A Letter for Nathan

It has been years now since I thought of the night I buried my nephew in an unmarked grave just under the oak tree. I fear years is both too long and too short to have revisited this nightmarish period of my life but now as I write this letter I recognize it is not my hands guiding me but his, the boy buried beneath the oak. Why he has waited all these years for me to tell his story is beyond me. Perhaps someone, something, from beyond in the place he now walks has encouraged him to visit me phantom-like in the midst of typing, at least I hope encouraged for I fear what other motives there may be. It is not revenge so much that I fear – revenge would be a blessing – but the ever lengthening of my life that I once found joy in now crumbles under the thought. But as I said, my hands are not guided by my thoughts but by his, or perhaps they are guided by guilt indeed. Then it is high time I properly lost my mind.

Years before my sister left our childhood home she gave me something, a small trinket, of Father’s that was never meant to belong to me. I kept it in my pocket. That day and the night she arrived shivering on my doorstep was fifteen years nearly. I remember them as well as I ought, he, her husband Jamie, wore a jacket I found fashionable and well out of my price range, and my sister had grown from a thin Dickensesque runaway to a full-figured mother bearing a child in her arms. Happier smiles were theirs. I let them in, the fragrance of rain heavy, and served black coffee as a segway into the many questions I had: Where have you been? Where has the time gone? How did you two meet? How old is Nathan, my nephew whom I’ve never had the pleasure?

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet I truly wasn’t. I feigned as well as I could as the roller coaster of a life story spilled without anything held back. Years living on the street after her darling fiancé kicked her out – why had she never returned? Father, of course. What then? A stint in the circus, a bar maid (she had such a warm smile then), a bank teller for the briefest of moments before discovered swiping the product. Sister. My sister, always the charmer and the unbeliever in rules or regulations. Father as well. And now she’s okay, she’s made it with Jamie and Nathan as the men in her life that matter more than anything. How else can I be but happy?

Nathan, quite the charmer himself, warmed to me exceptionally well. I had no children of my own and never dreamed of nieces and nephews as I never dreamed I’d see my sister again, but the boyishly blown bubbles had a certain hilarity to it that I warmed to him as well. That should have been the first sign something was off, children and I never mixed. My late fiancé’s now grown son can attest to that. Of course, tuberculosis takes whom it takes and nothing could be done but to weep silently at the destruction of beauty. I thought that was the last interaction with children I would have and now I wish it were, or that tuberculosis had taken me as well, or instead. How could I have known what future awaited me watching my nephew blow bubbles of snot that popped at the slightest touch. How could I have known he could be equally cold?

So, it was then that we spent that summer together: my sister, Jamie, and little Nathan. The mornings were filled with quaint walks in the park near my home and the afternoon was filled with games of chess (I could never beat Jamie; he was always a sharp one) and coffee. While we played and sipped on our hot drinks, my sister would stare at Nathan cradled in her arms. I suppose that is a natural way for a mother to be with her child, or more correctly, I thought that was how a mother and their child were for our own upbringing was much the same:

cold stares from a housekeeper and small chats with Mother and Father before bed. It was a happy childhood, or at least a normal one. If I had known better then, I would have sent them off straight away but that is now in the past, that opportunity long gone. Instead, I observed the hostile looks between the two between having my rook taken by a bishop: endlessly losing. Their long looks, between Nathan and my sister, always went far too long as if neither wanted to blink or both were too afraid to blink.

“Michael, ol’ chap, your queen is up for grabs yet again,” Jamie snapped my attention away, maybe he saw my mind dozing and making connections or he was genuinely interested in the state of my chess game, either way that was the last chance for what eventually happened to be stopped. It is now part of history. My queen was taken with ease, like everything else my sister did: living, loving, lying; it was done with the ease of a professional. She did, after all, leave home after being discovered sneaking out of her room to meet with the local boys. I only learned of that through thin walls and loud voices, but what she did with those boys I do not wish to know, but assumptions can be so much worse. If only Mothers reputation was not so in line with her daughter’s behavior, she would have never left us, her family, for some adventure out in the city where she successfully lived, loved, and lied herself into the arms of Jamie, a successful man for his age, and generous: for she was already pregnant with Nathan.

“Do you ever wonder who the father is?” I asked Jamie over cigars that last evening. I wish I hadn’t.

