Chapter Four: Beltaine
Matt had been dreaming of a field of grass, thick and sweet. Itchy against skin, breathing. The sun had felt hot, and so had the fire. But then the sear had faded and the sweetness of the grass lingered on his comforter.
The first thing Matt sees upon waking is the medium curled at the foot of his bed, lying half on his back and half on his side on the old trunk. One arm stretched in open air, suspended and lolling at the joint, having fallen in sleep with his fingers curled just so. His head tilted back, lashes on cheeks and lips parted, soft sounds of sleep fogging from his open mouth. He looks impossibly long and small at the same time, cramped and barely contained to the wooden surface.
He must be a heavy sleeper, Matt thinks, to have fallen and stayed asleep in such an uncomfortable position. Easing out of bed, Matt doesn't bother making it as he pulls sleep pants over boxers, doing his best to pass quietly and quickly over old groan-ridden floors. He's passing Jonah's sleepy body when that smell wafts to him again, a smell of heat and sweet summer grasses. Pausing, the professor of the paranormal studies the sleeping boy for a moment before leaning down, slowly and softly, nestling their heads close together. Nose brushing the black crown of Jonah's head, Matthew is absolutely dead sure it's the kid that smells that way. Like a wild and warm lawn, green and wavering on a hot day.
He shakes his head and leaves the room, down the stairs, and eases on a worn pair of sneakers. He studies the basement door and aches. If it were up to him, the mortuary would remain untouched forever. After all, it was the site of a sacrifice and rebirth. Like Golgotha, the site of Jesus' crucifixtion. A sacred space. He reluctantly opens the door, prepared for a morning of dragging and mopping and burning.
Jonah wakes to the smell of fire and a wrenching sound, like wood. Like a door being ripped off hinges. He sits up and groans, his joints terribly sore and aching. His neck feels jammed from sleeping wrong, and he rolls his head side to side and in circles, marveling at the feeling of pain. He would have to do his best to take care of this new body. Maintenance of his physical form had never been his strong suit.
Startled again by a sound, this time of a dull, echoing chop sound, he rises and goes to the window. His strange blue eyes blink out at the sunlight and he finds it hard to breathe, all this fire and smoke. Smells something awful, acrid. There's a bonfire roaring outside in a dead patch of grass, so far containing chairs and all the accoutrement from Matthew's successful necromancy, and Jonah's new birthday. Jonah can see the faint glowing shapes of the bowls, the glint of a knife. The sound comes again, and Jonah cranes his neck to spot Matthew up against the house, glistening shoulders heaving as he swings his ax. Chop chop chop. The sight and the sound gives Jonah chills. Matthew doesn't look all that different, still lean and long and covered in Latin, shining with sweat with determination written across his scrunched face, his long brown curls pulled back in a ponytail. He's currently dismantling that damned round table with all its ugly carvings. Jonah watches as Matthew hacks away, eventually satisfied, dragging whole hunks of wood to feed the fire. Feeding a fire. Matt steps back from the inferno and wipes his brow, shoulders heaving, ax held limply in hand.
The medium wrenches his gaze away, feeling queasy. Turning away and leaving, he takes the stairs in small quick steps and comes into the kitchen. The coffee pot is still warm, and a half-finished and cooling mug sits on the counter, forgotten by Matthew. Jonah dumps the old coffee and pours him a fresh mug, and fetches another to pour himself some. He tucks the cigarettes and strange schnick-y lighter he finds on the kitchen table into the little pocket on his nightshirt and gathers a mug in each hand, leaving the kitchen and down the hallway, finding the back door open. He eases the screen door open with a hip, it slams shut behind him and Matthew whips around, that same crooked smile dawning on his face.
"Morning, Jonah."
"Good morning, Matthew."
Matt wipes his brow again before accepting the mug of black coffee the boy is offering him, nodding his head in thanks. Matt watches as the kid sips his own coffee. They watch the roaring fire in silence for a bit before Jonah fishes out the cigarettes, and they take turns lighting each other's. They spend even longer like that, side by side, coffee and nicotine in hand. The silence is comfortable. It feels like a vigil.
