There is an ancient evil in Kellyport Maine. The elements have become misaligned; the drums of a bygone age still beat in time. It is judgement's full circle set in the motions and movements of the planets and solar constellations. They have ordered themselves for the new age. A shimmering tale of old that has come back to be realized further...in the present day.

     The unseen of life shall be opened. The hidden shall be made plain. No stone unturned and no mystery unlearned.

    Realities lost it's base, time has been split. and the dead walk again. The world's axis is rotating out of it's familiar spindle's turn..

    In the recesses of the earth's bowels, a sacrifice by a cannibal priest is prepared as an offering to peculiar gods. The god of trees and fire. The altar is prepared, the incense lit, and the atonement bell has been rung. A prayer to the devil is chanted in a peculiar dialect.

    This child's blood and beating heart is the propitiation of death.. It is the reckoning of an age, of sins, evil deeds and bloodshed. It is an eye for an eye; it is creation groaning and shifting phases.

    The young virgin lies upon an altar of blood as the god of fire ascends through the earth unloosed from the chains of eternal gravedom. The golden tree rises up from the hell below and snatches the young child up with its branches. In a shower of shimmering light, the god devourer's her flesh as her scream becomes a silence...

The altar of blood is now sanctified by an evil doom. The god of trees and fire has been fed.

The supreme dark angel of death opens his eyes and looks around. The world has committed great evil and chaos rules. Utter darkness is now clearly visible... The devil is every where present:

Part 1 Discovery

(The Belly Of The Earth)

Deep in the forest ember

Mystical legends of life remember

Every one is dreaming shall one awake.

And the morning take.

Dreamer of dreams

Look on yonder fields

Arise from thy sleep

This memory keep.

   It is Monday morning in Maine, August 28 1999. Danny had not as of yet gotten out of bed. He could hear his father sawing wood out in the front yard.

   His mind was still confused about the dream. He had heard some woman reading poetry in this really strange place...dark and evil. Life always seemed to have its way of happening on its own for Danny. Danny was unsure about why but reality was unreal in some sort of way, it seemed suspicious. Regardless there was school and work and whatever else he could find to try to stay out of trouble.

    As Danny got dressed, fairly close by the nightmare was still going on as the Mc Gillan's Farm burned to the ground.

    Of course this was the talk all day at school but no one seemed to pay it much mind. Maine farms unexpectedly burn to the ground all the time in with the hay, heat and all.

    It's a shame the family never made it out alive. Little Sarah Mc Gillan will be sorely missed in her first grade class this year, and the farm itself, nothing but ash.

   Late August fires in Washington County seem to come up outa nowhere.

   The school clock reads12:00 now at the Harris-Everest High School. Danny would bring his own lunch and take it down on to the beach for noon hour. It was quiet there and he loved the ocean where he had worked most of his life harvesting the various marine life.

   On this particular day Danny spied something shining, sort of glistering in the noon day sun off Little Moose Horn Island.

   This was his favorite place to go exploring because it was such a wondrously uninhabited island.

   That was exactly what Danny was going to do after he got out of school. There was little if nothing at all said about the fire that after noon at school. There was a sort of numbness and delay about the Mc Gillan's tragedy the night before, no one could believe it. It was just too bad to face.

   It was 3:30 and Danny loosed the knot on the line from his father's wharf and headed out to Little Moose Horn Island in his skiff. It was not windy at all and the ocean was perfectly flat. It was unusually hot out and a mist was rising off the water like a witches brew. The island was slightly obscured and distorted by the steam rising up from the water's surface. The fog horn blew off in the haze somewhere with it's eminent warning of rocks ahead.

   Danny could see the island off in the distance. He could not see what was shining anymore but there was something strange about the island. It reminded Danny of the water color painting that had hung in his parents house since Danny was a boy. The view took on a sort of surreal effect.

   Suddenly as he approached the island it became ominous right down to the crab he almost stepped on when he got out of his boat. When ever he would think of crabs he would think of his foster mother who was born in early July. She was a cancer. He never knew why anyone would name a dreaded disease after a zodiac sign.