“No, I don’t. I don’t ever wonder who the father is, and I hope to never meet him, whomever he was he was a rotten chap, a dirty sort that makes you unclean just to be in the same room!”

His shouting startled me and woke the neighbors. He had a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead that I cannot fully attribute to the humid summer night. His face twisted and gnarled itself around his words as if speaking them were changing him into someone else entirely, I briefly worried for my safety. Who was the father – who was Jamie after all?

He laughed, “I’m sorry for that little outburst you know, it’s just I love your sister so much and just the thought of her having a man forced upon her like that…”

And then I knew what she had done: told a tender tale that drove not her into Jamie’s arms but him into hers. Despite pregnant and single in an age considered scandalous, she had made herself indispensable and valuable. My sister: smart, devious; I will never rat her out. A man this foolish is the only man she deserves, I thought then and still believe today. Our voices barely rose above a whisper after that. We spoke of baseball and the stock market, things gentlemen whip back and forth in a frenzy of names and numbers that mean so little in contrast to now. A fool yet pleasant man. Jamie was decent.

I saw my sister just before bed that last night. I told her to have a good evening as I stepped up the stairs to my bedroom and noticed that she did not say it back. Peering around the staircase to check on her as I did when we were younger, I saw her nightgown hung open. She took no notice of her indecency, she only stared into the room of my nephew’s crib with cold, tired eyes. I readied to demand she cover herself but stopped as two things became apparent: her stomach was shrunken, no longer the fullness of motherhood, and her stomach was laced with the oddest of scars: like claw marks stretching of a thing trying to get in, or out. It was not unlike having been stretched outward from the inside. Fearful of being caught as if I were guilty of some horrible crime I ducked away. Had I not, well...who knows how much better things might be.

The next morning they were gone. Jamie, my sister, their luggage - all gone - all except Nathan who stood in his crib peering over the edge with confusion in his eyes. I frantically looked around the house and swept their room for some clue as to where they disappeared to but there was nothing left behind but a baby boy in a light blue onesie. I cannot imagine the sort of parents that would do such a horrid thing, so I decided to be naïve and give them the benefit of the doubt; the ultimate form of grace one man can give another. I waited for some time, Nathan never cried once for his mother or father. I called down to the neighbors to see if Jamie and my sister went over some time in the night. It was Mary who picked up the phone.

“No, but Roger did hear some commotion early this morning. Oh, you know how Roger can’t sleep these days, not after the war and all. Well, he says it must have been an hour before sunrise when he heard a sharp cry and some wailing. He dismissed it for dogs and other beasts. Oh, you know how scientist are finding so many new creatures these days, what with Darwin and

all.”

“My sister, did Roger see my sister leave? Was Jamie with her? Did a car arrive to pick them up?”

“Roger would have mentioned a car. He hates those things. Reminds him of the war.”

I thanked her and pardoned my refusal for biscuits and all the while the doorway to

Nathan’s room seemed to grow larger by the second. Finally escaping that long listen, I crept over to the doorway and peeked my head in to see Nathan seated, holding the crib bars like a prisoner. He must be hungry, how long has it been since he ate?

“I will take those biscuits,” I said, and Mary let us in. Her mortification was apparent during my story that went a bit like this, “She visited for the summer then left her son. I don’t know why.” Nathan, even now, was so cute and innocent. A bottle of warm milk was quickly delivered by Mary, and she sat holding him as if she never wanted to let go.

“My sons went to New York for business. Never did like the country. I hope they’re eating well.”

She gave me a pail of milk and let me keep the bottle for future feedings. I thanked her and went home; I had no idea how to raise a baby.

The police called rightly as I walked in. This is where things take a turn for the worst.

“A series of murders in my area you say. Worse than murders? Why, Commissioner

Charles, why on earth are you telling all this to me? Of course, I’ve never heard of black magic!

I wouldn’t even know what to look for. No, good day to you!”

None of what I say will make sense without understanding a sense of my house. I suppose my family is best understood backwards. My father was a good man; much like myself, he was forced into magic via birth. Forced is too strong a term; my father loved magic. The practical elements of lighting a candle from afar, chilling a warm beer, and knowing the weather were quite alluring. He explained his childhood to me in bits and pieces, and as best I can gather, he was a bit of a rebel for my grandfather was much like my sister: more interested in the theoretical spectrum.