"Hey Jonah?"
"Hmm?"
"What did you dream of last night?"
Matt watches as Jonah's head tilts softly to the side, his neon eyes becoming unfocused and distant. The medium is quiet for a few moments before responding.
"Funny...I dreamt about May Day fires. Bonfire leaping for midsummer. Before Mother died, it was an annual tradition...we'd pick the hottest day of summer and light the hottest fire we could, summoning all the energy we could. I can still remember my first leap…" he trails off in thought. "Something magical to surviving flames unscathed. To rise out of the ashes and all that. I only got burned once, and even then, I didn't learn to truly fear fire till I got a lot older."
Stricken, Matt can't seem to take his eyes off Jonah's pale, vintage face.
"Oh?"
Jonah gives a wan smile, sucking his cigarette in deep, smoke curling from the corners of his mouth.
"I learned to fear the fire when I got trapped inside. There was no coming out unscathed, or being reborn, or being purified or martyrized. There was only death and pain."
Matt nods thoughtfully. "At least this bonfire is a purifying one? Get rid of all that 'damned black hoodoo' as you so accurately described?"
Jonah's smile grows and he huffs a small laugh. "Yes, well. We're both still here and sinners yet."
After Matthew had thrown all eligible scrap and debris into the now roaring fire, he instructs the medium to sit a second and wait while he fetches things. Jonah is just starting to wonder if Matt requires assistance when the occultist returns bearing a tray, which he arranges on the worn table, nestled between two folding chairs on Hell House's back porch. On the tray is a hastily prepared brunch of cold sandwiches, fruit, and a half pitcher of iced tea, which Matt drinks straight out of (an animal, Jonah mouth pinches at the sight) and he takes big deep gulps. He still glistens slightly with sweat, but is obviously winding down after a long morning of hard labor. Next to the sandwiches and deep red watermelon sits a deck of cards, and Matt is pleased with the smile on the kid's face.
"Okay, so I have a proposition for you. There's still a lot of cleaning to do in the basement and I'd rather not do it alone. We can settle on a game we both know, and winner gets to choose his preferred cleaning activity, washing the walls or mopping the floor. I'm also unsure as to what to do with the walls, as I doubt paint can fix any of that. Maybe in the future we can plaster over them?"
Matt's head is tilted, watching and waiting for Jonah's response. The medium nods slowly.
"Alright. I would rather mop the floor. How about something fast and easy….like Slapjack?"
Matt's smile is wide and crinkles his eyes, and Jonah finds he likes its appearance very much.
"Great idea, kid!"
Jonah wins quickly and easily, pale palm blooming red, his laugh echoing across the lawn. Matt can't seem to bring himself to be disappointed to lose.
"I must be lucky!" the medium exclaims, and Matt can't help but laugh. It's not exactly a phrase the man would've chosen to describe the reanimated dead.
The teen stands and shucks off his nightshirt in one quick motion, clad in his old-timey drawers. Matt watches in disbelief as Jonah darts into the backyard. He circles the fire, seemingly studying the sky. With a chill, Matt realizes Jonah is aligning himself to the North. Satisfied, the kid backs up, gauging the distance between himself and the still-roaring fire. Matt only has a moment, a shout catching in the back of his throat, before Jonah takes off at a dead sprint, leaping in one long, graceful motion through the flames. He comes out entirely unscathed of course, but Matt's heart is still pounding. Jonah exclaims something in what Matt thinks might be German, some phrase, quick, guttural, and complex—wiedergeboren und auferstanden zu sein!
"Jesus, kid, you could've burned yourself!" Matt calls out.
"See, lucky!" he hollers back, laughing. He bounds back up to Matt, breathless and aglow, a positively ecstatic expression on his face. The medium wears happiness in a way Matt has never witnessed before. It oozes out of every pore, childlike and vibrant, burning as bright as the sun beating down.
