Farm-Raised

by Mark Mondo

At first glance it could have been a country version of an urban “head shop”; certainly there were enough macrame’ hangings and dream catchers and various displays of tie-dye, crystals and peculiar stones to misread the shop as such. And yet ... there was something else. Something dark, gothic, about the collection as well. Old carved wooden boxes and cases with intricate carving and Old World craftsmanship sat near jewelry of Mezzo-American tribal cultures and Nordic runes. Peculiar animal taxidermy examples were rendered with slightly disturbing expressions. Tarot decks and Ouija boards kept company with elaborate candelabras and all manner of waxwork items. The stereotypical head-shop smell of clashing incense types was there but it was overpowered by a damp, cloying, earthy overtone from unknown sources.

“Aldrich is a magnet for weirdos, has been forever, don’t ask me why.” said the shopkeeper, good-naturedly. “But if they are gonna keep coming to town, it’s only fair to take their money. We don’t have any industry in town to speak of, and jobs are scarce. I’ve got rent to pay.” She grinned, waving at the shop’s inventory of artifacts and craft items. Bailey and Jake followed her pointing fingers as they swept across shelves and counters. “Most of this stuff is Chinese imports. But I can tell you’re not regular tourists. You came for something... more. You can tell me. You’re looking for the fertility cultists, maybe?  It’s not hard to guess, you look like newlyweds. Don’t be afraid. We’ve been getting more of them since the internet found us. You can admit it, these trinkets are not what you drove so far to check out - I saw your out-of-state plates when you parked out front.”

Jake flushed and stammered. “W-well, we didn’t want to be insulting, and just come out and ask. But actually, yes. It’s not like there’s a billboard about it at the edge of town, right? We are trying...” He almost said ‘To have a baby’, but instead just shrugged and said; “...to keep an open mind.” We read enough anecdotes about Aldrich to become, um, curious.” He glanced at his bride. “Whatever she wants to try, I’m here for her. And your store looked like an obvious place to ask for directions. I hope you don’t take that as insulting, we...”

 “If you like, we could compensate you for your time by buying something here...” interrupted Bailey, looking just a little impatient. His girlfriend was somewhat more blunt than Jake himself. 

The shopkeeper smiled ruefully, raising her palm to signal no such gestures were needed. “It’s not really necessary, I already get a referral fee from them. Here’s what you do. Drive past the lake on the North road, uphill, towards the North Ridge woods, about six miles from here. The trees will get big and the road will get narrow; go slow, there’s a hell of a lot of deer out that way, I don’t know why. The road flattens out mid-mountain to a clearing; you’re looking for a farm; ‘Beltane Farm’, it will say on the mailbox. With a blue silo and a blue barn, with some funky stars and moons painted on it. Very Woodstock, hah.”

“You sound a little cynical about it, I take it you’re not a believer, then?” Asked Jake.

“We get all kinds here: I don’t judge. I figure adults can go do whatever they want as long as nobody gets hurt. I haven’t heard anything bad about the group there, but I don’t really know if you’ll find what you’re looking for, either. I wish the pair of you success, though, hon.” She locked eyes with Bailey. “People don’t make a trip this far unless they’ve tried a lot of other things first. Who knows, really. Check it out; if it’s not for you, no harm done.”

They found the blue silo and barn as described, though sunset was already brushing the edge of the treetops with gold by then. Jake had had to tap his brakes several times along the way as deer, some with amazingly large antlers, variously bolted or sauntered across their path. A sign on the rutted gravel driveway indicated to park their car in a paddock opposite the barn, with six other vehicles of various makes and levels of expense. They were still unlimbering themselves from their car when a figure trudged up to the paddock entrance, in knee-high boots, jeans, a typical New Englander flannel and a threadbare tan barn coat. He introduced himself as the host, a Mister Cullati. Trailing behind him in ones and twos were six men with embarrassed expressions, heading back to their cars and pulling out as the farmer spoke to the young couple, their passing headlights flaring across the three like momentary lightning flashes. Cullati waited for the traffic to finish and then spoke.

