Wandil Land

By Victor Allen

For Hollywood A-Lister, David Moore, life and the world he knew has changed. Beckoned by a vast inheritance and an orphaned little girl to a hometown he knows almost nothing about, he finds in Vister a Paradise Lost. But no paradise is perfect. Boiling beneath the slow death of days and the friendly smiles of the town's people are blood feuds, animosities, and profane ritual stretching back centuries.
Caught between the ancient folkways of the bewitching Wilma and the murderous Fundamentalism of Whisper Storm and the Crystal Sphere League, David must traverse a rocky path through this mysterious land of Stanton Dru, Avalon, and Yankee Burying Road. Each step is a pitfall with betrayal, violence, even murder at every turn. And in his quest to save himself, he discovers the terrifying truth of what he is. A truth he never knew, or ever wanted to.
Welcome to Wandil Land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor Allen
• Release date: Jun 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311839954

Victor Allen

Born in North Carolina in 1961, Victor Allen has lived a charmed, black and white, and almost disreputable life. Turned down by the military at age seventeen because of a bad heart (We would take, his recruiter told him, the women and children before we would take you), he spent a wasted year at NCSU, where he augmented his scant college funds by working part-time as a stripper (what the heck? Everybody looks good when they're eighteen), a pastime he quickly gave up one night when he discovered -to his mortification- his divorced, middle-aged mother sitting in the audience. Giving NCSU the good old college miss, he satisfied his adventurous spirit and wanderlust by moving out West in his late teens, first to Colorado and later, Wyoming, and working in the construction trades. Uprooted from his small town upbringing and thrust into a world of real Cowboys and Indians, oil field roughnecks, biker gangs and pool sharks, he spent his youth travelling the country, following the work, settling at various times in Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado, and Wyoming. Along the way he met a myriad of interesting people including Hollywood, a young, Native American man, so called because he wore his sunglasses all the time, even at night; Cinderella K from Owensville, Missouri (the nice laundry lady who turned his shorts into pinkies); Lori P., the Colorado snake lady and her pet boa constrictor, Amanda; the pool hustler par excellence, Johnny M.; TJ, Moon, and Roundman, good folks, but bikers, all; his little blond girlfriend, Lisa; Maureen, the very funny lady from London with the very proper English accent, who he met while living outside of Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, SC, and her daughter, Marie, with her practically incomprehensible cockney twang; the ever bubbly Samantha from FLA; and all the (well, never mind). :-). Plus way too many others too numerous to list. He has weathered gunfire, barroom brawls (I didn't get this crooked nose and all these scars on my face from kissin), a three-day mechanical breakdown in the heart of the Louisiana bayous, drunken riots- complete with car burnings and overturnings, Budweiser, bonfires and shootin' irons (it was all in good fun, though,)- ; a hundred year blizzard, floods, two direct lightning strikes, a hurricane which sent a tree crashing through his roof, and an unnerving late night encounter with a man who subsequently proved to be a murderer, surviving it all with a rather uncom...

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Wandil Land

By

Victor Allen

Copyright © 2014

Smashwords Edition

Victor Allen's Smashwords Page

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Table of Contents

#Ewesmeolc

#Four Hundred Years Later

#Eight Years After That

#May 1

#May 3

#May 4

#May 25

#June 5

#June 6

#June 7

#June 21

#June 22

#July 4

#August 3

#August 30

#September 22

#October 14

#October 16

#October 23

#October 26

#October 27

#October 28

#October 31

#December 19

#December 20

#Jul

#Afterword

Excerpts from other books by Victor Allen

#Essex

#A-Sides

#The Lost Village

#We Are the Dead

#Xeno Sapiens

#Katerina Cheplik

Early February 1588, Ewesmeolc

The ramshackle church was the last building standing in the Roanoke settlement, and it gave up its final, sea-twisted boards to be stowed in the barnacle-scaled bilge of the too small pinnace. The ship's porous sails, as gray black as the skies, were a sad flute through which the wintry hiss and patter of sleet sang a hollow requiem. Only the most generous or pie-eyed mariner would reckon the escape vessel as seaworthy, but deliverance for the desperate would never be easy or fair.

Nialls Van de Waal, a Dutch seaman with no experience as a navigator, had been conscripted into service as pilot. Cold spray dripped from his clouded face as he stood on the swaying deck and peered at the wind-washed plane where a town had stood only days before. He looked away and began dismally directing shivering men to conclude preparations for sailing. Like everyone in the ragged settlement, he would have to bumble through as best he could. A large barge, covered in filthy cloth and stinking of lime, black pitch, and decay, heaved in the surf behind the main ship, straining its lash lines.

The remaining one hundred survivors out of one hundred fifty of the Roanoke Colony were jammed like cattle onto the deck of the forty foot ship. They clenched their chattering teeth and trembled in a beleaguered mass around John Storm. A few of the luckier ones huddled in ragged shawls beneath the hostile skies, but for most, their tattered clothing offered no protection from the peppering sleet churning in from the blackened Atlantic in waves as unending as the surf. Only Eleanor Dare, with the infant, Virginia, remained below deck in poor comfort.

