As he hobbled hurriedly along the path through his garden, gathering plump, spotted slugs and various darkly hued mushrooms into his basket, Culprit thought that the hour must surely be getting late. When he'd first begun his humble harvest, a rhythmically pulsing menagerie of fireflies had been swarming about the outside of the cabin, bathing the grounds and the garden in their lovely, spastic green. But what had been a shimmering, shivering wash of hollow light, faded down to only a twinkle here, a twinkle there. He figured he'd best get back inside and check the clock. His basket had grown well fat with fleshy, little, gray jewels and there was much still yet to be done. A clinging vine of early autumn rot scented the sporadic winds, aiding their chill. With his free hand, Culprit tugged his burlap cloak a little tighter around him as he quickly crept back to his shack.
A string of bones clattered and knocked one another as he thrust open the crooked, wooden door. He heard the door creaking loudly before banging shut against the frame as he read the time from the towering clockface that he had rigged into the west wall. Another rattle from the bones chimed like a cuckoo as the minute hand struck. 10:30. Good. There was still time, but he would have to work expediently and efficiently.
He set his basket on the small, scarred wood table and hung his cloak on the nail by the door. Picking an iron poker from its stand, he stoked the fire below the cauldron in the hearth. The paler tentacles surrounding his mouth writhed into a smile. His concoction was coming to a boil. He scooped up an armful of wooden doll parts from the pile stacked against the front wall of the hearth and threw them onto the fire. They caught fast as paper, burned slow as coal. Culprit drew a deep breath into his lungpalps of their moist, tangy smoke and smacked his forked tongue against the roof of his mouth. He grabbed his basket from the table and began emptying its contents into the bubbling brew, occasionally impaling particularly juicy slugs on one of his claws to suck on like candy.
"Oh yes, you are a fat one aren't you?"
From beneath the shadowed recess of the north wall he heard tiny whimperings, but paid them little mind. He had known they had not escaped while he was in the garden. It was a good twine with which he'd severed their muscles and stitched around their bones. He had braided up the whole spool from boar's mane and it was some of his best. Not that they would appreciate it.
When his basket was empty, he took up the long-handled spoon and stirred. He brought a small amount of broth to his mouth, blowing away the steam before slurping it up.
"Yes, good, yes, but perhaps eh…"
Culprit bumbled over to the cupboard. He swung the door open carelessly, causing a noisy clanging of glass to ride into the air on a dry plume of spice dust. He pointed his finger and ran a long, curved nail across labels taped to jars and bottles arranged so haphazardly that it was difficult to find anything at all. Sometime soon, he thought, he really must get more organized. This whole place really needed a woman's touch.
"Ah, there you are! I found you! You tried to hide from me didn't you? Tried to blend into the crowd, yes, but I found you! I found you!"
A healthy sprinkling of crushed molt of cicada. The powdered licorice root, a dash here, a tad there. And parsley, yes, she likes parsley. A heaping tablespoon of parsley. Make that two. Yes.
He stirred the mixture gently, lulled by its heady aroma, preparing to taste a small sip as he heard the worn clockwork grinding away another minute. Nervously, he tapped the wooden spoon on the kettle's rim and staggered over to check the time.
10:39.
"Damn!"
Muffled screams were startled from the north wall at his outburst.
"Oh yes, just a minute, kiddies, just a minute. I haven't forgotten about you, don't worry, don't worry."
Culprit felt their eyes upon him as he tottered toward his hollowware cabinet. He knew they were watching him bring down the pale clay bowls he planned to set the table with. Watching as he laid out placings for two. Between them, a larger bowl and a sort of gravy boat. Both, ornately decorated in a carven frenzy of strange, enigmatically entwined worms. A couple of grimy, sloping goblets, some crooked and bent utensils, a sticky adipocere candle and a fiasco of violet wine crowded for the table's only remaining space.
He rustled over to a wash basin set low on the east wall, above which hung a jagged piece of filmy, gold-veined mirror. The basin was a bit rusty, being a found object like the mirror and much of the décor, even the enormous clockface. All sorts of things got lost or abandoned in these woods. All sorts. He noticed, wriggling his burrower's claws in the belly of the basin, that the tepid water it held had taken on an orangish hue. Lot of iron in the water out here, he thought, combing his wet, thick curled nails through his long beard of oily black and golden tentacles, scratching at the paler ones beneath, as he checked his features in the mirror.
It was easy to see that the landmarks of aging had taken root in his appearance. His vestigial eyes were long gone and it was plain that his skin was not as smooth or slimy as it used to be. He wet his hands again and slicked back the few hairs, thin and fine as spider's web, that sprouted from his elephantine scalp.
