Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The next day, Anastasia awoke and swung her feet out of bed. She had survived the trials of the previous day and lasted out her first night at Camp Calapuyau. This realisation made her take solace. Perhaps she would have the strength to see this ordeal through to the end, after all. The magnificent weather outside reflected her new found perspective on life. It was a bright, summer’s morning with the sun streaming through the window from behind the bunk bed. In the new light of day, she inspected her hands, just as she was urged to do in her dreaming practice. It didn’t take her long to notice something utterly strange about them.
On the palm of her hand, just below the right index finger, was a strange slowly revolving spiral: A vortex of pinkish-purple skin. It was as though the ingrained loops and whorls of her hands had obtained a volition of their own somehow and had taken to wandering about all over her body like ripples on the surface of a pond. “Am I dreaming?” she asked.
Before she could derive a sensible answer, she awoke once more to the interior of the dorm room and swung her legs out of bed. She had been dreaming after all. But she was surprised, because everything about the room was just as she had been in her dream. She looked at her hands once more; but the spiral was no longer there…
It was only after she had written down these events in her Book of Shadows that she realised their significance and in her enthusiasm, shook her friend awake. “Hey, Wendy, guess what?”
“What?” she groaned.
“I just completed the first stage of dreaming.”
“You did?” She sounded surprised.
“Yes, I looked down and saw my hands in a dream and there were these strange spirals on them…”
“That’s not the first stage…” remarked Wilma. “The first stage is to become aware of dream objects and surroundings. It doesn’t matter what you look at, in particular, whether it’s your hands, or your shoes or someone else’s…”
“You’re not supposed to tell her that,” Wendy rebuked her from the top bunk. “She’s supposed to figure it out for herself…”
“So what you’re saying is that I didn’t pass?”
“Look. All that matters with the first gate is that you have an awareness of dreaming. If you didn’t realise that you were dreaming then you didn’t complete the first stage. I’m sorry,” Wilma continued.
“She may well have passed the first gate. Who are you to say she didn’t?”
“David will know, obviously. He can tell just by looking at you.”
“Well, then, I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see then won’t we?” Wendy climbed down from the top bunk and stretched. “Either way it’s a great achievement… You must really have dreaming in your blood… You’ll make a good nargual yet.”
“What’s a nargual?”
“It’s a sorcerer.”
She wasn’t sure if the idea of a nargual appealed to her. It didn’t sound very appealing. She said the word over in her head; Nar-gual…
“Come on,” said Wendy. “Lets go get some breakfast.”
Breakfast for Anastasia and Wendy on that morning consisted of two pots of yoghurt and some dry weetabix, which they ate happily in the bright sunlight. Anastasia checked her diary and saw that they had a history lesson with Mr. Collins in the Museum Building. The building itself, which was the same one that housed the library, was a circular affair made from lime-washed concrete; metal; glass; topped off by a conical black slate roof. The interior was bright, spacious, modern and clean to the point of being sterile. In the centre of the building was the library and surrounding it on three sides was the exhibition space, featuring a collection of apparently Native American artefacts. On the far side was a number of doorways and corridors which presumably led to the offices of administration.
Upon entering the museum building, the girls all piled into a small darkened room to the immediate left of the library entrance, where an audiovisual demonstration was about to take place.
The girls were jostling for seats, as the boisterous and well-composed voice of Jasper Collins came echoing through the halls. He had on the same crumpled grey suit as the previous day, and carried with him a clipboard. Dangling from a bracelet on his hand, she saw a metal wasp. Before she could ask what it signified, he called for quiet. “Now girls, settle down. This is a very important video… It tells of the history of our Camp and where it came from.”
He fumbled about with the remote for a bit, and then managed to dim the lights. The video started and showing images of a windswept hillside with low stone walls, the ruins of ancient buildings. The booming voice of the narrator informed them that; “Eamon Radcliffe was born circa 1815, in the now deserted town of Baal, in Co. Mayo Ireland.” An old photograph of Eamon showed him to be handsome enough, but still possibly suffering from the combined effects of foetal alcohol syndrome and malnourishment. “Radcliffe immigrated to United States in 1851; and arrived in the State of Oregon a year later where he established a successful paper mill factory. At this time, the Willamette area was still the tribal homelands of the Calapuyau people…” Here the video filed through a pastiche of drawings detailing daily life for the Calapuyau Indians. Compared to the more ostentatious pomp and ceremonies of the Northern Native American tribes of Alaska and British Columbia; with their teepees and decorative headdresses, the Calapuyau were a markedly more understated bunch, to the point of being dowdy.
They were shown half naked, sitting on the ground outside of their makeshift huts of sticks and animal hides. It was seen from these historical records that the tribe did not have the least regard for their appearance, but went around in filthy brown rags. They wore their dark hair lank on either side of their good natured, but irredeemably melancholic faces and she began to wonder how a people of such low self esteem had managed to survive that long in the first place.
She learnt that when the settlers arrived in the region they found the Calapuyau’s scruffy appearance and strange customs frightful and set about pushing them from the land by any means. The now dispossessed Indians took to living and foraging in the forests around the new settler strongholds. Here it is believed that they subsisted on a diet of dogs, cats, and the occasional rat. When more and more of the settler’s pets started going missing, however, the townspeople began to suspect the former landowners of being behind the thefts and set about a campaign to rid the land of them altogether. This campaign became violent when it was discovered that the Calapuyau were using the blood of the sacrificed cats and dogs to impose hexes on the heads of the new Christian inhabitants. Old photographs from the era show a group of Calapuyau Indians standing next to a tree, on the branches of which are hung the eviscerated remains of dead cats.
In the beginning, Radcliffe had taken the side of the settlers, but when news spread of the Calapuyau Indians using black magic rituals he was reminded of his own pagan upbringing in the town of Baal and became more sympathetic to their cause. “Radcliffe often encountered the Calapuyau tribes people in and around the area of his paper mill and seeing the destitute squalor that they were accustomed to, he offered to improve their lot in return for knowledge of their dark magical arts…” Drawings of the new living conditions for the tribe, showed them much improved. They were now seen living in round huts with conical roofs, dressed in fine clothes and working at various craft activities to a high degree of skill. “Chief Otaktay [a Native American Indian name which means “He who kills many”] was Radcliffe mentor and it was from him that he learnt all about tribal magic; about the nature of associations in the plant and animal worlds and about the art of dreaming. Radcliffe was a keen student and advanced quickly through the different levels and soon gained the respect and admiration of the tribe,” the narrator rambled on.
“In 1867 there was an outbreak of cholera among the settlers and it wasn’t long before someone suggest that the Calapuyau had put a hex on the community… Anticipating the bloodshed, Eamon Radcliffe attempted to broker a peace deal. He called upon people of both communities to come together in a public ceremony and to lift the curse. However, the Indians failed to show. Thus snubbed, the townspeople formed a mob and raided the Indian reservation. They set fire to their homes and massacred men, women and children…” Scenes of men, women and children running for their lives as men on horseback burned and raided their village were shown. “The Calapuyau people are no longer in this area, but the Radcliffe Foundation remains; teaching youngsters the ways of ancient pagan magic; at the dawn of a New Age…”
With this presentation ended and they were let wander through the rest of the exhibition. To begin with she saw the original drawings of the Calapuyau seen in the video, both before and after the intervention of the Radcliffe Foundation. For some reason, the older prints were in surprisingly better condition than the later ones. Moving on into the next room she found a number of glass cases containing everyday and ceremonial objects belonging to the tribe. There was a wooden contraption with a leather strap that they used to make fire. There were also several bowls decoratively carved with chevrons and other markings. These artefacts, she learned had been given to Eamon Radcliffe and his foundation, either in return for his humanitarian work or in honour of his achievements in his various rites and rituals.
She and Wendy rounded the partition into the next phase of the exhibition. Here two large photographic prints were hanging side by side. The one on the right showed Eamon Radcliffe; taken sometime around 1865, in a flannel suit with slicked back hair and a moustache. The other portrait showed Otaktay the Chief of the Calapuyau Indian. But, she knew exactly who it was without reading the inscription, for the face in the photograph was the same as the one that she had seen peering in at her through the window the night before. His eyes had the same melancholic gaze. He had the look of a condemned man.
The next lesson of the day was swimming. The hot sun made the prospect of a cold dip in the lake all the more inviting. The girls changed into their swimsuits and joined Mr. Bulwark at the far corner of the lake nearby to where there was a small wooden jetty. The water was cold, so best course of action was to get down as quickly as possible. She walked along to the edge of the jetty and dove in. All the noise and trouble of the world was gone, submerged, and she was at peace, cocooned within the tranquil womb of blue. She remained here for several minutes; until her lungs started to burst for want of air.
The other girls were protested against the cold as they lowered themselves gingerly into the water. She swum in the direction of a buoy about a hundred yards distant. She was trying to wash away what she had seen in the museum that morning. But even as her eyes closed against the water, she saw the visage of Chief Otaktay looking back at her. He would not let her escape.
After several laps back and forth; she swam to the jetty where Mr. Bulwark was sitting with his feet in the water. She clambered up onto the jetty beside him and noticed a small brass replica turtle place sitting on the deck. Mr. Bulwark snatched at the turtle. “Go sit with the others,” he said in a gruff tone. She went over to where Wendy and the other girls were sitting on the beach sunbathing. As she stood on the beach towelling herself off, Ms. Lytton approached them silently across the yellow sand. “Anastasia, Wendy. Just the two I’ve been looking for. Neither of you have taken the Soma Initiation yet have you?”
“No, Miss…”
“Well, we’ll have to change that. Meet me over at the gate over there, in ten minutes,” she pointed to the tree line and smiled. “We’re going on a foraging expedition…”
“Hello,” said the nasally voice of a police officer on the other end.
“Hello? Is this Portland Police Service?”
“That’s right. How can I help you?”
“This is Walter Cullen of Albany County Police.”
“Can I have your badge number please?”
“Sure, eight, six, one, five.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cullen. How may I be of service today?”
“I’m looking for information about an arrest made in connection with the Rosemary Winter case. A man in his late twenties was detained by your department for questioning and then later released…”
“Could you hold the line, please?”
The officers voice was replaced by a slow progression of musical tones. Presumably the composer had intended to be a soothing experience, but with time the digital recording had degraded into an angry sludge. The voice of the officer returned. “I couldn’t find anything on record,” he said.
“Are you sure? It was reported in the Albany and Portland press around May 12,” he said fumbling for the newspaper.
“May 12? No, nothing around that time… Is there anything else I can help you with?”
He hung up the phone and looked again at the newspaper article. The author was one Catherine Daly. Worth a shot… He lifted the phone and dialled the number for the Portland Express. “Hello, this is Walter Cullen of Albany State Police. Is Catherine Daly there?”
“Can I ask what this is in connection with?”
“It’s in connection with a murder case…”
The phone started ringing again and a moment later he was through to a well-spoken woman. “Catherine Daly, Portland Express, how can I help you?”
“Hello Ms. Daly,” he said. “I’m interested in finding out more on a case you reported back in May of this year. It was about the Rosemary Winter affair.”
“Oh yeah, what exactly do you want to know?”
“Well, in the article you stated that a young man had been detained by the Portland Police. Is that correct?”
“Erm, is that what it says in the article?”
“Yep.”
“Then it must be.”
“I just got off the phone with the Portland Police and they have no record of anyone being detained in connection with the case, and I happen to know that no one from the department informed the next-of-kin either…”
“OK, what’s that got to do with me?” she chuckled.