"Would you wanna try? I could teach you! It really is good luck, Matthew, it's like a rebirth…it's May Day anyway, it's May first, right? It's always tradition to—"
"I know what Beltaine is," Matt murmurs, standing to shuck off his shorts. The teen babbles on anyway about the metaphysical properties of Beltaine, and Matt can't help but smile through his fear. Years in a classroom surely can't compare to doing the real thing. Jonah patiently explains the entire process to Matt, helps him gauge distance, gives him instructions on how to make sure he jumps cleanly through. Matt nods along, jaw tense. But as he runs, then jumps, and lands, ungracefully, tumbling into the grass, overly warm from the fire and exhilarated, his heart pounding, he too experiences euphoria. He whoops and hollers just as Jonah had, because really, there is nothing quite like it, quite as exciting as being surrounded in all that power for just a few seconds.
Jonah exclaims again in German, the same phrase, before running up to help haul Matt to his feet, his lithe form surprisingly strong. He pulls Matt up so hard that he stumbles.
"You did so good!" Jonah laughs, clapping, and Matt feels as if he's passed over a threshold, passed some test. He feels good, and proud, and hopeful. He feels clean.
Jonah watches the soapy water and blood swirl down the floor drain, and focuses on taking very deep breaths. Blackness has edged along his vision since his first half hour in this damned space, and he is doing his best not to let on to Matt that he's struggling. Mopping up soot, blood, and vomit is less than ideal to begin with, and paired with the energy of black magic in the air, it's downright nauseating. It kicks in the medium's flight response like nothing has in seventy years. But he trudges on, putting his back into it, flicking his now lank and sweaty hair from his face. Jonah doesn't think Matt is faring much better. Every time Jonah gets to see his face, the man looks especially pale. When they had first started, and Matt had turned to see Jonah mopping up blood, he'd looked so white in the face that Jonah had asked what was wrong. Matt had simply shook his head and went back to scrubbing the soot from the Latin-carved brick, a bucket of soapy water in one hand and a large hard-bristled brush in the other.
The furnace in the corner feels like it has eyes, the darkness of its interior peering through the ventilation slats. It feels like a physical presence to the medium. A severed limb. A birthing cavern. Hearing his own screams echoing through time is disconcerting to say the least, and when he listens, he can recall so clearly the pain, licking up along his legs and chest as he crouches, huddled, screaming…
"Hey, Jonah? You okay bud?"
And now it's Matt's turn to ask, and all Jonah can do is nod. He just can't seem to speak, and Matt nods.
"Wanna take a break?"
Jonah sighs long and low. "No...let's get this much done at least."
With a nod, Matt turns back to his work, and Jonah focuses on reciting Baudelaire in his head to drown out his own muted agony.
After the walls and floor of the mortuary all but fucking sparkle, the boys trudge back upstairs, wet and warm and emotionally and physically exhausted. Matt looks especially ragged, having spent his morning dragging furniture outside, chopping it up and such, and then scrubbing walls for hours. In fact, he looks downright zonked, like he could crumple to the floor and sleep at any moment. He goes straight to the icebox in the kitchen, procuring a bottle that Jonah assumes to be alcoholic.
"Kid, wanna beer?"
"Uh….sure?"
Matt has to pry the tops off with a bottle opener, and Jonah is surprised by how lovely it is. It's a light-colored drink, frothy, tasting of yeast and lemon. He decides he likes it a lot and tells Matt as much, who laughs.
"Did you drink beer in life?"
Jonah shrugs. "I guess I am, in this one."
The occultist laughs and fishes forth the cigarettes, lighting two and passing one to Jonah, who accepts gratefully. Matt tiredly sits at the kitchen table, beer pooling condensation, which Matt rubs into his face with a tired hand.
"Alright, want another game of Slapjack to see who bathes first?
Jonah shakes his head.
"You go first, you've had the longer day. I can keep myself occupied, promise."
Matt nods and stands again, his cigarette hanging from his mouth and beer in one hand, and gently squeezes Jonah's shoulder as he passess. Jonah wonders if he notices how Jonah starts slightly, horribly unused to warm, physical touch. Friendly touch. Listening to Matt's heavy footfalls ascending the stairs, he turns to the strange humming icebox and examines its contents. The least he can do is make dinner, as Matthew has worked so much today and so graciously made lunch.
