Maestro

From last post…

“You guys shouldn’t be here!” [Leticia] whispered. I asked what she meant. “I mean that everyone here is…” she glanced to my left and gasped. I looked in that direction and saw a pair of guys glaring at me. They looked familiar but it took me a few seconds to place them: they were the vampires Leticia was with when we first met her. They strode toward us.

“Pike,” I said, “are we crashing a film festival of the undead?”

“You brought them here?” snapped one of Leticia’s former companions.

“She had nothing to do with this,” I said.

Other people in the crowd were starting to look at us. “We’re just here to see the Pickman film,” said Pike.

“You’re not welcome here!” hissed the second guy. I think he’s the one Pike hit with his sword in our first encounter. He opened his mouth wide, exposing his fangs. “You will regret this intrusion.”

“Ho ho!” said Ingrid. She pulled from her purse a metal rod and shoved the purse at me. “You want a piece, Twilight?”

I didn’t find out until later that Ingrid was holding a collapsible baton. The reason I didn’t find out is that we heard a voice say “Stop.” It was an interesting voice: calm, commanding, and with the purity of a struck tuning fork. Everyone was silent.

I looked around and saw a figure that I somehow knew was the source of the voice, even though his back was to us. He was wearing a long, dark coat and had hair to match. He was standing in front of an open door and we saw his pale face in profile. He raised his right hand, pointed into the room he was standing in front of, and went in. I followed the direction without questioning it for a second, and it appeared that Ella, Pike, and Ingrid were equally compelled.

We found ourselves in a classroom, facing two men. One was the person who directed us into the room, a man whose face had a refined majesty that evoked the portrait of a great historical figure like Washington or Jefferson. Or Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies. The other was a man with a beard and a scar near one eye, and I realized he must be Bertrand, one of the vampires Ella met at the bookstore. Ella, Pike, Ingrid, and I stood in the middle of the room while the other people took places around the walls. I spotted Leticia, who looked worried.

“Greetings,” said Maestro Nosferatu or whatever he was, in that same fascinating voice.

“Hello” I said. “Nice to meet some fellow film fans.” I gave Leticia a small grin, and she responded by widening her eyes and shaking her head.

“Well. An insouciant [I had to look that word up] young man who is acquainted with our sister Leticia and whose company includes a warlike Norsewoman. Arthur Lewis Ormand, I presume.”

“Yes.” I was a little surprised, which Maestro appeared to pick up on.

“I find value in the public chronicles of the hidden world. There are others who do not. Leticia has told you this.”

“She has. She’s not the reason we’re here, by the way.”

“You need not fear for her. What you will do is tell me why you are here.”

I explained our earlier run-in with Pickman and that we thought the film was by the same man. Maestro asked his people if Pickman had made an appearance at the festival and he hadn’t. Next he spoke to Ella, asking her if Pickman was connected to the lore she discussed with Bertrand; Ella said she was unsure.

Maestro and Bertrand had a brief conversation and Maestro looked at us. “One of us will deliver the Pickman film to you,” he said, “if we feel it would be…appropriate. The four of you shall leave, unimpeded. Bertrand shall accompany you, as there are some things he wishes to discuss with Miss Sherrinford.”

Maestro then looked at me and everything around us seemed to grow dim, as if we were on a bare stage, each illuminated by a spotlight. “I trust, Arthur Lewis Ormand, you will make a better attempt to stay on good terms with those who walk in the dark. You will need all the allies you can acquire, if you continue to confront these eldritch things.”

I don’t remember what I said in return, just feeling desperate to get out of there. Pike, Ingrid and I stayed close together while Bertrand and Ella walked ahead, talking in low voices. I glanced at Leticia, who gave me a relieved sort of smile.

On the way to the car I kept looking behind me, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” running through my head. When we got there Bertrand departed with a slight bow. We all let out a sigh. Except for Ella, none of us had said anything since we left the classroom.

“We totally could have taken those guys, you know,” said Ingrid.

The discussion between Ingrid and Pike on the way home, going through the various combat scenarios possible with Ingrid’s weapons and whatever objects we could find on site, helped make me feel a little less anxious about the whole encounter. Not by much though. I think Ingrid picked up on that, because she proposed that we all stop at her home before we went our separate ways. We wound up staying there until dawn.

More movie fun with Pike

Last post I talked about some video Pike recorded at an underground film festival and he recently told me about another festival that was keeping a low profile. He hadn’t heard of this one before and found out about it through someone he knows at the University of Minnesota, who said that a screening room on campus was reserved all weekend by an unidentified organization. Pike went there the first night and, while he didn’t pick up a schedule or see any movies, was able to use his camera to zoom in on a large schedule posted outside the door, where we were able to see Pickman’s name attached to a film.