The cruciate form of the ship's main mast dripped icicle teeth and painted ominous arcs of Saint Elmo's fire in the unquiet sky while the tired canvas of the sails flapped in the wind like broken wings. Storm, with his gaunt features, pointed chin, and intimidating height, stood rigid before the impious crucifix. His scalp and cheeks were plucked, scraped and shaved nearly raw by sharpened sea shells to dark shadows on his skin. Any metallic blades and cutting implements had long since rusted and seized in the sand and salt air; any oil to lubricate them had been used for heat and light during this shivery February and no new supplies were forthcoming. Lice had rampaged unrestrained during the summer and the colonists -men and women alike- had been forced to shear their hair to the roots. Bathing in the ocean brine had mostly killed the repellent vampires, but many colonists still bore the red bumps and scarring. Now the water was too cold for bathing and the lice, defying the frigid winter temperatures, had staged a bloody resurgence. Only Rhiannon Tewdwr -whose namesake, Elizabeth Tudor, now sat on the English throne- had kept her dark, Welsh hair. Even it had been modified into a short, pageboy look that would not be popular for another four hundred years. Named for the Celtic Moon Goddess, she was not unaware of the suspicion of witchery that had befallen her, especially from John Storm.

Governor John White had embarked on an emergency supply run to England six months before. The remaining colonists, now clinging to survival by a fingernail, didn't expect to live to see his return.

A million pitfalls could have beset John White, only three of which were: a storm, political strife in England, or the commandeering of his ship by privateers of Spain's King Philip II. More times than the colonists wished to recall they had scanned the horizon and seen the masts of the sleek, Spanish privateers operating out of Hispaniola patrolling the desolate coast, their orders to find and destroy the first English Colony in the Americas.

During those times the colonists would hastily quench any smoking fires with sand and try to conceal themselves, watching helplessly until the masts of the privateers had sailed out of sight, living in dread of the day that the ships heeled against the wind in a shower of spray and made toward them.

Memories were long in these internecine European squabbles. The colonists -some profiteers, some separatists from the Church of England- had fled the re-emerging strife between Catholics and Protestants. It had been only thirty years before that King Philip's wife, Bloody Mary, a fierce Catholic like her husband, had instituted her own Inquisition, embarking on a crusade of pressing and burning at the stake Protestants and Congregationalists. King Philip II, son of Pope Charles the Fifth and Queen Isabella of Portugal, had made it his calling to crush the rise of Protestantism. To this end he had spent Spain's blood and treasure to keep the English from gaining a foothold in the New World.

Though Queen Mary I had died in 1558, the troubles had begun anew. The king of France had died and his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, had returned to England to challenge the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth. Mary, Queen of Scots, held her cousin, Elizabeth, in frothing contempt as an illegitimate monarch and had renewed the push to re-institute Catholicism as England's national religion. After twenty years of plotting to have Elizabeth assassinated, Elizabeth had no choice but to sign Mary's death warrant.

With that execution, King Philip II of Spain launched the Spanish Armada in 1588. Every seaworthy vessel in the possession of England had been pressed into service against the Spanish fleet, including John White's. Rescue for the Roanoke Colony would have to wait.

Worse still, the colonists were beset by even more troubles from the landward side of their tormented island.

The summer of 1587 had, according to the native Secotan and Croatan tribes, been the hottest and driest in eight hundred years. Mosquitoes and disease had prospered in the hellish heat while the crops, Native's and Colonists' alike, had wizened.

An unstable magma of enmity churned fretfully between the native peoples and the colonists. Only Wanchese, an English-speaking Croatan who had journeyed previously to England with Arthur Barlowe, had been able to dampen the fuse to the powder keg, but not extinguish it.

Four years before, an initial military scouting party had accused the natives of stealing a silver cup. In classic overkill, the scouting party had burned the native village of Aquascogoc. In retaliation, George Howe had been murdered while crabbing in the gentle waters of Albemarle sound.

With the departure of most of the scouting party, the Natives believed themselves to be rid of the invaders. It was a false hope. On July 15, 1587, one hundred fifty new colonists arrived.

With bad blood still simmering among the Natives, John White was unable to establish cordial relations. After three weeks, Wanchese had relented and spoke with White. The Croatan and the Secotan, he said, would abide the colonist's presence, but they would not aid them. Any aggression would be immediately and forcefully dealt with. And, Wanchese told White, there were others, like the Tuscarora, that might not be so tolerantly disposed.

Wanchese had been firm: he could not- would not- intervene with the Tuscarora, and there would be no bargaining with them. Already their scouts had been seen skirting the edges of the colony, their eyes rimmed with menacing black warpaint. Tomahawks, war clubs, and knives clanked and jangled in their braided utility belts. Their deerskin vests were collared with wolverine fur acquired in trade with the Hurons who acted as middlemen for the Algonquians of the North, and it gave them a forbidding, humped shouldered look. The Tuscarora were fearsome warriors. Their threats were not idle. The colonists knew they had been seen only because they wanted to be seen. The message was clear: leave or die.

And so matters had stood when White departed in August of 1587.

