The Digger's Rest (44 page)

“
Aye, lad, so shall we
both,”
the old man said and stood up, touching Simon’s
face.
“‘Tis time,”
and they
both walked out the door, Simon limping, the brace on his poor leg
feeling heavier than it had ever felt before in his young
life.

Chapter XXII

THE HOLLY AND THE IVY

Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah, and if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me

Let It Bleed

………
As performed by The Rolling
Stones

Mitch’s eyes opened just as the sun was
setting over the horizon. He had been there for hours. He didn’t
know where he was at first. All he knew was what he had to do, dig.
He stumbled up and looked around for a shovel, finding one against
a far wall. He went back to the area where the cross had stood and
began. It wasn’t long before he hit something hard and flat. He got
down on his hands and knees, digging furiously with his hands.

The ground beneath him began to rumble.
Slightly at first, moving up and down as if it were breathing. It
loosened the hard flat square under his hands. He took the small
garden spade and began to clear the area. “Simon, are you still
down there?” he called into the hole. Low rumbling, the ground
heaved. “Simon, I’m coming,” he mumbled as he cleared the flat
surface, dusting off the final layer of loose dirt.

With each inch he exposed he could see more
and more of what lay beneath; a mosaic of…a monster, a head and
breasted torso, arms entwined with a wolf and a serpent, vibrantly
colored tiles and black lettering in Latin, ‘Genetrix…mother.’

***

The old man and Simon walked slowly and
quietly along a narrow back path through the woods. The sun was
just setting as they came to the stream on the perimeter of the
site. The old man sniffed the air curiously then heard a faint moan
come from a rapidly shadowing growth of large bracken and ferns not
far to their right. The old man stopped and held Simon by the arm.
“
Wait,”
he said, listening
intently, sniffing at the air; another moan and the sound of water
being disturbed.

They walked toward the sound cautiously and
saw a slim pale leg sticking out from the bracken, an arm resting
on a bed of pebbles, a streaming flow of golden red hair rippling
in the water towards them. The old man went closer, keeping Simon
behind him. It was Ivy Farthing, her face half covered in water.
Simon gasped, as much from the startling sight before him as for
the fact that he’d never seen a woman naked before.

The old man visualized a small black
bird in his mind and called out in his soundless voice.
“I need you, my beauty.”

A moment later the old man had a
response. A small black bird flew to his shoulder.
“Fetch her and bring her here,”
the
old man whispered to the bird and it flew off.

***

Mitch got up, went to the tent and came back
with a crow bar. He shoved the end under the thick concrete plate
and drove it deep, wedging it far enough to dislodge it and push it
away with his hands. “Simon, are you down there, please? I’m
coming.” But what he saw wasn’t Simon.

It was the skeletal remains of a creature,
the lower body structured like an animal; small bone remains of
wings, the skull bearing horns and fangs; in its arms the same
creature but smaller, an infant. He heard a voice, a woman’s voice,
calling from above him in an ancient language that he didn’t
understand, but again, did understand. He looked up.

The wind began to blow furiously, gusts
so strong the trees bent under the pressure, swaying in all
directions. He heard the call of owls, screeching and fluttering,
thousands of them calling from the forest around him.
“Dig! Son of Adam. DIG!”

He looked back down to the hole. The soil was
churning, falling away, deep heaving breaths; mounds forming under
his hands as he pulled the soil away.

A gritty moan, hitching and coughing; a
chest taking deep breaths. He pushed more soil away, breasts, arms
around his neck and a…face; Ivy Farthing’s face.
“Mitchell,”
a breathless, sandy, grit
filled whisper came into his ear. He pulled back, looking into her
eyes; wide and hungry with lust.

Fluidly, she got up on her hands and knees;
sleek and sensuous like a tigress. Her face smiling, she backed
around, exposing herself, reaching behind with her hand to part
herself for him. “Smell her scent as mixed with mine, son of Adam,
and become strong in thy loins,” she cooed, panting and wagging
herself in front of him.