I asked Pike why he didn’t investigate further, and he told me the crowd there was “dressed like the board members of a goth corporation” and he would have stood out. Not a good thing for an event he and most other people apparently weren’t supposed to know about.

Pike was going to go again that night and asked if Ella and I wanted to go too and see if we could get in. Both of us were interested. I also called Ingrid, who’s interested in that creature Pike showed me from Pickman’s video, and she wanted to go as well. I tried to invite Leticia but was only able to leave a message on her phone.

Saturday evening we arrived at the screening room, all dressed in dark semi-formal wear. Ella used this as one of her rare occasions to wear makeup, which included eyeliner and dark red lipstick. Ingrid was wearing a long skirt, which was the first time I’d seen her not wearing jeans, and carried a large purse which I imagined contained her high-class evening combat gear.

We must have arrived between screenings because there was a small crowd outside the doors. No one seemed to look at us like we were out of place and we checked out the schedule of films. When I looked at Pike’s image of the schedule I didn’t pay attention to the entries other than Pickman’s, but now I saw that the film that we had apparently just missed was created by someone named Leticia.

I pointed this out to the others and looked at the crowd, wondering if it was a coincidence, when I saw “our” Leticia talking and laughing with someone. We made our way over to her, and when she finished her conversation she noticed us. Her expression quickly became one of shock.

“You guys shouldn’t be here!” she whispered. I asked what she meant. “I mean that everyone here is…” she glanced to my left and gasped. I looked in that direction and saw a pair of guys glaring at me. They looked familiar but it took me a few seconds to place them: they were the vampires Leticia was with when we first met her. They strode toward us.

“Pike,” I said, “are we crashing a film festival of the undead?”

Favors and sharing

Saturday Ella went to Minneapolis to connect with her old roommate Tes, who added a comment about Pickman to the last post. I asked Ella about Tes’ uncommon name, and she told me Tes is short for Tesla. Tes has a twin sister named Faraday, who goes by Fara.

Ella was supposed to work at the bookstore on Saturday so needed someone to cover for her on short notice, and I volunteered. When I got there Saturday morning, Ella and Miriam appeared to be finishing up some kind of kids’ event. A blond girl with gumdrop-shaped cheekbones was writing something on a whiteboard. Nearby was a young boy with a bandage on his chin, looking around with a “what just happened?” kind of expression. Their mother soon collected them and let them out of the store. “Bye El-la!” said the boy. “Bye El-la!”

I picked up pretty quickly from Ella what I would need to know that day, and we agreed to get together later that night so she could tell me what she learned from Tes. Ella deleted the history on the store computer’s browser and I kidded her about that. She told me that some of the things she had been looking at were “kind of intense” — I chose to do the gentlemanly thing and not take the bait.

There were only a couple of customers and I was able to handle them fine. I did have a strange experience with someone who seemed to have mistaken the store for the university’s rare books collection, based on the titles he was asking for. He must have been from out of town because I have to believe that I would have noticed him before in a town the size of Detling: he was astonishingly tall and had a weirdly resonant voice.

The most interesting experience of the day was a visit from Pike. He showed me a video he had secretly recorded at an underground film festival, produced by a filmmaker named Pickman.

I saw a familiar-looking stone ring in the ground at night. An arm shot up from it, and I saw a clawed hand grasp the edge. Then another arm and claw. A dog-like head emerged, and then the entire creature leapt out. Its body was shaped like a human’s but with a forward slumping posture, and the camera followed it as it loped away from the ring.

Pike stopped the video. The whole thing had a home movie kind of feel, with no music or stylized lighting. “It gets pretty nasty after that,” he said.

“That monster looked pretty realistic.”

“I don’t think it could have been more realistic.”

“You don’t think it was, like, real real, do you?”

“Actually, I do.”

Pike may have been on to something. He joined Ella and me at Emmie’s Bar when she reported on her conversation with Tes. Apparently many years ago there was a painter by the name of Pickman in Boston, whose artwork featured astonishingly lifelike depictions of monstrous creatures. And Tes had learned of an urban legend that claimed Pickman used living models for his work.

Enemies new and old

Ella and I think we have a handle on what happened the day and night of our shared memory loss. It relates to some construction going on at the site of the amphitheater, putting in some new seating. This had been something Ella was wary of, given what she knows about the place, but since they didn’t appear to be digging up the area around the stage she wasn’t panicking.

