The Dark Gateway: A Novel of Horror. John Burke
he quoted. “Where’s Fomoria?”
“Under the sea,” said Frank.
“What do you know about it?”
“I read about it once, somewhere, a long time ago. It’s the home of an evil race who came before there were any human beings—all the usual stuff, you know. The Fomorians were old gods who ruled a bleak, horrible world, until the powers of light came to overthrow them. I can’t remember the details—I expect there’ll be plenty in this book”—he tapped the black, wrinkled cover with one long, brown finger—“but I believe there was a colossal struggle, spiritual and physical, and the Fomorians were flung out of this world. Under the ocean, or something.” He grinned apologetically. “I’m not well up in my folklore, I’m afraid.”
“Better than we are,” said Denis. “It’s always the same: when I go to London and meet some pals, I have to show them—Londoners, mark you—where we can go to get a good meal.”
“As if you ever ate anywhere else but a canteen!”
“That’s enough, brother. Not anymore, anyway. We’re free now. And as I was about to say when I was so rudely interrupted, I never yet met a Welshman who knew any of his own fairy stories. I don’t myself: I used to like Hans Andersen.” He laughed immoderately, as though he had made a great joke.
“This is not exclusively a Welsh story,” said Brennan in a timid voice. “It’s ancient. The earliest Gaelic name for the gods who overthrew the dark rulers of the earth was Tuatha de Danann. But that’s only symbolical, really.”
He was silent again, unhappily withdrawn. Denis wagged his head. “How come that we get all this sort of talk? Last night Simon, today Jonathan—then you, Frank, and now you, Mr. Brennan. You make me feel bloomin’ ignorant.”
“It’s the weather,” said his mother calmly.
They marvelled at her.
“It’s funny,” said Nora, finding that she had become interested in this topic of conversation, “that so many of those old stories resemble one another.” She was remembering things Simon had said: they had bored her at the time, but now she was quite eager to discuss them. Tonight, with the house wrapped in its baffling new cloak of mystery, they were reasonable, credible things—important things. She said: “All these tales of dark gods and white gods—”
“The goodies and the baddies,” chuckled her brother, “like in a cowboy film.”
“Like in anything at all,” said Nora. “The same two sides come up in every story and legend that I’ve ever heard. I remember we used to hear about them at school. There was one master—Mr. Hemingway, remember, Denis?—who left because they thought he was too advanced for the children. He used to tell us that all religions came from basic ideas, and that we ought to study the similarities and think them over before we made up our minds about any one of them. He hated Mr. Jones the Chapel.”
She laughed. Frank smiled at the swift glint of her small, even, white teeth.
He said: “It’s a pity they can’t let schoolmasters be more interesting. Passing on all the old myths—”
“They’re not myths,” said Brennan excitedly, “they’re fact.”
Another of Simon’s breed, thought Nora wearily. What series of coincidences brought them to this house? Coincidence…? A chill of apprehension again. She asked:
“Did you know Mr. Jonathan before you met him here?”
The question took Brennan unawares. He moistened his lips and made a gesture that was ludicrously reminiscent of Mrs. Morris reaching for her apron to wipe her hands nervously and unnecessarily.
“No,” he said. “No, I never met him before. What makes you ask?”
“I don’t know. It just occurred to me. You seem to be interested in the same things.”
“Perhaps you met at some spook society convention?” said Denis facetiously. He, too, was curious.
Brennan shook his head.
“I wonder if Mr. Jonathan is all right, out there?” said Mrs. Morris. “Out in that snow—silly, he was, to go out like that. Denis—”
“You don’t expect me to go out, do you, Mum?” complained her son. “Give him time. He’ll be back: people like that don’t get lost in the snow.”
“No,” said Brennan in a low voice.
Jonathan’s presence had been depressing; Brennan’s was even more so. The dejection in the droop of his shoulders had a damping effect on everyone in the room.
He sat like predestined victim awaiting the hour of sacrifice. Without warning he began to speak, ruminating aloud: “You think you’ve got minds of your own, but you haven’t. Even across so many centuries, you come when they call. They tell you it’s time, and you don’t argue about it: you come. If I were to make a stand now and say I wouldn’t…well, you can never tell what might.…”
He became aware of his surroundings and stopped abruptly. “My mind’s a bit hazy,” he said apologetically. “I’m half dreaming.”
“Do you good to go to your bed, now,” said Mrs. Morris briskly. “Let’s see. We must work it out, else there will be a mix-up tonight. Frank, if you and Denis squeeze in together in Denis’s room—”
“That’ll do me nicely, thank you,” said Frank, “and I’m sorry—”
“Go on with you. Now, Mr. Brennan, we’ll have to see if you can’t be fitted in somehow with Mr. Jonathan, if he doesn’t mind.”
Brennan’s lower lip quivered. Nora had the idea that he might easily burst into tears. He said:
“I wouldn’t want to…to be any trouble. Maybe Mr. Jonathan—”
“I don’t suppose he will mind. Ask him I will when he comes back.”
“If you’d just let me sleep across a couple of chairs in front of the fire, or on the couch.…” Brennan appealed like an anguished dog for their help.
Mrs. Morris, saying: “There’s not very comfortable you would be,” shrugged, smiled, and turned to the cupboard.
The wind dropped.
It was so sudden that they all sat in silence for a moment, wondering what was wrong. There had been no great force behind the wind for the last twenty minutes or so, but it had been sighing and hustling snowflakes about the house for most of the evening, and this cessation came as a surprise, producing a hush as portentous as that caused by a clock that has stopped ticking.
Mr. Morris stirred in his sleep and emitted a disturbed snuffling noise. He did not actually wake up, but some part of his consciousness registered this unexpected change in the weather, and his face twitched unbelievingly.
Denis got up and opened the door, half nervously, not knowing what to prepare for.
“What a queer change!” said Frank.
Denis stood at the door and looked out. The heaped snow was clear and quiet, undisturbed.
“It’s going to freeze, by the looks of it,” he said. “I can see the stars.”
He closed the door again and came back to the fire. He was surprised, but not disturbed. Only Brennan, thought Nora, was disturbed, apart from herself, but it was hard to tell whether his nervousness was due to the surprising calm or to something that had been in his mind right from the time of his arrival here. For herself, she was profoundly uneasy: that hushing of the wind was no natural thing, and despite all attempts to reassure herself with the thought of the presence of her family, she felt that Jonathan had had a wicked hand in it.
But that was absurd. No man could control the wind.
What he had shown her from the passage window had