The Legacy: Part VII
...the blood of the covenant...is thicker than the water of the womb...
Previously in Part VI
Slugs come out when it rains. Slugs and worms. Steven creeps into the garage then slips outside, foregoing a coat in his desire for secrecy, but holding a cheerful yellow plastic bucket and spade. He is soon standing before the gravestone, wet through and raindrops dripping from the end of his button nose.
“Speighthart,” he whispers, then kneels in the dirt and begins to dig…
Part VII
Steven’s cursed footfalls draw up the pernicious maleficence once more. It stirs multitudes of villiform vileness in its wake as it ascends. They slither from the soil coaxed by the intangible misty wraith which swirls around the boy. He does not feel the coldness of it, only delight at the earth’s black and slippery creeping bounty. Sweet, creeping revenge! How it crawls, willingly into his bucket as if drawn to the dark of his intentions. One bucket is not enough for them all, there are so many! But it will have to do… it will suffice for Harry’s lesson.
A cursed one indeed, but also mine own descendant, blood of my blood within his veins. What of his eyes? Oh yes, he has the look! What of the castle of his mind? Dark are its corridors and high are its walls; and yes! A dungeon beneath! A foul dungeon! I shall have the key of it’s door and know what is kept within. What of his thoughts? Ahhh! Taste the bitterness of his spiteful anticipations, his cup is filled with injustice as was mine own. So young, this distant nephew, but yet already so well formed in our own image.
Steven tips a final spade-full of slugs, worms and beetles into the bucket. As if they know their destiny, the black pulsating mass remain within it, making no effort to escape. He feels a curious elation, a delicious awakening and a clarity of purpose. He traces the name on the tombstone and speaks the secret word in whispers over and over. A giggle runs through his mind, and then out from his lips. He lies down on his back on top of the grave, head touching the stone, eyes to the grey heavens and arms in crucifix. A giggle becomes a chuckle, then a laugh, a gleeful laugh and one which sounds as if a deeper, darker… older laughter has joined to share in his mirth.
He returns to the house before he is missed and moves through it with purpose; the ungainliness of his eight year old body has gone. Fewer than seven days have passed, and the stumbling child who thrashed wildly at a brass bell and tumbled from a wall has undergone evolution. Quietly he flits from room to room, placing the things he will need in the places they will be needed, without detection. He carries himself in a way that rouses no suspicions, draws no scrutiny nor question. He brings smiles from his parents, cleans his plate at dinner time and plays nicely with his brother. It is an effortless way to be and he marvels at it, revels in his self-certainty revealed like a curtain has fallen from a new-sculpted masterpiece.
When the time comes for the revenge to be had, he stands for many minutes, head cocked first one way then another, taking in the scene, faint moonlight falling on his sleeping victim’s face as he considers how best to secure the result he wishes to achieve. In the bucket, black horrors pulse in a sea of their own slime; they sense their hour is coming. Then, the bucket tips. A foul meniscus holds fat slugs at the lip for a long, perfect moment, and then…they pour forth in slopping gobbets.
Gently, gently now…there must be no escaping the full measure of it…
His artistry ensures that only the very last and indeed most splendidly turgid gastropod is the one that wakes his brother. Steven lays it, reverently into Harry’s ear, but unlike him, Steven does not run away. He steps back, a single, measured step, bucket held up, a thread of slime swaying from it. He wants there to be no doubt that it is he that has created the nightmare that Harry wakes up within. There are screams, there is thrashing, a descent into mad animalistic wails of incapacitation and terror. Then a bedroom light flicks on and first Mother, then Father, burst into the room.
It is not the fact of what Steven has done to his brother that gives Mother most pause to think troubled thoughts. It is the darkness in Steven’s eyes. She is chilled by an inscrutable smile on his face and the innocence in his voice which feels like mockery.
I just wanted him to know how horrible it was, Mummy, what he did to me. But…it was only slugs. Harry said so.