“Welcome to the Beltane, folks. Checking in? Did you register online, then?”

“Yes, we’re Jake and Bailey Porter ... is there some kind of boarding arrangement here?” She asked.

Cullati explained that men were banned from the barn, including himself; “...it’s about the spiritual energies we are trying to focus in our ... gatherings. I’m afraid we insist on the protocols. I hope that’s not a problem for you, Jake?” He asked, brow raised. “If it is, we’ll just cancel the reservation and give you your deposit back. The guys will hang out downtown at the bar on Fourth, and wait for the wives to call for a pickup in the morning. Book a room at the hotel or the inn, and come back up here after breakfast tomorrow.”

The couple conferred and money changed hands, waivers were signed. Bailey embraced her husband and whispered into his neck: “Thank you for doing this for me. I have a good feeling about this. Let’s have breakfast together after you pick me up, and we’ll talk.” He watched her walk to the barn and that was that.

Jake lied. He drove out like the others but parked about a mile down the gravel road, doused his lights, and picked his way back uphill to the farmstead; taking the better part of two hours in the moonless dark, it came with bruises and cuts he’d have to explain in the morning as a bar fight or something. 

But he had to know.

Being an old barn, the weathered wood boards had plenty of cracks wide enough for sneaking a peek. Jake felt like a pervert and worried about getting caught and arrested but he pressed his luck, bent to the barn wall at an awkward angle, the splintered wood scratching  and poking at his cheek the whole time. 

There was drumming and some kind of minor-key pipe-flute music playing, very rhythmic and up-tempo, something vaguely Celtic-sounding, which masked whatever was being said and chanted. The interior was lit by old-fashioned hurricane lamps, their wicks turned down to a nearly-extinguished state. Jake squinted through a fissure in the boards and made out multiple, curvaceous forms in the weak light, their modesty obscured by cryptic body painting in weird symbols. He watched the women dancing a ring around, well, there was nothing else to call it but an idol. 

A man-like sculpture, somewhat over-scale, with a set of prominent antlers, sat cross-legged in the center of the barn floor. Around his stone neck, some kind of metal collar glinted... and looking lower, Jake focused on - well, a woman, wearing a matching torc to the one on the statue, taking a turn sitting in the antler-man’s lap, as the others encircled her. He didn’t know quite what to think of it. It was definitely weird. But was it wrong? He’d heard of bridal shower hen parties raunchier than this but this was somehow different. Serious. Not provoked by alcohol but a kind of desperation or intensity. It felt anything but erotic. Jake stumbled away into the dark, arriving sweaty and out-of-breath to find...

He had company.

A small herd of deer encircled his car. All bucks. They eyed him without shifting, as he approached the vehicle. That was very wrong; wild deer should run, the second they sensed him coming. Maybe these were tame freeloaders expecting to be fed treats. There were such places, he knew. But here, at this hour, wasn’t likely. Jake smelled them, heard them breathing and grunting, felt their breath as they pawed and stamped, brandishing their very sharp-looking antlers. Slipping into the car he quickly locked the doors, acknowledging to himself how crazy that was. As if the deer could open his door to get at him! Get a hold of yourself! 

They only reluctantly parted as he threw it into gear to brush past them. A few antler tips clicked on the glass and scraped his paint, they were that close. Checking his mirror he could see all of them watching him, some of them trotting behind, dark crimson from the backscatter of his brake lights, eyes glowing. They shadowed him a good portion of the drive into town, finally dropping away as he headed on into Downton Aldrich, where it was too late to check in anywhere, and the bar was closed. He slept fitfully in the cold, cramped seats of the car, parked behind the now-closed gas station/convenience store until dawn.

Eight months later, the shopkeeper saw Bailey again. “Welcome back, honey! I didn’t expect to see you here but I’m glad for the circumstances!”  Looking at the protruding belly, she added: “Got what you came for, did you? How are we?”

