The Queen's Tarot: The Hermit

A Dark Fiction

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I came across the Robber Queen’s tarot deck and just for fun, I drew a card. The Hermit. After a little thought, I knew just the story for it.

Have you ever heard a true tale that so captures your imagination it starts the story machine clanking and puffing? Before you know it, you’ve taken this interesting or amusing tidbit and turned it into something much darker and several fathoms deeper (that is, if dark stories are your thing).

 I am indebted for the seed of this tale to my partner’s father, Sonny Wenner, a master storyteller in his own right. That and a tarot card have set the stage. Find a comfy spot and let me tell you a story…

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Clem Kronberger, the hermit of Deepshade Hollow, died leaning on his woodpile, preserved from a fine sugaring of early snow by the roof of rusted tin that sagged over the ranked oak and cherry. The frosty night had done what it could to stiffen Clem’s bandy legs, but he had tipped forward to rest his forehead against his winter trove as though praying at the altar of the wild, his ugly face turned, as ever, from view. His sister, Violet, found him there at sunrise when she arrived with his laundered shirts and drawers, and soon after, the news of his passing swept down the Hollow like a house fire.

“He wasn’t what you’d call pretty, was he?”

Strawberry Jack Reingold, looking around the gathered members of their little community for his usual cronies, whispered the observation to his wife. It seemed the whole valley below the Deepshade had turned out for a glimpse of eccentric old Clem, a glimpse the man himself had denied them for decades.

Edna, watching the men from Dimplemyer’s Funeral Parlor wrestle Clem’s uncompromising corpse onto their stretcher, scowled and clucked her tongue.

“Husband, have some respect for the dead. Or at least for poor Violet. Clem was her only family, even if he was strange. Don’t you have no sympathy in your heart?”

With that, Edna left him and moved toward the knot of women standing around weeping Violet. Strawberry, chastened, stared at his boot tops as the stretcher went by, Clem on his back under the sheet making a shape like he was wrestling with it. The funeral men, cumbersome in their wool plaid hunting jackets and flap hats, stuffed the hermit into the back of Roddy Dimplemeyer’s elderly hearse as though he were a bundle of lumber and slammed the door, a sound of dread finality in the cold morning.

The driver climbed in and pumped the gas pedal furiously, then cranked the key in the ignition. The old Lasalle emitted a wheeze and a phlegmy, rumbling cough, and rolled away over the frozen mud, the valley folk parting for it in silence. The second man on corpse-collecting duty that morning, a battered farmer with a tobacco-stuffed lip, waved his arm at the assembly.

“Ain’t no more to see, folks. Best get home and have your breakfast. Anybody wantin’ to sit with ole Clem can look in at the funeral parlor.” He tugged the front of his hat in the direction of the murmuring women. “Sorry for yer loss, Miz Violet. Ladies.”

With that, he shambled to his rusted truck and racketed down the dirt road after the hearse. The women found their men and departed, Milly and Ralph Robinette taking Violet away with them, and Edna marched up to Strawberry wearing an expression he recognized with a sinking heart.

“Jack,” she said, “It would only be Christian if you and some of the men offered to sit a vigil for Clem. Why don’t you get Fuzz and Gus, and maybe that lazy Axel Paulson, and go talk to Vi? She’d be so happy. Clem didn’t have no real friends.”

No real friends. Well, that was just a nice way of putting it, Strawberry thought. Clem didn’t have no friends at all, and never wanted any. It was on the tip of his tongue to say so, but one look at Edna’s face told him the women had already decided. They’d got together and decided who Clem’s friends would be, right there in the snow outside his smoky hermit shack while his earthly remains were being carted away. Strawberry sighed like a man going to his own hanging.

“Sure, Eddie. I’ll go round and ask the boys after breakfast.”

*****

Gus Knepp and Samuel “Fuzz” Woolley accompanied Strawberry that evening to Roddy Dimplemeyer’s rambling farmhouse. The men clomped across the porch to the two front doors, one leading to the living side of the structure where Roddy and Myra raised their brood of six, and one leading to the dead side where Clem awaited them. Through the heavy oval glass of the door, made cloudy by a pleated white sheer curtain, Strawberry could make out the funeral parlor awash in golden lanternlight, its thirty or so folding chairs still stowed against one wall. He turned and cast a woeful gaze on Gus and Fuzz.

“Well, this is it. I never sat no vigil before.”

Gus, whose brother had passed two years prior, clapped Strawberry on the shoulder.

“Nothing to it. We just sit up with ole Clem tonight, then Roddy’ll give the funeral and it’s all over. We’re lucky it ain’t three nights like usual. God bless Violet for saying one’s enough. Can be a mite boring, but I brought a pack of cards for us.”

“Yeah, and I brought some cheese and deer jerky,” interjected Fuzz, holding up an aromatic burlap sack. “Reckon we’ll pass the time ok.”

Strawberry gave them a weak grin and opened the door. Without the mourners’ chairs set out, the parlor looked like an empty dance floor. The heavy velvet drapes had been drawn over the tall windows, and a round table with four ladderback chairs had been placed near the wheeled bier where Clem’s simple pine box rested. The men crept up to the open box as though afraid of waking Clem and peered in.

The dead hermit had been dressed in a wrinkly brown tweed suit a size too big for him. His limbs were straight, his thin hair had been combed over his tanned scalp, and his face had relaxed into a deep serenity that almost made him look normal. A black ribbon bound his jaw, tied in a neat bow at the top of his head.