   The wind picked up a little bit and Danny could hear the island breeze whispering something to him. He could see his town Kellyport and his dad's wharf; it seemed so far away and dismally distorted somehow.

   He climbed up a steep rocky crag and arrived at this small summit on the furthest most tip of the island.

   Danny noticed how a recent storm had ripped away this climbing thicket of trees and vines had been growing up the steep rocky cliff into the sea down below.  At the bottom Danny saw an opening in the side of the sheer ledge...a secret passage jutted into the island below!

   He ran to get his skiff and on nearing the inlet he was reminded of his dream, a familiar woman reciting  poetry and images of blood and fire.

   His boat barely fit through the opening and ahead Danny saw a small sandy area where he could pull up his skiff.

   There was very little light in the cave but he could see the walls and they had paintings of fir trees on them and lots of fire. It was like being in the belly of a stove! The cave was very dark and it took a moment for Danny's eyes to adjust.

    Danny perceived that the light in the cave was brighter then the opening of the cave would have allowed. He then noticed it...a tiny pinhole of light coming from the side of the cave wall!

    Danny perched on a rock ledge and peered through the hole. It looked out over the old Marsden house on the Duck Point Road. A road that had not been used in so long that it had grown up and you had to walk in. It was part of the first road in Kellyport. When Dr. Marsden died, they boarded up his house and it's sat vacant there ever since.

    Danny remembered his flashlight under the seat of his skiff and retrieved it to take a better look at the walls. As he got his direction he realized the hole in the wall had to be directly under the summit. There had to be another door in here. The tide was coming up and Danny's skiff was too big to get out. He had to find a way out...

    In the darkest part of the cave he found the door but there was no handle. How was he going to open the door from the outside? Danny searched every square foot of the cave. It had gotten quite dark in the cave and the opening was too small for Danny to even swim through. Finally his boat went adrift in the cave and Danny found the lever for the door under the sand he had pulled his boat up on.

    Once he pulled the lever, the door slowly slid open and Danny's heart dropped at what he saw: An entirely red room! All of the walls were red. The room was littered with hundreds of skulls and bones and it had the smell of fresh rotting flesh. There were dead vines like roots coming out of the walls everywhere. Danny supposed it was some tree growing down from the top of the summit into the ceiling of the red room . The red room was spacious and the floor looked blackish red like it was made of dried blood.

     Danny had to sleep in the cave all night till the tide went out again. He went to sleep to the wind blowing through the hole in the cave it sounded as if it were calling his name, Danny...Danny...Danny.

     Then the dream again and the voice of this strange solitary woman's ancient rhymes. Relentless circles of Danny's thoughts seemed to be churning in the harbor. Danny was certain that there was somebody who did evil here. It would seem that the evil was from Danny's town, but who could have done this? That question drew a blank, a blank like the dark foggy moonless nights off of  Kellyport Bay and the vast ocean that seemed as endless as the night..

     It was early morning when Danny tied his skiff to his dad's wharf back on the mainland.

    Life still seemed to be just happening to him. Like his insatiable urge to hike out to the Marsden house...But first more sleep, school and work.

    Danny kept all that he had found on the island to himself. Something in his dreams urged him to.

Sages of ages

Trees of silver and gold

Destiny's daughter

Fire and water

John and Marguerite

     When Danny got home he went back to bed and managed to sleep a few more hours. He awoke again to the sound of his father sawing wood. He had been getting the wood ready for winter. There were two fireplaces and a woodstove in Danny's foster parents home. One fireplace in the living room, one in the master bedroom and the woodstove in the den. They burnt up roughly three cords of wood each winter and the woodstove in the pantry was kept lit all the time. The forced hot water heating kicked in only a few times each winter due to the frigid temperatures that would sometimes accompany a good northern coldfront.

   Danny was adopted as an infant to his present family. He had been told this as a young boy. His foster parents John and Marguerite had been very kind to him. He had grown up in a home with to very loving and wonderful people.

   Danny's foster father John loved the ocean and did a little seasonal harvesting as a side hobby. Danny had always felt somewhat estranged from his parents even though he loved them very much. There had always been that question of who his real dad and mom were.