The differences are practically invisible when explained but are an uncrossable chasm in action. Practical magic exploits the elements of the natural world through an understanding of the makeup of those elements. Any bit of energy, or thumos, can be expanded or contracted. Some magicians can change another’s thoughts via expansion or contraction. At the extreme, and believe me this has never been done, a thoroughly studied practical magician can even take the life of a body or revive it from the brink of death. It is my understanding that most, if not all, human bodies have latent magical ability and thus carry a natural defense against such extremes. While anyone who meddles with another in this way is irrevocably evil, it seems like pure goodness to the rottenness of theoretical magic. Exploiting natural elements is a kind of evil, creating unnatural elements is quite another. It is with blood sacrifice that theoretical magic is formed. The creation of new spells, spells not weaved into the fabric of reality, that is pure evil. For those who do so not only pervert the natural order but cast the order to fit their desires.

This is all truly abstract but to give an example a theoretical magician can ruin a wealthy family by making it sothey were never wealthy. They can weave kingdoms in and out of existence, governments, politicians; they can create life, take it away, or erase the very notion of life entirely. They can quite literally make the world revolve around them and their desires. It is a costly endeavor: the price is one’s soul. While they can rearrange the natural world, they cannot touch the spiritual realms; their souls engage with torment in places never spoken of in even the harshest of sermons. Therefore, you should not find it surprising that those who meddle in theoretical magic desperately cling to physical life. My grandfather is still alive, in a way, in a small heathen hof deep in a Norwegian forest.

I do not say this to frighten you, because trust me, your fears would be justified; but know that my grandfather never achieved theoretical magic, that is to say, his meddling and murders amounted to nothing. It is simply the attempt in practicing theoretical magic that damn one’s soul. He could never bend reality to his wishes though he tried, and for this he lost everything. Now to be afraid: where my grandfather failed, I believe my sister succeeded. This I cannot prove through the means of man but through the dedicated study of the art of my father.

Father, a man of many talents and dreams sat with leather bound books all the night through, “declaring the mysteries to the mysteries.” I was far too young to understand what any of that meant, and I am sure I am still too young today, but my sister was a different story. Their disagreements about spells and their use was loud and viscous, and I never understood about what. I never delved into that sort of thing, the only book I belong too is the Holy Book. While mother wanted to hold onto what remained of father after the fire, I knew it best to give away his collection ranging in thousands of dollars. No amount of money is worth a soul. 

This unforgiving memory lit an idea, unwanted of course because I knew it was the most obvious place to leave anything. The chess set sat set in rows of black and white. Beside it was an envelope. I sat Nathan down and he played with the chess pieces. No letter was found in the envelope, just a birth certificate. Nathan’s birth certificate. There was no father listed; the date was one year ago today.  “Happy Birthday, Nathan.”

He giggled at the sound of his name.

The sun was setting by the time I finished his birthday cake. What I lacked in a wife and a housemaid I made up for in home economic skills. Living the life of a bachelor was a simple decision for me after all, with school starting again in a few weeks my social life would be filled with lectures and grading papers. How Nathan fit into the picture I did not know at the time, but it was his first birthday and he deserved something special. I had no inclinations of ceremony, but I wished him a happy birthday again and helped him eat his small cake. His face brightening at what I believe was his first taste of sugar delighted me to no end. My last happy feeling was one of pure joy in finding happiness in some others, that I at least can hold on to.

I wasn’t sure if I should leave Nathan to sleep in his crib downstairs or to bring him up to one of my upstairs rooms. He was used to that room now and I did not want his sleep disturbed because I did not want my sleep disturbed. In the end, how I came to the conclusion I don’t fully know, I left him downstairs, at least for that first night. It was a mistake.

The first scratching noise against the window knocked me from a tasteless dream. I was chasing after my sister trying to demand she return at once, when she turned around, she wore a squeamishly grinning mask with eyes bulging, and tongue hanging like a dog. But it was not a mask, it was her face. My eyes popped open at the tree branch scratching my windowpane. Still heavy with sleep and dream I wandered to the moonlit window and wondered if I should cut that branch in the morning only to remember that I had my tree cut down last summer when the leaves grew thick and covered with spiders. I had no more spiders as I had no more tree. My eyes were now wide, and cobwebs were forced off my joints. I was loose and my heart beat like a drum. What was Commissioner Charles saying about those grisly murders? Ritualistic he called them.