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Ms. Daly. This is very serious…”
“No, I realise that,” her tone said otherwise. “You see the thing you have to understand is how a lot of reporting work gets done… We don’t source stories ourselves, we have news conglomerates to do the work for us.”
“Are you saying that one of these news agencies provided you with the misleading information?”
“That I am.”
“Which one?” He got a pen ready in his hand.
“I don’t know off the top of my head. I’d have to check…”
She’s stalling.
“Can I call you back?”
He gave her a number to contact him on and put down the phone, fully expecting to never here from her again.
It was hard work keeping up with Ms. Lytton, as she cut a swift path up the mountain. She wore tight black combat gear over her slim physique and around her waist hung a noisy utility belt, sporting all kinds of loops and pouches. Dangling from one of these loops was a furry white rabbit’s foot. She was surprised to see a woman of Ms. Lytton’s age who still clung to such silly superstitions. Presently, she took a knife from her belt and started hacking some vines overhead with her penknife.
“What’s that Ms. Lytton?” asked Wendy.
“Woodbine… Here put that in your knapsack,” she said handing her a bundle of the weed and going back to cut some more.
“What’s next on this list?”
“Morning Glory and Hemlock.”
“I can get those,” said Wendy racing off.
She was about to follow her, when Ms. Lytton grabbed her by the neck. “No, you stay with me…” She handed her a clump of woodbine. “What do you make of that?”
She looked at the waxy oval-shaped leaves, at the woody stems, the bulbous petals and asked; Are you edible?
There was silence.
“Well?”
“I don’t know, Miss…”
“Ha. It’s a tricky one. Woodbine like’s to keep her secrets. Here,” she said moving in a little closer to her, her large flank pressing uncomfortably into her shoulder. “I have a tip for you… The true source of a witch’s power comes through fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Other’s fear and your own,” she prodded a finger at her chest. “You must get in touch with her own feelings of inner-dread…”
This sounded unbelievably strange to her, as it went against everything she had ever learnt. Love was the abiding emotion in her world. Seeing her confusion, Ms. Lytton turned to her and said; “What happens when we become afraid? We become more aware of our surroundings, don’t we? Our senses become more alert. That is the goal of the witch, of the nargual, to see the world as it truly is…”
She wasn’t so sure about this, but then again, she had come to Camp Calapuyau to learn new and to experience new things and she wasn’t about to argue with her. After all, who didn’t want to see the world in a new way, while we were still young and before our perceptions became to set in stone? At that moment, Wendy returned from her foraging with a tangle of green stems and purple flowers. “Got it,” she cried and then paused. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no, Wendy… Good girl that will do very nicely.” She snatched the bindweed from her hands. “The next item we have get is Amanita Muscaria, but we’ll have to climb higher for that and you’ll have to look for it on your own…”
As they scaled the mountain, she began to appreciate more the speed and agileness of Ms. Lytton. Very soon she outpaced the two girls completely, leaving them to fend for themselves in the enchanted forests of the upper slopes. The sprawling canopy of the deciduous trees gave way to the tall conifers and they tramped their way over the springy ground, before finally emerging out onto a path of limestone regolith. Here, they encountered Ms. Lytton who, once again departed like a shade, without so much as a word of encouragement for the two exhausted girls.
There was no point in trying to keep pace with her, so they stopped to catch their breath and to take in the view. Beneath them, they could see all of Camp Calapuyau laid out before them, with its Museum buildings chalets and Meeting Hall. To the right of the camp they could see the familiar mountain which rose up out of the valley, only from their new vantage point it was possible to see a sheer cliff face to one side. As she looked, Anastasia noticed a dark blue patch at the bottom of the cliff. “What’s that?”
“It’s the old Indian cave,” Wendy said when she saw what she was looking at. “It belonged to the Calapuyau people at one time.”
“Wendy? Can I tell you something?”
“Sure…”
“Do you remember when we were up in the forest yesterday, foraging? Well, I can’t be sure, but I think I saw a Native American man in the trees…”
“That wouldn’t have been Otaktay, by any chance would it?”
Wendy’s question shocked her. “How did you know?”
“It is an old camp legend that Otaktay stalks the woods around Camp Calapuyau. To be honest, you’re lucky you’re still alive…”
“Why do you say that?”
“Otaktay is known for devouring children. He takes them from their beds at night and leads them into the forest and rips them limp from limp and drinks their blood…”
“You don’t really believe that do you?”
“Well of course, I do. Why else do you think they call attendance every morning? It’s to make sure that none of the children are stolen during the night.”
“And sometimes a roll call is just a roll call.”
“Yeah… Do me a favour and don’t mention anything about Otaktay to Ms. Lytton will you?”
“Why?”
“Because if she finds out there’s a child murdering Native man with an axe up here, she might bring us back down…”
“That doesn’t sound too unreasonable to me…”
“No, it doesn’t, but I’ve waited too long for this ceremony and I’m not going to have it taken away from me now.”
Something in Wendy’s tone of voice made her wary. “No, for sure… Me neither…”
“Good…”
A chill wind tousled the tall pines, and they felt vulnerable and exposed. “Perhaps we should get out of here…”
“Yeah, good idea…”
Looking up the path, she saw Ms. Lytton had already gone round the corner. They started off walking and then got faster and faster until they both broke into a jog and then a mad dash and a frenzied run.
* * *
Walter’s phone was ringing. The number was withheld, but even so he didn’t expect it to be the Portland Express reporter calling back anytime soon. He was wrong.
“Hi. This is Catherine Daly, from the Portland Express. We spoke earlier?”
“Oh that’s right…”
“I did a bit of digging on that source you were after and from what I can remember, it came from the Associated Press.”
“Can you be a bit more specific? I mean it’s a big organisation…”
“We just get our information through the news feeds. If you call them they will tell you who gathered the information much better than I can. Alright?”
The sharp rise in her voice at the end signalled that she had given about as much time, as she was willing on the matter. Walter hung up the phone and dialled the number for the Associated Press. He got through to the receptionist and explained who he was and what he wanted, whereupon he was placed on hold for the second time. After two or three minutes the woman’s voice came back on the line.
“Hello, Detective Cullen? You said you are looking for the reporter for the March story about a suspect detained by the police… Is that right?”
“Yes…”
“I have that right here. It was sourced by Aleister Sharpton.”
“And where can I find him?”
“He is a member of our staff…”
“Can you put me through to him?”
“I’m afraid he is not in the building at the moment.”
“Well, does he have a phone number I can reach him on?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out that kind of information over the phone,” the voice buzzed on the other end. “If you would like to put in a formal request for the information he can assist you that way…”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Requests take anything up to five or six weeks to process.”
He hung up the phone. Associated Press had given him the run around, as expected. It didn’t matter, he’d find the information he needed himself.
It took a while for Wendy and Anastasia to catch up with Ms. Lytton, who had gone on much further than either of them had supposed. They both felt much safer in the presence of their mentor. Chief Otaktay would not accost them while she was around, of that she was certain. When they reached midpoint along the crest of the mountain, Ms. Lytton turned to them and said, “Now girls, I want you to fan out into the woods and look for the muscaria mushroom.”
“What’s that?”
“The red toad stool mushroom…”
Even someone with a limited knowledge of fungi, as she had, knew of the bright red mushroom with the white spots.
“Wendy you search down there and Anastasia you take the upper slopes.”
Ms. Lytton slung her backpack over her shoulder and stopped when she noticed the reticent look on her student’s faces.
“What alone?” asked Wendy.
“Yes. Why is anything the matter?”
“No, Miss,” she said backtracking.
“I’ll meet you down at the break in the tree line. I should have a good fire going by then and you lot — if you’re any good — should have your mushrooms. If you haven’t found any after half an hour you are to come back. Is that understood?”
The girls nodded.
“OK, well, off you go then. They’re not going to pick themselves are they?” She stood by and waited until they both separated and made their way into the forest alone.
Walter could find no mention of an Aleister Sharpton on the Associated Press website, but with a large and faceless organisation like that; this was to be expected. It wasn’t long before he found an Aleister Sharpton, who worked for AP, on LinkedIn, but his profile page was private. That wasn’t such a barrier. The police had means of getting access to people’s social media pages when the need arose and a little while later, he had all of his personal details, address and phone numbers he needed. He wasted no time in calling him up. “Hello Aleister, this is Walter Cullen of Albany County police department. I’d like to talk to you about a report you made on March 12th involving a missing persons case. A girl named Rosemary Winter?”
“I think I remember something of that… What about it?”
“Well, in the report you stated that a man had been detained by the Portland Police.”
“OK.”
“I spoke with them and they said they had no record of any such incident taking place. So, I’m curious, how you came about this information?”
“Am I being investigated or something?” he hissed.
“Well, yes, in a way you are.”
“Is this an official investigation?”
“No, not as yet. I’m merely making an inquiry.”
“I see… I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal my source. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. If want to find out more, I suggest you take a more official route.”
“I intend to…”
The line went dead. Charming guy, he thought. The spiel about him not being able to reveal his source was immaterial. There could be no source, since the report did not match up with the reality. Obviously, this Aleister guy had fabricated it. But to what end? It didn’t matter. He was playing a dangerous game and he had already crossed the line.
Anastasia stepped over the shallow ditch and started to climb the steep bank on the other side. Once inside of the forest, she saw banks of mist stricken by shards of sunlight cascading through the trees and searched amid the detritus of the forest floor for the elusive red mushroom. On a number of occasions she came across different patches of white and yellow fungi. She knew well enough that most mushrooms were poisonous, or at the very least not very palatable, so she stayed away from these. But, wasn’t the toadstool mushroom poisonous, as well? She would be surprised if it wasn’t. Perhaps she would ask it later and see what it said.
Before long, she came to a line of cut trees where grass and patches of fireweed along side one another. On the opposite side of the clearing, in the shade of a pine tree was a patch of red and white mushrooms. She crossed over to them and began gathering them up into her bag. Further along, she saw another patch and another. How many did she need? Ms. Lytton had never said.
She crouched down and saw a pair of bright green eyes watching her from just inside the tree line. For a moment, she froze, startled by the machine-like face with the angular grin. Then she realised that it was just an optical illusion; the green eyes were just green leaves caught in the sunlight and projecting though gaps in the foliage. The effect only worked from the exact position she was standing in, if she took so much as a step in either direction they alignment was broken and the face went back to being a jumble of twigs and leaves. And yet, she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that she was being watched.
Harmon left his freshly painted canvas to dry and went out for a walk along by the park to Clare Street, where his friend and dope-dealer; Darrel Minyon lived. He knocked on the door and was emitted into a dank hallway. Minyon’s house smelled of rotting cat food, which emanated from empty cans strewn across the floor. It was an unpleasant environment to be in, but then again he didn’t plan on staying too long. Just long enough to get what he needed and get the hell out of there. His plan was to take an of ounce of organically grown weed. Then, when he had sold it all and made himself a tidy profit he would pay Minyon what he owed. He had done this a number of times before, and with good results. Minyon also respected and trusted him with the sale of his product, but on this occasion, he found he was unable to oblige. “Sorry, I’m dry…”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, my dealer stopped growing… But I’ve got something even better for you.”
“What?”
“DMT.”
“I’m not selling that shit…”
“Neither am I. I have a load of it in the fridge, if you want. I’m done with it…”
“Sure… Fuck it…”
Minyon went to his refrigerator and took out a small ball of tinfoil and dropped it on the table. Inside Harmon saw a nest of orange spore-like tendrils. “Is that it?”
“Yeah?”
