All Chapters of Though a Mirror Darkly: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

And I Watered It, With Tears was originally published in serial format in Lamplight Magazine, 2012-2013.“The Time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things.”— Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found ThereLewis Carroll“The Thing, they whisper, wears a silken mask Of yellow, whose queer folds appear to hide A face not of this earth, though none dares ask just what those features are, which bulge inside.”— H. P. Lovecraft

SUFFER THE CHILDREN COME UNTO ME1.He shields his eyes with his careworn Bible as he approaches a sandstone hovel on the village’s outskirts. The sun’s rays are bouncing off the hovel’s tin roof, casting a harsh glare that stings his eyes. He pushes on however, despite the sun and the cold unease souring his guts.He wants to run away. He knows he should, on some primal level. But he can’t. He’s come here so many times, and no matter how hard he tries not to, he knows he’ll come here again.Because this is where everything changed.This is where he learned True Evil exists. It’s also where his faith was exposed for a lie.As he approaches the hovel’s rectangular entrance, a darkness oozes toward him like a viscous black slime. Cold air wafts from the doorway, rippling across his skin, smelling of death and rotting things.He steps closer, muttering prayers which sound like meaningless gibberish, clutching his rosary tight. He hears the screams. The thrashing body. He hears prof

ADMIT ONEBobby Maskel’s socket wrench slipped off the bolt he’d been trying to loosen for the past twenty minutes. His knuckles slammed against metal. Pain flashed across his hand. He cursed, barely stopping himself from tossing the wrench against the wall, remembering at the last second Mr. Greene’s lectures about “respecting the workplace and the tools with which we make our living.”“Living my ass,” Bobby mumbled as he clenched his hand into a fist, examining the damage. “Only one making a living off this shit is Greene and his dumb-ass son.”After a brief inspection, it was clear he’d done nothing worse than scrape his knuckles. It stung all the same. Still pissed but calmer, Bobby regarded the dismembered snow-blower on the work bench, glaring as if he could lay the blame for his life’s misfortunes on its engine block and chassis.He was working ‘The Pit’ this month. He hated working The Pit. Greene’s Metal Salvage accepted all kinds of scrap metal and paid competitive rates.

ARCANE DELIGHTSI slowly close the journal, settle it in my lap and gaze at its black leather-bound cover. I rub its pebbled surface lightly, thinking.Only stories.These are only stories. Fantastical stories. A little more fantastical than I usually prefer, though well-written, by someone with a much greater command of the craft than I yet possess. The vivid characterization, meticulous attention to detail and a surreal sense of place makes me want to believe these stories happened, but I know they couldn’t have, and am ready to dismiss them as nothing more than fiction . . .Except for Father Ward’s story.Father Ward, priest at All Saints church and headmaster at All Saints High. Casual childhood friend and more recently: my former boss.The story depicting his return from military service overseas supposedly took place eight years ago, when I was still teaching at Seton Catholic in Binghamton, so I wasn’t around when those events supposedly happened. And by the time I came t