As the shimmering summer heat gave way to the paucity of winter, the colonists had desperately coalesced around the forceful presence of John Storm. Cholera, malaria, and the occasional case of Salmonella from eating improperly stored shellfish had taken an average of two colonists a week. Their meager supplies dwindled rapidly. Finally, just before Christmas, Wanchese and two aides hauling a man on a travois, had appeared and offered an Olive branch.

They approached the sharpened timbers of the pale, which had fallen into leaning disrepair. The colony guards could not have stopped them even had they wanted to. There was no dry powder to be had. The man on the travois had an odd look. His dark brown skin showed no tinges of red, and his hair, full and bright white, was trimmed into a coarse flattop. His legs had wasted and dementia had turned his hooded, Asian eyes to cratered windows.

They were escorted to John Storm's small home. He welcomed them into the poor dwelling and his wife offered them tea, stale crackers, and a bit of salted pork. There was little in the way of furniture: a writing desk topped with a careworn copy of the recently translated and published Geneva Bible, a table- its sad plumage aged, piebald varnish- a bench, and a few wobbly chairs. A bold wooden cross hung above the door. The one English luxury was a small window with real glass that had miraculously remained whole. The lateness of the year had starved the shadows and they painted the floor lean and long. His wife left to let the men tend to their affairs.

My apologies, Storm said. I have nothing better to offer. The hollowness of his refreshments found no mirror in his voice, which was still firm and commanding.

Wanchese was dressed warmly in deer skin trousers and vest with a cloak. A simple turban, dyed bright red and folded modestly, kept his long, steel and coal hair out of his eyes. Next to Wanchese, Storm looked like a seedy, East End beggar.

How can I be of service, Storm asked.

I have come to serve you, Wanchese said. His brown lips were set as he peered darkly around, scouring the penury of Storm's hard scrabble surroundings. His dark eyes twinkled in grim satisfaction at the fulfillment of his own private prophecy. I can offer you a way out.

With God's help, Storm said serenely, we will persevere.

Wanchese gave his two aides a wise look. He gestured at the man on the travois.

"This man calls himself Toyuq. As best we can understand, it means 'chief'. We found him crawling and wandering, without the use of his legs, mad from the heat which is unlike his native land, lost and cut off by a magic veil from the people with whom he lived. His people are called the Unangax and they come from Alaxsxaq, an icy land far, far to the north. He has lived with us for twenty years, his only usefulness as an interpreter of many languages."

Storm studied the mad Unangan, as vagabond as he, himself, was.

How can he be here?

Are you not here, Wanchese said, "from a land across a vast ocean? Toyuq is a traveler, and every traveler has stories. Toyuq has told us his story of how he lived and learned with men called the Cimbri; of his journeys with them across the frozen northern expanses, of their sea voyages, of his knowledge of their language, their rituals, and their gods."

There is only the God of Abraham, Storm said.

Again, Wanchese traded a glance with his entourage, then drew in his breath.

You are not the first, he said. For a thousand years the Magic White Men with red and yellow hair have conjured in the Otherworld. It is close and, at the same time, worlds away. Their magic entreats a fog that separates them from us. They do not bother us; we do not bother them. Your people would have done better to know this.

Toyuq had adopted something of a light in his dead eyes, and he sat up slightly, smiling brightly with a mostly toothless grin. Wanchese conferred briefly with him.

"Toyuq says your language is strange, but not completely unfamiliar, a close cadence and kin to the tongue of the Magic White Men. With luck, perhaps you will be able to understand each other. Exactly forty days after your Christmas, fair weather or foul, you must take your people, your ship, and your supplies, and follow the sun. We will provide you with lime and shrouds, but you must take your dead with you, leaving them at sea, leaving no sign you were ever here."

The Unangan interrupted vehemently and Wanchese listened closely.

"It is a day's sail and on that day- and that day only- the separation between our world and the Otherworld will be thinnest. Where the sun touches the sky in the west, you will find the Otherworld, and the magic white men."

Now, some eight weeks after that parley, ignoring the discomfort of his fellow colonists, John Storm intended to have his say beneath the pelting and bitter sky.

We are gathered into this inhospitable land like the Israelites wandering in the desert, searching for the promised land. And like the Israelites, we have woes: thrown to the untender mercies of the savage, red heathen, and abandoned by the Crown so that they might battle against the Papist warmongers.

A fresh gale howled in from the ocean and whipped Storm's garments while the assembled crowd groaned against the stinging sleet. But Storm was unaffected by the chill, the red light of righteous anger in his eyes warming him.

"When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, the Israelites lamented the length of time he was gone, just as you have lamented our lack of rescue. They believed themselves forsaken in the desert, just as you believe yourself forsaken in this wasteland.

"And, like the Israelites who abandoned the One True God and turned to Aaron to fashion a golden calf for them to worship, so, too, have you blasphemed our Lord by entertaining thoughts of pagan idolatry and sin."

Storm's red eyes turned directly toward Rhiannon, who had strength enough only to shiver and avert her gaze.

"You have become stiff necked, he resumed, unwilling to weather the travails of the wilderness in a quest for the Promised Land. Yet God, in his mercy, has provided an Ark for our deliverance."

Storm swept his arm around expansively at the creaking ship wallowing in the breakers, and its wretched passengers.