“I had no idea that’s what it looks like…”
“Yeah. It’s weird isn’t it? Mind you, I don’t know if it’s supposed to look like that… that’s just the way the guy made it… He may have gotten a few things wrong…”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s alright.”
“Have you smoked much of it?”
“I tried a few hits with a pipe…”
“And?”
“I had interesting visuals… Some weird feelings.”
“Hey, have you ever had a breakthrough experience, encountered the machine elves?”
Minyon looked at him uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Not really,” he said.
“Well, surely you would know one way or another. I heard the place looks like it is full of coloured filaments or something like that…”
“Yeah, well everything kind of looks like that when you’re on it. Especially, when you close your eyes.”
He considered the possibilities such an experience might yield for his own painting practice and made up his mind.
“You’re going to take it,” Minyon said smiling.
“Sure… I’m fucking crazy too you know?”
“Oh…” he laughed again. “I’m sure you are…”
Walter called the station to request a meeting with Chief of Police Stolz. He expected it to take place sometime the following day and was surprised when he was penciled in for later that afternoon. Apparently Stolz wanted to talk with him about something of the utmost importance. He suspected that it might have something to do with the case, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
The South Station on Arch Street was not the most modern police station in Albany. But what it lacked in convenience, it more than made up for in style. The building itself was well over a hundred years old; constructed from a mix of porphyry sandstone and granite carved with various motifs and emblems. Upon entering the foyer, the officer at the reception desk gave him a nod and then buzzed him through into the control centre. He went past dispatches and up the stairs to Stolz’s office and knocked on the door.
“Ah Walter, come in. Just the man I’ve been looking for…”
“What’s this all about?”
“I should ask you the same thing…” he barked. “I’ve gotten two phone calls about you in the last two hours. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About what you’ve been doing the last few days.”
He shrugged.
“Enjoying your time off?”
“Sure…”
“Don’t play dumb with me… You’ve been up to the Winter’s, haven’t you? Stickin’ your nose in where it doesn’t belong…”
“A girl goes missing, another one’s dead and you’re telling me it’s not my business?”
“Look we’ve had this conversation ten times before. People go missing all the time.”
“I know, but I figured that if I investigate on my own time, then I wouldn’t be using up police resources and that it wouldn’t be a problem…”
“And ordinarily it wouldn’t be. But it seems that you have pissed off the wrong people here. This Aleister Sharpton… Remember him?”
“What about him?”
“Well, he seems fairly well-connected. He got on to the mayor, who got onto me, who said that if I don’t nip this thing in the bud he’ll come down on my neck.”
“Oh come on. You’re not really going to cave into pressure like that, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“This Aleister guy is suspected of fabricating testimonies and of deliberately interfering with an on-going homicide investigation…”
“Homicide? Who said anything about homicide?”
“Rosemary —”
“Rosemary died of natural causes… the coroner said so himself in his report.”
“Alright, but there is still the point that he fabricated evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“The report of the arrest…”
“Look if you had wanted to know about the arrest, you could have just come to me.”
“What?… What do you mean?”
“We picked up a kid in connection with the case back in March.”
“In Portland?”
“No… Here…”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No… What do you know, reporters get things wrong sometimes…”
“Well, who was it?”
“Some two-bit drug dealing kid…”
“Name?”
“Darrel Minyon,” he threw him a list of names.
“And?”
“Nothing… It was a wild-goose chase.”
“And didn’t you inform the next of kin?”
“Look we probably should have… But, come on, you’re not going to bust my balls over this are you?”
He sat, arms folded.
“Are you?” repeated Stolz more forcefully.
“No, of course not…”
“Good. Now, I can defuse this situation with the mayor. But you… Look at me… You need to lay off investigating this case and all other cases. Understood?”
He looked at the grotesque tub of a man spouting orders, but he said nothing.
“Why don’t you go on a holiday or something? The wife and I went on a trip to Corsica last summer. You’d love it. And you could take little, eh… whatshername?”
“Anastasia… Nah, she’s off at summer camp…”
“Ah, so that’s what this is all about… Why don’t you come out and play a round of golf with me and your friend there in dispatches, what’s his name?”
“Kevin Dobson…”
“That’s right Kevin… Let’s see,” he said checking his diary. “I’ll be working all day tomorrow. How about the day after that?”
“I haven’t played golf in years,” he groaned.
“You still have your clubs don’t you?” Stolz glanced up.
“Sure…”
“Good. Then it’s settled. A round of golf and some fresh air, it’ll do you and your friend a power of good… Believe me…”
He didn’t believe him, but he also knew that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Anastasia found Wendy and Ms. Lytton at the end of a forest path. They were easy to spot by the continuous stream of smoke rising up from their camp fire. To their right was an area of felled forest about a quarter of a mile wide, filled with twisted grey trunks and branches scattered about the broken ground. It looked like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie and she wondered why a more aesthetically pleasing location could not have been chosen for the ceremony.
Ms. Lytton placed a cast iron pot on the fire and poured in a large measure of milk. She selected two of the red and white mushrooms and told Wendy to rinse them with water from her canteen. After that she carved them up with her penknife and placed the chunks into the boiling milk along with the colourful heads of the bindweed flowers.
Wendy took out her Book of Shadows and pointed to a piece entitled “A Witch’s Prayer.”
“Read aloud,” said Ms. Lytton.
“Lord Jahbulon, we ask your acceptance by the power of the nested densities. The first density is the egg, the second is the nest, the third is the tree, the fourth, fifth and sixth densities are the earth, the sky and the world. And so it goes… The egg in the nest and the nest in the tree, the tree in the earth and the earth in the sky, the sky in the world and the world in the egg, the egg in the nest…”
By now the sky had darkened and the wind was picking up.
“Keep reading,” said Ms. Lytton stirring the pot of simmering milk with her wooden spoon.
“… and the nest in the tree, the tree in the earth and the earth in the sky, the sky in the world and the world in the egg…” There was a great blue flash and a loud clap of thunder and Ms. Lytton’s stirring got faster. They picked up pace too. The sky was nearly black now and full of rain.
Ms. Lytton stopped stirring and called for silence. She poured the contents into two bowls. The mushrooms had turned the milk an orange colour and it floated on the top like brown lumps, giving the whole infusion a sickly, sweet smell. She looked at Wendy, but she couldn’t tell if she was experiencing the same feelings of revulsion or not. Ms. Lytton handed them each a bowl and began gathering up the pots. “This next part is for you and therefore, you must do it on your own…” She gave the pot a cursory rinse with water from her canteen. “It might not be obvious to you, but you have dipped you toes into the river of the Fifth Density and you will not be able to move until you have finished all of your tea… I’ll be wait for you at the end of the path…”
“Wait you’re leaving us?”
“I’ll be just down there…” she said pointing to the brow of the hill. “Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe here.” The girls watched her leave.
“Thank, God…” She tipped the frothing yellow mixture into the grass.
“You shouldn’t have done that…”
“Why not? The old bat will never know.”
“She will… Besides we’ll both be stuck here unless we drink the mixture.”
She looked at her friend askance, unsure of what she meant.
“Didn’t you hear what Ms. Lytton said? We can’t move until we drink the Soma.”
“You didn’t actually believe that rubbish did you,” she said. “I can move whenever I want…”
She tried to stand, but nothing happened. Then, she tried again, same result. It wasn’t that she was physically paralysed to any degree, it was simply that her limbs refused to obey her commands. “What’s happening to me?”
“Didn’t you hear her? We’re in the Fifth Density here… At least partially… You can’t move, because you are still trying to move your old body in the Third… You’re wires are all crossed.”
“Wait… There’s a Third Density, now?”
“Of course,” she said picking up her bowl and tipping half of the foul-smelling contents into it. “Here you go… Now, this time… Don’t spill it…”
She had learnt her lesson. “I won’t…”
She tipped the mixture into her mouth. The taste was an inharmonious collision of fresh milk and the musty warm fungal flavours of death and decay. Wendy stopped for a moment, her cheeks full, milk pouring down her chin… She swallowed and gave a dissatisfied grimace… “Yuck…”
“You still have more to go…”
“I know, just give me a second will you…” Wendy drained the end of the detestable mixture and stood up.
The binding spell was broken.
Walter left the precinct and drove down Central Avenue, a long stretch of road that cut right through the heart of Albany. Maybe Stolz was right, he thought, maybe he did need a break of some kind; and not just from work. The thought of going back home, to sit alone and in silence depressed him. He needed some sort of stimulus, something to take his mind off the day. He drove down to Loughton’s Bookshop and parked his car.
Stacks and stacks of old books greeted him on his way in, but the store clerk paid him no attention and did not look up from her magazine. He went around the various tables, searching for something, Eventually, his eyes rested upon a selection of second hand travel books nestled in a corner behind the cashier’s desk. He chose one, seemingly at random from the large stack of well-thumbed books and saw that it was a volume on Corsica. A funny coincidence, he thought; recalling that Stolz had just mentioned the place. “How much for this?”
“A dollar,” replied the woman.
He dropped the money on the counter and went back out into the street. Further down the road he noticed some men standing on a street corner. The alley way behind them was covered with the usual tags and graffiti, but one of them seemed out of place. The men, thinking that he was looking at them moved off. He looked more closely at the graffiti;
Don’t Sleep, They’ll Get You.
It could be related to the case, he thought. Possibly even written by someone who had a face to face encounter with Brian’s Shadow Man. Then again, it could just as easily be some bored kid messing around. He opened the car and dropped his purchase on the front seat. Then he took out an evidence bag from the glove compartment. The message had been scrawled in white paint. It was more than likely that it was some kind of easily available emulsion, the type found in any hardware store. Then again, he might get lucky, he thought. He scraped a few flakes of paint into the bag with his pocket knife. It was true that Stolz had told him to lay off the case, but he didn’t recall making a clear statement to that effect.
If this message was genuine then it might lead him to a witness, someone who might be experiencing on going visitations from the same entity that had abducted and killed Brian and Rosemary. If he could interview them, he might be able to discover more about how and why this was happening to people and how to stop it in the future.
It was a long shot, but he had to try.
On the way back down the mountain, Ms. Lytton stayed closer to the two girls than before. This was a good thing, because it seemed to Anastasia that the landscape had been broken up, as if smashed into pieces, and reassembled in a different order. She couldn’t see through the trees, but she got the sense that the lake now lay several hundred miles further to the East, and the camp was long gone. It could be anywhere. The entire Earth had been probably been effected. Bits of Paris were in sub-Saharan Africa, and Amazonian waterfalls poured through what remained of New York City. All of this would obviously play havoc with air-traffic controllers.
Planes would be rerouted to their original airport destinations, but owing to the lack of necessary fuel supplies most would crash en route. How would she get home, she fretted? How would her father know where to collect her from, when all the road maps didn’t add up? Was home even home anymore? She kept her misgivings to herself and she was glad that she had done so, because before long, she saw the calm, radiant waters of the lake through the trees, just where they should be.
But what could account for her complete loss in her sense of direction? Some genuine change had occurred with the fundamentals of reality. She recalled this stretch of mountain trail on they way up, but now it appeared to her as though it were much longer. The space itself was stretching. Dimensions that had been hitherto hidden from view were now seamlessly patched in one with another. Their own Universe; The Third Density had been spliced with a second alternative and uniquely compatible universe called the Fifth. Here then was an explanation for why the world had appeared in such disarray only moments before.
