Indescribable: Book Two of the Primordial Read online

  Looking back on it now, he realized that the map had surely been behind the canvas even back then. Thorn wasn’t sure if they had gone any further than the front parlor that day; it was the only room that he could remember. But just in the short amount of time that they had been there, there was something else about the house that had made a lasting impression and had stuck with him ever since. It was the last thing that he could remember about the visit.

  Behind the stairs that led to the second floor, there was a door, presumably to a basement or wine cellar. It was remembering what he had seen that had been etched deep into one of the wood panels that caused Thorn all those years later to stand from the floor in his tiny apartment, shouting with realization and overcome with adrenaline.

  “That’s it! That’s it!” He told Wren, full of excitement. The cat looked at him and tilted her head to the side, seemingly confused about the commotion.

  Thorn bent over to pick up the original map and held it up where he could see it better.

  “I knew I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said out loud and traced is thumb over the compass that was located in the corner.

  In the part of his brain that held the memory of that long ago day, there was something else, an image that was crystal clear. The carving on the door underneath the staircase was of a heart with N, S, E, and W on its interior, the exact same that was on the map. Now he knew without a doubt that Stanwood’s house was where he should start.

  Thorn went into the kitchen and gently placed the map on the counter where it would be safe, but the air from old style, rotating fan that was in the corner lifted it up and nearly blew it to the floor. He managed to catch it before it got away and his eyes scanned the countertop searching for something that he could use as a paperweight. To his left, he saw that the most recent book that he was reading was splayed open, face down, on the page that he had been on. It was a paperback romance novel. Most men that Thorn knew wouldn’t be caught dead in the romance section of the book store; they preferred to linger about the sci-fi and fantasy shelves, but to him, romance novels were fantasy. The stories of love were something that he could only imagine. He picked up the book and placed it upside down on top of the map, holding it down.

  He went into the bedroom and hastily packed an overnight bag of clothes and essential toiletries. The house was only an hour away, but he needed to be prepared just in case he needed to get a motel room and spend the night. He had no idea what to expect on the upcoming excursion. He didn’t know if he might need to do some research once he got there. He went into the kitchen and turned the fan off. He grabbed the newly drawn map, his car keys, and the romance novel from the kitchen counter. He opened the bag, shoved the book in, and threw the strap over his shoulder. Pausing to catch his breath, he looked at Wren one more time.

  “I won’t be gone long. I promise,” he told the cat. “There is just something of the utmost importance that I need to see about.”

  Wren turned her head to the side, stood, meowed, and sauntered away and out of sight, seemingly indifferent about Thorn’s plans and the fact of being left alone.

  THORN DROVE around the rural area of where Stanwood’s plantation house was located for what seemed like hours until he finally found it. It was less than a mile from a large amphitheater that had been constructed in recent years. Despite the location of the amphitheater, the area was not built up by any means. By the time that he figured out where the turnoff was located he realized that he had already passed that exact same spot several times in the search as he had driven back and forth over that three mile stretch of backcountry. There were only a couple of hours left of daylight, so he knew that he needed to be quick.

  The roads had been nearly empty of any other traffic. There had only been the occasional pickup or log truck to break the stillness. A canopy of trees gave much welcomed shade on the asphalt. It was a good thing too, because the air in Thorn’s car didn’t work. It was one of many things in his life that he needed to fix. The kitchen sink, his bank account, his credit card bills, and a novel that he had been working on for the better part of three years were all things that needed attention. But the fact of the matter was that he could only do one thing at a time, and the car’s AC had been placed on the back burner.

  Thorn turned off of the asphalt and drove in between two brick columns that were each capped with a perched, concrete bird. Even though they were stone gray, if Thorn wasn’t mistaken, they looked like bluebirds. Vines were growing around the red brick columns. The nearby shrubbery and brush were so tall and leggy that the branches swayed in the almost non existent breeze. There was a length of cable lying on the ground that had at one time been connected to each of the columns, blocking the dirt driveway, as a way of keeping cars off the land. A PRIVATE PROPERTY sign had once hung in the center, but at some point in time the cable had come loose and now Thorn just drove over it and the sign. The car crept down the long dirt drive that led to the property. The weeds and grass that grew on the stretch of land was nearly half as tall as the car. Massive oak trees were scattered about the property. There were humongous, ancient azalea bushes that would have several months earlier been a beautiful array of pink, white, and red blossoms. Now, in the middle of summer, the few flowers that were on the bushes had already turned an ugly, muddy color of brown. The driveway was dusty. Even though the area had been getting a good amount of rain over the past few weeks, the ground was so dry and the air was so humid that the moisture quickly dissipated after each rainfall. There was a thick trail of dust rising behind the car and Thorn had to close his window to keep the dust from getting inside.

  Similar to the sign that the car had passed over, black and orange PRIVATE PROPERTY signs were posted on several fence posts. Despite the posts that were along the roadside there was not a fence. It was evident that the posts had been placed there for the single purpose of the signs. Even though the property hadn’t been inhabited in many years, it had remained in the Rimbault family forever. Thorn wasn’t exactly sure of the legalities, who actually owned it, but he assumed that it must’ve been worth a fortune.