Still on his knees, he backed away. She laid
herself down on the mosaic tablet facing him, her arms outstretched
to him seductively, grinding her buttocks against the mosaic,
welcoming him.

A wave of disgust and revulsion washed
over him.
“Fuck me,”
she
cooed.
“Fuck me, son of Adam, so that I may
become hot of thee and bear thee many demons and spirits,”
she said working her hips up and down, parting herself
further with her fingers to entice him.
“Seed me with thy manhood as thou would seed the field of
wheat from whence thou came.”

Entranced by her movement, hypnotized by the
sound of her voice, his head whirling from her scent, he felt
himself stir, his hips wanting to sway rhythmically with hers. He
moved to crawl toward her, his hand reaching for his belt
buckle.

“
Yes, that’s right,” she purred. “Show
me thy fertile man-hood so that I may gaze upon thy staff and know
from whence my children will spring.”

He moved closer, unable to resist the scent
and movement. Enveloped in it, his head swam with desire, his hips
moving more and more to her rhythm, like a snake to the flute of a
snake charmer.

He pulled himself out, letting himself dangle
as he crawled.

“
Fuck me, Mitchell,”
she demanded, turning over again, back on her hands and
knees. Reaching from behind her, he took her by her long red hair
and pulled her toward him. He looked down and was right behind her,
his pants at his knees, throbbing wet with lust from the scent of
her.

Flesh disappearing, no longer Ivy Farthing,
she slowly covered herself with another flesh, thick serpent-like
brownish green flesh. Her tail wrapped around his leg, her many
arms pushing herself up as she slithered against him, her wings
retracted.

The creature moved; upright on her knees, her
tail pushed between his legs, running up his back; an arm reached
behind and took hold of him, then another and another, rolling him
onto his back, taking a position on top of him. Her buttocks
raised, she put a hand between her legs, parting herself again.

***

From their cover deep in the brush at
the edge of the ruin, the old man sat watching, his hand clamped
over Simon’s mouth, muffling Simon’s attempt to cry out at the
tableau of carnality he was witnessing
.
“Nay, boy, nay. Tis not yet the time. We must wait until she is
full in her prime, weak with ripeness. Thou art a powerful young
shaman now, but she is a demon as old as time itself. She will not
be robbed of her prey lightly,”
he said in his
soundless voice.

Simon backed down, his hands sweating and
trembling with incendiary heat, the power the old man spoke of
raging through his veins, pulsing in his ears. He couldn’t bear the
sight of the creature putting her hands on Mitch.

***

Mitch looked up, knowing that he was going to
die. He saw the image of the great twenty foot statue rise behind
her, the wings, the breasts and many arms; the face, rows of teeth
and pointed ears, eyes alive with desire. The pores of his skin
opened wide, scalded as she licked at him, his blood cells bursting
as she leaned over and kissed him, her long thick tongue, working
its way down his throat, burning like a red hot poker. He tried to
cry out in pain but the sound choked within him.

His eyes darted back to the she-creature on
top of him as he felt the heat coming from between her legs,
burning him as she spread herself to plunge down on him, the
sensitivity in his loins about to unleash.

An ear-splitting, shrieking cry, then the
sizzling sound of meat searing and the smell of burning flesh came
from above him, behind him. She flew back, rearing up on her
haunches, blisters broken and leaking down her face. His eyes
glanced up.

Simon stood above him; a sack cloth shirt,
his face painted, fierce; a wooden spear in one hand and a carved
wooden Celtic cross in the other; the old man not far off to his
side.

The ground shook beneath them, splitting the
earth with fissures, steam erupting into the air. The wind began to
blow as she crept back, arms flailing, wings outstretched to take
flight; her tail whipping at the air.

Hovering above them, she swooped first at the
old man, shadowing him with an enormous wing. When the wing drew
back, the old man was on the ground covered with leaking boils.

Simon turned, waving the hand that held the
cross over the old man. “Heal!” he commanded, and the old man was
free of boils and coming back up on his feet. They turned as Mitch
cried out, a bolt of pain shooting up his spine as the long sharp
tail wrapped around him, dragging him away toward her, throwing him
behind her as she turned back to face Simon coming at her.