If it is God's will, he said, we will find water in the desert, safety in the wilderness, and be delivered. If not, let us perish.

The frigid assembly broke up and shuffled gratefully below deck, leaving John Storm and the skeleton crew topside. Storm stared after each colonist defiantly, an unhealthy light in his eyes. He betrayed not a shiver or a goose-bump, for that would show weakness. He looked toward the remains of the Colony, expecting to see the Tuscarora warriors emerge from the forest, but the beach was empty. Even the Indians had stayed home today. Only after the crew had nudged the ship away from the beach and past the breakers did Storm retire below.

The huddled refuse in the leaky bilges and dark steerage below decks pitched and yawed in the stormy seas. The stench was moldy and sweaty, made worse by frequent seasickness. Other than the sounds of retching and the whispered prayers of some, most were silent, looking into the darkness with frightened, unseeing eyes.

As the hours passed, the topside crew clung grimly to life as the wind howled and the sleet gashed their exposed eyes, hands, and faces. Before the trip was half over, the topsiders' hands were cracked, burning chunks of raw meat. The barge they towed laboriously behind them heaved and crashed, smacking into the waves with thunderous cracks of splintering boards. When Nialls knew the ship could take the strain no longer, he issued the order to cast it off.

With the last bit of oil hoarded for just this occasion, one of the crewmen lit a caisson with shaking fingers and attached it by a hasp to the lines connecting the two vessels. For the few moments that the flaming, jittering caisson traversed the distance, the storm, the cold, and the dire circumstances were forgotten as the darkly spellbound crew stared.

The yellow flames eddied and sometimes almost died, only to reignite in the tempest. Once they found their way onto the barge they tasted the pitch spread on the cloth and found it good, gobbling up huge swaths with sharp, fiery fangs.

In minutes, the barge carrying the dead of the Roanoke colony was a hissing vortex, flames and oily smoke mingling in the sky in raging glow and shadow. The malefic odor of putrefaction swept over the ship with the north wind.

"Cast it off!" Nialls shouted.

A crewman slipped the knots tying the two barge lines to the ship's transom and the lines whipped free, slinging icy spray across the deck. The main ship heaved forward and steadied while the barge bobbed up and down wildly. Even at a distance, and over the demon's scream of the storm, the crewmen heard the crackling flames as the barge receded. In no time at all it became a listing, glowing ember on the horizon. Nialls murmured a silent thank you that only a handful of the colonists had to watch what had become of their honored dead.

Through the tumbling lace of black clouds, the veiled, white marble of the sun peeked sporadically, an unblinking eye keeping watch over them. Nialls had given up trying to navigate in the bucking swells, content instead to keep a steadying hand on the rudder and one anxious eye on the compass. Its needle wavered, but held a steady, southwest bearing. Since the sun would set south of west at this time of year, Nialls calculated that this course would intercept the sun at precisely the moment they made landfall, as if the spiraling Nor'easter, almost like the hand of God, pushed them exactly where they needed to go.

More hours passed and the sun slid down its descending arc. The ocean waves which had taken on a green-black sheen in the poor light of midday now darkened again as the light fled the sky. The sleet had abated a bit and Nialls scanned the horizon for any sign of land.

After having been so cold for so long, he wasn't sure if it was real or imagination when he felt the air warming. Only when the skirls of fog began to slip over the deck did he realize that the air had indeed moderated, and the rocketing waves had calmed. Too fast to be believed, the thickening fog settled in, deep and clinging. Despite everything else, this was the worst: sailing blind in uncharted waters.

Every man on deck moved forward, listening for the changing sounds of waves against the hull, signaling a shallowing of the waters. They stared into the fog, trying to make out looming shadows or signal fires. The newly calm winds lent a ghostly silence to the ship. Spray frozen into icicles on the wooden railings began to drip audibly onto the deck.

Then, in logical progression, sensory inputs told them they were nearing some unknown world. First, yellow-orange pinpoints of light pierced the fog, resolving into globes, and finally dancing bonfires. Then the sounds: the frequency of waves against the hull doubled, the tell-tale of coming shallows. The low, bass note of a drum pounded through the mist, then the higher pitch of people talking and laughing; the baa-ing of sheep and the lowing of cattle. Then the smells: smoke, animal dung, the wet aroma of turned earth, and cooking.

Nialls put a hand on the shoulder of one of the men staring past the yardarm.

Ready the anchor.

The man turned away, but it was too late. With no warning, the last of the fog dispersed and a white strand of shoreline appeared in the new moonlight, less than fifty yards away. White-tipped breakers crashed on the beach and rolled back.

The ship ran aground thirty yards from the beach with a grinding crack and shudder as the keel scraped bottom. The topside crew were knocked from their feet and sprawled on the deck. The accumulated infrastructure of the colony- from cooking utensils, to building boards- shifted and tumbled in the hold. Startled shouts and screams of those awakened from exhausted slumber erupted from below decks.

Like disturbed ants boiling from a mound, the bent travelers scurried out onto the deck, relieving cramped joints and tendons, willing to brave anything just to breathe fresh air. A couple of rotted rope ladders had been thrown over the side, but they snapped with the first debarking passengers, dumping them into the drink with unceremonious splats.

