Mor.
It should surprise no one that the mist-shrouded summit of that beloved Scottish hill is home to fairy descendants. However, it should come as a surprise that these folk have escaped the attention of nearly all modern mythological scholars. In my humble opinion, no study of the occult, magicked, or demonic would be complete without mentioning the Wailing Bairns of Ben Griam Mor. While in pursuit of these rarefied folk, I lodged primarily at Garvault. There, after several days of useless inquiry, I stumbled upon a seriously inebriated fellow in the local tavern.
He was, as the barman helpfully told me, deeper in his cups than usual. When I approached the man, he was eager to regale me with his story, after, naturally, I supplied him with a fresh ale. In a frenzy, he told me of a macabre event he’d witnessed not far from the very mountain I searched. While gathering mushrooms in a small wooded area, he stumbled upon a cottage. As he had been out hunting fungus for some hours, his rations were depleted, and he decided to ask the cottage owners for sustenance before starting back to Garvault. He could see quite clearly into the house, as it was well lit, and he saw a large family sitting down to supper, which only made him more hopeful that he might make his return journey on a full stomach.
His hopes were quickly dashed, however, when he watched as an argument broke out at the table. The parents were attempting to quiet their child, an odd, gangled youth who seemed to thedrunkard unnaturally pale. The child then stood on the table, stamping her feet, and threw back her head, unleashing a piercing scream. He said he heard it so clearly and painfully through the shut windows that he was knocked off his feet. When he stood and gained his senses, he saw a most horrible image: the family, all but the screaming child, were dead, their heads gone completely, erupted into gore, as if their skulls had been lanced like boils.
The girl saw him watching through the window and bolted, coming, he realized in a panic, for him. He fled.
With a spotting of these creatures at last confirmed, I eagerly took out my notebook to scribble down his story. When I asked for greater detail of the child, he began to waver. Perhaps she was not so young, but closer to ten and five. No! Ten and seven! Older! A young woman, practically an adult, he said. In his drunkenness he made these corrections clumsily, and I quickly surmised he was embarrassed that he, a grown man, had been fearful of a little girl.
I have concluded that most sightings of the Bairns are likely altered in a similar fashion, the tellers hesitant to express fear of a child. It is likely the Bairns are thus often confused with the more common banshee and harpy, and not given their proper place in the magickal order.
Rare Myths and Legends: The Collected Findings of H. I. Morningside, page 6
How did I sleep, filled as I then was with dread and suspicion?
But I did sleep, and deeply, waking to the natural light of dawn filtering through a crack in the draperies. The tick dipped to one side, and I gasped to find I was not alone. The girl, Poppy, and her hound sat watching over me as I slept.
At once I pulled the blankets to my face, recoiling.
“Don’t touch me,” I murmured. She seemed not at all surprised by my revulsion.
“Too many shocks, that’s what Mr. Morningside said. It always happens this way, you know, when a new person joins us. Even Chijioke fainted when he saw a Resident for the first time,” the girl replied with a giggle. Her hound snuffled in agreement. He gently lowered his tawny snout to my arm, laying it there as if to comfort me. Bartholomew, at least, looked normal enough, but now I knew not to trust a single thing in this house.
His feet. His feet were on backward.
“Am I dreaming?” I asked, more to the world itself than to her. “Is this a nightmare?”
“He said you would say that.”
Under the blankets I pinched myself. No, definitely awake. I groaned.
“I want to leave,” I said, glad that I could move my arms andlegs again. “At once. You mustn’t try to stop me.”
“He said you would say that, too.” Poppy grinned, pushing the silky hair away from her face. I had never been superstitious, never spurned a person when birth cursed them with a wine stain on their face. But were those not called the Devil’s mark? How fitting that name seemed now. “Nobody will stop you from trying, but you can’t go. The book says so, and that means it’s final. Done and dusted, as the master says.”
Not if I have anything to say about it.
Poppy ruffled the dog’s ears, and he glanced up at her with his fathomless chocolate eyes before turning them back to me. I had to admit, his warm little head on my arm was soothing. It was then that I noted someone had set my wrist and bound it. The pain was distant now, just an echo. All of it—the fear, the urgency—was distant. But only for now. There was too much to think about, and I would need to be alone for a long while to digest it all.
