I first heard that question voiced aloud when I was very young, in the schoolyard, by a girl speaking to other girls (if any of them had known I, a boy of the decidedly “uncool” bookish nerdy sort, was within earshot, the question would not have been asked).
At the time, I sniggered. Not at the perfectly understandable desire to join a club, nor the allure of being part of something special and secret, but because of the direct question, so baldly put. If your club is known across the schoolyard (I’d already heard about it, too, and so had other classmates), it isn’t all that secret, is it?
The answer, however, was interesting: “Can you meet us by the old tree at midnight, with an unlit candle, and matches? And you have to wear black.”
Oooh, a WITCHY secret club. All girls, all in black, and there’d be fire. Possibly, if I knew anything at all about those particular girls, uncontrolled fire.
Nine-year-old me checked my crowded social calendar. Unsurprisingly, midnight was an open slot. When I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, but my bedroom had a window that cranked open, a screen that could readily be removed from the inside, and access to the patio roof and an easily-climbed crabapple tree. So…
So I stayed in bed, and didn’t go. Not out of fear, or because I fell asleep, but a little because I’d feel guilty about the intrusion, and a lot because I strongly suspected the club meeting would be a crashing disappointment, even if I could somehow get close enough to the old tree (in a park of asphalt paths and close-cropped grass, for acres around) unseen, to eavesdrop.
It was a lot more fun to stay home, under the covers, and dream of all the exciting things that were going on at that meeting. No, not hanky-panky (I was nine, remember), but…
Someone fumblingly, old book in hand and eyeglasses steaming up with nervousness, actually opening a dark gate to another world with all those candles—and something slithering or stalking through it. Cue all the girls running away shrieking leaving the invited Eldritch Horror to stalk around Don Mills eating cats and chasing dogs and switching street signs around to confuse delivery drivers, and the gate yawning open until the morning sun melted it away, leaving no way for it to ever go home, so it would lurk forever in the dark ravines, hunting by night…
Or someone gigglingly, with the aid of a flashlight and all those candles and a bag full of kitchen spices and other odds and ends, doing a ritual they’d found in some book that would raise the dead, as a joke so they could quiz a ghost with impertinent questions about their parents when younger—and the ritual working, causing the ground under them to tremble and then erupt as the skeleton of someone murdered long ago and buried in the spot rose up with menacing slowness, bone by bone, to assemble itself into a skeleton with long, long fingers that reached for them, while grinning, endlessly and horribly. Again, cue shrieking and running (sensible girls!), in all directions and at breakneck speed, to leave the skeleton standing there peering slowly all around, seeking easier prey. Like the lonely old men who walked their dogs in the wee hours, pipes lit or unlit clenched in grizzled old jaws that had been to war, years before…
Or someone, with hands that trembled with excitement, unfolding a stained and yellowed piece of tattered old paper that made the girls all crowd around, hissing, “Treasure treasure treasure!” and then being positioned, as the holder of the treasure map paced out careful distances across the park, to stand in particular spots with their candles lit, so many dancing flames in the night, to form a pattern that told the map holder to dig just…here. And find, after going deeper than they’d expected to, an old pirate chest that they lacked the keys to, and had to smash open, to release a ragged, glowing crimson cloud that rose up to form a horrific face, taller than a man, as they—again, sensibly—shrieked and ran. As it chose the slowest one to fly vengefully after, leaving the shattered chest open and unguarded, so dreaming spectral me could dare to glide closer, and stare down into its dark depths, and see…and see…
A human skull plated in gold, encrusted with gems all around the empty dark eyesockets, with rows of emeralds for its teeth, atop what looked like more jewels, but just when I descended for a better look two points of light winked into being in those sockets, to become eyes that stared at me, as the skull started to rise up, shedding gems in all directions, and the crimson face came racing back through the night impossibly fast, and…
I came fully awake then, and sat bolt upright in bed, and found the room dark and deserted. So I laid down again, and tried to slow my pounding heart, and imagined I’d borrowed the sword from my dad’s office, the officer’s sword he’d once told me I wasn’t to play with because it was “sharp enough to slice a gliding host, not just all the fingers and thumbs off a lad,” and had it with me as I went back to the treasure chest, ready to cleave skull and slice crimson face—only to have them both flee at the sight of the blade, leaving the treasure all for me.
Only, when I looked in, all the gems were growing legs and turning into spiders that swarmed busily out in all directions, laying bare the dead, staring faces of people underneath. Not the girls with their candles, but strangers, and not their heads, but just their faces, sliced off like so many flesh masks in a pile at the bottom of the chest, that as I stared at it was descending deeper into the earth, falling slowly away to reveal a hidden room in which unseen things off to the sides were hissing and whispering in the darkness, and the sword in my hand caught cold blue fire then, and blazed up bright…
And somewhere around then I sank into deeper slumber, and wilder, darker dreams, and then it was morning and time to go to school again and check to see if all of those girls had made it through the night, and peer to see if any of them looked scorched around the edges. (They were all there, and all seemingly unharmed, but a lot of them looked sleepy and sullen, and yawned from time to time. I did find some candle wax, and a stub, at the old tree, and one of the girls watched me as I turned from my discovery. So I gave her a knowing smile, and walked away without a word.)
Perhaps I flatter myself, but I strongly suspect my imaginary meetings were all better than the real one. I didn’t need a secret club, or to find treasure; I had treasure already. My imagination.