What was causing her some alarm, however, was the stone ring in my mystery photo from last post. Wanting to know what it was about, she had looked into the construction project and discovered that one of the decision-makers was someone in the university’s art department, named Pickman. The appointment on the bookstore’s calendar that Miriam discovered was created by Ella as a reminder to go to Pickman’s office. Apparently I had gone with her and her intent was to look at just the office, because at about that time was when Ingrid got the phone message from me asking about getting a lock picked.

For the rest of the story, including the bar fight, we had to rely on Leticia. The handful of results a “barfight detling” image search on Google yields is something called “Sexy Red Head Kicks Male,” but I’m pretty sure that’s not a photo of her.

I got a call from you asking if I knew anything about that pit being created at the amphitheater. I didn’t but I told you I would ask around, and we decided to meet up at Emmie’s Bar that night to report. I talked to some of my guys, who told me that when they were around there at night they thought they saw some activity around there, but when they got close enough for a good look nothing was going on.

You two were at Emmie’s when I got there. I told you what I knew and was going to ask if I could see Ella’s famous darts skills when three guys approached us. I recognized two of them, even though I hadn’t seem them in person: they were two of the guys you’ve written about on the blog! The guy with the John Deere hat and the guy with the glasses. In the middle was someone I’m assuming was Pickman, since he was about twenty years older than the other two guys and dressed in a dark suit. He was slightly shorter than them, and had thick, dark hair that he combed straight back. Blue eyes that were bright and cold, like…I don’t know, you’re better at similes than I am

So, Pickman got all melodramatic villain, telling you and Ella to stay out of his affairs. You were like “or what — you’re going to put a threatening sculpture on my doorstep?” Pickman turned his head to the left, looking around the bar, and when he turned his head back to look at us, about four other guys had left their seats and were standing in front of us. They had the some kind of dazed look that people get when I work my magic on them.

Pickman said “Leave the bride of darkness to me,” so he knows what I’m about. I gotta admit that it felt kind of cool to be referred to that way. John Deere and Glasses were confused though, because they were like “um…you mean the goth chick?” who I guess was Ella.

I could have taken all the guys Pickman assembled, but whoa – Pickman was tough! He came at me with a knife, silver I think. I was able to dodge no problem but his speed was pretty close to my own. I had my hands full with him so I wasn’t able to see what was going on with you two. I got in some good hits, though, and I think I was close to winning when…

Actually, I don’t know what happened, because I suddenly found myself in a different part of the bar, with Pickman nowhere around. The fight you guys were in was over. The four guys from the bar were still around, looking confused, but Glasses and John Deere were gone. I thought they had just vanished, but that wouldn’t explain why I shifted in space. Then I realized that Pickman must have done a steal memory trick, which is something I’d heard of before. Sometimes, like in my case, you get only a minute stolen, but you and Ella seem to have gotten hit a lot harder.

So I don’t know the final fate of Pickman, though I haven’t looked too hard. I don’t know if there was some major revelation that he didn’t want us to remember or if the memory steal was just an evasion tactic. Ella and I went to Emmie’s after that night and some of the patrons had some photos from the fight, including one of Ella standing on the bar and kicking someone in the head, but that’s the only record I’ve been able to find of what happened to us that night.

We went to the stone ring at the amphitheater during the day and the bottom looks solid, so I don’t know if there’s something there we need to be watchful against. I don’t plan on staying there after dark to find out.

Did anyone talk to me yesterday?

Update: Ella and I have gathered enough information to reconstruct much of what happened during our last day. I’ll have a post about it shortly.

Have you ever had a “feels like Friday” moment on a Thursday? I had that today, only in reverse and for longer than a moment. This morning (a Saturday) I was sure that today was Friday. Seeing the date was just confusing. After thinking about it I realized that I have absolutely no memory of the last 24 hours. For instance, I found this photo on my camera and I don’t remember taking it or know where it’s from:

Anyone out there who saw me yesterday have any explanations?

About Detling Adventures

Update: Ella and I have gathered enough information to reconstruct much of what happened during our last day. I’ll have a post about it shortly.

New Innsmouth welcoming committee

When Ella entered the cabin and told us there was something going on at the dock, she went into the largest bedroom and came out with the gun Pike said was there. Pike retrieved the sword he brought, I got a flashlight, and we followed Ella to the dock.

There’s a long stairway from the cabin to the dock, and Ella was standing at the top of it. Actually, it’s not a single stairway: it’s five separate sets of stairs, the top three wooden and the bottom two metal. It isn’t a straight path down and there are trees on either side, so we couldn’t see the dock from where we were. But we could hear something: slow footsteps on the stairs. It didn’t sound like whoever was approaching was wearing shoes, because it was a soft sound against the metal steps.