"My, but you are still a handsome devil, aren't you? Yes, yes I am, thank you."
Freshly groomed, Culprit made note of the time as he moved shakily to the fire. 10:45. He took the gravy boat by the handle and dipped it into the bubbling cauldron, scooping up some of its fragrant, soupy mixture. He breathed its delicious steam as he strained to reach a turkey claw from the bundle of them he had tied to the hearth's mantle. He would have to move those down. The hump on his back was becoming more pronounced these days and it was difficult sometimes to reach higher things. No time now.
The turkey's foot aerated the liquid like a whisk as he shuffled back toward the north wall.
"Well, kiddies, how do I look?"
The children stared at their captor in blank horror. Plump things he had been stuffing full of sweets and sugared fat since he had found them early yesterday evening. Cold and hungry, lost in these woods, the grubby little scoundrels had traipsed right into his house, big as you please, when the Culprit was not in. He was, however, delighted to see them upon his return. So much so that he had offered them his warmest hospitality. They were frightened by his appearance, but his words were kind. When they saw that the food he offered them was wholesome and hot, undoubtedly feeling the chill fleeting from their bones, they had decided that his face was not too horrible, his twitching claws not too long or sharp.
Once they had settled in and relaxed a bit, he had even asked them their names, muttering of how lonely he was and how nice to have company. The boy, he remembered, had spoken for both his self and his sister. But, truth be told, what he said was quickly discarded from Culprit's mind. Such strange business individually naming these whiny, piggish animals. He had tried not to forget before the tincture of valerian with which he had mickeyed their stew carried them into its heavy embrace. Let's see. Hilda and Gerald? No, no, no. Holly and Grackel? No. Oh, uh…Handle and…no, no, that's not it either. Ah, yes, yes, I know. Kiddies.
He had taken to calling them that in their unconscious state as he strung boar's mane twine from the appropriate bones to their respective controls. Somewhat of a grueling process, really, for someone with his nervous condition. His fingernails were so long that they often got in the way of his grabbing the needle in the correct place. As a result, he had pricked his fingertips numerous times, drawing up many a dot of brass colored blood to peek out from beneath the children's thin, red fluid. Oh well, perhaps she wouldn't notice the scabs. She may even think him valiant if she did, realizing the pain he had gone through for her.
Culprit looked at the kiddies for a moment longer, wondering if they would even try to answer through their tightly gagged mouths. If he removed the gags, he knew, they would only say things like scary, ugly, gross. He saw they would be of no help after all. He would have to rely on the mirror's flattery.
The gravy grew a substantial foam as the turkey claw splashed about in it steadily, furiously. He cupped some of the thick liquid in the claw and flung it on the children. Their wide, watery eyes watched him in disbelief. He chuckled to himself, thinking of how absurd his actions must seem to them. He moved quickly, but not so much that he couldn't appreciate the spectacle of sparkling tears in the firelight, trickling down the children's cheeks, comingling with the streaked jewels of ruby-gray marinade. Beautiful, it never failed to make him sigh. Like her. Maghara. Must hurry.
The moment he felt they had been sufficiently dowsed in his savory sauce, he shambled, stage left, toward a towering tangle of rusting gears, chipped keys, crooked pipes, and bulbous stops that sprouted from the thing like groupings of unhealthy fungus. He called it a Malliope. It was assembled with materials gathered from a place he knew, where the travelling carnival he once called home had dumped off their damaged and unusables, like himself, at the edges of a wide, dirt path.
It took considerable effort to loosen the crank that protruded from its side, but once set in motion, Culprit wound the instrument joyfully, faster and faster. A few pestilent notes escaped gurgling before the thing clanked and shook to life, animate in seizure. It farted and belched thick, deformed tones that tasted hollow and acrid at their center.
The children heard a scraping rattle from behind them, like a rollercoaster starting up a hill. They felt the twine tighten around their bones. The cross-like controllers their appendages were strung to, rolled along respective railings into the overhead position. The strings pulled taut, lifting the children a few inches from the floor of the stage, dragging them forward.
Having cranked the handle as far as he could turn it, Culprit stepped back for a moment to enjoy the show and soak in the sweet music of the Malliope. The limp bodies of the children danced violently as the twitching controls tugged and yanked at their strings. The little girl's eyes bulged comically. Her gag had grown wet and slightly yellowed with the vomit that leaked from the corners of her mouth.
Culprit read the clock. 10:52. He looked to the north wall, behind the children, for signs of change, but found only the usual wood slats. Irritated, he grumbled over to the Malliope and gave it a good, swift kick. It resonated like a diseased church bell while Culprit returned to examine the wall once more.