  Because of the potholes in the driveway he had to drive slowly, but the house finally came into view. It wasn’t as big as what he remembered from the only other time that he had ever been there, but it was a large house nonetheless. He parked in the circular driveway just where his mother had parked all those years before.

  Upon standing out of the car he inhaled the country air. It was a lot different from that of where he lived in the middle of the city. There was no car exhaust or smells of cooking food from nearby restaurants to interfere with the purity of it all. It was only undefiled, clean air. There were no industrial sounds to break up those of nature. There was the rustle of tree branches and tall grass swaying in the light breeze; there was the hum of insects and the distant skittering of small animals’ feet.

  He felt more confident than ever that the plantation house would be the place to start in his search. He wanted to look around and see if he could discover any clues as to where the talisman may have been.

  The centuries old steps and porch sagged underneath his feet. While he was reaching out his hand to the doorknob he wondered if he would discover that the door had been left unlocked just as it had been before when he and his mother had been there or if he would have to find a way to break in. He briefly wondered if he could be arrested for breaking into his own family’s property. A criminal record was something that he most definitely did not need. He turned the doorknob and to his surprise it was unlocked. He pushed the door all the way open.

  Thorn hesitantly stepped inside. Sunlight glared in through the bare windows. Dust motes floated in the slanted beams of light that illuminated the hardwood floor with a golden glow. The house smelled vacant and old. The sound of the door and his footsteps as he went inside echoed in the empty space. From the looks of it, the thought crossed his mind that the house really could’ve been haunted just like the stories that he had hear
d growing up.

  He glanced up at the balustrade that wrapped around the second floor landing. He couldn’t help but imagine Ella Rimbault hanging from the rope that had supposedly been attached to the railing on the day that she took her own life. It occurred to him that where he was standing on the bottom level of the house was probably a close proximity to where her body would’ve hung all those years earlier, swaying to and fro. The thought gave him chills.

  He walked past the stairs and approached the door that was underneath. It was pulled shut. The heart emblem was still there. Why wouldn’t it be? he thought. It had, after all, been carved deep into the wood.

  Like he had done outside, Thorn tried turning this doorknob as well, but it didn’t budge. He reached out his hand and touched the heart. He could feel the smoothness of where some sort of metal instrument had long ago carved into the solid piece of wood. He traced his fingertips all the way around the design of the heart and ran them over the inside surface. When his fingers met the N that was situated near the top, there was, without any kind of warning, all of a sudden nothing.

  In a flash, the entire world went glaringly white and then black. Thorn’s body fell to the floor with a thud. While he was unconscious, he had a vision. A huge, monstrous mouth that was full of jagged yellow teeth was open in front of him. The mouth was so big and cavernous that it was all there was.

  When he woke he didn’t know where he was at first, but the reality quickly came back to him. He was surprised to see that it was already night time. Since the sun had disappeared well past the horizon it made the interior of the house so dark that he could barely see anything, but the front door was still standing open and a little bit of moonlight was getting in. He could hear crickets chirping outside.

  Thorn got to his feet and had to place his hand flat against the wall to steady himself. The moonlight shining in through the door was enough to give him a sure destination to reach. He walked out of the house feeling disappointed that he had made no progress whatsoever in his search for the talisman. It seemed like a day wasted. After exiting the house he pulled the door closed and stepped carefully across the porch, down the steps, and to his car.

  After sitting down behind the wheel he noticed that from the passenger seat there was a green glow that was emanating from the inside of the bag that he had thrown a change of clothes into. It must be my phone, he reasoned, but he had never seen it light up like that. A missed call or a text message, he assumed. He left the door standing open so that the interior light would stay on while he searched the bag for the phone. With the key in the ignition and the door open, there was a steady, rhythmic ding, ding, ding, and just as he was unsnapping the front flat of the bag he realized that the glowing light was not coming from his phone. The phone was resting, unlit, in the round cup holder between the seats. He was confused. If it’s not the phone then what is the strange, green light? He lifted the flap and reached inside the bag, fumbling through his clothes and toiletries. It was coming from the book that he had brought, but that didn’t make any since whatsoever. He picked up the book, fanned through the pages, and discovered that the original map was tucked inside. In his hurry to get out of the house he must’ve grabbed the map thinking that it was a piece of junk mail and stuck it in the book as a place marker. Even though he was able to fabricate a chain of events that would give reason for the map being there, none of that answered the most pressing question of all; why was it glowing?

  The X, the destination, was pulsating with that strange, green luminescence. The dashed line that ran to the top left of the paper was also lit. As Thorn moved the paper he noticed something odd. The line changed. It wasn’t much, only a hair, but there had been something. With the map in his hand, he jumped out of the car and began walking away from the house. He looked down at the map and saw that he was right, it was changing. It was getting longer, further away from the X. He turned around and walked the other way, toward the house, and the distance on the map became less. It’s like an ancient GPS, he thought. He realized that the map was all he needed to find the talisman. It must’ve had a spell placed on it that would lead the seeker to the talisman from wherever he started. He hurried to the car and placed the map on the driver’s side seat. He bent over and reached underneath the seat, searching for a flashlight that he was sure was there somewhere. He finally found it, stood up straight, checked to make sure that the battery was not dead, got the map, and slammed the door.

