Rikki Ducornet - Brightfellow

He follows the deer paths, leaps down the familiar rocks, runs mindless of the thorns that cut his face. He runs until he reaches the river, runs along the banks, the beach, runs until he must stop and catch his breath, the ravens complaining everywhere around him. He falls into something like a stupor, stunned, shattered by the inconceivable, and when he wakes it’s evening. He washes the blood from his face and arms, and moves on for another hour, perhaps two, guided by the moon. He imagines that she, too, is illuminated in this way, that the moon will heal her, oh, the bright cipher of his heart. He runs again until in the distant dark he sees lights twinkling above him, up on a high embankment. A house, its many windows, the light passing through. He climbs the crest of the hill thick with trees and fallen branches, a richly scabbed-over glacial landscape. Then a path, overgrown, takes him to the house, Victorian, softened to a pearly gray, a driveway that ends in a dirt road that in turn leads to a country road, one of many that wander some distance from the highway. The place is isolated and still. Charter walks, limping a little, up the driveway and stands gazing at the house, its fanciful façade and porch. As he stands uncertain in the moonlight, an old man rises up from behind the railing; he has been sitting in a rocker all this time, silent and hidden from view, watching Charter’s approach, his shock of hair startlingly white, his eyes of unparalleled intensity.

“Young man,” he says, “Are you lost?”

“Yes. Lost! Good evening. I apologize. I fear I may have startled you.”

“Where do you need to get to? Come over here! Come into the light.”

Charter approaches.

“You are bleeding—”

Inspired by some divine intuition perhaps, Charter says:

“I was hoping to find someone, a reclusive scholar, Verner Vanderloon. I was accosted in the woods — hobos. .”

“Good god !”

“They robbed me, roughed me up. And I have been running and now I have exhausted myself completely. I fear I am in no shape to be seen.”

“For godsakes,” he says. “And what on earth do you need Vanderloon for?”

“His books! I love his books!”

“Well, you’ve found him.”

“I have?”

“Don’t get carried away,” Vanderloon says gruffly. “Come. Come inside.”

Charter follows him into a beautiful entryway with a long Persian carpet and walls lined with books. He thinks he recognizes a statue from Easter Island, a bird man. As always he notices such things.

“You are badly scratched up,” Vanderloon says. “I have some iodine. Come into the kitchen.” He takes Charter’s elbow and directs him. “So, you like my books. I’d say that is more or less unprecedented.”

“Not in Australia!”

“Tomato soup?” Vanderloon reaches for a familiar can. “I imagine you could use some sustenance.”

“I am hungry.”

“Crackers?”

“Yes. Thank you, sir!”

“Loon. Call me Loon. You will have some soup, take a warm bath — I have some salts — and get a good rest. Would you like to stay the night?”

“Thank you!”

“And in the morning you will tell me just what it is you are wanting. ”

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Coffee House Press is an internationally renowned independent book publisher and arts nonprofit based in Minneapolis, MN; through its literary publications and Books in Action program, Coffee House acts as a catalyst and connector — between authors and readers, ideas and resources, creativity and community, inspiration and action.

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