But Steven, Harry was playing a joke. What you did was different, do you see? It was cruel.
But Mummy, Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
That’s right darling.
So I was just doing what Harry wanted me to do, wasn’t I?
As matters transpired thereafter, the family would stay at the old Vicarage for less than a year. They would not see the new year in, in fact, but didn’t know it then. It would be their annus horribilis, and at the heart of it was young Steven; or rather, it was what now lay in his heart that was the root of things.
At first his parents reasoned that the catalyst for Steven’s metamorphosis was the incident with the slug. They felt certain that he would get over the nasty shock and return to his former meek and bumbling ways, a foil to his more brash and cheery older brother. That was not the case. He had become, almost overnight, a very different personality; so far removed from what he had been that he seemed not to be their Steven at all.
His school reports dramatically improved, but at the same time, teachers called Mother and Father to meetings to discuss “Disturbing conversations.” and “The upsetting of other children.” Frightening drawings would be brought home with teacher’s notes. They displayed artistic skill and dark expressionism that belied his tender years.
It’s lovely darling, but isn’t it just a little bit too scary? For the kitchen?
Steven would glower at her, eyes glistening with threatened rage until she relented. She felt trapped between uneasiness and Mother’s love.
Harry would wake to find Steven looming over him in the darkness, the inscrutable smile upon his face and sometimes objects in his hand; objects that were at once innocent but also capable of being put to some other, less than innocent use: nail clippers; paperweights; superglue. Harry became withdrawn; his boisterous nature dulled. He skirted around his brother deferentially, fearfully. Parental admonishments to stop were in vain; Steven would nod and blink up with doe-black eyes “He was having a nightmare Mummy. He called out my name and I was just making sure he was alright.” This was not always untrue, for nightmares did torment Harry, and Steven was within them.
There were times when Steven would disappear and could not be found, but then would nonchalantly hop down from the church wall, all smiles and politeness and report that he had just been reading the gravestones or climbing in the trees. Harry never went with him, never ventured over the wall; his stomach would knot when he approached it.
One day, Mother happened upon Steven writing in his diary – a new habit that he had taken up. Over his shoulder she caught the title “Nox Limax” written at the top of the first page.
“ ‘Nox Limax?’ What does that mean, sweetheart?”
On hearing her voice, Steven slammed shut the book and turned to glare at her “It’s rude to read someone’s diary, Mummy.” His black look pushed her back and out of his bedroom.
Later, Mummy looked up what the words meant and found that in Latin, Steven had written “Night of the Slug.” Mummy and Daddy spoke together about this, and decided that parental responsibility was more important than Steven’s right to privacy. When he was at school, his diary was retrieved – suspiciously well hidden though it was – and found to be written entirely in Latin. How he raged at them when confronted with their knowledge of this. How he screamed with a voice that shocked them into quaking silence. He tore his precious book from his Mother’s hands, scattered his parents aside and ran to his room, slamming shut the door behind like a furious wind. Descending to the deepest sulk, bitterness flooded his mind and the voice of the churchyard stoked the embers of his chagrin to white hot fury.
Oh untrustworthy Mother and poorest of Fathers! What example do they, thine own parents set before you, a child in their care and to whom good values and behaviours should be shown? What betrayal! And all because you dare to keep a diary for the wanderings of your mind? And what if it be writ in Latin? They should marvel at you self-teaching! It is beautiful, this dead language, tongue of ancients and the priesthood past. Praise and encouragement should be heaped upon a young scholar, not this crushing of spirit. Shame on them! Unworthy!
“it’s not fair,” Steven spat the words into his pillow.
Bring them to me. I have a lesson for all who deserve to know the meaning of justice. My scales tip towards the righteous.
To be continued…here
To read this from the beginning, which is highly recommended click here
I used to muck about with slugs when I was a kid. But not like that.
I can’t wait for the next part!
Oh no.... they need an exorcism.