Men and women alike broke across the deck, some hanging off the side to cushion the seven foot drop, others simply diving in feet first. With the shifting of weight in the hold, the ship listed to one side and the remaining passengers scrambled for the lower side to flee the ship.

The air rang with crying children and parents calling for lost offspring in the dark and frigid waters. Single men and women splashed eagerly through the thigh deep water toward the fires of the shoreline, uncaring of what might await them, from headhunters to Spanish dragoons. Families, after gathering their children, trudged close behind.

John Storm, troubled from a slumbering prayer, was, aside from the deck crew, the last to depart. He stood on the sloping deck, hanging onto a line, surveying the sorry exodus of his sheep, now lighted by the fires on shore.

He lowered himself into the water with insufferable dignity, followed by Nialls and the remaining deck hands. He sloshed through the water with imperial pride, passing by the dazed travelers who had suddenly stopped fifteen yards from shore.

Their tumultuous arrival had not gone unnoticed. On the beach stood some fifty men armed with pikes, lances, clubs and swords. They stood imposingly tall in silhouette from the fires, each of them easily over six feet, dwarfing nearly everyone from the colony. It was still cold, but the tall men were shirtless. Sweat shone on their white skin, reddened not by melanin, but by fire and sun, and adorned with swirling tattoos of red and blue that spiraled around their broad shoulders and knotty, upper arms. Long, curly red locks sprouted from the heads of some, but blond predominated. They were mostly barefoot and bearded, their legs covered in shin length breeches.

It was this improbable sight that had stayed the headlong rush of the colonists for the shore. Frightened eyes turned to John Storm who continued his unstoppable advance to the beach. Nialls, as the nominal second in command, had no choice but to follow.

Three men broke from the guard and surrounded Storm and Nialls. Their weapons seemed preternaturally clear in the moonlight, firelight, and meager glow from the sun which had settled down to sleep below the horizon. Their pikes and swords seemed little compared to the double sided battle axes which glinted wickedly.

John Storm, even with his extraordinary stature, could only look one of the men in the eye. The other two towered over him at six and a half feet tall and better. Nialls, at under six feet, felt like an ant among elephants. His chattering teeth came from more than his waterlogged clothes.

The man facing John Storm spoke, quite obviously a foreign language, but after a string of sentences, Nialls raised his eyes excitedly, his fright subsiding.

"It's Frisian, by God," he exclaimed, with all the exuberance of the totally mad. An insane grin split his lips and his eyes danced like the firelight.

Storm turned his head and looked at him calmly.

Can you understand this man?

"Frisian, Nialls babbled. Spoken on the western islands of the Netherlands! I remember it as a child. It's a language somewhere between German and English."

Storm put a steady hand on Nialls' shoulder.

I ask again: can you understand this man?

Yes, Nialls said. I think so.

With the language barrier broken, the tension eased, but suspicions remained. Nialls haltingly translated between English, Dutch German, and broken Frisian with John Storm and his untrusting host. Within a few minutes an arrangement was reached and the armed men began escorting the freezing, bedraggled colonists from the surf and into the settlement.

John Storm and Nialls were taken to a conference with the village elders, sitting around an open fire and talking spiritedly.

The men and women were separated and taken toward shelter and warming fires. Rhiannon Tewdwr gratefully accepted a blanket from a tall, blond woman with an imperial presence. With a telepathy common to women, Rhiannon knew the woman was someone of importance. A queen, perhaps. From her well fed form, to the jewelry she wore, to her perfume, to her regal presence. Rhiannon caught the woman's eye and laid a clutching hand on her arm.

The woman favored Rhiannon with her kind, liquid-blue eyes and understood her unspoken question.

"Regina," she said.

Warm ewe's milk, honey, and hot bread were passed around to the marooned survivors, who ate and drank greedily, slavering their faces with the sticky honey and milk. It was, Rhiannon knew, lambing season, and they had obviously intruded on some sort of celebration.

All around them, some four hundred souls danced and sang. In the firelight, Rhiannon could see fields far and wide tilled, ready for planting; could smell the musk of the earth. In the center of a group, she saw an elder pour a mixture of candle wax, honey, and ewe's milk on the knotty, iron blade of a rustic plow. A cheer went up as the elder recited a prayer in that strange, Germanic language, so much like English, but really not.

Then, over the din of the prayer and the singing, voices were raised in shouts. Rhiannon saw the group of elders, Nialls, and John Storm rise around the fire and begin to quarrel. For several seconds, Regina and Rhiannon looked at each other, convinced that blood was about to be spilled. But calmer heads prevailed and the assembly sat down and resumed their strained negotiations.

A tense, silent message passed between Rhiannon and Regina, as each knew everyone's lives had changed today in ways neither could ultimately understand. They only knew that they would need each other in years to come if only to hold onto the birthright others were so eager to destroy.

So, on the celebration of Ewesmeolc, more than four hundred years ago, Wister got its first taste of English, civilization, and Christianity.

December 21st, more than four centuries later.

