Sourmouth (28 page)

             
“Because,” Violet interrupted, “I know you want recognition for all of your
painstaking work. You want to be remembered for your contributions to your
people and this is the best way you could ever achieve that. Because if you
don’t manage something ground-breaking, you’ll always be that outsider who
spent his life alienating his people for absolutely nothing”. She wasn’t quite
sure where she got the nerve to talk about the stranger’s life like that, but
she knew she had to try and hit a nerve to be effective.

             
Tsitusem
dashed forward towards the woman a little
too aggressively, wanting to get in her face to scream his displeasure at her
assumptions. His hostility prompted Riley to intercede with a forearm to the
young man’s chest that pushed him back hard enough that he nearly lost his
balance.

             
Tusem
raised his hands to signal his apology and
acknowledgement that he meant no harm.

             
“What do you know about what I want?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Right now you’re an outcast going against the wishes
and traditions of the respected people of your community. But they simply don’t
see that you’re a...pioneer. The traditionalists want to tell their tales by
mouth from generation to generation without regard to the possibility of things
being lost in time and you’re singlehandedly going against that. That’s a
choice that I guess might alienate you from a lot of the people around you that
believe you’re abandoning customs,” she expressed, hoping that her read of his
motivations was correct.

             
“If no one does anything then our history is going to simply disappear! Slowly from
one child to the next, but surely it’s going to be lost. That’s why I’m doing
this. To prevent the narration of our people being washed away with the last of
the elders like we’re going to be if we keep standing out here”.

             
“And what if you could do more than just record stories? What if you were the
one that helped shape the world as we know it by proving one of your people’s
myths to be real? It’s a feat that would bring you respect and help legitimize
your faith and culture to billions of people”.

             
Tusem
paused without replying. His original
intentions were purely altruistic. He merely wanted to provide for future
generations the only way he knew how. But perhaps a part of him did want a
degree of recognition. He wanted certainty that his hard work wouldn’t be for
nothing.

             
Both
Tylers
raised their chins to the sky, gazing at
the swarming clouds that threatened to burst with their torrential rains. It
was getting late and they were all getting irritable.

             
“I don’t care why you’re doing your little history project. What I care about
is that thing in the house and what it means to us,” said Violet with her hands
clenched and quivering.

             
“And what exactly does it mean to you?”
Tusem
asked
sternly as he put one foot forward before retracting it back.

             
“That’s none of your concern,” Riley said from the sidelines.

             
The young Squamish student eyed both of the
Tylers
with anger very clearly stemming from his panic. He had followed them into the
mountains on the whim that he might find something that would be critical to
his work. He hadn’t been expecting something that could legitimately turn
everything he thought he knew about the world upside down. Let alone be incredibly
perilous.

             
Tsitusem
put out his hand palm upwards, “Give me the
keys. I’m leaving”.

             
Riley broke out in an abrupt giggle that hastily cut off.

             
“I’m not giving you our keys. If you want to throw away this opportunity then
you can either sit out here in the car or you can walk back”.

             
“Walk back? You son of a bitch. It’s more than an hour walk from here to the
restaurant, never mind the docks”.

             
“Life is full of tough choices,” Riley replied with an almost sinister smile of
satisfaction.

             
Violet wasn’t fully comfortable with treating
Tusem
like they were. After all, he was originally interested in helping them when
they asked him to assist out of the blue. The fact that her husband didn’t seem
to like him aside, he hadn’t actually done anything wrong that made him
deserving of essentially being held hostage in a possibly dangerous situation.

             
“
Tusem
. Please. This is a world...world-changing
occurrence that we’ve managed to stumble into. This is something that was only
talked about in fiction until it popped up in our damn mirror. And maybe it
makes us bad people, but we want to take advantage of it the best we can.
Perhaps we can be the people that history looks back on proudly for having
accomplished something. We can be the people that textbooks describe as being
brave enough to stare the supernatural in the face and conquer it to strive to
make life bigger for everyone on this planet”.

Violet tried to put her explanation in the most
relatable way that the student could understand given his own goals. It might
have been easier to convince him if
Tusem’s
mission
for his people wasn’t just out of the goodness of his heart, but if there was even
an inkling of selfishness in his actions then he’d appreciate what the
Tylers
were hoping to achieve.  

             
Tsitusem
took deep breath after breath. His
expression doing nothing to communicate what was on his mind. Was he still
thinking about leaving? Just walking back to sea level? Or was he planning on
joining their merry band of wolf-seekers?

             
“At this point I don’t care what you want to do now. But I do know that you’re
not interfering with what we’re going to do, which is walk into that house and
make history. But, if you’re willing to stay we could use your help,” Riley
confessed as a last ditch effort as he prepared himself to go back into the
animal’s den with or without backup.    

             
Tusem
took a moment to compose himself before softly
nodding in acceptance.