Jonah sees some foods that strike chords, and he begins pulling various things from the icebox, filling up the table. Jonah's last cooking opportunity being a lifetime ago, a sense of unease wavers in his stomach. In his previous life, Jonah had been the cook of the house after Mother died, cooking simple meals for himself and Father. He wonders if this will be akin to riding a bike...surely one doesn't forget how to prepare a dinner of meat and veggies? With a decided sigh, the medium rolls up his sleeves and, squinting rather intently at what he assumes to be the new oven, determines how to preheat it, checking its insides for forgotten pans first. He's pleased to find it is a gas stove, luxurious and easy to maintain a steady temperature with. He's rooting around looking for a baking pan when a new sound causes him to start; it rather sounds like sudden rain upstairs, and quite a steady one. Task forgotten, Jonah uncertainly steps from the kitchen into the hall, where the sound is louder, emanating down the stairs from what Jonah assumes is the bathroom. He quickly and quietly ascends the stairs, rounds the corner...and catches a flash of a lean and tanned body standing upright in the bathtub. He bounds back down the stairs quickly enough, face flaming. It seemed Matt forgot to close the bathroom door, and Jonah surmises that the rainfall he stood in is a modern contraption. Alone downstairs, Jonah listens to that rain, and hears how it shifts as Matthew shifts under its spray, going quiet and loud again, water sloshing and hitting porcelain.
Well. This is uncomfortable, Jonah decides. Turning right from the bottom of the stairs, instead of left towards the kitchen, Jonah ventures into the living room, a room of the house left yet unexplored. Delighted, the teen spots a record player in the corner, immediately crossing to it. Underneath is a milk crate full of records, and Jonah rifles through them in disbelief, finding most of them to be artists he recognizes. Very odd. Quite suspicious, if one were to ask Jonah's opinion.
No matter how suspicious it may be for Matthew to have acquired so many records from Jonah's time, the medium can't control the helpless smile spreading across his face as he sets the needle to vinyl, piano filling the room. Such joy; music, after such a long time.
Matt comes down the stairs to a scene so domestic it could be a memory; Jonah, swaying gently to Josephine Baker, beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. The bloodstained and dirty clothes he cleaned in are still on, but his suspenders have been shucked to dangle in loops around his hips. The smell of cooking food permeates the house, and the little table in the kitchen is adorned with placemats of newspaper (where he had found a newspaper, Matt can only guess), china plates, and silverware; notably, steak knives, which the medium must have located. Matt makes sure to make plenty of noise coming into the living room so as not to startle the kid. Jonah swivels to greet him with a happy smile, and his heart skips a beat. He commits the smile to memory and it's over in a second, Jonah crossing to the victrola to turn the record down.
"Ready to eat?" the teen chirps, and Matt can only nod mutely, following the medium into the kitchen, where he is urged to sit by chatty hands. He watches Jonah pluck a potholder from the hook on the wall before opening the oven, the smell wafting out positively divine. He bends and gracefully retrieves an iron skillet containing what seems to be steak, and Matt absolutely marvels at the revelation that the nineteen year-old (in body and perhaps mind, maybe) would think to sear the steaks in a skillet before transferring them to an oven. The skillet is hastily placed on the stovetop in a manner revealing that Jonah may have put too much faith in a simple potholder to protect his hands. Next, Jonah procures a sheet pan of roasted asparagus, and Matthew's befuddlement only increases when he realizes the asparagus is coated in cheese, the grater in the sink looking well-used.
A pleased expression on his face, Jonah fetches their plates and dishes them each out a steak and some of the asparagus, setting a plate down in front of Matt only to turn and begin procuring other foodstuffs from various locations to place on the table, which is beginning to look cramped; a half-pitcher of sweet iced tea and two glasses, the crystal butter dish and a butter knife, and a loaf of white bread taken from the countertop breadbox. The teen finally sits and surveys his spoils, plucking up the bread and unwrapping it deftly before unceremoniously tossing a slice onto Matthew's plate and then his. Matt watches in amusement as Jonah not only butters his bread but plunks a pat unto his steak, where it slowly melts, looking downright sinful. Matt fixes his plate up the same and the two of them take up their knives and forks at the same time, Jonah finally meeting Matthew's eyes with a smile and a warm, syrupy emotion in his face that Matt is hesitant to place.
