The Haunts

From out of the Haunts, Gilbert Gundegisil set the strange coffin-like object down on the floor of his store and stepped back. He removed his thick leather gloves and let them drop to the ground. He then carefully removed his favourite bucket hat, which he loved to wear when he fished. Then he proceeded to remove his shemagh head and neck scarf before slipping off his prescription goggles. All set in a pile, he adamantly slid aside with his boots before he kicked them off his sore feet. He was itchy all over, feeling grimy, dirty, and hurt. All he wanted was to soak in a medicinal bath for at least a week.

Travelling through the Haunts was at best irritating, but searching through them for Levy’s missing body was risky business. He was shocked when he fell over an imp-encrusted coffin, the exact size Levy was. He wished that Corvus could’ve been more helpful in his directions, but his prolonged exposure to the Haunts had prevented him from taking human shape for many weeks now. Gilbert had to drag the heavy thing back into the earthy realm and then back to the shop to take a crack at opening it, something he had little experience doing.

Back in his shop, Gilbert started to pour sea salt all around the strangely ornate capsule-shaped coffin. To him, it looked like a knot of snakes withering around in a reptilian orgy, but it was a cluster of semi-solidified imps from out of the Haunts, packed tightly together, wiggling and squirming for the food contained in the coffin.

“Man, I hate going into the Haunts,” Gilbert said aloud as he gathered some more ingredients to help release who he suspected was in the imp coffin. He then brushed off the remaining grey dust from his head, shoulders, and arms. “I sure hope this was well worth it and that I’m not too late,” He mumbled. “It’s going to take me at least a month to get the grey ash out of here and out of my clothes.”

Corvus, who sat on his perch, cawed back.

“I Know, I know, you’ve lost your special dagger, but maybe it’s in here with him. If not, you’re just going to have to use something else to help defeat Cailleach.”

Corvus bobbed his head and cawed more insistently.

“I know that Levy must fight the Hag Goddess, but he’s nowhere near ready to face her yet. That is, if he’s even in here and still alive after being cocooned by a bunch of hungry imps.”

Corvus flew over from his perch and settled on Gilbert’s shoulder for a closer look.

“Man, I hate imps; they can sure make a real mess out of things.” Gilbert shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs, and his hand started to change into that of a bear’s claw, and the transformation continued to crawl its way up his arm and throughout his entire body. His whole body took on the appearance of a large grizzly bear, but the clothes he wore strained to stay on him. His glasses still sat on his long nose.

After a few minutes of his animal brute strength, which included holding the container high in the air, he then slammed it to the hard linoleum floor like a log full of bees protecting their honey. But nothing he tried aside from sitting on it made a dent.

In frustration, Gilbert took his claws and began to engrave mystical glyphs and symbols on the almost impenetrable surface. Within seconds, the imps started to spoil before his eyes and break apart. Their bodies started dissolving into dust as they faded back into the Haunts.

As the impish coffin dissolved away, Gilbert found poor Levy gaunt, naked, and half-starved, and his body had welts and tiny bite marks all over it. Levy gave the shopkeeper a look of terror and refused to get out of the impish coffin.

Corvus circled above the two, who were insistently cawing loudly.

Gilbert realized what had caused this reaction between Levy and Corvus, and he quickly changed back into his human form.

“You're a bear?” Levy stuttered out with a shiver.

“I am very sorry to reveal my original form to you so suddenly,” Gilbert said rather ashamedly. “But I had to do something to get you out of there. Who knows what could’ve happened to you?”

“I think I would’ve died,” Levy said, looking around the room.

“Most likely,” Gilbert agreed. “Do you think you can move?”

“Honestly, I don’t think I have the strength to do so.”

“Then I shall help you.”

“Why are you doing this?” Levy felt his body lifted up into the man’s strong arms. His once short hair was now long and fell over his shoulders, while the nails on his hands and feet were noticeably longer.

“Corvus and I were once enslaved by Cailleach to do her bidding. That’s how we got to be humans. There once were three of us, but she had killed our brethren, Canis. He had served her the longest, but she betrayed him as she had betrayed us, just like she will betray you too if she gets things going her way. Back in the day, she was a different person.”