             
“Since science has failed us, let us do it for the sake of history...right?” he
said, calling back to their conversation earlier in the restaurant.

             
Violet smiled fretfully, “Let’s just hope that when this is all said and done
we’re in the textbooks for physicists and not the ones for medical students”.

             
And with that the trio cautiously made their way under the watching storm
brewing above the house.  

Chapter 15

             
All three removed their jackets as they entered the house as soon as they felt
the heat pressing against them like an incessant wave. It had only been ten
minutes since they were last in the living room, but in that time the
temperature seemed to have risen to a sweltering degree. The air felt dense
like it was trying to push its way past them to escape from the house.

             
“Did someone leave the heater on?”
Tusem
asked as he
folded his jacket onto the back of the couch.

             
“There isn’t a heater. This is all
Sourmouth
. The
wolf seems to burn hot,” Violet responded as if it was a normal factoid that
their guest should have already known.

Aside from the increased need for an air conditioner
the house seemed just as it was before. Nothing was disturbed from the littlest
speck of dust to the large uninhabited windowpanes. 

             
“Unless we’re waiting for it to come down to us, I say we head upstairs,” Riley
planned as he ogled the ceiling above them.

             
Violet nodded and grabbed her husband by the hand, squeezing it tightly as if
to silently say that she was there with him beyond merely standing side by
side.

             
Riley squeezed back as he started towards the stairs.

             
Feeling like the most awkward third wheel,
Tusem
followed the couple back up to the second floor. His eyes scanned every surface
whether or not it was capable of holding a reflection. His beliefs were so
quickly stretched that he was ready to start seeing the beast everywhere he
looked.

             
Somehow the level of warmth surrounding them increased by each step they
climbed. It was if they were playing hide and seek and
Sourmouth
was telling them that they were getting closer to finding what they were
looking for.

             
Passing
Poyam’s
room, Violet stopped and pulled back.
She pointed up to the attic at her husband, suggesting not so subtly that it
would be a good idea to grab the little journal that had started it all.

             
Riley wasn’t quite sure that it was necessarily a good idea, but he didn’t have
a better one to refute with. Letting his wife’s hand drop to her side he walked
off, he entered
Poyam’s
room as the other two watched
him struggle to make the climb into the attic.

             
As Mr. Tyler disappeared from view,
Tusem
examined
the drawings that decorated the wall across from the small cot.

             
“Who drew these?” he quietly asked, running his hands over the raised textures.

             
“We think that it was the little girl that lived here,” Violet said as she
kneeled down beside him.

             
“Little girl?”

             
“A girl and her father lived in this house. By all accounts the father was a
monster of a man in his own right, beating her and abusing her for half of her
life. We think that somehow she learned to bring
Sourmouth
to life and sent it after him in revenge”.

             
“Sent it after him? What do you mean?”

             
“He’s dead”.

             
“Dead?”
Tusem
repeated as if he didn’t understand the
word.

             
“Terribly dead. Couldn’t be deader,” she clarified without a hint of comedy in
her voice. She was emotionally zoning out again, a defense mechanism for when
things got too rough.

             
Suddenly Riley dropped down onto the cot with a crash, the wrapped black book
in his hand.

             
Tusem
pointed at it with a crooked, unsure finger,
“That is the journal you were talking about?”

             
Riley tossed the book absent barbed-wire wrap to
Tusem
who caught it like it were about to explode.

             
The young man rolled it over repeatedly in his fingers, feeling the weight of
the thing. Once he was satisfied with examining its exterior he pulled off the
plastic, exposing the rough textured top. Flipping through the pages he was
impressed with the artistry. He wasn’t expecting such stylized contents in a
century old book.

             
“Who made this?” he asked as he scanned through the pages in awe.

             
“We’ve got no idea. I doubt that it was the little girl, as she most likely
found the book just like we did. But for all we know, she might have drawn what
was on the wall and what’s in the book like some teenaged demonic Rembrandt,”
Riley hypothesized. 

             
“Just looking at the lettering I doubt that a child would have the knowledge to
actually read any of this let alone write it. I’m having trouble forming full
words from what I’m seeing,” said
Tusem
as he
concentrated on the page that depicted a close-up of a clawed hand that seemed
to have its fingers dislocated, pointing backwards and to the side.

             
“There’s nothing to suggest that she had to have done it when she was a little
girl. She had been through a lot. If she did make the book, it could have been
formulated over many years until she had the ability to actually do whatever it
is that’s written down”.

             
“You think that the book actually teaches something? Like a spell book? You
think she’s a witch?”

             
“I never said a witch,” Riley clarified, “But I think the book does have some
sort of power to it. We were told about ‘calling into being’, some mystical
thing where words and ideas are given power. Knowing about
Sourmouth
gives it more and more ability, so a book created in its
honour
would be a pretty sufficient way to handle that”.