   Danny got up out of bed and put on his clothes and went down stairs to the kitchen. The dining area of the kitchen had five bay windows that looked out over the south eastern side of the ocean.

   Danny could see his father outside. He had put quite a dent in the pile of wood he had been sawing.

   Danny fixed himself a bowl of cereal and sat at the dining room table and looked out at the view of the sea. The sunlight was sparkling on the ocean and the water looked like millions of gems all radiating their brilliance. Danny was reminded of fishing with his dad. There was no one like his dad.

    Danny then looked again out over the ocean. It made Danny gasp and think of paradise. How the ocean looked like green emeralds sparkling and gold melting with diamonds on the surface.

   Danny heard the door open behind him; it was Marguerite, his foster mother. She came over to him and lightly brushed back his hair with her hand and gently kissed his forehead then said, "What ya thinkin' sweet umms, Danny replied, "Oh nothin' too much."

   She looked outdoors smiling as she noticed Danny's dad working on the wood. She said in a friendly tone of voice, "You know winter will soon be here and your father needs as much help as you can lend so he can get the wood done and in the shed by snowfall."

   She looked over at Danny and smiled at him with her eyes. Danny said, "I will help him, I know it is important."

   His mother said, "That's my Danny boy and walked over and kissed him again. This time she gave him a little hug. She said I love you son. Then Danny said, "I love you too mamma."

   Danny rinsed his cereal bowl and put it in the dishwasher.

   He then went to help his father.

   When Danny got outside he could smell the fresh cut pine and the sea breeze was cool and balmy. Danny's father looked up and said, "It's a beautiful morning son, huh?"

   Danny replied "Yes it is nice out!"

   It was bright and Danny's eyes took a moment to adjust.

   Danny saw the axe over by the tree stump and pulled on a pear of work gloves. He grabbed the axe and began to chop the wood.

   Danny's father started talking about how they were going to have to pull the boat up and do some repairs on it before the ice came. John returned with, "We will have to burn off a few coats of paint off the boat this year. No amount of scraping is gonna help old nell out this time. Nell was the name of Danny's foster fathers lobster fishing boat.

   Danny loved fishing on the boat, though it had taken him some time to get used to being on boats and the long hours working at sea.  

Danny then just blurted it out and said, "Dad why did you and mom adopt me?"

   Danny's father stopped sawing wood and looked seriously at the boy. He hesitated for a moment then said, "Your mother and I couldn't make a baby. We tried most conventional ways and yet we could have no children. I knew how much Marguerite wanted to be a mother but it was not going to happen, so we discussed having a baby through adoption

   We went and signed the appropriate papers and they put us on a waiting list. Then one day a little baby came into our lives and that was you. We have been blessed ever since.

   You brought into our lives years of happiness watching you grow into such a fine young man. We have never regretted our decision to adopt you.

   I have seen the joy that you brought to the woman that I love with all of my heart. I knew that God had sent you to us.

   Now you are a growing up Danny, and soon it will be time for you to go out and find a life and love of your own. Soon you will need to fly and we will be there for you like we always have. We love you son more that if you were our own.

   Danny found himself speechless and in awe of his foster father and mother. They seemed the only true thing in his life that he knew. In spite of who his parents might have been Danny felt that he had been treated with respect.

  Danny worked for several hours till his foster father told him to take the afternoon off. He found his bookbag and gathered a few things from his room.

  Danny thanked his father for the talk and walked into town.

Talbot's Wharf

   When Danny wasn't fishing for lobsters on his foster dad's boat Nell, he would earn a few bucks helping the men on Tim Talbot's wharf load and unload shellfish. This was a day like that.

   Jim Kaler was an older man who had befriended Danny as kind of like the son that he and his wife Mertle didn't have. Jim was working that afternoon on the wharf.

   Jim is a volunteer fire fighter and was the first on the scene at the Mc Gillan family fire. With a horrific sense of doom, Jim recalled, "It was like a giant tongue of fire came down and licked up their farm!" Jim was looking a bit pale and worn as if he had had undergone some sort of traumatic experience. Danny could not believe how much of an effect the fire had had on him.