The circumference of the Earth had expanded like the bellows of an accordion, to incorporate the new locations, thus pushing more familiar sites further away from one another. A walk from one’s house to the shop would reveal new streets that had not been there before, and every second shop would be some completely new, but entirely believable business like a dry cleaners or a hairdressers. And the world would just carry on as normal, as who can really say that they truly pay attention to details such as these, and even if they did are they going to argue with a business owner that swears blind they have been in operation on such and such a street corner for the last decade, and has the papers to prove it?
And so it would be passed off, another Bearenstain Bears, another dubious shift in the fabric of reality that no one could possibly prove or deny. The only true concern was that reality would fold back up. The Fifth and Third Densities would no longer be mixed together and depending on which part of reality you happened to pass through at the time, you would be now stuck there — a timespace refugee — without a home or a social security number, just one of the missing faces you see plastered on telephone poles.
The familiar squeak of the spring loaded gate, which signalled their return to the encampment, brought her thoughts back down to earth and she felt a bit silly for having fretted in her earlier flights of fancy. She suspected that Ms. Lytton might be surprised at her pallor, which no doubt had turned deathly pale in the descent, but she appeared to take no notice of it at all, or if she did, she made no mention of it.
“OK girls,” said Ms. Lytton; holding open the gate for them. “Take the rest of the afternoon off.” As she looked, she noticed a marked, although subtle change in Ms. Lytton’s face; her eyes grew bigger and her mouth and nose became closer together. Was she turning into something? Something cat-like? “Don’t do anything too taxing for the rest of the day,” she continued. “If you need me I’ll be in the Director’s house…”
The impression faded and she forgot what she had just been thinking about. Next, Ms. Lytton departed on her way, leaving the two girls to their own devices.
“So, what do you want to do now?”
“Nothing. I don’t feel too well… I think I’m going to lie down.”
It was true. Wendy was looking paler than usual; even the freckles on her face had faded. “Are you alright? Do you want me to take you to the nurse?”
“No. I just need to rest that’s all…”
“Ok. Well, why don’t you go lie down and I’ll come by in a bit and check on you?”
Wendy walked back in the direction of the girls’ dorm-rooms. Perhaps she was having a reaction to those plants, she thought. It certainly would explain her own strange thoughts on the way down the hill. She wasn’t sure, but perhaps she would find something written in the library about it. In the museum building she found the glass-enclosed library. A woman with fiery hair and wide-rimmed glasses looked up from her desk. “Hello. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a book.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place…”
“Apocalypsis?”
“What level are you on?”
“I’m not on any level…”
“Who’s your dreaming instructor…”
“David…” she realised she didn’t know his second name.
“David… Well, didn’t he tell you that you were not supposed to read Apocalypsis?”
“I don’t know… He might have…” She started feeling queasy. She couldn’t think straight. How was she supposed to learn about the stages of dreaming, if they didn’t let her read the book, she wondered? “Never mind. Can I just use the restroom instead?”
She reached down to a set of keys hanging by a rope on her desk. “It’s the blue door on the right over there.” She said pointing to a row of book shelves.
She went in that direction and found two doors one next to the other. The blue door said, “TOILETS” and the red door said “ACCESS FORBIDDEN: STAFF ONLY”
Inside, she found a small dank room with a black and white tiled floor. The pattern of the floor appeared to consist of more complicated geometries the usual chessboard pattern. On top of this, they appeared to glow and throb with an earthly green light, which flashed whenever she tried to refocus her eyes on them. For some reason, she felt safe in here, cocooned in her slightly damp isolation cell. She splashed some water on her face, and feeling more relaxed; she went back out to the librarian to return the key.
“Have a look around…” she smiled. “There’s plenty on offer. Just remember, you can’t read Apocalysis until you are on Stage Six…”
“Well, is there any book on dreaming I can read now?”
“You could try The Art of Dreaming, by Carlos Castaneda… It’s the same thing, but its just missing some of the Gates… It should be in the Anthropology section, I’ll check for you…”
“No that’s alright… I’ll take a look myself…”
She took a stroll around the book shelves taking note of the separate categories; Science, History, Fiction and Travel. As she was scanning the fiction section she came across “The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy”and next to it, a copy of ‘Vril; The Power of the Coming Race’. In the anthropology section, she discovered a number of Carlos Castaneda’s books.‘The Art of Dreaming’ was not there however, but she found others including; ‘Tales of Power’ and ‘Journey to Ixtlan’. She took a seat at one of the large white tables and began reading…
‘Tales of Power’ she soon discovered, presented itself as a factual account of events the author himself experienced while in training as an apprentice to a Yaqui sorcerer as Don Juan Mathus. The story began with both sorcerer and apprentice venturing out into the desert chaparral in search of what Don Juan termed “a place of power”. From the various clues Don Juan dropped, she was able to surmise that a place of power was an area where two or more leylines converged. This particular place of power appeared as a circular area of compacted earth, roughly twenty feet in diameter and free from all desert vegetation.
The story was interesting and compellingly told, but some of the terminology like “the impeccability of the warrior,” “personal power” and the “sorcerer’s explanation” she found difficult to understand. She noticed how simple everyday actions in the book, such as the act of choosing a place to sit down or what to look at in any given situation became a complicated matter beset by hidden pitfalls. She was reminded of what Ms. Lytton had said in the forest earlier that morning, about how fear was an essentially part of sorcery. Perhaps that was the modus operandi behind all of Don Juan’s anxiety inducing words, to sharpen the wit and focus the mind…
Don Juan started to warn Castaneda about how the act of “setting up dreaming” consisted of a “deadly game” in which a person’s mind attacked the consciousness, bringing on bouts of depression and apathy. Now we are getting to the good stuff, she thought. Sometimes the threat to Castaneda’s sanity came from Don Juan, at other times it came from the landscape itself, but here it had been revealed that the true threat lurked within the mind of the apprentice. An example of this comes from when Don Juan goes over to the edge of the circle and peering into the bushes there, pronounces that they are full of “strange things”; a comment which then goes on to produce an involuntary reaction of fright in Castaneda’s nervous system.
With Castaneda becoming increasingly agitated, Don Juan suggests that they discontinue his inquiry into dreaming. Instead they focus on a slightly different, though evidently related matter of “shutting off one’s internal dialogue”. This, according to Don Juan, was beneficial to dreaming because it enabled the dreamer to clear the stage of all props and actors; thereby allowing him to repopulate it with whatever characters and scenarios he saw fit, just by thinking about it. In other words, this activity gave the dreamer complete control over the dreamspace.
Don Juan’s method for shutting off one’s internal dialogue consisted of “walking for long stretches without focusing the eyes on anything”. He also recommended not looking directly at anything, but maintaining an awareness of your peripheral vision by keeping the eyes slightly crossed. She was at a loss to understand what any of this had to do with “shutting off internal dialogues” and was beginning to suspect either Don Juan or Castaneda or both of being complete charlatans.
Harmon had a special kind of gift. He always knew when it was time to move and when it was time to wait and remain still. It was a knowledge predicated on time and the specific order of events. To Harmon there was two types of time; the ordinary time that everyone lived in and kairos which stood for ‘the opportune time’. He lived his life in the second kind of time and this afforded him a kind of psychic knowledge of events. He regularly made use of his gift to avoid encountering his land lady, to whom he owed a number of months rent to. Once he was inside his room, there was a knock on the door.
“It’s Lars,” came the muffled voice through the door.
Lars lived in the apartment upstairs.
He opened the door and there stood the towering figure of Lars with his perpetually unshaven face and long greasy hair. “Going out tonight, Harmon?”
“Not sure.”
“Party on at the Cascades.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah there’s going to be some in-house DJs, mates of mine there, you should come along.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Oh and by the way, the land lady was looking for you earlier. Says you’re behind on rent.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t worry, I covered for you and said you were out.”
“Thanks…”
As soon as Lars was gone he got his stash box out from under the bed. Asides from the DMT, the only other narcotic he had left was a vial of Salvia Divinorum. Salvia was at least as powerful as DMT. He had smoked it on a number of occasions with limited results. He closed up the stash box and following Darrel Minyon’s lead he put the spice in the top drawer of the fridge. Then he checked to see how much money he had left. Two hundred… He could probably spare some money for a night out if he really wanted to; it’s not like it was enough to pay his rent anyway.
Then he remembered something. What night was it tonight; Tuesday, that meant Jane would be working the bar. She’d give me a drink or two for free, he thought and the rest could take care of itself.
Anastasia left the library and went back to check on Wendy. Inside the empty dorm room, the beds were all made and nothing stirred. Odd, she thought; perhaps she went down to the lake instead. She went in search of her. Further down the beach, she spotted someone moving. Oh thank God, she thought; it’s Wendy. She called to her, “Wendy,” she said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Is everything OK?”
Wendy nodded. “I just had a strange dream.” She turned away hugging herself against the strong breeze making its way towards them across the lake. “No, it was more than just that… It was more like a memory… I don’t know why I’m telling you this… I’ve only known you for a day or two, but it feels like much longer.”
She felt the same way, from the moment they had met, she had felt this way. “I know what you mean.”
“That being said, it is not unusual for children like us… Children of the Fifth Density, I mean…”
“You really believe all that stuff?”
“Of course… Don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“Well, you wouldn’t… You’re just a newblood… No offence…” She kicked the sand.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It just means that you don’t know what it’s like around here, yet…” She had a far off look in her eye. “In my dream… I remembered being at this camp as a child. I remember the Festival of Fires, and the camp instructors dressing up like animals. They would take the children into the toolshed and…”
She broke off.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“You don’t think?”
“No… It was probably just a dream that’s all.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right…” she said.
She saw a group of people walking along by the chalets on their way to the beach and talking loudly. “Who are they?”
“They’re the scout instructors.”
“Is David there?” she said taking more of an interest in the group.
“Yeah… You see the girl he’s with?” She meant the tall look blonde with the curly hair. “That’s Evette…”
“She’s really beautiful…” Her heart sank. “Are they?”
“No, they’re just friends.”
And then rebounded with schadenfreude.
“Yeah… You see the big guy walking behind her?”
“The guy who looks like he plays quarter back?”
“That’s Ben. He’s our art teacher…”
The look of shock registered across her face. “I’ll certainly enjoy that class,” she said.
“You slut…”
“Hey…”
Wendy laughed. “Hey, you want to go do something fun?”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see…”
She followed her back towards the Meeting Hall. As they were making their way along the dusty yellow road, she noticed Bruno wandering by one of the chalets. He looked downcast and out of sorts. “Hey, isn’t that your brother?”
Wendy’s face soured. “Bruno… What are you doing here? Where is your group?”
“I don’t know… I got lost…” he mumbled.
Wendy sighed. “Well, where were they when last you saw them?”
He pointed out along the lakeshore in the direction they had just come from.
“OK, come on,” she said holding out her hand. “I’ll take you back.”
“But I don’t want to go back,” his expression souring. “… I want to go back to the Fifth Density. I want to go home and see mum and dad. My real parents…”
“Well, you can’t alright?”
Bruno started on a crying fit.
“Listen, I have to sort this out. It won’t take long, but I need to talk to him in private. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all…”
“Thanks. I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes or so. OK?”
“Sure thing.”
She walked up the old dirt road that past by the Meeting Hall. That was really weird. There was something rotten at Camp Calapuyau. She always suspected that all this talk of Fifth Density was bad for you and now she had proof. Whatever was effect the children around here and Bruno in particular was more than just home-sickness. It was a form of New Age mind control. What if Wendy was right after all. What if the faculty members were conducting rituals and molesting children in the old toolshed? No wonder they didn’t want anyone to go near it. Well, she wasn’t going to be put off that easily. Getting caught was not an option, but she had to know for sure, one way or the other.