“Yes and no, actually. Jake and I, well ... we broke up, but I’m going it alone now ...” she rubbed her tummy, smiling. “... but not for much longer.  We’re going to be okay, I think. Anyway, it’s the funniest thing, but I had this, I guess you could call it a compulsion, just a strong feeling, really, I wanted to come back here, where it started.”

“Not uncommon here at all, in fact. Go, see the place. Tell them Brigid said hi when you go up there.”

Jake’s phone would not stop alerting him. He kept deleting the messages from his ex, but the last one however galvanized him with its urgency and sense of panic. It made no sense. But the need was obvious.  He made the drive in record time, beelining to the blue barn at the forest’s edge. Buck deer sentries watched him along the edges of the road for the last mile of the drive, eerily still, observant but poised. Jake swallowed hard and pressed on. The parking paddock was nearly overflowing with cars and trucks now. A group of men stood outside the barn. All of them wore hats or head coverings of some type. He gave them his name, they filled him in.

It was some kind of trap. Once entering the barn, the pregnant women found they couldn’t leave again: to get out of the line of sight of the idol apparently caused massive sudden contractions and paroxysms of pain, which would stop as soon as they moved back from the doorway.  Warning pains in all the mothers also began if any of the husbands tried to enter the barn. One of the mothers-to-be had panicked at this and made a run for it, past the invisible perimeter, but had immediately had some kind of seizure and died halfway along the journey. The rest were convinced by this that they could not breach the perimeter without putting both mother and child at risk. 

Jake was tired, thirsty and hungry from his journey and lack of sleep; he felt something like a tension migraine coming on at the top of his head, a tightening he ascribed to low blood sugar, pushing it aside he asked if anyone had tried to just destroy the idol. The husbands told him it had been attempted, but at their approach, the women all gathered their bodies around to shield the statue, crying in pain until the threat retreated.

“Surely you’ve called the cops by now?” He asked them.

“One of the cops’ wives is in there. Nobody in town will do anything.” Hal, their leader answered. “The only thing anyone’s agreed on is to camp out and take care of them until this plays out. He added grimly; “But I’ll tell you this, mister - once the babies are born... we’ll get our families out of there and burn this whole place to the effing ground.”

“And Mister Cullati? Where’s that asshole?” Jake demanded, while rubbing his itching, pounding head.

“Nowhere to be found.” they told him. “We use his farmhouse for our support base now. He must have been some kind of prepper: it’s very well-stocked with most of what we need.” 

Jake looked back into the barn’s doorway, to the statue and the women on cots and chairs arrayed all around it, their haunted, wan looks. That statue was different, larger than he remembered it that night. The antlers were longer, too, he was almost certain of it... Peeking from behind the bulking form, Jake instantly recognized his ex-wife and the mother of his child-to-be. 

His? He wondered...He called to her from the doorway and she approached as close as she dared. 

“Jake, I’m so sorry about this. If I had known any of it before...”

“It’s ok, honey. I’m here now. We’ll get you out somehow. You’re not alone. Do you need anything right now?” he asked.

“No, we’ve eaten and stuff.  We sleep in shifts, and it’s almost my turn.” 

That headache just would not quit. Jake rubbed at his skull, and felt something unusual under his hair, puffy bumps like he’d bonked his skull on something and raised a goose-egg. Oddly symmetrical though, one goose-egg to each side. A man saw him and nodded in recognition. He lifted his trucker hat to reveal two tiny bone prongs, emerging from the redness of the bumps on his head. “They hurt less after they break the skin.”

Cerunnos the Fertility Deity simply sat and watched them all. He was too well-known in the old world, and had languished long until being uncovered and transported to this younger land, where he meant nothing to the locals. Until, that is, Brigid had found him, a tiny carving the size of a hand, knew him for who he was, and began The Summoning. 

Now, Cerunnos’ children would multiply, an army to carry his seed across a continent, allowing him to bathe in the vitalizing energies of their worship. Before long, he would stride across this land, gathering his followers in an unending, rising tide of enslaved flesh, feeding his growth.

It would be delicious.