   Jim was blank most of the afternoon and seemed to stare out into space as if the fire had somehow consumed his very own reality.

    It left Danny hurting and scared. It seemed as if it was the dreams that had started all of this.

    A bit later that afternoon Jim invited Danny home for some supper where Mertle had fixed a traditional chowder.

    It was Mertle who broke the silence at the dinner table. She pounded her fist on the table and said sobbing "They're all demons!" She said something under her breath and got up and began to cry uncontrollably. Mertle went on, "Demons I say"! and Jim just stared down into his bowl of chowder.

    They seemed both bereaved and helpless.

    Danny walked home in silence and alone, speculating on the change in these people he had known most all of his life. What exactly was it that changed them? What were these demons that Mertle referred to?

    On his way home Danny had just passed old man Marsden's house road when he heard a very high pitched sound. Then Danny saw a darkened figure on a distant hill walking into the forest. By the time he got home he could see across town the blaze of Joan and Roger Clemit's farm and barn.

    It took 20 Fire trucks from 3 counties 6 hours to contain the blaze. One less truck and the fire would have ripped through the entire town.

    This fire had the people of Kellyport talking. "Two families in less than one week burned to death."

    Nobody saw the Clemit's fire when it started. Cause of fire? Unknown...

    These were people that Danny had known. He could not believe they were dead now, all in such a short time. The next day school was cancelled and most of the town merchants had closed up shop because of the fires and deaths.

    Danny walked up and down the streets of town in disbelief. Three days ago none of this had happened.

    Two months went by. Danny had just turned 17 And had not completely buried his secret about the cave.

    Danny wondered about the cave and was curious as to if there was more to learn then what he had found. The batteries in his flash light had only given him a brief glimpse of the red room. Had there been more down there to explore?

     The island haunted Danny's dreams like the fog horn that blew all though the night while Danny was trapped in the cave. It was truly a terrifying place yet the summit was a wonder of both nature and beauty. This was an island of seemingly vast contrast.

     Danny had to go back to the island but this time it would be planned more. Danny would go when the tide would be low the longest. Danny would go the night of the beach party. It was sleep Danny needed most now.

A measure of gold

A measure of flesh

A measure of hate

A measure of death

(The Beach Party)

  Reggie Stubs was the high school bully besides being a perfect menace to society. The countless freshman who Reggie Stubs had had the pleasure of knowing knew just what a puke he was.

    His rocky relationship with his girl Sandra Martin has gone sour on many occasions such as Sandy's uncle Bob's wedding where Reggie got drunk and  beat up the limo driver.

    Reggie Stubs was no less than a prick and Sandra Martin had more than enough reason to be a little worried. She was well aquatinted with the many possible things that Reggie could do to fuck up the evening.

    The beach party started at 7:00 but most people weren't showing up until nine. By then most of the tiny-boppers were at home in bed.

    Reggie and Sandra were there at nine thirty because Reggie wouldn't let her up off the couch. His love making had become very aggressive...While he was fucking her he kept hitting her arm, then he grabbed right a hold of her hair and bit her breast growling. Reggie then looked tastelessly at Sandra and said "How did you like that you fucking cunt?"

    Reggie took more than his own share from life and now it was his turn to give something back.

    Reggie finally got off and let Sandra go. He was laughing and cracking another beer and got serious and said loudly get your shit together, I wanna fuckin' go now! She quickly re-fixed her makeup and hair then her and Reggie sped off through town for the beach road.

    Reggie pulled his Jeep right up next to the table with the punch bowl got on the hood of his Jeep and proceeded to unzip his fly and piss in the punch bowl.

     Then there was this girl named Monica that Reggie had been following around and flirting with all night.

    Sandra needed to get away from Reggie. He was very drunk by now and very mean.

     Reggie had been arguing with this guy named Frank They had almost gotten into it several times.

    Reggie got up quickly and looked over at Sandra saying in front of everyone "Come on bitch, lets get the fuck out of here.

   Sandra cried, "Reggie your too fucking drunk and I don't want to go with you!"