Yes, yes, damper now. It warped in that spot and bulged in this one. Culprit wrung his hands in anticipation, anxiously waiting for the first one to emerge. A meaty coil of wormflesh broke the surface tension of the wall. The Malliope drew them out slowly, luring them from their home with music that promised them a feast of human childflesh. Culprit jumped about, giddily clapping his hands. The Malliope's imitation of the walldwellers' song was fair and flattering for a clunking piece of machinery and he was proud of his creation.
That the walldwellers understood his pleas was sufficient enough reward, but the way they entwined their humming voices through the disjointed melody, like hungry vines weaving a strangling tapestry from which no bloom could healthily escape, swelled his frantic, inky heart with awe.
The wildly flailing children couldn't see that the wall behind them had become a wriggling cesspool, overrun with bloated serpentry, but surely they sensed the curling ophidian presence of the many at their backside. Culprit hoped that the constant jerking motion of the marionette controllers would keep his puppet children conscious so that they might enjoy this starving symphony, even if they couldn't feel the sniffed appraisal of their tender bodies by the frogskinned and betentacled figures lurking beyond their sight.
Culprit turned to see the time. 10:55. Slipped through his claws, it had. Now left to finish his preparations was a measley five minutes. The dance would have to come to a close without so much as a bow. He stomped the return pedal at the base of the Malliope and watched as the controllers rattled and dragged the convulsing puppets into the waiting mire of famished slithering.
The gagged faces of the children contorted with a pained and hopeless wonder for what had become of them as raspy, lamprey toothed mouths adhered to their buttocks, hips and thighs, burrowing needled tongues into the sweet fat they found there.
The walldwellers glutted themselves ravenously, enchanted with such young meat. They drank deeply of the children's fear and confusion, even as they oiled their movements with the ruby juices of their prey. And, oh, how they sang!
Culprit gathered the large bowl from the table and waited patiently for the first sprouting of his promised bounty. A fleshy bubble of palest chartreuse flowered from the slathering swarm of brilliant, eyeless gray, followed quickly by a second and a third. As he climbed onto the stage, scenes of carnival consumed Culprit's senses. The scent of the walldwellers, like long dead meat beneath a cocoon of cotton candy from which countless maggots threaten to burst, provided such lovely accompaniment to the sickly circus tune wretched from the belly of the Malliope. And now, the sight of the walldwellers' eggs, plump and rich, hanging against the writhing wall, ready to be plucked, reminded him of throwing darts at bright balloons in a small booth on the midway.
He breathed a nostalgic sigh as he began his harvest, enjoying the giving, rubbery texture of the eggs between his fingers. Perhaps he would take her to a carnival one day. Take her on all the rides, win her some prizes. Yes, she would like that.
The walldwellers had produced eleven eggs before the Malliope wound down to a rhythm too slow to hold their attention. That should be enough for the two of them and, besides, he hadn't the time to wind it again. He allowed the walldwellers to retreat, reimmersing themselves in the watery planks of the wall.
Leftover pieces of the sacrificed children plunked against the stage with a clatter like falling dominoes. Their moisture had been sapped, their remains petrified. After placing the brimming egg bowl back upon the table, slicing into a few of the more lively ones and pouring an ample amount of gravy over the delicacy, Culprit retrieved the shrunken, human doll parts that the walldwellers had left for crumbs. As he dumped them on the pile of others of their like that sat by the hearth, he heard the distorted chimes of the clock striking eleven.
He looked about his cabin to ensure that everything was in order. The gong of the tolling bell droned as he excitedly uncorked the fiasco of violet wine and lit the adipocere candle. A dancing shamble to the east wall for a last look in the mirror. He wet his claws once more and swiftly brushed them through his tentacles.
"Handsome, yes, hand-some devil!"
The ringing of the final chime was still fading when there came a slow, heavy knock on his front door. Culprit smoothed his hair and dusted off his robes as he headed toward the sound. He paused for a moment, steadying his eager heart. He gained his composure, took a deep, calming breath and opened the door.
She stood before him stiffly beneath the light of the pale moon. It was somewhat obvious that her spine no longer fit together correctly, touching her posture with mild absurdity. Her whore's clothing was stained, tattered and garrish and her greyed skin had spots that were in need of small repair. Her once human eyes may have clouded, but their gaze bore the unmistakable brand of adoration. She was lovlier now even than the night they'd met.
"Ah, dearest Maghara. So nice to see you. You look absolutely stunning. Please, do come in out of the chill. There's a fire going and the table is set. I've made your favorite."