The next day, Anastasia awoke and swung her feet out of bed. She had survived the trials of the previous day and lasted out her first night at Camp Calapuyau. This realisation made her take solace. Perhaps she would have the strength to see this ordeal through to the end, after all. The magnificent weather outside reflected her new found perspective on life. It was a bright, summer’s morning with the sun streaming through the window from behind the bunk bed. In the new light of day, she inspected her hands, just as she was urged to do in her dreaming practice. It didn’t take her long to notice something utterly strange about them.
On the palm of her hand, just below the right index finger, was a strange slowly revolving spiral: A vortex of pinkish-purple skin. It was as though the ingrained loops and whorls of her hands had obtained a volition of their own somehow and had taken to wandering about all over her body like ripples on the surface of a pond. “Am I dreaming?” she asked.
Before she could derive a sensible answer, she awoke once more to the interior of the dorm room and swung her legs out of bed. She had been dreaming after all. But she was surprised, because everything about the room was just as she had been in her dream. She looked at her hands once more; but the spiral was no longer there…
It was only after she had written down these events in her Book of Shadows that she realised their significance and in her enthusiasm, shook her friend awake. “Hey, Wendy, guess what?”
“What?” she groaned.
“I just completed the first stage of dreaming.”
“You did?” She sounded surprised.
“Yes, I looked down and saw my hands in a dream and there were these strange spirals on them…”
“That’s not the first stage…” remarked Wilma. “The first stage is to become aware of dream objects and surroundings. It doesn’t matter what you look at, in particular, whether it’s your hands, or your shoes or someone else’s…”
“You’re not supposed to tell her that,” Wendy rebuked her from the top bunk. “She’s supposed to figure it out for herself…”
“So what you’re saying is that I didn’t pass?”
“Look. All that matters with the first gate is that you have an awareness of dreaming. If you didn’t realise that you were dreaming then you didn’t complete the first stage. I’m sorry,” Wilma continued.
“She may well have passed the first gate. Who are you to say she didn’t?”
“David will know, obviously. He can tell just by looking at you.”
“Well, then, I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see then won’t we?” Wendy climbed down from the top bunk and stretched. “Either way it’s a great achievement… You must really have dreaming in your blood… You’ll make a good nargual yet.”
“What’s a nargual?”
“It’s a sorcerer.”
She wasn’t sure if the idea of a nargual appealed to her. It didn’t sound very appealing. She said the word over in her head; Nar-gual…
“Come on,” said Wendy. “Lets go get some breakfast.”
Breakfast for Anastasia and Wendy on that morning consisted of two pots of yoghurt and some dry weetabix, which they ate happily in the bright sunlight. Anastasia checked her diary and saw that they had a history lesson with Mr. Collins in the Museum Building. The building itself, which was the same one that housed the library, was a circular affair made from lime-washed concrete; metal; glass; topped off by a conical black slate roof. The interior was bright, spacious, modern and clean to the point of being sterile. In the centre of the building was the library and surrounding it on three sides was the exhibition space, featuring a collection of apparently Native American artefacts. On the far side was a number of doorways and corridors which presumably led to the offices of administration.
Upon entering the museum building, the girls all piled into a small darkened room to the immediate left of the library entrance, where an audiovisual demonstration was about to take place.
The girls were jostling for seats, as the boisterous and well-composed voice of Jasper Collins came echoing through the halls. He had on the same crumpled grey suit as the previous day, and carried with him a clipboard. Dangling from a bracelet on his hand, she saw a metal wasp. Before she could ask what it signified, he called for quiet. “Now girls, settle down. This is a very important video… It tells of the history of our Camp and where it came from.”
He fumbled about with the remote for a bit, and then managed to dim the lights. The video started and showing images of a windswept hillside with low stone walls, the ruins of ancient buildings. The booming voice of the narrator informed them that; “Eamon Radcliffe was born circa 1815, in the now deserted town of Baal, in Co. Mayo Ireland.” An old photograph of Eamon showed him to be handsome enough, but still possibly suffering from the combined effects of foetal alcohol syndrome and malnourishment. “Radcliffe immigrated to United States in 1851; and arrived in the State of Oregon a year later where he established a successful paper mill factory. At this time, the Willamette area was still the tribal homelands of the Calapuyau people…” Here the video filed through a pastiche of drawings detailing daily life for the Calapuyau Indians. Compared to the more ostentatious pomp and ceremonies of the Northern Native American tribes of Alaska and British Columbia; with their teepees and decorative headdresses, the Calapuyau were a markedly more understated bunch, to the point of being dowdy.
They were shown half naked, sitting on the ground outside of their makeshift huts of sticks and animal hides. It was seen from these historical records that the tribe did not have the least regard for their appearance, but went around in filthy brown rags. They wore their dark hair lank on either side of their good natured, but irredeemably melancholic faces and she began to wonder how a people of such low self esteem had managed to survive that long in the first place.
She learnt that when the settlers arrived in the region they found the Calapuyau’s scruffy appearance and strange customs frightful and set about pushing them from the land by any means. The now dispossessed Indians took to living and foraging in the forests around the new settler strongholds. Here it is believed that they subsisted on a diet of dogs, cats, and the occasional rat. When more and more of the settler’s pets started going missing, however, the townspeople began to suspect the former landowners of being behind the thefts and set about a campaign to rid the land of them altogether. This campaign became violent when it was discovered that the Calapuyau were using the blood of the sacrificed cats and dogs to impose hexes on the heads of the new Christian inhabitants. Old photographs from the era show a group of Calapuyau Indians standing next to a tree, on the branches of which are hung the eviscerated remains of dead cats.
In the beginning, Radcliffe had taken the side of the settlers, but when news spread of the Calapuyau Indians using black magic rituals he was reminded of his own pagan upbringing in the town of Baal and became more sympathetic to their cause. “Radcliffe often encountered the Calapuyau tribes people in and around the area of his paper mill and seeing the destitute squalor that they were accustomed to, he offered to improve their lot in return for knowledge of their dark magical arts…” Drawings of the new living conditions for the tribe, showed them much improved. They were now seen living in round huts with conical roofs, dressed in fine clothes and working at various craft activities to a high degree of skill. “Chief Otaktay [a Native American Indian name which means “He who kills many”] was Radcliffe mentor and it was from him that he learnt all about tribal magic; about the nature of associations in the plant and animal worlds and about the art of dreaming. Radcliffe was a keen student and advanced quickly through the different levels and soon gained the respect and admiration of the tribe,” the narrator rambled on.
“In 1867 there was an outbreak of cholera among the settlers and it wasn’t long before someone suggest that the Calapuyau had put a hex on the community… Anticipating the bloodshed, Eamon Radcliffe attempted to broker a peace deal. He called upon people of both communities to come together in a public ceremony and to lift the curse. However, the Indians failed to show. Thus snubbed, the townspeople formed a mob and raided the Indian reservation. They set fire to their homes and massacred men, women and children…” Scenes of men, women and children running for their lives as men on horseback burned and raided their village were shown. “The Calapuyau people are no longer in this area, but the Radcliffe Foundation remains; teaching youngsters the ways of ancient pagan magic; at the dawn of a New Age…”
With this presentation ended and they were let wander through the rest of the exhibition. To begin with she saw the original drawings of the Calapuyau seen in the video, both before and after the intervention of the Radcliffe Foundation. For some reason, the older prints were in surprisingly better condition than the later ones. Moving on into the next room she found a number of glass cases containing everyday and ceremonial objects belonging to the tribe. There was a wooden contraption with a leather strap that they used to make fire. There were also several bowls decoratively carved with chevrons and other markings. These artefacts, she learned had been given to Eamon Radcliffe and his foundation, either in return for his humanitarian work or in honour of his achievements in his various rites and rituals.
She and Wendy rounded the partition into the next phase of the exhibition. Here two large photographic prints were hanging side by side. The one on the right showed Eamon Radcliffe; taken sometime around 1865, in a flannel suit with slicked back hair and a moustache. The other portrait showed Otaktay the Chief of the Calapuyau Indian. But, she knew exactly who it was without reading the inscription, for the face in the photograph was the same as the one that she had seen peering in at her through the window the night before. His eyes had the same melancholic gaze. He had the look of a condemned man.
The next lesson of the day was swimming. The hot sun made the prospect of a cold dip in the lake all the more inviting. The girls changed into their swimsuits and joined Mr. Bulwark at the far corner of the lake nearby to where there was a small wooden jetty. The water was cold, so best course of action was to get down as quickly as possible. She walked along to the edge of the jetty and dove in. All the noise and trouble of the world was gone, submerged, and she was at peace, cocooned within the tranquil womb of blue. She remained here for several minutes; until her lungs started to burst for want of air.
The other girls were protested against the cold as they lowered themselves gingerly into the water. She swum in the direction of a buoy about a hundred yards distant. She was trying to wash away what she had seen in the museum that morning. But even as her eyes closed against the water, she saw the visage of Chief Otaktay looking back at her. He would not let her escape.
After several laps back and forth; she swam to the jetty where Mr. Bulwark was sitting with his feet in the water. She clambered up onto the jetty beside him and noticed a small brass replica turtle place sitting on the deck. Mr. Bulwark snatched at the turtle. “Go sit with the others,” he said in a gruff tone. She went over to where Wendy and the other girls were sitting on the beach sunbathing. As she stood on the beach towelling herself off, Ms. Lytton approached them silently across the yellow sand. “Anastasia, Wendy. Just the two I’ve been looking for. Neither of you have taken the Soma Initiation yet have you?”
“No, Miss…”
“Well, we’ll have to change that. Meet me over at the gate over there, in ten minutes,” she pointed to the tree line and smiled. “We’re going on a foraging expedition…”
“Hello,” said the nasally voice of a police officer on the other end.
“Hello? Is this Portland Police Service?”
“That’s right. How can I help you?”
“This is Walter Cullen of Albany County Police.”
“Can I have your badge number please?”
“Sure, eight, six, one, five.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cullen. How may I be of service today?”
“I’m looking for information about an arrest made in connection with the Rosemary Winter case. A man in his late twenties was detained by your department for questioning and then later released…”
“Could you hold the line, please?”
The officers voice was replaced by a slow progression of musical tones. Presumably the composer had intended to be a soothing experience, but with time the digital recording had degraded into an angry sludge. The voice of the officer returned. “I couldn’t find anything on record,” he said.
“Are you sure? It was reported in the Albany and Portland press around May 12,” he said fumbling for the newspaper.
“May 12? No, nothing around that time… Is there anything else I can help you with?”
He hung up the phone and looked again at the newspaper article. The author was one Catherine Daly. Worth a shot… He lifted the phone and dialled the number for the Portland Express. “Hello, this is Walter Cullen of Albany State Police. Is Catherine Daly there?”
“Can I ask what this is in connection with?”
“It’s in connection with a murder case…”
The phone started ringing again and a moment later he was through to a well-spoken woman. “Catherine Daly, Portland Express, how can I help you?”
“Hello Ms. Daly,” he said. “I’m interested in finding out more on a case you reported back in May of this year. It was about the Rosemary Winter affair.”
“Oh yeah, what exactly do you want to know?”
“Well, in the article you stated that a young man had been detained by the Portland Police. Is that correct?”
“Erm, is that what it says in the article?”
“Yep.”
“Then it must be.”
“I just got off the phone with the Portland Police and they have no record of anyone being detained in connection with the case, and I happen to know that no one from the department informed the next-of-kin either…”
“OK, what’s that got to do with me?” she chuckled.