  With the flashlight shining in front of him, he began walking, watching the progress on the map with each step. He realized that he was in fact going in the right direction so he kept on. The path led him around the side of the house where the weeds and brush were even thicker than they had been out front. He shined the flashlight through the mess, careful not to step on a snake or any other type of undesirable critter that might have been underfoot. He walked through a slim set of trees and into an open field. He knew that it was the fields where the Rimbaults had grown indigo all those years before. Out in the open, the moonlight and starlight was brighter. A set of clouds in the night sky were outlined with the moon’s white glow. The map led him across the stretch of land. With each hurried step, the flashlight beam danced across the ground. The field grass was so tall that some of it reached midway up his legs. About midway through the length of the field, he turned to look back at where he had come from. The plantation house was way off in the distance. The map was showing that he didn’t have much further to go.

  As the distance to the X got less and less, Thorn found himself in a small copse of large, live oaks. The ancient branches of the trees were twisted and gnarled. Some of them drooped down nearly to the ground. He shined his flashlight around and saw that on each side of him there were brick ruins of old buildings. He knew that where he was standing had at one time been the slave quarters of the plantation. According to the map he was close, nearly there. He swirled around and took a few steps to the right, finally ending up in the center of the ruins of one of the cabins. The glow of the X was steady. He was standing right on top of the talisman, but where could it be? Had it been buried? He shined the flashlight everywhere, around the ground, and even up in the trees. The light caught on something that he thought was odd. He held the flashlight steady and could see that there was an old chain that had at some point in time been wrapped around one of the branches of the tree. The limb was probably ten to twelve feet off the ground. Over time the tree had grown around the chain, nearly consuming all of it, but there were still pieces of it visible to the naked eye. Thorn walked around the tree, keeping his flashlight steady and could see that aside from the chain that there was a small, wooden box that was three quarters of the way sunken in where the tree had grown around it. He understood what he was seeing. The talisman had been placed in the box and chained to the tree limb where it was believed that it couldn’t be found by the wrong person. Where the limb was located would have been on the other side of the cabin and out of sight. Back then no one would have ever predicted the wear and tear that the following years of harsh weather, fires, and war would have on manmade structures and that one day the talisman would be left out in the open.

  He wondered how he could get up there. He shined the flashlight over the length of the tree’s trunk and noticed several places where he could get a good foothold. He walked over to the edge of the ruins and picked up one of the old bricks that had come loose from the mortar. He placed the flashlight on the ground, propping it against a large, exposed root so that it was angled just right and the light was falling onto where the box was chained to the tree limb. With the brick in hand he began climbing the tree. He was wearing a pair of classic, leather, wingtip shoes, not the best for climbing a tree, but he would make it work. It had been probably twenty five years since he had climbed any tree and he thought that what he was doing was exactly the kind of thing that his mother would have insisted was dangerous, climbing an unfamiliar tree, in the dark, with a brick in one hand.

  Standi
ng on a short, protruding knob that was on the trunk of the tree, he grasped a high limb with his left hand and pulled his right hand back, ready to swing the brick with all of his might. He knew that he was not a muscular man. He ran several miles every couple of days and did push up several times a week and thought that he was fit, a little above average he thought, but he wondered if he had the strength to accomplish what he was trying to do. He brought the brick down onto its target. The brick clanged loudly against the metal chain. He immediately raised his arm and brought the brick down again. His pace quickened and he could feel and see that the pieces of the tree bark were breaking off and the box was jarring loose. After a few more hits with the brick, to his shock, the chain broke. The box was able to move behind what was left of its restraint. He hit at the tree a few more times, lighter now, breaking off the larger pieces of wood that wrapped around the box. Finally the box came free and fell to the ground. Thorn dropped the brick, let go of the limb, and jumped from where he stood. When he landed, he fell to the ground. The right side of his head slammed against a root. It hurt and he knew that he had been cut.

  He got to his feet, not bothering to brush the dirt and debris from his clothes, and picked up the box. It was a perfect square that had nothing carved or written on any one of its four sides. Thorn wasn’t sure what kind of wood that it had been made out of, he thought that it was pine, but was surprised that it had held up for all those years, especially being out in the elements the way that it had been. He reasoned that it probably had a spell placed on it so that it wouldn’t deteriorate over time. He shook the box and something rattled inside. He knew that it was the talisman. He could tell by the sound that it made that it wasn’t much smaller than the box that it was inside. There wasn’t a lot of extra space in there. He fumbled with the box for a minute longer and realized that the top simply slid out. Two of the sides had grooves that had been cut into them to hold the lid. He slid the top all the way out and removed the object that was inside. It was round, about the size of a baseball. It fit neatly in the palm of his hand. It was made of wood and two triangular eyes had been carved into it. Underneath the pair of eyes there was a wide, open mouth that was nearly the size of the object itself. Both the top and bottom row of teeth had been cut to resemble sharp points. It reminded him of a jack-o-lantern.