I heard a cry then, soft and sobbing from downstairs. I flung on my nightrobe and trotted down the steps like an athlete and bound to little Nathan’s room in a flurry. Nathan sat clutching his crib bars. Even in the dim moonlight I could see his tear-streaked face. I cradled him and calmed him as a fatherly instinct took me like I had never experienced. Like a flash I felt like

I held a new purpose, and I adopted him right then and there.

“You’re okay, Nathan, you’re okay.”

The scratching noises continued, like trees but there were no trees. The wind howled and shook the ghostly leaves surrounding the house in an otherworldly gust. A scream erupted from the edge of the wood beyond my house and I turned too and saw a figure outside of my Nathan’s window.

Ritualistic he called them.

“I don’t know who you are but stay back! I have a gun and I know how to use it!”

The threat wasn’t hollow. I carried Nathan to my cabinet and pulled out my Springfield; it was always loaded. When I turned back around the figure was gone, frightened to death of my threat I hoped. For once I regretted having such a large living room. Crevices and couches could hide anything, and something was behind everything. I couldn’t hold Nathan and fire accurately, but I didn’t want to set him down either. Ritualistic. My sister, who have you entangled with?

Who is the father?

I am, now.

I stalked over to my telephone and dialed the commissioner’s office. The line was not dead, but it was not active. Voices came through the receiver that were unholy and shivering. I slammed it shut. I need Roger, but I dare not leave my house. I stalked to the window facing the home he and Mary shared and hoped he was up at this hour. An electric light in their kitchen window was indeed on. I could see just inside and hoped to get a glimpse of Roger so that I could wave him down. A figure glided past the window frame. I waved and shouted frantically. Roger stopped and I called his name over and over. I turned my own light on and waved some more and begged him to call the police. Roger leaned closer to the window and revealed he was not Roger. Some face, pale and sneering and gone as the light fell away. 

Heavy footsteps like bombs echoed in my room above and my spine shot cold fluid. I sprinted to Nathan’s room, the only room I can shut away from the rest of the house and we sat, him crying. What did it matter now if whoever knew we were here? I only fretted my gun cabinet remaining open to prying hands. I placed Nathan back in his crib and threw a blanket on top to spare him seeing something terrible. A scratching noise at the window caused sweat to break out completely. I pushed my large bookcase in front of the window and tilted it back. It was made from oak, a plentiful, heavy wood that would protect Nathan from harm. From the bookcase fell a little trinket I had not seen in years, my sisters from when we were young. I put it in my coat pocket, oh! How I wished I had strapped it to Nathan instead.

“Stay here, my boy. If some fiend wishes to come into my house he will face my wrath!”

Months spent trench-living in the Great War gave me tremendous control over the anxiety coursing through my body. I quietly opened the door of Nathan’s room and shut it as soft. I turned the key, locking him in and others out, and placed it in my pocket beside the trinket. I held my weapon before me at the ready, my eyes open, my fingers prepared to squeeze the trigger at anything that moved. I snuck around my home at such a pace that nothing was disturbed; I would have the element of surprise here, not them. Whatever had invaded my home made its last mistake, I determined.

I pointed my weapon up my staircase, nothing. I took each step quietly and paused at the top next to my doorway. Paper rustling in my room alerted me to someone going through my books, my letters, my notes, my things! I steeled myself for whatever might be there and shot out with my rifle aimed at my desk…and nothing. Someone was just in my room, I thought. Then the mighty cries of Nathan shook the house. I turned to run down the stairs and some black figure grinned harshly at me from the bottom. I shot, my round piercing its flesh; I killed enough men to know it rang true. The man stood there as if ephemeral.

Ritualistic.

I lost control of my fear then. What sort of madness had my sister been apart of? I sprinted downstairs but the figure was gone already. I ran to Nathans door and stopped cold in my tracks at the sight of many figures staring at the knob. They turned to me, and I saw how different they all were from each other: faces of happiness and madness and insanity and bliss and joy and terror and fear and goodness and evil and mockery and curiosity; all staring, all hungry and wanting of what lay behind that door.

My Nathan.

There are two theories of Magic: Practical and Theoretical. My Father was of the Practical camp and now I see how he failed my sister, who was of the Theoretical camp. That late night fire was no accident.