    Reggie slurred back even louder, "Get the fuck in the Jeep now bitch!" Now move your fuckin' ass!

    Sandra began sobbing and shouted "Reggie, I'm scared of you! I don't want to go with you!" She fell to the ground, couldn't stand up and sat in the sand weeping, "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go. Shaking her head Sandra continued crying hysterically pounding her fists into the sand...

    Then Frank the guy Reggie had been arguing with stepped in and said "Let her stay Reggie if she wants too." Reggie fumed and hollered furiously back, "What the fuck did you say?" and went to hit Frank but Frank laid Reggie out with a right upper cut. Reggie got back up and said, "I'm gonna fuck you up you piece of shit!" Reggie ran at Frank punching and kicking but Frank knocked Reggie to the ground and got on top of him and just kept on hitting Reggie in the face.

    When Reggie got back up. He had blood in his eyes but he looked at Sandra then turned around and got into the Jeep. Reggie was crying, still saying, "I'm gonna fuck you up!"

    As the jeep started and drove off, a darkened figure stepped out from the forest. He blew ever so gently upon a whistle producing a high pitched tone.

    Reggie raced to the Harris-Everest High School doing 120 mph as the heaven's opened up and sucked up the school and Reggie from the face of the earth in a blood bath of fire. Upon running into the school the pitiful life that Reginald Stubs had once called his own had now come to a bitter sweet end.

    The explosion seemed to come from the school as if it had been wired with a powerful bomb. Upon Reggie's impact to the building, two busses went up beside it then the school just blew up...

    The char surrounded the school for 5oo feet in all directions.

    Many of the people on the beach were hurt by the blast of falling debris and raining fire. It looked like a small volcano had erupted out of their School.

    Reggie's body was never found and only traces of his Jeep. This fire seemed to have a purifying effect on the community. It was the last they would see of the school bully or their school.

    On the beach the smoldering remains of a tire that someone had lit, burned on unattended till morning till the last ember flickered out.

    Tragedy had hit Harris-Everest High and left a wake of terror, fear, death and disbelief.

Churning caldron of chaos

The pawns of evil foe

Consumed by hell fire

As the sounding whistle did blow.

(The Golden Tree)

    Again upon arriving at the island Danny had been reminded of his water color painting hanging in his parents house . He had never noticed the striking similarity. It was as if the island had grown somehow to become the one in the painting.

    Danny pulled his boat up to the sandy area in the cave and got out. He lit the lantern he had brought and again stood in strange amazement at the trees painted on the walls. They seemed to cry out in pain all in one loud voice as to the prickly fire painted around them that seemed to be consuming them. The light of his lantern flickered in the cave dancing like peter pan mixing light and dark like sight and smell.

   The door to the red room was closed as Danny had left it after he initially explored the room.  Danny did not feel alone. Though he could not explain the prevalent feeling of another presence.

    He opened the large stone door again only to be nearly knocked out by the aroma of rotting flesh. It reminded Danny of the town dump on Sunday when his father and him would go there to take the weekly trash there. This was definitely Hades. The red on the walls was the color deep red ochre. The walls seemed to breathe as if they had a pulse. Then Danny noticed the lever on the side covered by some leafless vines. He pulled it and the innermost wall started to raise. It revealed a slender man-made passageway descending like a feeding tube into the earth.

   The red room seemed to be the place where bodies were dismembered for whatever kind of sick purposes. Danny's stomach was churning and groaning apprehensively and he wondered if the food he was carrying in his backpack would be of any use out here.

   Danny then left the red room and descended through a serpentine shaft in the stone that seemed to come into what looked like a main temple type area of worship ahead. There was supernatural sort of unexplainable light source emanating from the room as if the rocks themselves glowed.

This was where Danny became scared...he had ventured too far in maybe. Between worrying about the tide and the thought of another night in this cave he was seriously in contemplation of running back to his skiff.

Danny decided to look in...the room much to his amazement was an ornately decorated tribal type adornments with an altar made of some shiny gold type metal that illuminated the whole area.

There were masks lining the walls as if there were thousands of eyes watching the activities conjured within the room.

He trembled approaching the altar with both hesitation and wonder.