Levy squinted. “But Corvus is Latin for crow, like Canis is for wolf. You then should be named Ursus the bear.”

Gilbert smiled as he set Levy onto a pile of soft cushions that smelled of lavender and rose petals. He then draped the teenager’s nakedness with a few blankets so he wouldn’t catch a chill. “When I escaped from my life of servitude to Cailleach, I began to discover the world around me through these human eyes. After centuries of living among them, I think I’ve earned a name for myself. A name I could be proud of.”

“Does that mean you’re immortal like her?”

Gilbert looked at Corvus before answering, “We’re both minor deities. Theoretically, we can still die, but we won’t die from old age.”

Levy nodded and then stole a look at the store windows and realized they were thick with ice, as was the door frame.

“How long was I gone?” he started to fret.

Gilbert stood up and turned away, saying, “Don’t worry about that right now. For now, we need to get you something to drink and eat, and to keep down.”

He hurried down the aisle towards his pantry. “I like to keep a few edibles around, so I don’t have to venture out of the store. I wonder if I should order us a pizza or two.” He added thoughtfully The shopkeeper peered out from the pantry. He had an armful of packaged noodles and a mesh bag full of fresh vegetables. His mouth was busy munching away on an unpeeled carrot.

Corvus cawed from his perch, and the shopkeeper looked at the crow in annoyance and grumbled out something again, incomprehensible.

“Please,” Levy had his hands together, “I need to know how long I was unconscious because I had a dream that Sheryl came to me to say goodbye. That monster had done something to her, and now I fear that she is dead.” He held his head in his hands and wept.

Gilbert became tearful, turned his head and spat the carrot halfway across the shop, then he looked back at Levy. The boy’s face wore such sadness that it was deeply troubling. He let the groceries fall away and he approached Levy like a concerned parent.

He bent low and spoke softly to the boy. “It’s only been six months in this world, but you’ve aged at least a double that from your stay in the Haunts, maybe even more.”

Levy blinked, “but how is that even possible?” He looked at his thin hands and they did seem longer. His stature, though malnourished, did appear leaner, perhaps by an inch or two.

Corvus took off from his perch and landed near Levy and gave him a once-over. He started to caw and bob his head at the lad.

Gilbert squatted next to Levy and Corvus. He handed Levy an apple and then to the crow, a dead mouse from his shirt pocket. “He wants to know what you did with his dagger. Have you hidden it somewhere?” He took another bite from an apple he took for himself and started to munch away on it.

Levy made a face as he took the apple first offered in his hand and then watched as Corvus choked down his furry little meal in appalling disgust. “I must’ve dropped it when we were escaping from the Haunts, but I think I know who has it now.”

Corvus strutted about and cawed in Levy’s face.

“He says once you get better, you two will have to go steal it back from her.”

“Honestly, I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.”

Corvus continued to caw and then bobbed his head.

“Corvus says it’s easy. He’s done it many times before.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Levy took a hearty bite from his apple, thinking how does one go about defeating an insane God?

Levy was feeling a little better after a solid meal and drink. But his stomach wasn’t completely prepared for it. It would take a few months to get his body back to way it was. He had been so dehydrated that it was any wonder that his own organs didn’t shut down. Gilbert said that Levy was very lucky, but the latter thought otherwise. During his incubation period, something was happening to him that he couldn’t quite figure. That was until he was asleep and started to dream. There, he noticed something very particular about his awakening between worlds, not in the physical sense but in a mental state.

His first dream he was in Sheryl’s room, watching the grim event leading to her death. In utter horror, he saw the insane cruelty that Cailleach had inflicted to his dearest friend. He felt like he was a disembodied spirit drifting to the climatic end.

But something was amiss—this wasn’t like any other normal dream where things were unclear and jumbled, it felt real, and he could interact within it and possibly change its outcome.

As his wicked ancestor reached out to snap Sheryl’s neck at the foot of the stairs, Levy stood between them and begged for his friend’s life.

The immoral one simply sensed his presence and smirked.

“I told you before you passed into the Haunts that I’d do something terrible to the ones you love and I meant it. Besides, what’s past is past, you will never have control over me.”