There was a slightly different change in timbre as the steps moved to the second set of metal stairs. And then there was another sound of footsteps from further down. A creak told us that the first climber had reached the initial set of wooden stairs. And there were sounds of still more footsteps further down.

I shone the flashlight down. I didn’t illuminate anything directly but the light was reflected by something the size of an adult person but pale and shiny, like the belly of a toad just pulled from the water.

“I don’t think we should wait to find out how many of these things there are,” Ella said. We backed away and when I turned around, I saw a group of people approaching us from the front of the cabin, walking with a shuffling gait.

“Just what happened in that town?” I asked Ella.

“Shine the light on those guys,” said Pike. “We need to see what weapons they have.” I did so and saw axes, large knives, and a chain. “Okay,” said Pike. “Ella, give them a warning shot.” Ella aimed the gun over their heads and fired. They paused and then continued advancing. Moving the flashlight around, I saw other people coming at us from both sides. I didn’t look at what was approaching from the dock.

Then we heard the roar of an engine. I thought someone might have started our car until I saw a pair of square lights come at the people in front of us. They jumped away. The vehicle kept coming toward us and then around us, and we saw that it was Dingle from Friday night, on his ATV.

Dingle stopped behind us, withdrew a shotgun from the front of the ATV and fired it toward the direction of the dock. “Take that, ya goddam fish people!” he yelled. He told us to get on the ATV.

The front of the ATV was wide enough to have a rack on top of it and Ella sat on this. Pike and I sat on the rack in back. Dingle took off; any people getting in the way of his ATV would have to deal with a shotgun, pistol, or sword.

We didn’t talk to Dingle until he stopped in front of a smaller bar than the one where we had met him. A lit sign in the window said “Silver Waves.” As Dingle walked to the door I asked how he knew we were in trouble. “Heard ya were askin’ about New Innsmouth,” he said. “Figured we should keep an eye on you after dark.” All three of us asked who “we” referred to. He didn’t answer but he didn’t really need to, once he opened the door.

We saw six or seven hearty Wisconsinites in the bar, who approached Dingle when he entered. “Yeah,” Dingle said. “They made their move on my watch.”

“OK,” said a guy wearing a black T-shirt displaying a wolf howling at the moon. “Let’s go back there and see if they’re trying anything else.” Everyone in the bar, including the bartender, went outside and got into their trucks. Pike and I rode in the back of wolf man’s truck and Ella rode in the cab. When we got to the cabin and got out, Ella and wolf man were continuing whatever conversation they had on the way.

“You know about what goes on there and you haven’t tried to get rid of them?”

“Live and let live, miss. As long as they don’t try the kind of stuff they did tonight, we’re not gonna give ‘em guff about their Babylonish abominations and whatnot.”

Our new friends carried shotguns and flashlights and made a patrol of the house and surrounding woods. None of our things were missing and except for a canister of lighter fluid on the porch that none of us put there, nothing and no one unexpected were around. Ella, Pike, and I packed up our things and loaded up the car. We thanked Dingle and his comrades and Ella said she’d like to return soon to talk more with them — during daylight hours.

The guys told us how we could get back to the highway without passing New Innsmouth, and they followed us for a few miles, but driving on roads with woods so close on either side was still pretty tense. It wasn’t until we were on the highway that we started talking.

“I guess you’re going to find some new locations for the movie,” I told Pike.

“What, because of that? Nah, we can still shoot up there.”

“Excuse me?” said Ella.

“We can totally still shoot there!” insisted Pike. Ella sighed, but I caught her smiling too.

Sunset

I was going to write a longer day-end post but Ella’s pretty anxious about something she saw at the cabin’s dock and after we check that out that we’ll probably visit one or two bars, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to chronicle our last night here.

Natural pleasantness, unnatural creepiness

We covered a lot of ground today on Pike’s quest for movie locations. Our first stop was the town that had the bar we visited last night, and the people Pike talked to were enthusiastic about the prospect of a movie being shot there. Same reaction in the next town over. Ella carried on separate conversations with the people at the places we went, and I gathered she was trying to get information about the mysterious town we saw on the way up, called New Innsmouth. Before we had left the cabin she said she wanted to visit there, even though Pike wasn’t enthusiastic about it. She also asked Pike to bring the sword.

After the first two towns, we visited a small state park with a rocky grotto that included some dust of an unusual purple color.

After that, we drove into New Innsmouth and as soon as we got there I wanted to leave. It’s on the shore but still managed to have an oppressive, creepy vibe. The main street appeared to be the only one that was paved. Most of the buildings were ramshackle and there were no signs indicating stores or bars. The biggest exception was a large building with a faded black and gold sign. From the street I couldn’t read it and didn’t want to approach the building to get a better look. It looked like it said “The Estonian Order of [something].” Near the dock we saw an abandoned ship.

