Smiling to himself, remembering what it felt to be young and lithe and full of power, he smeared his feet into the moss, working his toes into their soft grip. Slowly, ever so slowly. He bent his knees and reached for the bucket as if to carry it off. The water inside was still moving. Joints creaked like bent wood, and he saw in the bucket a wrinkled reflection of himself. With one hand, he unknotted the long fetching rope from the bucket. “Just once more,” he whispered to his bones. “Like old times.”
The fetching rope was salty as he placed it between his teeth. Behind him, he could hear the animal creeping closer, attempting to torment him with her shadowy presence.
Whirling, the old man leapt for the beast. He was airborne again, flying, arms wide, eyes taking in the whole world. He saw the black fur on the beast ripple with alarm, saw the tail drop, the paws splay in the dirt, the head jerk as it prepared to run, but then he was on her, catching what couldn’t be caught. They rolled to the ground. The old man scrambled to the beast’s back and wrapped his legs around her midsection, hooking his feet together. His arm went across her neck where it was impossible to bite. The rope went quick around one paw, and then another. Old hands make the best knots. Her back legs were looped with the rest of the rope, all of it done in a moment.
The beast screeched madly and bit at the air, but she could not move. The old man looked from her heaving ribs to the roofline of the village far up the hill. Someone would have to come for him, he thought. He imagined the stories they would tell, his children and grandchildren. They would be telling this story forever.
“What of you, beast?” he asked. He rested on his knees. One of the beast’s dark eyes swiveled his way. “Long have you mocked us, and yet here you are.”
The beast stopped biting the air and seemed to smile. The old man had taken note of her reach, the limit of her snarling mouth. He did not fear her and moved closer, double-checking his knots.
“They said you couldn’t be caught,” the old man wheezed. The knots were secure. He had done it. He searched himself for injury, for some claw mark, but found none.
“Who says?” the beast asked, with that voice that had all the years taunted and promised so much.
“Everyone,” the old man replied. He looked down at her black fur, gleaming in the sunlight. The day was brighter, his head lighter from the exertion.
“And what do they know of me?” the beast asked, her voice subdued.
The old man said nothing. He looked back to the village, wondering how long it would take for someone to notice he had not returned.
“I will tell you what of me,” the beast hissed.
The old man turned.
“Come,” she said. Her tongue slid out and smoothed her whiskers. “Bend low and I will tell you of this chase we make.”
The man laughed, but he was indeed curious to hear. He glanced back toward the village, saw the bucket and felt suddenly thirsty, but he bent closer to the animal’s smiling teeth, remembering well their range and keeping out of it.
“Tell me your story,” the old man said. He was dizzy with the opportunity to know the unknown. “Start at the beginning.”
“It is not my story I tell,” the beast said. “And I know nothing of beginnings.”
And with that, the beast stretched her neck much further than it had reached before, and she bit the old man. It was a deep and mortal wound, sudden and sure. The man staggered back, clutching at it, knowing from the great gush that it couldn’t be held.
With a single claw, the beast parted the fetching rope bound around her wrists, then sliced the knots holding her hind legs.
“I run from you, and you chase me,” the beast said. She stood on her great paws. “You call me uncatchable, but the truth is contrary. The day comes when all men catch me. All men.”
The old man from the village fell back in a pool of his own blood. His life was draining away, soaking the moss.
“Just wait,” the beast said, her voice no longer shrill. “Just wait, I tell them, but it makes you hurry all the more.”
This was a story I wrote and published online for a short while, but the link broke in a website update and I never fixed it, so it was pretty much lost. It wasn’t until we started putting together this collection, and this book’s editor, John Joseph Adams, kept asking me if I was sure that was everything, that I found it through the back end of my website. I read it years after having written it, and it was all new to me. I had a vague recollection of having written it, but that was it. This is a terrifying feeling.
It’s the feeling of seeing an old photograph and a flood of memories of that entire day, an entire period of your life, rushing back into consciousness. Where were these memories before? How did a single key unlock so much? Would those memories have been lost forever without that small reminder? The illusion of permanence and memory are too convincing.
The worst is waking up in the morning remembering that you had a great idea the night before, but this is all you can remember: the idea of the idea. It’s the scrap of writing on an ancient Greek scroll extolling the wisdom, genius, and virtue of some writer whose works have been lost to time. Perhaps it’s better not knowing. If we’re going to lose these parts of ourselves, the only salvation is to lose the memory of having had them. Or is it?
When I was younger, I wrote about death a lot. This happened as I was losing my religion and my belief in eternal life. “The Black Beast” is about loss of life, but in its discovery on an old server, and the panic of how much else may have been lost with no memories to even inspire a search, it can also be a story about losing something else: our sense of selves.
Tragic is a story about a mother losing a child and spending the rest of her life searching for him. Even worse is a mother waking up one day with no child and no cause to even begin the search. Because the child is still out there. What we lose is still missing.
The Good God
Dear Enlightened Being,
My name is Olodumare, son of Olorun, the divine creator and source of all energy. If you know the ways of the cosmos, you know that my father became no more once the act of creation was complete. He left me to bring light to the world. And yet darkness spreads across the land.
Shadows are falling everywhere, and it is because I am being held in the pit of the Earth. Only you can release me. My father was a twin, and his brother Eshu holds me against my will. The devil Eshu subsists on the dark that lurks in all our hearts. I regretfully admit that I have lent him some of my own. Only the brightness can keep him at bay. It is in you. You must let it out to let me out. If you do, all the treasures of the cosmos will be brought to the Earth once more. All the treasures will be brought to you.
There is some cost to you, yes. And much trust. But I promise to repay you many times over. Please, before it is too late and the darkness is everywhere.
My ayanmo—my fate—is in your hands,
Olodumare
The words spread like fidgeting ants across dry parchment. One moment they were not there; the next moment, an incredible story of gods that no sane mortal would believe. The parchment trembles in the hands of enraged Eshu. Fire leaks from the dark devil’s veins, and the parchment is engulfed in flickering, dancing orange flames. Allowing the letter to fall, it is ash before it reaches Eshu’s cloven feet.
“Kill him,” Eshu says.