The night was cool for late December, not cold, the sky clear and black, lit on the horizon with an orange glow that rippled with the crashing of the ocean swells. A blustering gale would have been more fitting, but the wind scarcely stirred. Faintly, as it was at some distance, the bed-ridden woman in the big house heard a large crowd singing.

The house, like all the other dwellings in town, was dark. The only illumination came from the glow of the fires somewhere by Thor's Anvil. Through the large windows at the front of the house, she could vaguely spy the spire of the one Presbyterian church in town, but its sanctuary was too weak, too far away.

The woman in the bed tried to rise, but was stayed by her own weakness and the daunting silhouette of another woman sitting in a rocking chair. Unhappy spirits of fire glow reflected from the panes of the rocking woman's glasses, and the long bores of a double barrel shotgun glistened with an oily sheen. The rocking chair creaked and creaked. Once every thirty five seconds the beam of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse swept through the window, shining on the bedridden woman's long, tangled hair, bruised face, cracked lips, and swollen eyes. Then it mercifully diminished. Despite her own fever and pain, she felt chilled. She had tried to stop it and failed.

Louder now, the sound of music and the roar of drums gathered in the room, yet couldn't overpower the unagitated creaking of the woman in the rocking chair.

In her mind's eye she saw it happening: the maiden in the peasant dress dancing furiously for her man, her black hair whipping in the fire glow, sweat pouring down her face. Faster and faster she would go, spinning, leaping, twirling, her white teeth exposed in a pained, fire lit grimace. Her breath would come faster and faster, hitching and straining in time to the music. Her arms and legs would first grow hot, then go numb. The veins in her forehead, neck and temples would bulge. Her heart would pound like that of a beast fleeing from the hunt, yet she would go on, lungs burning, chest heaving, heart hammering, all to no good end until...

The woman in the bed turned her face to the wall and covered her ears, as much to dull the rhythmic squeak of the rocking chair as the thunder of the drums. Salty tears rolled down her face and burned in the open cuts.

For half an hour the drums thundered and the music trilled, rising to straining crescendos, as if the musicians were trying to forcibly coax some prescribed outcome. All the while, the woman in the rocking chair bobbed and squeaked, the dissuasive barrels of the shotgun always prominent. Then the music stopped, ceasing in layers as if the musicians were recognizing some great thing, one at a time.

The shotgun wielding woman stood up and peered out of the window. She fetched in a sigh and turned to the woman in the bed.

It's done.

With no other word, the woman opened the door of the house, closed it behind her, and walked away.

Half an hour later, the door crashed open. The woman in the bed had been in a semi daze. She turned painfully to look. A woman wearing glasses, not the same one as before, stood in the doorway. In her arms she held an infant wrapped in a blanket. Not a newborn, but a girl about eight months old.

Get your sad ass out of bed, the woman commanded.

Summoning up her reserves of strength, the woman in the bed tottered to her feet, struggling to betray no fear, peering at the woman in the doorway through her swollen lids.

It's your fault, the woman said dourly, almost angrily. She thrust the child forward. The fires by Thor's Anvil had yet to dim and the woman stood against their fitful glow like a demon offering a sacrifice.

The injured woman held out her trembling, bruised arms and took the child. Though the baby weighed almost nothing, the extra burden made her stumble. She sagged backwards and sat on her bed. She stared up at the woman in the doorway.

An orphan, now, the woman informed her. "It should have been you."

The woman on the bed looked down at the infant, then lifted her head in defiance. Though she hadn't lost any teeth, some of them were loose and rolling in their sockets. When she placed her lower lips against her incisors to clearly say Fuck you, her teeth and lips hurt pretty badly.

The standing woman's face was smug. He'll come for you, she said. Some might even say it's God's will.

He'll never know. I'll make sure of it.

It isn't up to us, the woman said serenely. A power greater than us wills it.

Get out, you godforsaken bitch.

The woman in the doorway stared for a moment through her glasses, then turned, closed the door, and disappeared.

The woman sobbed on her bed in the darkened house and rocked the child. All that was left for her was to protect this child and her man in any way she could.

And for eight years she did, until others took matters into their own hands.

December 21st, eight years later

"Ten seconds, people!"

The stage manager's blunt direction followed the shrill, caterwauling Briiingg! Briiingg! of the bell. The red light over the door of the sound stage flashed "Hot Set" over and over.

Like a well-tuned machine (or cattle being herded, the famous Hitchcockian metaphor about actors) the two co-anchors, Brenda Lee and John Cox, took their places behind their desks on Celebrity Current. Those on camera- those above the line- thrived on the drama of retreating to their marks at the last possible instant. The rest of the stage crew – gaffers, boom man, audio man, and cameramen- had already taken their spots. These were the technicians- those below the line- who could not have cared less about last second histrionics, but had to endure them. The makeup girl added a final touch to John's upper lip, enlarging it just a hair to keep him from looking like a sullen, thin lipped mortician.

Five, the director said, four, three... he motioned to cue the music. A cheery, Billy Joel sounding tune full of brass and drums filled the set. Beefy, union thug looking gaffers bobbed their heads sarcastically to the worn out tune, their glassy eyes rolled up. The director frowned. An ability to endure monotony and repetition was to show business what blood was to the vampire.

