Wolfhowl Mountain by Dian Cronan

Author:Dian Cronan [Cronan, Dian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-14T22:00:00+00:00

***

I don’t see any of my friends after school. I catch a glimpse of Eileen, still surrounded by the popular crowd. For once, I avoid them like the plague, and leave through a back door. As I begin the cold walk home, gloomy and alone, I wonder where my friends are. Are they doing something without me? Did they intentionally leave me out? Maybe it has something to do with why Letta’s acting so weird. The isolation and depression of the day before begins to weigh me down again as I trudge down the sidewalk toward the dismal mountain.

Nearing the forest that leads me home, I hear music. At first, it’s indistinct and intermittent, arriving and disappearing depending on the direction of the wind. I find myself at a street corner and turn, compelled to follow the strange music. As I near the source, I realize not only is the music coming from the grand organ of Port Braseham’s only church, Saint Perpetua Our Lady Martyr, but the song being played is a familiar one – it’s the song from my dreams. The song of Mrs. O’Dwyre. The song Mother hums to herself.

I follow the music, in a trance, across the parking lot, and through the heavy doors of the church. The door slams behind me, but I barely hear it over the song emanating from the large copper pipes. Somehow, the sound of the music coming from the organ, echoing around the great dome of the church, makes it sound distinctly more ominous than ever before, and my knees turn to jelly.

I pass through the entry hall into the nave, my tunnel vision focused on the organ at the end of the aisle, set off to the right of the apse between the altar and confessionals. The huge organ huge dwarfs the church around it. The pipes sail straight up to the edges of the dome. The light of an overcast sky barely makes its way through the tall stained glass windows lining the nave. Hundreds of candles have been lit, throwing the organ into a sinister, shadowy glow.

On the bench of the organ is a diminutive woman, sitting like a doll, zealously working the keys. Her gray hair is plaited down the back of her plain black dress, swaying with each attack at the keys. Although the organist is most certainly playing the song from my dream, I’m used to hearing it as a slow, low and cloying hum. But here it’s a feverish, urgent hymn belonging at the height of action in The Omen. It certainly doesn’t belong in the House of God.

All this time, I’ve been drawn down the aisle, toward the organ. The sound commands me, demands I come closer and listen with rapt attention.

A second woman mists out of nowhere. She’s sitting in the front pew, listening quietly to the song. I can only see the back of her head, resting above the back of the pew. Her long white hair is in a tight bun at the base of her neck, but some unruly strands resolutely resist and stick straight out.

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