As he got closer he noticed the altar was shaped like the trunk of a tree and behind it were branches like outstretched fingers pointing skyward. At the top of the trunk there was a podium before the branches started that resembled the palm of a hand. Whatever was supposed to sit there was gone. Otherwise the room looked relatively untouched.

There was a table in the center of the room roughly hewn from a giant tree of some sorts. The table was stained red.

Danny felt a profound sense of sadness come over him like something had been very wrong in this place at one time. He could sense the pain and agony; underneath he was beginning to see the true evil of this place. Could it be his reality is starting to resemble his dreams.

For a moment in his thoughts raced as brush fires taking wind then there was silence.

He realized he had been spoken to...he had heard someone call his name. He raced back to the boat and saw he had seconds to maneuver his boat out of the narrow inlet or he would be spending another night on the island.

As he exited the cave he smelled the smoke and noticed the school burning. The entire sky was lit by the radiance of the blaze.

Suddenly the realization of the connection between the fires and the cave hit him. Danny knew that the evil had somehow crawled up from the cave and was now destroying the world around him.

He rowed his boat back to the wharf as the sun dropped from sight on another dreadful day in Kellyport.

Druid master

Of Lucifer's concupiscence

Destroyer of innocence

Feeder on the flesh.

Dark angel of death

Stealer of human breath

Burning out of control

Reaper of the soul

(Town Gossip)

In the earliest book written on town history it vaguely mentions a tribe of unknown origin. The only known copy actually resides in the Kellyport Memorial Library in the town center of the port. As legend has it, they occupied the island now known as Little Moose Horn. There were inferences of this clan and the practices of Satan. The book was written by a freelance Swedish anthropologist Named Monfred Ericson who had spent some time on the island in the late 1900's. There have never been any other historical accounts to further corroborate the story. The local historical society never paid it any mind.

Danny was not actually from Kellyport; Danny was from Spruce Point the next town over. As rumor has it Danny was found on Netty Bloomsfield's front porch. She immediately called the town who in turn called Human Services. Danny was not long after that adopted by Mr and Mrs John and Marguerite Eldridge of Kellyport. John Eldridge was a successful real-estate broker from upstate New York who had just moved into the area.

Dr. Marsden was known to have delivered just about every baby in Kellyport. His medical practice spanned almost 40 years. Dr Marsden had been an upstanding citizen of Kellyport until one day he suddenly closed his office and became a hermit in his house. He had had large vegetable gardens and livestock for years The late Mrs. Marsden was said to have canned enough food to have sustained a small army through a long Maine winter. There had been some talk about Mr. Marsden's infidelities with some of his female patients.

Consequently Dr Marsden and his wife were rarely seen in town until her death in June of "93" from the flu. Then there was his strange death in "94" where the mail man found him in the front yard mummified. He had been there for some time.

The town took possession of the Marsden estate. They boarded up the windows and it has sat desolate on the sandy point for 3 years.

Mrs. Marsden was occasionally seen in black clothes a veil and sunglasses when she would drive into town to purchase items from the Kellyport General or Woody's Mercantile. It was apparent these people had wanted nothing to do with the outside world.

There were rumors of times about 15 to 20 years back when the town had had all kinds of troubles. There was talk of wife swapping and wild alcohol parties that would last on into the night. The families were all intermixed And there were also the occasional cases of incest. Could this be the recompense of their ways. Doom descends like a dark horse.

Danny seemed to be the enigma of the whole story showing up on Netty's doorstep; there was this strange painting on some kind of animal hide rolled up in the blanket with Danny. It was the painting that had hung in Danny's house all his life. It was Danny's only clue as to who he was. It had always been a subject of great difficulty for Danny to come to grips with.

These were strange times when even men of God had no power over the lusts and desires of the men and women of this small fishing village. The night would bring the fires on the beaches. These were times where iniquity was free to wander out to great distances and sin was brought to an ultimate height.

Yes, it was the island and all of her charm that lured the town folks to the summit, but they knew not of her secrets. They were enticed by the drum and led by their own drunkenness again and again till their lust became un-quenchable.