The few people who were out looked at us sullenly. The all seemed to have unusually large eyes, though that may have been because none of them seemed to blink. Pike didn’t want to stick around either but Ella said she wanted to talk to someone whom the people she had spoken to at the other towns referred her to, who might be more willing to talk to her than the other inhabitants. They said he would likely be at the town’s dock and we did see someone sitting at the edge.

We drove as close to the dock as we could get before stopping and getting out. She asked us to “keep an eye out” and walked to the edge of the dock.

Ella kept a safe distance from the person on the dock so I felt comfortable dividing my attention between her and the town, which was inactive as ever. My eyes were on the main street when I heard a shriek from the dock. Pike and I rushed forward but it wasn’t Ella who was in trouble. It was whoever she was talking to, who was running away from the dock. We saw passed him — an ancient bearded man with a terrified expression — as we went to where Ella was, standing still and looking at the lake grimly. “We should leave,” she said, and turned around and walked toward the car.

As we got into the car we saw more townspeople emerging from side streets, many of them with a shambling kind of walk. There numbers were sparse but being on that street felt like being in a tunnel whose walls were moving toward us, and we quickly drove out of town.

We were on the road for at least ten minutes before I asked Ella what her conversation was about. “Some of the local customs,” she said. “It turns out the old Innsmouth is a place I know something about.”  She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask for more, since New Innsmouth was a place I wanted to just put out of my mind. The next town and a return to north woods normalcy managed to raise our spirits. Mine’s and Pike’s at least. Ella spent most of the time on her cell phone.

The three of us are now on the back porch of the cabin. Pike is grilling dinner and having a beer, after borrowing my laptop to post a comment on the last post, and Ella is writing in a notebook she brought. All three of us are taking frequent pauses from our work to look at the lake. Good place to be.

First night on the lake

The cabin we’re staying at has Internet access, so greetings from Lake Superior. The drive from Detling was fine; as we got close to the cabin the only towns we passed through were unincorporated. One of them, New Inn-something, didn’t even have an official state sign. Seeing the hand-painted sign really seemed to irk Ella, because she gasped when she saw it and kept looking back long after we had passed it.

As we unpacked the car I noticed something in the trunk I hadn’t seen before. “Is that a sword?” I asked Pike.

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to practice for a couple weeks. Might come in handy too, in case we meet a bear.”

“I thought there was a gun in the big bedroom for those,” said Ella.

“There is. But I’m not going to lie. Taking out a bear with a sword would be sweet.”

Tomorrow the plan is to go to the nearby towns and pitch the movie to local business owners whose establishments Pike would like to use. Ella’s especially interested in the New Inn— town. Neither she nor Pike remember anything about the place from their earlier cabin visits, but those were a long time ago.

We did go to the closest town tonight to visit one of the bars. The bartender was an unexpectedly attractive young woman and Pike gave me permission to tell her I was his producer. We also met a garrulous, wiry, bespectacled gentleman with iron-grey hair and mustache who called himself Dingle, who insisted that we check out the ATV he drove to the bar before he left for the night: It looked like it was built more for transporting armed troops than racing through mud. And I discovered that Ella is pretty good at darts.

Journey to the north

I’ll be taking an interesting trip next weekend. Pike’s and Ella’s family has a cabin on the shore of Lake Superior and Pike is going to go there to scout locations for a movie he wants to start filming next year. It’s a horror-comedy about a quartet of film geeks who take a trip to the north woods and have to defend themselves against monsters. Besides some good outdoor locations, Pike wants to find bars that have an authentic north woods feel — one of which needs to have enough space for a dance-off.

Pike invited Ella and me to join him at the cabin and we’ll both be there. Neither Pike nor Ella has visited the place in many years but they remember it as a cool place, so I’m looking forward to it.

The final doll conversation

Me: Hello?

Pike: Arthur! Pike!

Me: Hi.

Pike: Hey! What’s this about you being attacked by a doll?

Me: I’m not really under attack. It’s just stuck on my leg and I’m going to Ingrid’s to get rid of it.

Pike: You’ve gotta let me record you before that happens, my man!

Me: It’s a doll on my leg. It should be pretty easy to re-create.

Pike: It actually does stuff, though, right?

Me: That’s true. It does hiss at me and move its head around.

Pike: Exactly! Don’t do anything before I get there!