She glared back, her mouth opening to let
loose an echoing, warbling call into the sky and backed over Mitch,
straddling him with her legs. The forest around them suddenly came
to life, snakes, hundreds of them slithering out of the forest
toward Simon and the old man; growling of mammals, wolves, wild
dogs; screeches from above their heads, birds, large birds, owls,
vultures, hawks, all swirling around their heads, surrounding Simon
and the old man; snakes almost at their heels, beasts encircling
them, snapping at the air around them, birds diving at their heads.
The old man held them off chanting in the old language and sent
Simon a message,

“
Use thy power
boy!”

Simon hesitated then raised his hands
to the blackening sky, forcing himself to pull in all the forces of
nature to his finger tips, chanting in the old language that the
old man fed him, beckoning them to his command.
“Open!”
he shouted to the sky.

Thunder clapped and an enormous flash of
lightening lit the sky. The snakes slithered away, the animals
cried out in fear and ran, the birds ignited into flames, dropping
like hail stones; disintegrating before they hit the ground. Simon
moved toward the creature, limping and dragging his brace behind
him and ripped open his sack cloth shirt to reveal the words ‘Snvi…
Ssnevoy’ painted in black on his chest.

“
You cannot hurt me,”
Simon raged at her.

She screamed in a thousand voices when
she saw the words, knowing she could not kill him and backed away,
pulling Mitch close to her, blanketing him in her wings, yellow
light flashing from her eyes, speaking into Simon’s big blue
eyes,
“Cripple! Jealous, sexless dwarf
child! Unnatural creature! Born of swine to be neither son of Adam
nor daughter of Eve, unnatural thing!”
she seethed,
taunting him.

Her words hit him with the force of a
storm, physically staggering him. His mind splintered.
“…neither son of Adam nor daughter of Eve,
unnatural thing!”
echoed in his ears. The truth of it
ripped into his soul.

“
Listen not, boy!”
the old man called out from behind him.

“
Excrement of swine. Mistake
of God,”
she gloated, glaring at him
triumphantly.

Simon screamed in anguish. The cut of her
words making him feel like they were peeling the skin off of him,
rending open his most private secrets, revealing him to be exactly
what she said, God’s mistake.

She changed her form again; Ivy
Farthing, long golden red hair, tall and lithe, supple pink-nippled
breasts, beautiful and feminine, Botticelli’s Venus come to
life.
“This is what he loves. Thou art an
ugly mongrel changling, a vessel for his pity. Nothing
more.”

Simon let his head hang down, deflated
and…defeated, a flood of tears rolling down his face, broken inside
now as well as out; deformed inside as well as out.

The old man came to his side,
“She lies, boy. Remember how he hast loved thee
and protected thee, comforted and nurtured thee. ‘Twas not false as
is this,”
he said and flicked his fingers at the image
of Ivy Farthing standing before them, splintering it into shards to
reveal the creature in her true form once again. Simon turned
away.

Reaching back into Simon’s soul, the
old man heard Simon say quietly, sadly,
“I
am an unnatural thing. God’s mistake.”
The old man saw
the mortal wound gaping open inside him, bleeding him of all that
ever made him special.

“
Nay boy, thou art as
natural as thy name, Holly,”
he said, warming Simon
from the inside with the strength of his conviction. The effort of
seeing into Simon again weakened the old man, forcing him to
withdraw, but before he did, the old man came upon an image, hidden
deep in the recesses of Simon’s mind. The answer.

He took the boy’s face in both his hands,
forcing him to look into his tiny black eyes as they changed, no
longer tiny and black but green, turned up at their corners. His
lips began to move, the voice coming out of his mouth not his own,
“I didn’t pull you out of Holy Family to sacrifice you to a jail
cell. Do you understand me?” When the old man saw the reaction in
Simon’s eyes, he pushed harder, “Just promise me that if we’re
caught you’ll let me protect you and save yourself.”