This turmoil that began by pulling a thread led to a whole ball of yarn. The pieces are not conformed to your ordinary puzzle shapes. There still seems like so little to go on. Two houses a barn and a school burn in the space of three months.

Not so Important to the rest of the world but the people of Kellyport were not handling this well. Normally there were certain civil exchanges like thank-you's hello's and good-bye's. The townspeople had turned hard and were terrified. What they had seen come out of the sky was like nothing no one had ever dreamed could happen. This seemed like the truth was unbelievable.

Ironically there were no bodies to bury from the fire because the River Falls medical examiner in all three cases found no trace of either The Mc Gillan's, The Clemit's or Reggie Stubs.

There surfaced some ghost stories about a certain woman that haunts the sandy cliffs out beyond the Duck Point Road. Some of the fishermen have seen her out there on the crags late at night from their boats. This story is passed around frequently at Jenny's, the local town diner.

From the early hours of night extending into the wee hours of the dawn the Kellyport dump is often frequented by NRA's finest. The sport is shooting rats and an occasional gull. There is dust flying and howling as the men and occasional a few woman fire off endless rounds of ammunition into the terrified and fleeing rodents. Who knows what kinds of secrets lie in the stenchful piles of the towns rubbish.

Deception conception sacrifice

Vicious tongues twisted truth

Man against man

Clan Against clan

Oh snake that biteth

Oh venomous tooth

Woe unto the earth

Woe unto the fallen.

(The Marsden House)

   Danny had this Thursday off from school because there was no school and Jim was not helping on Talbot's wharf, he had not been in for several weeks.

     Danny needed to go and check out the Marsden house. So much fear surrounded the rumor's of the Marsden house that it remained practically unscathed by vandals.

     The Marsden house had been built about 100 years earlier by Manwarren Kelly the founder of Kellyport. Manwarren had purchased the land from the Indians and had brought his merchant industry from Ireland and started trading textiles on the coasts of new England. Back in Ireland. he hired peasants living in the hills to weave fine fabrics with some of the new looms that had been invented. Their textiles brought them wealth and power throughout the eastern seaboard of the United States His success had also spread throughout most of the major foreign ports the world.

    Manwarren Kelly spared no expense when building the Marsden Estate. The pink granite foundation had been mined by a newly discovered vein of it in Indian River two towns over.

     The main house on the estate was practically a castle. There was an enormous tower that stood on the left of the main structure and faced out to sea. The tower was constructed of pebble stones shipped from Pebble Beach, about a 15 mile voyage across Kellyport Reach. The main structure of the House was mostly wood. Large planks of pine and many other rare woods that Manwarren had acquired trough trading textiles.

    The entire beach area was sheltered by a wall of blue spruce trees, otherwise the house was overgrown by a thick forest of fir and birch. There was a carriage house and also a small summer cottage that the tangle of alder brush had claimed.

    The road into the Marsden estate had long been over grown. There was still some kind of assemblage that it had at one time been a road

    There were two pebble-stone pillars on each side of the street where you turned on to the road. The chain between the pillars blocked anyone from attempting to drive up in there. The florescent sign no trespassing lied in broken plastic fragments in the tall grass below the chain.

     Danny stepped over the chain and watched a field snake slither off, He thought, "Too close for comfort." He got that ominous feeling that had come over him both times when approaching the island. This next venture seemed equally a challenge. Maybe he should have told  his parents or Jim about this?

    Danny walked for what seemed a brief moment then he realized that the road was no longer a road but just the woods. Where was the road? He went on a head till he came to a giant hill. Danny couldn't see very far up the hill but when he got closer he felt his blood race to his toes. There was the tower! It was so much taller than he had imagined. He was now standing at the base of it and it he could barely see the top There was a door between where the tower connected to the house. It was now open about half way.

    Danny took out his flash light and stepped inside. To his right going into the house was the longest hallway Danny had ever seen. To his left was a door to the tower. Danny turned the handle on the door to the tower and pulled the door open with a rusty creak...