The doll didn’t try any new tricks during the car ride. When Pastor Jill and I arrived at Ingrid’s home, both Ingrid and Spindle were there. Ingrid was carrying some bolt cutters and she prodded the doll. “Let’s see how you like these, missy!” Spindle, meanwhile, informed us that he thought he could make the doll release me without destroying it. He asked if I wanted him to try to switch the doll’s allegiance to me and I told him I would pass.

We went to Ingrid’s backyard, where she told me to sit on the edge of a picnic table. At this point Pike had arrived and asked one of us to provoke the doll so he could get a shot of it hissing. He looked around the backyard and through the open door of a shed. “Ingrid! Use that welding torch on it!” Pastor Jill and I were able to argue him down to an electric mixer Ingrid retrieved from the kitchen, which caused the doll to growl when it got close. The doll shot out its arm and grabbed one of the mixer blades.

Spindle’s first try at getting rid of the doll was successful. He poured some granular substance in the doll’s mouth, said some words I couldn’t hear, and the doll dropped to the ground. The substance, Spindle informed us, was salt, obtained from the sea of somewhere and purified by the ritual of something, I forgot the names before we had left. Ingrid said she had some salt obtained from the shelf of Econo Foods and purified by the ritual of Morton, in case Spindle ever needed to borrow some.

Spindle asked me if I wanted to keep the doll. I said I’d rather that he locked it up somewhere and he agreed to do that, so I don’t expect to see that thing again.

The third doll conversation

Me: Hello?

Ingrid: Hey, it’s Ingrid.

Me: Hi.

Ingrid: So, sounds like you’re stuck behind an abandoned house with some kind of devil doll attached to your leg.

Me: Actually I’m…oh, wait, that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Ingrid: [chortling]

Me: So, are you going to be around? I thought you or Spindle could help get rid of this.

Ingrid: Yeah, I’ve got some ideas. Most of them involve you keeping your leg.

At this point Leticia arrived. She was wearing large sunglasses, a gardening hat, and a shirt she told me she ordered from Threadless. She stroked the doll’s head and asked it to let go but it only hissed at her, which made Leticia giggle. I heard a car door close and saw someone approach.

“Are you expecting someone else?” asked Leticia. I told her it was probably Pastor Jill. “Oh,” said Leticia. “Is she OK with…you know.” She smiled widely, exposing her fangs. I told her I hadn’t really asked. “Well, I should probably just go,” said Leticia. “It might get awkward.”

Pastor Jill greeted me and looked at the doll. I think she may have been a little amused as well. She looked closely at the doll’s forehead and tried to look in its mouth. She asked who had just left and I told her. “Leticia…she’s the vampire you write about?” “Yeah, that’s…that’s kind of where she’s at, yeah.” I couldn’t read her reaction.

Pastor Jill carried the same satchel she had the last time I saw her, and withdrew a small silver crucifix from it. She placed it on the doll’s forehead and said some Latin words. The doll batted the crucifix away but regained its hold on me before I could take advantage. Pastor Jill placed the crucifix on the doll again but this time the doll just jerked its head around.

“Well,” said Pastor Jill, “that trip to Ingrid’s is probably in order.”

The second doll conversation

Continuing where the last post left off…

Leticia: Hello?

Me: Oh, hi. I didn’t think you’d be up.

Leticia: Yeah, I’m kind of an early riser.

Me: OK. Well, I’m in sort of a weird situation and thought you might want to know about it.

Leticia: You’re going to post about it, right?

Me: Yeah.

Leticia: Awesome!

Me: So, do you know anything about dolls that come to life and attack people?

Leticia: Whoa. Not ringing any bells. Is that what’s going on? You’re under attack by dolls?

Me: It’s just one. And it’s not really attacking. It’s just kind of clinging to my leg.

Leticia: Aww! Cute!

Me: Whatever. I just want to get rid of it.

Leticia: Fine. Do you have any salt handy? A lot of nasties don’t like that.

Me: No.

Leticia: Well, that’s all I got, sorry.

Me: That’s all right. I was going to see if someone could give me a ride to see Ingrid or Spindle.

Leticia: Oh! Totally! Hey, where are you? I’d like to see this thing before you take off.

I told Leticia where I was. Next, I called Pastor Jill at the church office. She offered to come by and, if she couldn’t help me get rid of the doll, take me to Ingrid’s.

The first doll conversation

About a week ago I decided I wanted to get a look at the house where Eilert Brand lived. Not because I was driven by any strong compulsion, but because I thought it may be useful to know the location in case I had to make an investigation in the future. A friend of my mom’s knew where it was: it’s a house I’ve noticed before.