Matt cuts into his steak and practically drools when he realizes it's rare as hell; Jonah is already one bite in, eyes closed and savoring his own labors.
"Jonah?"
The boy looks up and tilts his head, still chewing. He's already reaching for his bread with his other hand.
"You sure can fucking cook…I don't think anyone's ever made a meal this lavish for me. Thank you so much.."
"Wrong!" the medium simply states, the butter on his bread so thick, teeth marks are visible.
"Wrong?"
He nods and chirps back, "Wrong! I seem to remember your Mother producing some lovely looking—and smelling, I must say—dinners during her stay here…though you were so sick, now that I think of it…you probably couldn't keep it down..."
His face falls into a frown, eyes far away. Matt simply shakes his head.
"Well, I'm lucky to be eating such a good meal now."
That brings the smile back, and Jonah raises his glass.
"To good health and good food!"
Matthew laughs and agrees, toasting back with a clink. When the food is finally cleared away, the victrola is turned back up, and the two men tuck in to an after dinner cigarette and a brief few games of poker; brief, because Jonah won each game. Matt guesses he shouldn't try to beat a kid that grew up playing poker for gum and cigarettes at school.
Matt had just started drifting off to sleep when soft light flits into the room, opening his eyes to spy Jonah slinking in like a housecat, clad in his white shift. His bare feet are silent as he crosses to the trunk at the foot of Matt's bed, the soft sound of fabric on wood as he drags the comforter from his bed. He's just begun arranging the blanket on the trunk, a spare pillow in his other hand, when Matthew's voice rasps out in the semi-darkness.
"C'mere," he implores, rolling over and patting the other side of the bed. Jonah hesitates for so long that Matt wonders if he's committed a social faux-pas before the boy accepts his offer, arranging his spare pillow next to Matt's, before pulling back the covers.
Matt can feel it, as Jonah gets into bed with him. One leg, and then the bed dips with his weight, as Jonah sits, sliding his other leg inside before laying down. Matt can feel it, a palpable energy as Jonah's soft head nestles into a pillow. It's like a wave of heat, almost. Like standing too close to a fire. He can smell the teen, too—a soft smell of cloves and coffee, and an undertone of something burning and electric, like the smell of ozone after lighting strikes. The smell of ashes, sweet and fleeting, crumbling into nothing if one were to reach out and touch it.
The conduit seems to be doing his best to stay as far away from Matt as possible, curling up on the far edge of his side of the bed, facing away from Matt, but it absolutely does not matter. No, Matt can feel him, smell him, sense his presence in the dark room.
Matt stares up at the darkened ceiling with a sense of expectation, some tight, breathless feeling in his chest. He takes deep, even breaths, trying to calm down. It's just so surreal—too surreal, and it must be for Jonah too. In the silence, Matt can tell the kid is holding his breath, entirely still, only to take a shuddering breath every few moments. For the life of him, the cancer-survivor can't shake the nostalgic feeling of being watched, the feeling of a presence in the room as he tries to fall asleep. That same damned smell as before.
"It's just like old times, isn't it?" Matthew whispers into the dark, and Jonah physically startles, a ripple-like jolt Matt can feel through the layers of bedding and inches of distance between himself and Jonah.
"What, Matthew?" Jonah sounds almost scared, his thin voice whispering back in the dark.
"It's just like old times…I could never sleep at first, with you watching me. I could feel it, you know…your eyes on me in the dark. But then, by the time the haunting ended, by the time we set the house on fire…I couldn't sleep without you, without your presence in the dark, standing in corners, protecting me from the others.…"
Matthew trails off awkwardly, and in the following silence, he feels as if he's overshared. He feels as if he's just submitted a confession for judgment. And he regrets it, wishes he could take it back—
"Really? Well…I'm so sorry to have scared you, at least at first. But I found it comforting to watch you sleep…I was worried you'd die in your sleep, Matthew. I was also worried the others would get to you, before we could execute the plan…I always wondered how you were feeling, then. How bad the pain must be, dying so slow like that."