    The inside of the tower smelled musty and was very dim. By the time Danny's eyes adjusted he could see long round room ahead and a stairway to the left. He walked a few steps to see into the small room. The room was dark and had no windows it was scantly furnished had nothing of interest to him. Danny turned around and went to the stairs. He felt an uncontrollable shiver that momentarily shook his frame.

    He had not believed the gossip at the diner of the Marsden house being haunted but there was still a fear of the unknown. Who or what was behind the mysterious fires? Who was that man clad in black that Danny had seen go into the forest? What was the strange high pitched tone that the man had produced with his whistle? It was the unknown that was getting to Danny and it surely waited for him in the top of this monsterous tower.

    Danny raised his flashlight as he climbed the rickety wooden staircase that reached into the heavens. Upon nearing the top there was a tiny window that looked over none other than the summit of Little Moose Horn Island. No longer did that place seem to take on a character of beauty and peace but it seemed to be one more of a spectacle. Wanting grew up from somewhere in Danny that he had never experienced before in his life. Danny was unable to identify the thing that stirred him in seeing the Summit from this height. It was like sneaking and spying on someone. The perverse moon flooded the summit with the blue light of night.

    Danny wondered what would have driven old man Kelly to such a great length to build a tower and place a window to look at an empty field on an island. What could have been happening out there to be of such interest. Danny knew the people who had been on the island must have been savages. The red room and the room with the blood on the altar had been put there by murderers. The activities on the summit could not have been very good.

    Danny continued on up the stairs till he came to a door to the main room up top. Danny opened the door and cautiously looked in. This room was well lit and had twelve windows in a circular fashion.  Between each window was a symbol of the Zodiac. The symbols looked like chalk on slate. There was a grand oak desk in the center of the library and various books scattered about on top of it. The book in the very center of the desk had colored ink written on some kind of rare parchment.

    Danny couldn't read the writing in the book. It was written in a strange text. There were words in the margins that seemed to be a partial translation. These were the words that he had been hearing read in his dreams. He grabbed the book and quickly took one last survey of the room, then retreated down the creeky stairwell spiraling back toward the main homestead.

    When he reached the bottom of the stairs he exited into long hallway again. He walked for what seemed like a hike. The cold clattering echo of his feet seemed to be intensely keen to his own presence. At the end of the hallway Danny entered a large rectangular room decorated with animal pachyderm busts and other hunting memorabilia. Straight ahead in the room was an enormous stone hearth. The hunting room seemed tidy and free of dust.

    Danny's eyes suddenly became fixed on a picture hanging on the wall above the stone hearth. It was a painting almost identical to the one found with him as a baby. Danny stood there with disbelief as he realized that someone here must have known details about his being abandoned on Netty's doorstep.

    Danny felt anxious to realized he may have been a Marsden... It gave him this sudden warm rush of mixed feelings that he felt fear and excitement simultaneously. If Dr. Marsden was his father, why would he have left Danny on a doorstep in Spruce Point?

    Danny went to take the picture down from the mantle. Suddenly the picture slipped off the nail in the wall and fell and broke into tiny glass shards on the floor in front of the hearth. Danny then noticed the strange writing on the back of the picture. It looked like some sort of map. As he slid the map into the book he induced it had once been a part of the book. Then he heard it. A woman's voice moaning as if she was being tormented.

    It scared Danny so bad that he dropped the book and the flashlight. He scrambled to pick them up as he ran down the long dark hall. Moments later Danny was outside running down the steep hill around back of the tower. Danny was so excited as he found his way out to the main road. He knew this book and map would be the things that would shed some light on the strange dreams he was having. They may possibly unveil the enigma of who he was. Danny had waited eagerly to learn of who his real parents were.

    He skirted home through town with a strange feeling that maybe knowing these answers would be worse than not knowing. Danny would study the book in more detail at home and try to unravel this mystery, woven in a colored fabric of many twisted patterned threads.

Medicine man, historian

Chants in Gregorian

Tells fables of what the ancients wrought.

Passed down through years... the Shaman taught

Of mystical wonders deep in the earth's bloom

And the cradle of life stolen at birth's tomb.

Of rape, slaughter and bloodshed

In rooms of red.

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Copyright 2000 Eric  Pedersen

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