“Begone all of you!”

I shouted and screamed to convince them I was not terrified. I am a man of the Holy Book, and they are spawn of my Enemy. I raised my rifle and fired into the dusty embodiments of sorcery. They will not have my Nathan. I stepped closer and fired again and again and again. Nathan’s cries grew louder. The faces stayed stoically in phases. They did not attack; they did not retreat. Sweat poured down my face and soaked my shirt. My breath was hot, heavy, and foul. I stepped up to the red face of evil: “Begone.”

It never changed but it let me by, and its facial muscles corrupted and crunched into one of agitation as if it were fighting its obligated obedience. The rest stepped, or floated, aside; my fear seemed to mean nothing to them. I was vulnerable, surrounded, weak; they could have attacked me if they wanted too but they did not. What evil, dear sister, is this?

I reached the door. “You will not enter. You will leave my home and my son at once,” I said with the authority of a much stronger man.

The boy is promised to us, voices from around, within, and above said with gangrenous breath.

Doors do not stop ephemeral creatures. I unlocked the door, Nathan’s cries steady, labored, and heartbreaking. “You will not enter here.” They were behind me, breathing on my neck, salivating over a meal I would never allow.

Nathan stood, holding his crib like prison bars. It was dark for the bookcase blocked the moonlit night. The ephemeral ones stayed as I instructed. I was beyond belief and thought, I could only act with the greatest care. I did not want to leave by the door, but the window was on the first floor. I pushed the bookcase aside and stared at a mass of bodies headed by the smiling figure from Roger’s home, all patient and disciplined. “You will not have him!”

Roger and Mary. The thought bumped along, and I realized they may need medical attention.

I dared to take Nathan with me, but these creatures had no power but fear. “You will not.”

I picked up Nathan, my adopted son, and whispered promises of safety. It seemed he knew these beings from dreams or nightmares. What nastiness my sister delved into. Who was the father?

The ephemeral ones stepped aside, snake like whisperings of threats and promises escaping like a putrid river. The red face of evil cursing me with mighty rhymes and rhythms, all ineffective as I stood with my adopted son on a steel platform of truth: they will not have him. I made it to my front door and bid them a nasty farewell. Whomever these ghosts belonged to could not touch me. I never found out why.

I opened the door and crunched down my gravel trail to cross over to Roger and Mary’s. They needed medical attention, I was sure. I would phone an exorcist in the morning, but for now I would need to stand strong and fearless against the forces of evil for Nathan’s sake. Then I would track down my vile sister and demand her penance along with answers.

Halfway across my yard I encountered the smiling man from Nathan’s window. He stood five feet from me with outstretched arms.

“Give me the boy. He was promised,” the ephemeral being said with a humanlike lisp.

Nathan in one arm, my Springfield rife in the other, I felt mighty and overconfident. “You will never have Nathan.” What a fool I was, for as I tried to walk through this ghost, a flesh and blood fist met my eye, and the rest was silence.

I awoke before dawn covered in dew. Nathan was gone. I screamed his name and searched frantically. My head throbbed and my mouth was dry and crisp. I found him by the first oak tree to the left. I wept openly for hours and have wept silently for years. I knew I could never explain any of this to anyone. Commissioner Charles would certainly not believe me, but what was I to do?

The boy was cold but there seemed to be no damage done to him at all. No cuts or bruises, no signs of suffering and I knew suffering. “What have they done to you?” It was as if his soul was ripped from his body. The smiling man took my son from me and now he is unreachable in the depths of the moonless fields.

He has my son’s soul, but he will not have his dignity. I built a place for him to rest from the wood in my shop and buried him beneath the oak where he once pointed at a raven and giggled. I abandoned my house in search of my sister but knew she would be unreachable. She knew this would happen on Nathan’s first birthday. She feared the promise surrounding him: feared and regretted.

I stopped looking on my one-hundredth birthday. The hospital contacted me; I was her emergency contact. She was one-hundred and two. The trinket she gave me sits on a bracelet on my wrist and it never leaves. I have never been sick. I have never broken a bone. I have never even had a headache. I know once I take this off I will enter the moonless fields but not until I have destroyed every bit of my father and sister’s writings in the world, all this for Nathan. I see him in dreams and nightmares assuring me I was never at fault. He is happy where he is, and he has never seen my sister once.