I walked over there late one overcast afternoon, planning to stay on the outside. Shortly after I took the photo above, I heard a tapping sound from the direction of the house. I moved closer and was able to determine that the sound came from one of the boarded-up windows. Continuing to approach the house, I saw a corner of one of the boards pushing out. Then a chunk of the board splintered away and something fell to the ground. The object that fell rose on its own.

I stayed still and looked at the doll after I took the photo, the “Dancing Calcobrena” song from Final Fantasy II playing in my head. I figured I should consult with someone about what to do next and the first person I thought of was Miriam. I didn’t have her number but I had Ella’s, so I decided to see if she was at the store.

The doll meanwhile, had some plans for me. I took my eyes off it for a few seconds, and when I next looked at it was only a couple of feet away. I started to back away and the doll leapt at me. It landed on my leg, right below my knee, where it clung. I struck at the doll but it didn’t move. I knocked it against one of the trees and that didn’t do anything either. I called Ella.

Ella: Miriam? No, she’s away for a few days.

Me: Oh. I kind of needed her advice about something.

Ella: What about?

Me: Well, I’m outside Brand’s house and…

Ella: You’re where?

Me: Outside Brand’s house.

Ella: Alone?

Me: Yeah.

Ella: [a cross between a sigh and a growl]

Me: So anyway, there’s this animated doll that came out of the house and now it’s holding onto my leg.

Ella: You have a doll hugging your leg?

Me: Essentially.

Ella: Maybe it’s trying to be friendly.

[I looked at the doll, who tilted its head up and hissed at me.]

Me: Yeah, that’s a negative on the ‘friendly’ scenario, over.

Ella: Why do you say that?

Me: It just hissed at me.

Ella: Well, maybe that’s doll language for hello.

Me: You think this is funny don’t you?

Ella: A little, yes.

Me: Fine.

Ella: You’re welcome to bring your little friend to the store.

Me: I’d have to walk there and I’m not going downtown with a doll stuck to my leg.

I decided I would try to find someone to give me a ride to Ingrid’s home, since Ingrid probably had the physical means to separate me from the doll if I couldn’t find someone with the mystical means. Before that, though, I decided to call Leticia, who had recently chided me for my infrequent posts, to let her know that a new adventure would be forthcoming.

I stayed still and looked at the doll after I took the photo, the “Dancing Calcobrena” song from Final Fantasy II playing in my head. I figured I should consult with someone about what to do next and the first person I thought of was Miriam. I didn’t have her number but I had Ella’s, so I decided to see if she was at the store.

The doll meanwhile, had some plans for me. I took my eyes off it for a few seconds, and when I next looked at it was only a couple of feet away. I started to back away and the doll leapt at me. It landed on my leg, right below my knee, where it clung. I struck at the doll but it didn’t move. I knocked it against one of the trees and that didn’t do anything either. I called Ella.

Ella: Miriam? No, she’s away for a few days.

Me: Oh. I kind of needed her advice about something.

Ella: What about?

Me: Well, I’m outside Brand’s house and…

Ella: You’re where?

Me: Outside Brand’s house.

Ella: Alone?

Me: Yeah.

Ella: [a cross between a sigh and a growl]

Me: So anyway, there’s this animated doll that came out of the house and now it’s holding onto my leg.

Ella: You have a doll hugging your leg?

Me: Essentially.

Ella: Maybe it’s trying to be friendly.

[I looked at the doll, who tilted its head up and hissed at me.]

Me: Yeah, that’s a negative on the ‘friendly’ scenario, over.

Ella: Why do you say that?

Me: It just hissed at me.

Ella: Well, maybe that’s doll language for hello.

Me: You think this is funny don’t you?

Ella: A little, yes.

Me: Fine.

Ella: You’re welcome to bring your little friend to the store.

Me: I’d have to walk there and I’m not going downtown with a doll stuck to my leg.

I decided I would try to find someone to give me a ride to Ingrid’s home, since Ingrid probably had the physical means to separate me from the doll if I couldn’t find someone with the mystical means. Before that, though, I decided to call Leticia, who had recently chided me for my infrequent posts, to let her know that a new adventure would be forthcoming.

A Mother’s Day tale

Parallel to Detling’s Main Street there’s a river with a pathway on the side opposite the street, bordered by trees. I was walking down the pathway at dusk lat night and passed someone standing on the river side, smirking at me. He was middle-aged, dressed in dark clothes, was half a foot taller than me and had a full beard and mane of blond hair. I looked at him just long enough to realize I didn’t know who he was and passed him. Then he called to me: “Evidently you don’t know me.”

I had heard that before.

I stopped and looked back at the man, who had the same smirk. I noticed now that his outfit included a Victorian-style frock coat. Was he just someone quoting the blog or was it Brand himself? The smirk changed to a leer and I saw a faint reddish glow in the man’s eyes, and I realized I needed to take action.