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Ms. Daly. This is very serious…”
“No, I realise that,” her tone said otherwise. “You see the thing you have to understand is how a lot of reporting work gets done… We don’t source stories ourselves, we have news conglomerates to do the work for us.”
“Are you saying that one of these news agencies provided you with the misleading information?”
“That I am.”
“Which one?” He got a pen ready in his hand.
“I don’t know off the top of my head. I’d have to check…”
She’s stalling.
“Can I call you back?”
He gave her a number to contact him on and put down the phone, fully expecting to never here from her again.
It was hard work keeping up with Ms. Lytton, as she cut a swift path up the mountain. She wore tight black combat gear over her slim physique and around her waist hung a noisy utility belt, sporting all kinds of loops and pouches. Dangling from one of these loops was a furry white rabbit’s foot. She was surprised to see a woman of Ms. Lytton’s age who still clung to such silly superstitions. Presently, she took a knife from her belt and started hacking some vines overhead with her penknife.
“What’s that Ms. Lytton?” asked Wendy.
“Woodbine… Here put that in your knapsack,” she said handing her a bundle of the weed and going back to cut some more.
“What’s next on this list?”
“Morning Glory and Hemlock.”
“I can get those,” said Wendy racing off.
She was about to follow her, when Ms. Lytton grabbed her by the neck. “No, you stay with me…” She handed her a clump of woodbine. “What do you make of that?”
She looked at the waxy oval-shaped leaves, at the woody stems, the bulbous petals and asked; Are you edible?
There was silence.
“Well?”
“I don’t know, Miss…”
“Ha. It’s a tricky one. Woodbine like’s to keep her secrets. Here,” she said moving in a little closer to her, her large flank pressing uncomfortably into her shoulder. “I have a tip for you… The true source of a witch’s power comes through fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Other’s fear and your own,” she prodded a finger at her chest. “You must get in touch with her own feelings of inner-dread…”
This sounded unbelievably strange to her, as it went against everything she had ever learnt. Love was the abiding emotion in her world. Seeing her confusion, Ms. Lytton turned to her and said; “What happens when we become afraid? We become more aware of our surroundings, don’t we? Our senses become more alert. That is the goal of the witch, of the nargual, to see the world as it truly is…”
She wasn’t so sure about this, but then again, she had come to Camp Calapuyau to learn new and to experience new things and she wasn’t about to argue with her. After all, who didn’t want to see the world in a new way, while we were still young and before our perceptions became to set in stone? At that moment, Wendy returned from her foraging with a tangle of green stems and purple flowers. “Got it,” she cried and then paused. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no, Wendy… Good girl that will do very nicely.” She snatched the bindweed from her hands. “The next item we have get is Amanita Muscaria, but we’ll have to climb higher for that and you’ll have to look for it on your own…”
As they scaled the mountain, she began to appreciate more the speed and agileness of Ms. Lytton. Very soon she outpaced the two girls completely, leaving them to fend for themselves in the enchanted forests of the upper slopes. The sprawling canopy of the deciduous trees gave way to the tall conifers and they tramped their way over the springy ground, before finally emerging out onto a path of limestone regolith. Here, they encountered Ms. Lytton who, once again departed like a shade, without so much as a word of encouragement for the two exhausted girls.
There was no point in trying to keep pace with her, so they stopped to catch their breath and to take in the view. Beneath them, they could see all of Camp Calapuyau laid out before them, with its Museum buildings chalets and Meeting Hall. To the right of the camp they could see the familiar mountain which rose up out of the valley, only from their new vantage point it was possible to see a sheer cliff face to one side. As she looked, Anastasia noticed a dark blue patch at the bottom of the cliff. “What’s that?”
“It’s the old Indian cave,” Wendy said when she saw what she was looking at. “It belonged to the Calapuyau people at one time.”
“Wendy? Can I tell you something?”
“Sure…”
“Do you remember when we were up in the forest yesterday, foraging? Well, I can’t be sure, but I think I saw a Native American man in the trees…”
“That wouldn’t have been Otaktay, by any chance would it?”
Wendy’s question shocked her. “How did you know?”
“It is an old camp legend that Otaktay stalks the woods around Camp Calapuyau. To be honest, you’re lucky you’re still alive…”
“Why do you say that?”
“Otaktay is known for devouring children. He takes them from their beds at night and leads them into the forest and rips them limp from limp and drinks their blood…”
“You don’t really believe that do you?”
“Well of course, I do. Why else do you think they call attendance every morning? It’s to make sure that none of the children are stolen during the night.”
“And sometimes a roll call is just a roll call.”
“Yeah… Do me a favour and don’t mention anything about Otaktay to Ms. Lytton will you?”
“Why?”
“Because if she finds out there’s a child murdering Native man with an axe up here, she might bring us back down…”
“That doesn’t sound too unreasonable to me…”
“No, it doesn’t, but I’ve waited too long for this ceremony and I’m not going to have it taken away from me now.”
Something in Wendy’s tone of voice made her wary. “No, for sure… Me neither…”
“Good…”
A chill wind tousled the tall pines, and they felt vulnerable and exposed. “Perhaps we should get out of here…”
“Yeah, good idea…”
Looking up the path, she saw Ms. Lytton had already gone round the corner. They started off walking and then got faster and faster until they both broke into a jog and then a mad dash and a frenzied run.
* * *
Walter’s phone was ringing. The number was withheld, but even so he didn’t expect it to be the Portland Express reporter calling back anytime soon. He was wrong.
“Hi. This is Catherine Daly, from the Portland Express. We spoke earlier?”
“Oh that’s right…”
“I did a bit of digging on that source you were after and from what I can remember, it came from the Associated Press.”
“Can you be a bit more specific? I mean it’s a big organisation…”
“We just get our information through the news feeds. If you call them they will tell you who gathered the information much better than I can. Alright?”
The sharp rise in her voice at the end signalled that she had given about as much time, as she was willing on the matter. Walter hung up the phone and dialled the number for the Associated Press. He got through to the receptionist and explained who he was and what he wanted, whereupon he was placed on hold for the second time. After two or three minutes the woman’s voice came back on the line.
“Hello, Detective Cullen? You said you are looking for the reporter for the March story about a suspect detained by the police… Is that right?”
“Yes…”
“I have that right here. It was sourced by Aleister Sharpton.”
“And where can I find him?”
“He is a member of our staff…”
“Can you put me through to him?”
“I’m afraid he is not in the building at the moment.”
“Well, does he have a phone number I can reach him on?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out that kind of information over the phone,” the voice buzzed on the other end. “If you would like to put in a formal request for the information he can assist you that way…”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Requests take anything up to five or six weeks to process.”
He hung up the phone. Associated Press had given him the run around, as expected. It didn’t matter, he’d find the information he needed himself.
It took a while for Wendy and Anastasia to catch up with Ms. Lytton, who had gone on much further than either of them had supposed. They both felt much safer in the presence of their mentor. Chief Otaktay would not accost them while she was around, of that she was certain. When they reached midpoint along the crest of the mountain, Ms. Lytton turned to them and said, “Now girls, I want you to fan out into the woods and look for the muscaria mushroom.”
“What’s that?”
“The red toad stool mushroom…”
Even someone with a limited knowledge of fungi, as she had, knew of the bright red mushroom with the white spots.
“Wendy you search down there and Anastasia you take the upper slopes.”
Ms. Lytton slung her backpack over her shoulder and stopped when she noticed the reticent look on her student’s faces.
“What alone?” asked Wendy.
“Yes. Why is anything the matter?”
“No, Miss,” she said backtracking.
“I’ll meet you down at the break in the tree line. I should have a good fire going by then and you lot — if you’re any good — should have your mushrooms. If you haven’t found any after half an hour you are to come back. Is that understood?”
The girls nodded.
“OK, well, off you go then. They’re not going to pick themselves are they?” She stood by and waited until they both separated and made their way into the forest alone.
Walter could find no mention of an Aleister Sharpton on the Associated Press website, but with a large and faceless organisation like that; this was to be expected. It wasn’t long before he found an Aleister Sharpton, who worked for AP, on LinkedIn, but his profile page was private. That wasn’t such a barrier. The police had means of getting access to people’s social media pages when the need arose and a little while later, he had all of his personal details, address and phone numbers he needed. He wasted no time in calling him up. “Hello Aleister, this is Walter Cullen of Albany County police department. I’d like to talk to you about a report you made on March 12th involving a missing persons case. A girl named Rosemary Winter?”
“I think I remember something of that… What about it?”
“Well, in the report you stated that a man had been detained by the Portland Police.”
“OK.”
“I spoke with them and they said they had no record of any such incident taking place. So, I’m curious, how you came about this information?”
“Am I being investigated or something?” he hissed.
“Well, yes, in a way you are.”
“Is this an official investigation?”
“No, not as yet. I’m merely making an inquiry.”
“I see… I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal my source. That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. If want to find out more, I suggest you take a more official route.”
“I intend to…”
The line went dead. Charming guy, he thought. The spiel about him not being able to reveal his source was immaterial. There could be no source, since the report did not match up with the reality. Obviously, this Aleister guy had fabricated it. But to what end? It didn’t matter. He was playing a dangerous game and he had already crossed the line.
Anastasia stepped over the shallow ditch and started to climb the steep bank on the other side. Once inside of the forest, she saw banks of mist stricken by shards of sunlight cascading through the trees and searched amid the detritus of the forest floor for the elusive red mushroom. On a number of occasions she came across different patches of white and yellow fungi. She knew well enough that most mushrooms were poisonous, or at the very least not very palatable, so she stayed away from these. But, wasn’t the toadstool mushroom poisonous, as well? She would be surprised if it wasn’t. Perhaps she would ask it later and see what it said.
Before long, she came to a line of cut trees where grass and patches of fireweed along side one another. On the opposite side of the clearing, in the shade of a pine tree was a patch of red and white mushrooms. She crossed over to them and began gathering them up into her bag. Further along, she saw another patch and another. How many did she need? Ms. Lytton had never said.
She crouched down and saw a pair of bright green eyes watching her from just inside the tree line. For a moment, she froze, startled by the machine-like face with the angular grin. Then she realised that it was just an optical illusion; the green eyes were just green leaves caught in the sunlight and projecting though gaps in the foliage. The effect only worked from the exact position she was standing in, if she took so much as a step in either direction they alignment was broken and the face went back to being a jumble of twigs and leaves. And yet, she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that she was being watched.
Harmon left his freshly painted canvas to dry and went out for a walk along by the park to Clare Street, where his friend and dope-dealer; Darrel Minyon lived. He knocked on the door and was emitted into a dank hallway. Minyon’s house smelled of rotting cat food, which emanated from empty cans strewn across the floor. It was an unpleasant environment to be in, but then again he didn’t plan on staying too long. Just long enough to get what he needed and get the hell out of there. His plan was to take an of ounce of organically grown weed. Then, when he had sold it all and made himself a tidy profit he would pay Minyon what he owed. He had done this a number of times before, and with good results. Minyon also respected and trusted him with the sale of his product, but on this occasion, he found he was unable to oblige. “Sorry, I’m dry…”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, my dealer stopped growing… But I’ve got something even better for you.”
“What?”
“DMT.”
“I’m not selling that shit…”
“Neither am I. I have a load of it in the fridge, if you want. I’m done with it…”
“Sure… Fuck it…”
Minyon went to his refrigerator and took out a small ball of tinfoil and dropped it on the table. Inside Harmon saw a nest of orange spore-like tendrils. “Is that it?”
“Yeah?”