“There is always another way,” Levy drifted in and out. “You just have to stop what you’re doing and think about the consequences of your actions.”

“You seem to be maturing from the coward I encountered not that long ago,” Cailleach reached out and her hand passed through Levy’s incorporeal form. “But you’re centuries too late to change my mind.”

Levy turned to see Cailleach’s hands locked tight onto the back of Sheryl’s throat. Watching in horror as His friend squirmed and struggled to free herself from the hag’s tighten clutch.

“If you do this terrible deed, there is no turning back,” Levy threatened; “only you can change this event from coming to fruition. Only you can rise above this terrible deed.”

“Oh I assure you, I’ve done far worse than this,” Cailleach sneered as her face filled with seething rage and crushed the poor girl’s neck as easily as breaking a toothpick.

Levy closed his eyes, and then he knew what had to do.

“How dare you,” he turned on her in his ethereal form. His hands curled and pushed at her outwards. His rage became a physical manifestation which struck full force into Cailleach, slamming the accursed one back into Sheryl’s bedroom. He heard the crunch of broken wood and the shattering sound of breaking glass. The door to the room slammed shut and he merely passed through it.

“Bravo!” Cailleach got back up off the floor, clapping as he entered the room like a ghost. “Bravo!” She started to cackle as she brushed off the debris. “I see you’re finally tapping into that power that has been in our lineage for centuries.”

Levy hovered and pointed at her, “you brought this upon yourself.”

“I wasn’t sure if you had the balls to use it or not. Certainly, your Granny did for a while. But she chickened out long before I could teach her more sinister uses of that power within her — the true cost of such a supernatural force.”

Levy squinted, “she was your apprentice?”

“My lover, actually,” Cailleach crossed her arms and tapped at her lower lip, “later on, I tried to make her my pupil until he got back from the war. Then, I had to shuffle aside to make way for that useless cur.” At that, she turned and spat on the ground. “In the end, she turned out to be a real disappointment, so then I just took out all my rage on that poor unlucky husband of hers! And boy, what fun that was, I must say,” she cackled.

Levy noticed that her spit had blood in it and thought, so you can be injured.

Cailleach eyed at what Levy was looking at and she glanced back to him. Her mind reeled with possibilities of what was going through Levy’s little brain. How was he going to react now if he realized that she could be injured? She squinted at him planning her next move.

Without a word, she turned and scrambled through the open window and fled into the cloak of night.

Levy in his incorporeal form calmly hovered over to the window and then drifted beyond the household. From his new vantage point, he lingered high about the Fellmen household, and discovered that his ancestral nemesis had disappeared from sight.

Below, he spotted Sheryl’s father’s car coming up the driveway and his heart sunk into a pit of despair. His incorporeal body started to scatter in the turbulent gale.

Back in his mortal body, Levy’s eyes shot opened and they were full of helpless, angry tears. He had been asleep in the corner of the shop, and now he was wide awake and full of questions. He heard a scuffling sound in the dark. Streetlights were shining through the frosted display windows, and the wind rattled hard against the shop trying to make its way in.

Corvus in his crow form walked towards Levy, blinking at him curiously.

“I see that I’m not the only one that can’t sleep,” Levy coughed as he sat upright.

Corvus stopped to look at him. He tilted his head from side to side like the curious bird he was.

“I wish you’d retake your human form. I feel a little strange talking to you like that.”

Corvus gurgled something unintelligible.

“Yea, like that.” Levy gestured upwards.

“W-what?” Gilbert popped his head from behind the counter, “could you two please keep it down? Some of us got to work tomorrow.” He grumped, then slumped back onto his makeshift bed and covered his head with a patched-up blanket.

Without a word, Corvus turned and strutted back into the shadows, and then in the dim light, he flew up to his perch.

Levy sighed and got comfortable again. He heard a loud snore coming from where Gilbert was sleeping behind the counter of his shop.

What a strange trio we make, Levy faced the ceiling. He hoped tomorrow would be better, that maybe he could convince the two to abandon looking for the dagger and help him find a way to defeat Cailleach Bhéarach once and for all. Then perhaps they could all get on with their lives.