So I ran to the closest bookstore to seek the help of a petite sorceress.

Both Miriam and Ella were at the store when I arrived and told them what had happened.

“Well,” said Miriam, “It’s easy for me to tell if there’s someone or something around that isn’t…um, mundane is the term we use, no offense.”

Miriam closed her eyes and opened them suddenly. “Oh my!” she said. She was looking at the store’s entrance. The man I’d seen earlier was outside. He tried to open the door but couldn’t. I saw his eyes glow again and he placed his right hand on the door, his palm facing us.

“He isn’t a living human, I can tell that,” said Miriam. “But what he is…I don’t know…I’m sensing something…strange again.”

“Strange?” I said. “There’s something strange about the guy who’s come back from the dead twice to get me?” I think I may have come off as a little snarky. Miriam’s reaction was interesting: she closed her eyes and thrust her chin forward, curving her lips in a slight frown. I think it was the Miriam equivalent of whacking someone upside the head. “Sorry,” I said.

Miriam opened her eyes, looking at the figure in the doorway. “It’s all right,” Miriam murmured coolly, “We all deal with stress differently.” She peered forward for a few moments. “Well, he can’t get in here soon,” she said, “That’s the good news. But I think he’s powerful enough to overcome my protections. And I’m not sure I can defeat him alone.”

Miriam walked slowly toward her office at the back, her head lowered. Then he looked at her phone. “He’s blocking us,” she said. Ella and I checked our phones too and they weren’t working either. Miriam sighed slowly. Then she said “Oh! That might…gosh, that would…” She giggled a little, as if her daughter Annabelle had said something amusing. Then she went to the desk in her office, took a pair of objects out of a drawer and came back out, closing the door behind her. One of the objects was a ring with a purple stone in an oval setting and the other was a piece of chalk. She started writing on the office doorway. “Keep an eye on him, would you?” she asked.

The space around the intruder’s hand had what looked like little bolts of lightning around it. “This is going to require coordination with people we can’t talk to,” Miriam said as she wrote, “so no guarantees. But if it works…gosh.”

“What if it doesn’t?” said Ella. Miriam exhaled slowly. “There’s a last resort,” Miriam said. “You should be OK.” “What about you?” said Ella.

Miriam didn’t say anything louder than some muttered words to herself until she finished writing. “All right,” she said softly. She held her chin in her hand. “I don’t know how much time we’ll have. It might only be a few seconds. If I open the door I’m going to be…distracted.” She walked to the right side of the door, the side opposite the hinges, and faced forward. “Arthur, would you open the door when I tell you?”

I agreed to do so and faced front again. There was now something that looked like a whirlpool of blue light at the front of the store. “Any moment now,” Miriam said. And then the door flew open with a bang and there were four of us in the store.

“My compliments,” my pursuer said, sauntering toward us. “Overcoming your protections was a satisfying challenge. But you’ll need more power than that to defeat me.”

“My power is behind this door,” said Miriam. She looked at her watch, I’m not sure why, and then she looked at me. “Now.”

I opened the door. Instead of the empty office I had seen a few minutes ago, I saw a figure standing directly opposite me. The area framed by the doorway was a sepia-tinged blur so I couldn’t make out details, but I thought I was looking at a woman with wavy hair and an oval face like Miriam, though slightly taller.

The figure in front of me thrust her left arm forward, not directly at me but toward the side of the door where Miriam was standing. Once her arm was past the doorway I could see it clearly. It was bare and on one of the fingers there was a ring with a stone the same color as the one in Miriam’s ring, in a teardrop-shaped silver setting.

Miriam gasped, extended her right arm, and grasped the woman’s hand. Miriam’s right hand was the one with the ring on it and she pointed the two purple stones at the intruder.

The man raised a fist that ignited with green frame. “And who is that?” he asked with an amused smile.

“This is my daughter Annabelle,” said Miriam. She seemed about to cry. “And we’re the last thing on Earth you’re going to see.”

The man snarled and drew his fist back. A bolt of purple light shot from the two women’s rings, with a sound that was high-pitched yet also resonant. And the store was empty.

Miriam turned to face the figure in the doorway, still holding her hand. There appeared to be other people in the background, but except for one person that was unusually tall and appeared to have long blond hair, I couldn’t see any helpful details.

The area in the doorway became more blurry. Miriam released the hand of the woman beyond, who quickly withdrew her arm. And then we were looking at Miriam’s empty office again.

“Miriam,” I said. “That was Annabelle?”

“It will be.”

We looked at the doorway for a long time, not saying a word.