Camera one, the director said into his headset. The monitor switched from a wide angle, off stage view of the set- complete with erector set outlines of the boom mikes and the wide, square lenses of the remaining two cameras- to a close-in shot of Brenda Lee.

For a few awkward seconds, Brenda Lee stared into the camera while the intro music played on.

"Would somebody kill the goddam band," the director barked. He glared at his audio man. He was probably hung over again, if not out-and-out dead drunk. The tune died in mid brass flourish. The director shook his head. For not the first time he thought directing a live show was like trying to control a bunch of beer soaked frat brothers at a pledge party. Barely rattled, Brenda Lee composed herself.

I'm Brenda Lee, the magnetic young woman with the painted lips and overdone red locks said into the camera. The high intensity lights made her hair come alight like the nylon tresses of a doll, and not surprisingly. Those in-the-know knew that cuffs and collars didn't match.

And I'm John Cox, the sullen man said. "This is a special, Christmas week edition of Celebrity Current."

Roll cut one, the director said. On the studio monitor, an inset in the upper right corner showed a head shot of an up and coming young actor. He had the movie star good looks common to those actors, like cinema lights Kevin Bacon and erstwhile scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, who had cut their teeth on low budget B horror films made to appeal to the fifteen-year-olds of the world. But there were elegant lines of character in that young face that made it different from the thousands of young hopefuls that appeared to have been cloned in some Aryan genetics compound. The cheekbones were high and the hair dark brown with red highlights. The head shot, with its pale blue eyes, could have been of a young Mel Gibson, but the arrow point cheekbones spoke more of Skeet Ulrich. It would never be said that David Moore had a great face for radio.

The script returned to Brenda Lee. "Our first feature tonight: Whatever happened to David Moore?"

Cut two, the director said. A scene played out on the monitor, captioned beneath by the words "Don't Look In the Woodshed. Courtesy Big Giant Films." The set was a darkened outbuilding where the requisite, villainous ax murderer lurked. David Moore, as the intrepid young hero, is working his way painfully and fearfully through the darkened interior. Only his eyes are clearly visible. A loud bang and a confused shuffling rattle the monitor speakers as the crazed killer suddenly erupts from a pile of blankets in the corner, his ax brandished like Paul Bunyan getting ready to take a monster whack at a helpless tree.

Camera two, the director said. Brenda Lee filled the screen, turning to her left to face the second camera.

Starting off in teeny bopper horror flicks, she said, "David Moore forged a career for himself, becoming, after his string of horror film successes, the bright, brash, social climbing software tycoon on the daytime soap opera Where the Wild Rivers Run."

Go back to cut one.

The inset reappeared on the studio monitor.

"Following a two year stint on Where the Wild Rivers Run, Brenda Lee said ominously, tragedy struck."

Roll cut three.

Brenda Lee blanked out and news footage showing a fleet of squad cars outside of a New York City townhouse spread across the screen. Bubble gum machine lights flashed and an ambulance idled at the end of the driveway, just off the street. The scene cut to a close up of ambulance attendants wheeling a bloody and incoherent David Moore from his home. A jowly, Irish looking New York City cop rushed toward the camera, his open palm toward the lens, and covered it. Brenda Lee's voice over intruded on the scene like a documentarian describing the atrocities of war.

Eight years ago, an armed intruder broke into his New York City home and kidnapped his wife of one year, Rose Leslie, bringing up shades of past celebrity tragedies. The murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, the mysterious death of Natalie Wood, even the brutal slayings of the Black Dahlia in the forties. Moore himself sustained major injuries, including two stab wounds and a blunt force trauma to the head that put him into a coma for nearly a week.

Camera one.

Brenda Lee, with the inset of David Moore, came back.

Police cleared Moore of any involvement in the kidnapping, she continued, but were unable to turn up any leads in the crime. The FBI was consulted but had as little luck as the local police. As of this airing no ransom demand has ever been forthcoming and no trace of Rose Leslie has ever been found.

Kill the cut. The inset disappeared.

"Over the next seven years Moore made a string of feature films in which he was hailed as the next Marlon Brando, following that up with a triumphant series of plays on the New York stage. Those close to him have told Celebrity Current that he cared for very little after his wife's kidnapping and worked only to escape the pain of her loss.

"He was headed for super stardom when, as mysteriously as his wife had been kidnapped, Moore disappeared from the big screen, the small screen, the entire radar screen. Initial calls to his publicist were answered with the information that Moore was 'taking a much needed rest.' Follow up calls at first went unanswered, then, months later, were rewarded with the news that Moore was no longer a client of the Rothstein, Gore and Hoffman agency. Persistent inquiries from Celebrity Current have found that Moore has indeed vanished completely. His town home and possessions have been quietly sold off and his sizable bank accounts frozen, pending dispensation of this strange case. Inquiries by his friends and acquaintances have yielded nothing. Some have speculated that the kidnapping of his wife was the beginning of some dark conspiracy, or that Moore has simply decided to retire. But actors riding high on the crests of the waves of their successes don't simply disappear. Except, in this case, apparently, one has. No-one, anywhere, seems to have a clue as to what has become of David Moore for the past eight months. Brenda Lee paused for dramatic effect. Almost as if he had slipped into a black hole."