“I had no idea that’s what it looks like…”
“Yeah. It’s weird isn’t it? Mind you, I don’t know if it’s supposed to look like that… that’s just the way the guy made it… He may have gotten a few things wrong…”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s alright.”
“Have you smoked much of it?”
“I tried a few hits with a pipe…”
“And?”
“I had interesting visuals… Some weird feelings.”
“Hey, have you ever had a breakthrough experience, encountered the machine elves?”
Minyon looked at him uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Not really,” he said.
“Well, surely you would know one way or another. I heard the place looks like it is full of coloured filaments or something like that…”
“Yeah, well everything kind of looks like that when you’re on it. Especially, when you close your eyes.”
He considered the possibilities such an experience might yield for his own painting practice and made up his mind.
“You’re going to take it,” Minyon said smiling.
“Sure… I’m fucking crazy too you know?”
“Oh…” he laughed again. “I’m sure you are…”
Walter called the station to request a meeting with Chief of Police Stolz. He expected it to take place sometime the following day and was surprised when he was penciled in for later that afternoon. Apparently Stolz wanted to talk with him about something of the utmost importance. He suspected that it might have something to do with the case, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
The South Station on Arch Street was not the most modern police station in Albany. But what it lacked in convenience, it more than made up for in style. The building itself was well over a hundred years old; constructed from a mix of porphyry sandstone and granite carved with various motifs and emblems. Upon entering the foyer, the officer at the reception desk gave him a nod and then buzzed him through into the control centre. He went past dispatches and up the stairs to Stolz’s office and knocked on the door.
“Ah Walter, come in. Just the man I’ve been looking for…”
“What’s this all about?”
“I should ask you the same thing…” he barked. “I’ve gotten two phone calls about you in the last two hours. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About what you’ve been doing the last few days.”
He shrugged.
“Enjoying your time off?”
“Sure…”
“Don’t play dumb with me… You’ve been up to the Winter’s, haven’t you? Stickin’ your nose in where it doesn’t belong…”
“A girl goes missing, another one’s dead and you’re telling me it’s not my business?”
“Look we’ve had this conversation ten times before. People go missing all the time.”
“I know, but I figured that if I investigate on my own time, then I wouldn’t be using up police resources and that it wouldn’t be a problem…”
“And ordinarily it wouldn’t be. But it seems that you have pissed off the wrong people here. This Aleister Sharpton… Remember him?”
“What about him?”
“Well, he seems fairly well-connected. He got on to the mayor, who got onto me, who said that if I don’t nip this thing in the bud he’ll come down on my neck.”
“Oh come on. You’re not really going to cave into pressure like that, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“This Aleister guy is suspected of fabricating testimonies and of deliberately interfering with an on-going homicide investigation…”
“Homicide? Who said anything about homicide?”
“Rosemary —”
“Rosemary died of natural causes… the coroner said so himself in his report.”
“Alright, but there is still the point that he fabricated evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“The report of the arrest…”
“Look if you had wanted to know about the arrest, you could have just come to me.”
“What?… What do you mean?”
“We picked up a kid in connection with the case back in March.”
“In Portland?”
“No… Here…”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No… What do you know, reporters get things wrong sometimes…”
“Well, who was it?”
“Some two-bit drug dealing kid…”
“Name?”
“Darrel Minyon,” he threw him a list of names.
“And?”
“Nothing… It was a wild-goose chase.”
“And didn’t you inform the next of kin?”
“Look we probably should have… But, come on, you’re not going to bust my balls over this are you?”
He sat, arms folded.
“Are you?” repeated Stolz more forcefully.
“No, of course not…”
“Good. Now, I can defuse this situation with the mayor. But you… Look at me… You need to lay off investigating this case and all other cases. Understood?”
He looked at the grotesque tub of a man spouting orders, but he said nothing.
“Why don’t you go on a holiday or something? The wife and I went on a trip to Corsica last summer. You’d love it. And you could take little, eh… whatshername?”
“Anastasia… Nah, she’s off at summer camp…”
“Ah, so that’s what this is all about… Why don’t you come out and play a round of golf with me and your friend there in dispatches, what’s his name?”
“Kevin Dobson…”
“That’s right Kevin… Let’s see,” he said checking his diary. “I’ll be working all day tomorrow. How about the day after that?”
“I haven’t played golf in years,” he groaned.
“You still have your clubs don’t you?” Stolz glanced up.
“Sure…”
“Good. Then it’s settled. A round of golf and some fresh air, it’ll do you and your friend a power of good… Believe me…”
He didn’t believe him, but he also knew that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Anastasia found Wendy and Ms. Lytton at the end of a forest path. They were easy to spot by the continuous stream of smoke rising up from their camp fire. To their right was an area of felled forest about a quarter of a mile wide, filled with twisted grey trunks and branches scattered about the broken ground. It looked like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie and she wondered why a more aesthetically pleasing location could not have been chosen for the ceremony.
Ms. Lytton placed a cast iron pot on the fire and poured in a large measure of milk. She selected two of the red and white mushrooms and told Wendy to rinse them with water from her canteen. After that she carved them up with her penknife and placed the chunks into the boiling milk along with the colourful heads of the bindweed flowers.
Wendy took out her Book of Shadows and pointed to a piece entitled “A Witch’s Prayer.”
“Read aloud,” said Ms. Lytton.
“Lord Jahbulon, we ask your acceptance by the power of the nested densities. The first density is the egg, the second is the nest, the third is the tree, the fourth, fifth and sixth densities are the earth, the sky and the world. And so it goes… The egg in the nest and the nest in the tree, the tree in the earth and the earth in the sky, the sky in the world and the world in the egg, the egg in the nest…”
By now the sky had darkened and the wind was picking up.
“Keep reading,” said Ms. Lytton stirring the pot of simmering milk with her wooden spoon.
“… and the nest in the tree, the tree in the earth and the earth in the sky, the sky in the world and the world in the egg…” There was a great blue flash and a loud clap of thunder and Ms. Lytton’s stirring got faster. They picked up pace too. The sky was nearly black now and full of rain.
Ms. Lytton stopped stirring and called for silence. She poured the contents into two bowls. The mushrooms had turned the milk an orange colour and it floated on the top like brown lumps, giving the whole infusion a sickly, sweet smell. She looked at Wendy, but she couldn’t tell if she was experiencing the same feelings of revulsion or not. Ms. Lytton handed them each a bowl and began gathering up the pots. “This next part is for you and therefore, you must do it on your own…” She gave the pot a cursory rinse with water from her canteen. “It might not be obvious to you, but you have dipped you toes into the river of the Fifth Density and you will not be able to move until you have finished all of your tea… I’ll be wait for you at the end of the path…”
“Wait you’re leaving us?”
“I’ll be just down there…” she said pointing to the brow of the hill. “Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe here.” The girls watched her leave.
“Thank, God…” She tipped the frothing yellow mixture into the grass.
“You shouldn’t have done that…”
“Why not? The old bat will never know.”
“She will… Besides we’ll both be stuck here unless we drink the mixture.”
She looked at her friend askance, unsure of what she meant.
“Didn’t you hear what Ms. Lytton said? We can’t move until we drink the Soma.”
“You didn’t actually believe that rubbish did you,” she said. “I can move whenever I want…”
She tried to stand, but nothing happened. Then, she tried again, same result. It wasn’t that she was physically paralysed to any degree, it was simply that her limbs refused to obey her commands. “What’s happening to me?”
“Didn’t you hear her? We’re in the Fifth Density here… At least partially… You can’t move, because you are still trying to move your old body in the Third… You’re wires are all crossed.”
“Wait… There’s a Third Density, now?”
“Of course,” she said picking up her bowl and tipping half of the foul-smelling contents into it. “Here you go… Now, this time… Don’t spill it…”
She had learnt her lesson. “I won’t…”
She tipped the mixture into her mouth. The taste was an inharmonious collision of fresh milk and the musty warm fungal flavours of death and decay. Wendy stopped for a moment, her cheeks full, milk pouring down her chin… She swallowed and gave a dissatisfied grimace… “Yuck…”
“You still have more to go…”
“I know, just give me a second will you…” Wendy drained the end of the detestable mixture and stood up.
The binding spell was broken.
Walter left the precinct and drove down Central Avenue, a long stretch of road that cut right through the heart of Albany. Maybe Stolz was right, he thought, maybe he did need a break of some kind; and not just from work. The thought of going back home, to sit alone and in silence depressed him. He needed some sort of stimulus, something to take his mind off the day. He drove down to Loughton’s Bookshop and parked his car.
Stacks and stacks of old books greeted him on his way in, but the store clerk paid him no attention and did not look up from her magazine. He went around the various tables, searching for something, Eventually, his eyes rested upon a selection of second hand travel books nestled in a corner behind the cashier’s desk. He chose one, seemingly at random from the large stack of well-thumbed books and saw that it was a volume on Corsica. A funny coincidence, he thought; recalling that Stolz had just mentioned the place. “How much for this?”
“A dollar,” replied the woman.
He dropped the money on the counter and went back out into the street. Further down the road he noticed some men standing on a street corner. The alley way behind them was covered with the usual tags and graffiti, but one of them seemed out of place. The men, thinking that he was looking at them moved off. He looked more closely at the graffiti;
Don’t Sleep, They’ll Get You.
It could be related to the case, he thought. Possibly even written by someone who had a face to face encounter with Brian’s Shadow Man. Then again, it could just as easily be some bored kid messing around. He opened the car and dropped his purchase on the front seat. Then he took out an evidence bag from the glove compartment. The message had been scrawled in white paint. It was more than likely that it was some kind of easily available emulsion, the type found in any hardware store. Then again, he might get lucky, he thought. He scraped a few flakes of paint into the bag with his pocket knife. It was true that Stolz had told him to lay off the case, but he didn’t recall making a clear statement to that effect.
If this message was genuine then it might lead him to a witness, someone who might be experiencing on going visitations from the same entity that had abducted and killed Brian and Rosemary. If he could interview them, he might be able to discover more about how and why this was happening to people and how to stop it in the future.
It was a long shot, but he had to try.
On the way back down the mountain, Ms. Lytton stayed closer to the two girls than before. This was a good thing, because it seemed to Anastasia that the landscape had been broken up, as if smashed into pieces, and reassembled in a different order. She couldn’t see through the trees, but she got the sense that the lake now lay several hundred miles further to the East, and the camp was long gone. It could be anywhere. The entire Earth had been probably been effected. Bits of Paris were in sub-Saharan Africa, and Amazonian waterfalls poured through what remained of New York City. All of this would obviously play havoc with air-traffic controllers.
Planes would be rerouted to their original airport destinations, but owing to the lack of necessary fuel supplies most would crash en route. How would she get home, she fretted? How would her father know where to collect her from, when all the road maps didn’t add up? Was home even home anymore? She kept her misgivings to herself and she was glad that she had done so, because before long, she saw the calm, radiant waters of the lake through the trees, just where they should be.
But what could account for her complete loss in her sense of direction? Some genuine change had occurred with the fundamentals of reality. She recalled this stretch of mountain trail on they way up, but now it appeared to her as though it were much longer. The space itself was stretching. Dimensions that had been hitherto hidden from view were now seamlessly patched in one with another. Their own Universe; The Third Density had been spliced with a second alternative and uniquely compatible universe called the Fifth. Here then was an explanation for why the world had appeared in such disarray only moments before.