And I’ve used it from time to time, ever since.
And have saved a lot on candles, and black clothing, too.
At the time, I sniggered. Not at the perfectly understandable desire to join a club, nor the allure of being part of something special and secret, but because of the direct question, so baldly put. If your club is known across the schoolyard (I’d already heard about it, too, and so had other classmates), it isn’t all that secret, is it?
The answer, however, was interesting: “Can you meet us by the old tree at midnight, with an unlit candle, and matches? And you have to wear black.”
Oooh, a WITCHY secret club. All girls, all in black, and there’d be fire. Possibly, if I knew anything at all about those particular girls, uncontrolled fire.
Nine-year-old me checked my crowded social calendar. Unsurprisingly, midnight was an open slot. When I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, but my bedroom had a window that cranked open, a screen that could readily be removed from the inside, and access to the patio roof and an easily-climbed crabapple tree. So…
So I stayed in bed, and didn’t go. Not out of fear, or because I fell asleep, but a little because I’d feel guilty about the intrusion, and a lot because I strongly suspected the club meeting would be a crashing disappointment, even if I could somehow get close enough to the old tree (in a park of asphalt paths and close-cropped grass, for acres around) unseen, to eavesdrop.
It was a lot more fun to stay home, under the covers, and dream of all the exciting things that were going on at that meeting. No, not hanky-panky (I was nine, remember), but…
Someone fumblingly, old book in hand and eyeglasses steaming up with nervousness, actually opening a dark gate to another world with all those candles—and something slithering or stalking through it. Cue all the girls running away shrieking leaving the invited Eldritch Horror to stalk around Don Mills eating cats and chasing dogs and switching street signs around to confuse delivery drivers, and the gate yawning open until the morning sun melted it away, leaving no way for it to ever go home, so it would lurk forever in the dark ravines, hunting by night…
Or someone gigglingly, with the aid of a flashlight and all those candles and a bag full of kitchen spices and other odds and ends, doing a ritual they’d found in some book that would raise the dead, as a joke so they could quiz a ghost with impertinent questions about their parents when younger—and the ritual working, causing the ground under them to tremble and then erupt as the skeleton of someone murdered long ago and buried in the spot rose up with menacing slowness, bone by bone, to assemble itself into a skeleton with long, long fingers that reached for them, while grinning, endlessly and horribly. Again, cue shrieking and running (sensible girls!), in all directions and at breakneck speed, to leave the skeleton standing there peering slowly all around, seeking easier prey. Like the lonely old men who walked their dogs in the wee hours, pipes lit or unlit clenched in grizzled old jaws that had been to war, years before…
Or someone, with hands that trembled with excitement, unfolding a stained and yellowed piece of tattered old paper that made the girls all crowd around, hissing, “Treasure treasure treasure!” and then being positioned, as the holder of the treasure map paced out careful distances across the park, to stand in particular spots with their candles lit, so many dancing flames in the night, to form a pattern that told the map holder to dig just…here. And find, after going deeper than they’d expected to, an old pirate chest that they lacked the keys to, and had to smash open, to release a ragged, glowing crimson cloud that rose up to form a horrific face, taller than a man, as they—again, sensibly—shrieked and ran. As it chose the slowest one to fly vengefully after, leaving the shattered chest open and unguarded, so dreaming spectral me could dare to glide closer, and stare down into its dark depths, and see…and see…
A human skull plated in gold, encrusted with gems all around the empty dark eyesockets, with rows of emeralds for its teeth, atop what looked like more jewels, but just when I descended for a better look two points of light winked into being in those sockets, to become eyes that stared at me, as the skull started to rise up, shedding gems in all directions, and the crimson face came racing back through the night impossibly fast, and…
I came fully awake then, and sat bolt upright in bed, and found the room dark and deserted. So I laid down again, and tried to slow my pounding heart, and imagined I’d borrowed the sword from my dad’s office, the officer’s sword he’d once told me I wasn’t to play with because it was “sharp enough to slice a gliding host, not just all the fingers and thumbs off a lad,” and had it with me as I went back to the treasure chest, ready to cleave skull and slice crimson face—only to have them both flee at the sight of the blade, leaving the treasure all for me.
Only, when I looked in, all the gems were growing legs and turning into spiders that swarmed busily out in all directions, laying bare the dead, staring faces of people underneath. Not the girls with their candles, but strangers, and not their heads, but just their faces, sliced off like so many flesh masks in a pile at the bottom of the chest, that as I stared at it was descending deeper into the earth, falling slowly away to reveal a hidden room in which unseen things off to the sides were hissing and whispering in the darkness, and the sword in my hand caught cold blue fire then, and blazed up bright…
And somewhere around then I sank into deeper slumber, and wilder, darker dreams, and then it was morning and time to go to school again and check to see if all of those girls had made it through the night, and peer to see if any of them looked scorched around the edges. (They were all there, and all seemingly unharmed, but a lot of them looked sleepy and sullen, and yawned from time to time. I did find some candle wax, and a stub, at the old tree, and one of the girls watched me as I turned from my discovery. So I gave her a knowing smile, and walked away without a word.)
Perhaps I flatter myself, but I strongly suspect my imaginary meetings were all better than the real one. I didn’t need a secret club, or to find treasure; I had treasure already. My imagination.
And I’ve used it from time to time, ever since.
And have saved a lot on candles, and black clothing, too.