May 1, eight months earlier

The letter from the Law Firm of Snow and B. Pigg was laid out on the desk of Richard Snow, attorney at law. David Moore had received it two weeks ago and it had taken him almost all that time to tidy up his affairs in New York City to make this jaunt. When you were a public figure with personal appearances scheduled and shooting schedules to maintain, and PR people and agents on your payroll, and -though his star was still rising- the occasional cattle call, you couldn't just pick up and go.

Snow's office was cramped and down at heel. After looking around, David fully suspected there was no Mr. B. Pigg as promised on the shingle. The date was May 1st and the early spring heat, instead of being kept at bay by an air conditioner -even a small one- was merely shifted around by a tiny fan which was so old it was still enclosed in a rattling wire cage.

Snow was Cassius-thin and wore gold, wire frame glasses that looked as if they were awaiting the slightest excuse to shatter. His dark blond hair would have been full and handsome had its sweat burdened weight not flattened it to his scalp. A single, framed diploma from the UNC School of law and a large, black rimmed wall clock were the only objects to adorn his artless walls. A hungry young attorney, then. One who might take on an unappealing case for a handful of nickels.

During the first half hour in his office, David had read the content of Rose's file, which stipulated that he was to inherit her sizable estate in Vister. The major portion of the assets were in trust for her adopted daughter (an unwelcome bit of news that had made David's eyes widen) and the month to month operations of the estate would be handled by the law firm. In the folder was also a copy of Rose's death certificate, listing the cause of death as Meningitis.

David thought he should feel something besides the slick, fishbowl emptiness in his gut as he held the death certificate, but he had resigned himself to the belief that Rose was dead long ago. Now that he knew for sure was less of a shock than discovering that she had been alive all this time. However this eventuality had come about, the bottom line was regret that he hadn't been able to stop any of it from happening.

An odd circumstance, I know, Snow noted, "but I hope everything has been explained to your satisfaction. This is one of those times when even a lawyer feels awkward. On the one hand I should express my condolences on the passing of your wife, and on the other I should be extending congratulations to you on your inheritance and the -well, I can't say reunion with your daughter – you've inherited her, too- but you know what I mean."

He drummed his fingers on his desktop. You say you had no idea your wife was alive?

None, David said. There was a burglary at our house -oh, eight or nine years ago, now- and the man who broke in put me in the hospital for a week. And Rose was gone. The FBI and Private Investigators have been looking for her for eight years, and now you tell me she's been here all along.

And you never remarried. Snow's tone wasn't inquisitive, but something closer to marveling.

David looked at Snow, then decided he had meant no offense.

No, he said. No matter what you might have heard about actors and the coke-and-swinger party Hollywood lifestyle, I had to be sure. It may seem quaint and old fashioned and not too hip, but I did love her. Even after all this time I held out hope she was still alive. It's all kind of shocking to find all the waiting and wondering and hoping has come to an end with such a crashing thud. David smiled. Out in Tinseltown we'd never make a movie with such an anticlimax.

My intention wasn't to pry, Snow said.

No offense taken. The regrets have hit me all at once. Even though we were married, I really didn't know much about her and she seemed to want to keep it that way. Where she came from, who her parents were – though she had always dropped little hints that she was well off- things like that. I've thought the thing out over the years and I had convinced myself that she was always looking over her shoulder, always watching out. After what happened, it seemed a lot less paranoid. But this, David said, is really a shot out of the blue. What am I to think now?

I knew the woman only on a business basis, Mr. Moore. You are every bit as much a surprise to me as I am to you. To the best of my knowledge she was living quite well and comfortably for the past eight years in Vister. She and her daughter.

Something else I didn't know about.

Snow pursed his lips. I can certainly sympathize, but I'm afraid I'm nothing more than an executor. Whatever the circumstances of her death, or life, I'm not privy to them. The people of Vister are aloof, somewhat secretive, not given to mixing with strangers. They've set up their own little fiefdom and I think they like it that way. I wish I could help, but the answers you're looking for aren't to be found here. You'll have to go to Vister for them, and even then you may not find them.

David peered narrowly at Snow.

Why would you say that?

Snow sighed.

I have run across disappearances before, working as a paralegal in Greensboro. People that disappear usually want to stay lost. I think there's a very good chance that no one but your late wife will ever know exactly what happened on the night in question. I think there's a very good chance that she never spoke of what happened to anyone. And I think the only reason you ever found out any different is because -despite whatever occurred in her life- upon her death she wanted you to know, if not the truth, at least that she had kept you in mind.

So what am I supposed to do now?

Snow looked commiserative. I wish I could tell you. I think you'd better just go to the town, claim your inheritance, and follow your instincts.

Those have never been very good, David said with a rueful smile.

Nor have mine, Mr. Moore. Nor have mine.

You know what's funny, David said. For most people, getting an unexpected windfall would be a good thing. In my case, it's just like digging out an old wound with a rusty piece of steel. I certainly don't need the money. Any rational man would just say to hell with the whole thing and be on his merry way.

Snow nodded. "Except you have a child mixed up