Matt can't seem to respond, can't think of a response, to an admission like that. A warmth spreads from his chest to the tips of his fingers, the soles of his feet, knowing Jonah had been just as comforted as he had been—knowing that the medium had been protecting him at night, something Matthew had never been sure was wishful thinking or not.
"And here I am," Jonah sighs, rolling over to face Matthew in bed, "doing it again. Watching you. Afraid to be parted from you, at night, lest something horrible happen."
"Nothing horrible will happen, Jonah."
"No, I suppose not…neither of us are dead or dying, anymore."
"No. No, everything is fine…thank you though. For staying here with me."
Jonah laughs quietly in the dark. He rolls back over, and Matthew can barely breath, listening as Jonah's living body rustles the blankets.
"I'm grateful you'll have me, Matthew."
Matt's last thought as he falls asleep is of Jonah, back then, burnt-up and mangled, and of the quiet sounds of pain the ghost had made, at all times. The gasps, croaks, and pops coming from a dead mouth, its tongue and teeth blackened with smoke and ash. How comforting it was, those familiar sounds, by the end. Matt's very own protector in the dark. His very own white noise machine.
The gurney is cold beneath Matt's naked flesh, clammy with fear and nerves. Carved, bloody hands hold him firm, hold him in place, as the sting of it continues, the blade cleanly and neatly parting his flesh. Hovering over him is a man, old and graying. His eyes are hidden by round glasses—the flash and gleam in the overhead, surgical-style light.
"No, no, stop! He's just a boy—Father please, he's just a boy—"
Just a boy, Matt's mind echos, as he listens to Jonah sob and scream, as he watches the teen struggle and thrash in the grip of dozens of desecrated bodies. Tears roll desperately down his pale, horrified face—unburned, but not for long.
"Matthew!"
Jonah's scarred voice, lapping at his subconscious like waves on the sea.
"Matt!"
The occultist startles awake, heavily jarred from sleep, confused and disoriented. Jonah's worried, scared face hovers above him, his aquamarine eyes wide and shining. Warm hands are cupping both sides of Matthew's face, smooth fingers brushing along his cheeks.
"Hmmmm?" Matthew mumbles, his voice groggy and rough from sleep.
The boy sniffles, and Matthew is further roused into awareness—and further confused—as he realizes Jonah is crying. Tears run softly and ceaselessly down the boy's face, traveling to his chin to waver, suspended, before dripping onto Matt's face like rain.
Matt struggles to sit up in bed, displacing Jonah—who'd been leaning over him, half on top of him—in the process.
"What's wrong? You're crying—"
"So are you." Jonah responds in a whisper, his voice wavering with emotion. Matt touches his face and realizes it's true, realizes that the kid had most likely been wiping them from his face the whole time it took for Matt to wake.
"Shit, I am—"
"You were having a nightmare."
"I was?"
Jonah just nods in response. He still looks horrified, stock still and pale in the dark, his tears slowing but not stopping.
"I'm sorry I woke you, and that I scared you. I don't even remember what it was, now—"
"You don't remember the nightmare?"
"No, kid. Must not have been too bad, then." Matthew quips, but Jonah still looks so somber, so sad. He sits at Matthew's side like a sentinel.
"Hey now, it's alright, I'll be alright. Let's get back to sleep, yeah?" Matthew settles back into bed with a yawn.
The kid doesn't budge, staring off into the dark, until Matt reaches out a hand, gently touching the boy's shoulder. Those damned neon eyes find Matt again, then, before flitting away, suddenly shy. Jonah settles back down too, silently drying his own tears. Jonah stares at Matthew until the professor falls asleep again.
Jonah stays awake for most of the night, after that, worried that Matthew will have another nightmare. God, what an awful nightmare it had been.
How ironic that Matthew thought of me as a protector, Jonah thinks to himself, when in his dreams, I can only observe, and do nothing, as he's hurt. Powerful enough to traumatize him forever, too weak to prevent any of it from happening.