The circumference of the Earth had expanded like the bellows of an accordion, to incorporate the new locations, thus pushing more familiar sites further away from one another. A walk from one’s house to the shop would reveal new streets that had not been there before, and every second shop would be some completely new, but entirely believable business like a dry cleaners or a hairdressers. And the world would just carry on as normal, as who can really say that they truly pay attention to details such as these, and even if they did are they going to argue with a business owner that swears blind they have been in operation on such and such a street corner for the last decade, and has the papers to prove it?
And so it would be passed off, another Bearenstain Bears, another dubious shift in the fabric of reality that no one could possibly prove or deny. The only true concern was that reality would fold back up. The Fifth and Third Densities would no longer be mixed together and depending on which part of reality you happened to pass through at the time, you would be now stuck there — a timespace refugee — without a home or a social security number, just one of the missing faces you see plastered on telephone poles.
The familiar squeak of the spring loaded gate, which signalled their return to the encampment, brought her thoughts back down to earth and she felt a bit silly for having fretted in her earlier flights of fancy. She suspected that Ms. Lytton might be surprised at her pallor, which no doubt had turned deathly pale in the descent, but she appeared to take no notice of it at all, or if she did, she made no mention of it.
“OK girls,” said Ms. Lytton; holding open the gate for them. “Take the rest of the afternoon off.” As she looked, she noticed a marked, although subtle change in Ms. Lytton’s face; her eyes grew bigger and her mouth and nose became closer together. Was she turning into something? Something cat-like? “Don’t do anything too taxing for the rest of the day,” she continued. “If you need me I’ll be in the Director’s house…”
The impression faded and she forgot what she had just been thinking about. Next, Ms. Lytton departed on her way, leaving the two girls to their own devices.
“So, what do you want to do now?”
“Nothing. I don’t feel too well… I think I’m going to lie down.”
It was true. Wendy was looking paler than usual; even the freckles on her face had faded. “Are you alright? Do you want me to take you to the nurse?”
“No. I just need to rest that’s all…”
“Ok. Well, why don’t you go lie down and I’ll come by in a bit and check on you?”
Wendy walked back in the direction of the girls’ dorm-rooms. Perhaps she was having a reaction to those plants, she thought. It certainly would explain her own strange thoughts on the way down the hill. She wasn’t sure, but perhaps she would find something written in the library about it. In the museum building she found the glass-enclosed library. A woman with fiery hair and wide-rimmed glasses looked up from her desk. “Hello. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a book.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place…”
“Apocalypsis?”
“What level are you on?”
“I’m not on any level…”
“Who’s your dreaming instructor…”
“David…” she realised she didn’t know his second name.
“David… Well, didn’t he tell you that you were not supposed to read Apocalypsis?”
“I don’t know… He might have…” She started feeling queasy. She couldn’t think straight. How was she supposed to learn about the stages of dreaming, if they didn’t let her read the book, she wondered? “Never mind. Can I just use the restroom instead?”
She reached down to a set of keys hanging by a rope on her desk. “It’s the blue door on the right over there.” She said pointing to a row of book shelves.
She went in that direction and found two doors one next to the other. The blue door said, “TOILETS” and the red door said “ACCESS FORBIDDEN: STAFF ONLY”
Inside, she found a small dank room with a black and white tiled floor. The pattern of the floor appeared to consist of more complicated geometries the usual chessboard pattern. On top of this, they appeared to glow and throb with an earthly green light, which flashed whenever she tried to refocus her eyes on them. For some reason, she felt safe in here, cocooned in her slightly damp isolation cell. She splashed some water on her face, and feeling more relaxed; she went back out to the librarian to return the key.
“Have a look around…” she smiled. “There’s plenty on offer. Just remember, you can’t read Apocalysis until you are on Stage Six…”
“Well, is there any book on dreaming I can read now?”
“You could try The Art of Dreaming, by Carlos Castaneda… It’s the same thing, but its just missing some of the Gates… It should be in the Anthropology section, I’ll check for you…”
“No that’s alright… I’ll take a look myself…”
She took a stroll around the book shelves taking note of the separate categories; Science, History, Fiction and Travel. As she was scanning the fiction section she came across “The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy”and next to it, a copy of ‘Vril; The Power of the Coming Race’. In the anthropology section, she discovered a number of Carlos Castaneda’s books.‘The Art of Dreaming’ was not there however, but she found others including; ‘Tales of Power’ and ‘Journey to Ixtlan’. She took a seat at one of the large white tables and began reading…
‘Tales of Power’ she soon discovered, presented itself as a factual account of events the author himself experienced while in training as an apprentice to a Yaqui sorcerer as Don Juan Mathus. The story began with both sorcerer and apprentice venturing out into the desert chaparral in search of what Don Juan termed “a place of power”. From the various clues Don Juan dropped, she was able to surmise that a place of power was an area where two or more leylines converged. This particular place of power appeared as a circular area of compacted earth, roughly twenty feet in diameter and free from all desert vegetation.
The story was interesting and compellingly told, but some of the terminology like “the impeccability of the warrior,” “personal power” and the “sorcerer’s explanation” she found difficult to understand. She noticed how simple everyday actions in the book, such as the act of choosing a place to sit down or what to look at in any given situation became a complicated matter beset by hidden pitfalls. She was reminded of what Ms. Lytton had said in the forest earlier that morning, about how fear was an essentially part of sorcery. Perhaps that was the modus operandi behind all of Don Juan’s anxiety inducing words, to sharpen the wit and focus the mind…
Don Juan started to warn Castaneda about how the act of “setting up dreaming” consisted of a “deadly game” in which a person’s mind attacked the consciousness, bringing on bouts of depression and apathy. Now we are getting to the good stuff, she thought. Sometimes the threat to Castaneda’s sanity came from Don Juan, at other times it came from the landscape itself, but here it had been revealed that the true threat lurked within the mind of the apprentice. An example of this comes from when Don Juan goes over to the edge of the circle and peering into the bushes there, pronounces that they are full of “strange things”; a comment which then goes on to produce an involuntary reaction of fright in Castaneda’s nervous system.
With Castaneda becoming increasingly agitated, Don Juan suggests that they discontinue his inquiry into dreaming. Instead they focus on a slightly different, though evidently related matter of “shutting off one’s internal dialogue”. This, according to Don Juan, was beneficial to dreaming because it enabled the dreamer to clear the stage of all props and actors; thereby allowing him to repopulate it with whatever characters and scenarios he saw fit, just by thinking about it. In other words, this activity gave the dreamer complete control over the dreamspace.
Don Juan’s method for shutting off one’s internal dialogue consisted of “walking for long stretches without focusing the eyes on anything”. He also recommended not looking directly at anything, but maintaining an awareness of your peripheral vision by keeping the eyes slightly crossed. She was at a loss to understand what any of this had to do with “shutting off internal dialogues” and was beginning to suspect either Don Juan or Castaneda or both of being complete charlatans.
Harmon had a special kind of gift. He always knew when it was time to move and when it was time to wait and remain still. It was a knowledge predicated on time and the specific order of events. To Harmon there was two types of time; the ordinary time that everyone lived in and kairos which stood for ‘the opportune time’. He lived his life in the second kind of time and this afforded him a kind of psychic knowledge of events. He regularly made use of his gift to avoid encountering his land lady, to whom he owed a number of months rent to. Once he was inside his room, there was a knock on the door.
“It’s Lars,” came the muffled voice through the door.
Lars lived in the apartment upstairs.
He opened the door and there stood the towering figure of Lars with his perpetually unshaven face and long greasy hair. “Going out tonight, Harmon?”
“Not sure.”
“Party on at the Cascades.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah there’s going to be some in-house DJs, mates of mine there, you should come along.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Oh and by the way, the land lady was looking for you earlier. Says you’re behind on rent.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t worry, I covered for you and said you were out.”
“Thanks…”
As soon as Lars was gone he got his stash box out from under the bed. Asides from the DMT, the only other narcotic he had left was a vial of Salvia Divinorum. Salvia was at least as powerful as DMT. He had smoked it on a number of occasions with limited results. He closed up the stash box and following Darrel Minyon’s lead he put the spice in the top drawer of the fridge. Then he checked to see how much money he had left. Two hundred… He could probably spare some money for a night out if he really wanted to; it’s not like it was enough to pay his rent anyway.
Then he remembered something. What night was it tonight; Tuesday, that meant Jane would be working the bar. She’d give me a drink or two for free, he thought and the rest could take care of itself.
Anastasia left the library and went back to check on Wendy. Inside the empty dorm room, the beds were all made and nothing stirred. Odd, she thought; perhaps she went down to the lake instead. She went in search of her. Further down the beach, she spotted someone moving. Oh thank God, she thought; it’s Wendy. She called to her, “Wendy,” she said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Is everything OK?”
Wendy nodded. “I just had a strange dream.” She turned away hugging herself against the strong breeze making its way towards them across the lake. “No, it was more than just that… It was more like a memory… I don’t know why I’m telling you this… I’ve only known you for a day or two, but it feels like much longer.”
She felt the same way, from the moment they had met, she had felt this way. “I know what you mean.”
“That being said, it is not unusual for children like us… Children of the Fifth Density, I mean…”
“You really believe all that stuff?”
“Of course… Don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“Well, you wouldn’t… You’re just a newblood… No offence…” She kicked the sand.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It just means that you don’t know what it’s like around here, yet…” She had a far off look in her eye. “In my dream… I remembered being at this camp as a child. I remember the Festival of Fires, and the camp instructors dressing up like animals. They would take the children into the toolshed and…”
She broke off.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“You don’t think?”
“No… It was probably just a dream that’s all.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right…” she said.
She saw a group of people walking along by the chalets on their way to the beach and talking loudly. “Who are they?”
“They’re the scout instructors.”
“Is David there?” she said taking more of an interest in the group.
“Yeah… You see the girl he’s with?” She meant the tall look blonde with the curly hair. “That’s Evette…”
“She’s really beautiful…” Her heart sank. “Are they?”
“No, they’re just friends.”
And then rebounded with schadenfreude.
“Yeah… You see the big guy walking behind her?”
“The guy who looks like he plays quarter back?”
“That’s Ben. He’s our art teacher…”
The look of shock registered across her face. “I’ll certainly enjoy that class,” she said.
“You slut…”
“Hey…”
Wendy laughed. “Hey, you want to go do something fun?”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see…”
She followed her back towards the Meeting Hall. As they were making their way along the dusty yellow road, she noticed Bruno wandering by one of the chalets. He looked downcast and out of sorts. “Hey, isn’t that your brother?”
Wendy’s face soured. “Bruno… What are you doing here? Where is your group?”
“I don’t know… I got lost…” he mumbled.
Wendy sighed. “Well, where were they when last you saw them?”
He pointed out along the lakeshore in the direction they had just come from.
“OK, come on,” she said holding out her hand. “I’ll take you back.”
“But I don’t want to go back,” his expression souring. “… I want to go back to the Fifth Density. I want to go home and see mum and dad. My real parents…”
“Well, you can’t alright?”
Bruno started on a crying fit.
“Listen, I have to sort this out. It won’t take long, but I need to talk to him in private. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all…”
“Thanks. I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes or so. OK?”
“Sure thing.”
She walked up the old dirt road that past by the Meeting Hall. That was really weird. There was something rotten at Camp Calapuyau. She always suspected that all this talk of Fifth Density was bad for you and now she had proof. Whatever was effect the children around here and Bruno in particular was more than just home-sickness. It was a form of New Age mind control. What if Wendy was right after all. What if the faculty members were conducting rituals and molesting children in the old toolshed? No wonder they didn’t want anyone to go near it. Well, she wasn’t going to be put off that easily. Getting caught was not an option, but she had to know for sure, one way or the other.