“Well,” said Gus after an awkward moment, “he don’t look too bad, does he? Sorta strange-looking, I guess, but I always thought he was some kind of monster the way he hid out up in the Deepshade.”

Strawberry, staring at the corpse’s uncanny expression of satisfaction and the tall shirt collar that rode up almost to its jug-handle ears, gave a shudder. He was not a fanciful man, but he got the distinct impression that Clem’s pale, protuberant eyes were watching him from behind the stitched eyelids. He cleared his throat and turned away, gooseflesh creeping over his scalp.

“Violet told Edna that Clem just was always odd, from little up,” he said. He moved to the table and pulled out one of the chairs, glad to be away from the coffin. “Had a way with animals, she said, but had no use for people. She told Eddie that even she, his own sister, wasn’t welcome in his shack. Had to leave his laundering and food on the porch and talk with him through the door when he’d talk at all.” He sat and tipped his chair back on two legs, his lips pursed in consternation.

Gus sat opposite him and pulled the deck of cards from his coat pocket. It was chilly in the parlor, but they did not dare build up a good fire in the stove for fear of spoiling Clem. Fuzz stood rooted to his spot beside the coffin, staring at Clem as though he were seeing one of the old mountain spirits from the Deepshade, spook stories their grandpaps used to tell them when they were rowdy boys.

“I went up there once, coupla years ago, to hunt,” Fuzz said, his voice soft and shaky. The sack of cheese and jerky drooped in his hand until it brushed the floorboards. “Got on the trail of a big buck, never saw one bigger, and dogged him right up to Clem’s shack. I thought he’d run on into the Deepshade, but he didn’t. He got up on Clem’s porch like he was going a-calling, and Clem opened the door and looked hellfire at me till I thought he’d turn me to ash. That buck walked on into the shack like a dog and Clem kept staring. A big wind started up, and I run for my life. The trees was whipping, the sky clabbered up, and a howling started back in the woods and followed me all the way back down the hollow. I never went back there since.”

Gus had put down the cards, and Strawberry had tilted forward in his chair. Fuzz, his gaze fixed on the dead hermit, gulped air, his Adam’s apple bobbing. They might have remained in that frozen tableau indefinitely, but the connecting door to the house slammed, causing them all to jump and gape about in embarrassment. Roddy Dimplemeyer bustled in, rubbing his hands together.

“Thought I heard you fellas come in,” he said. He glanced around the room. “Where’s Axel?”

Strawberry shrugged. “I couldn’t find him to ask him to come. You know how he is.”

Roddy nodded, grinning. “I do, indeed. But he stopped in earlier and said he’d be joining you fellas. That’s how come I put out four chairs. It doesn’t matter. I just came in to tell you the family and I are going over to Suddville for the night. Myra’s granny turned ninety today and they’re having her a party. I don’t know what an old lady like that wants a bunch of noise and fuss for, but they’re having it.” Roddy looked momentarily disgusted, then gestured toward Clem. “What do you fellas think of our old hermit, hey? Cleaned up real nice. That’s Violet’s husband’s suit he don’t wear no more. Dang if Clem didn’t give me a time, getting him ready. I reckon he’s not too pleased at the thought of all his neighbors gawking at him, but I’ll keep the service short.”

Roddy chuckled and waved on his way out, shouting for Myra to get the kids packed in the car if they wanted birthday cake. The doors slammed, a car rumbled to life, and the Dimplemeyer clan rolled away into the dark. Fuzz, who had gone to the front windows, watched the beams of the car’s headlights until they were swallowed by distance.

“I can’t believe he’d leave us alone out here with …,” his eyes turned toward the coffin.

Gus picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle them.

“Don’t be such an old woman, Fuzz. Bring that sack over here and let’s get us a game going. Clem isn’t gonna bother anyone.”

“Hang on a minute, boys.”

Fuzz slouched back to the coffin, rummaging inside his coat and drawing forth a clean, white handkerchief. He shook it out and spread it gingerly over Clem’s face.

“What the devil are you doing?” Gus said. Strawberry only stared, a creeping kind of understanding tickling him.

Fuzz gazed down at the hermit’s covered face, then turned and made his way to an empty seat at the table. He dropped the sack of food in the center of the table and sat, taking care not to turn his back on the coffin.

“He was a hermit, wasn’t he? Didn’t want no one seeing his face when he was alive. I reckon he’ll be … quieter if we ain’t looking at him now.”

“You’re a goober,” laughed Gus, and dealt the cards.

*****

After an hour or so of cards, desultory conversation, and a salty repast of jerky and cheese, the men were at a loss as to how to pass the rest of the night. They had all but forgotten Clem, who lay peaceful and shrouded by Fuzz’s handkerchief, and the chill in the parlor had become a misery. Strawberry stood and stretched, grimacing.

“Damn. I’m stiff as new boots. Thirsty, too. Why didn’t you bring something to drink with all that food, Fuzz?”

Gus chuckled. “Fresh snow out there if you’re thirsty. Might have a handful myself.”

Strawberry crossed to the front windows and parted the drapes.

“Hey, someone’s turning in at the end of the drive. It ain’t Roddy, neither.”

The others joined him, and three faces floated in the dark window. Gus let out an exclamation.

“By God, that’s Axel! He made it after all, the sorry layabout.”

Axel’s car crept up the drive and pulled onto the frozen lawn near the porch steps. He hopped from behind the wheel, a short, compact figure, and leaned into the vehicle to drag forth a crate. Kicking the door closed, he strode to the steps, his cigarette clenched between his lips and fuming on the cold night air.

Strawberry met him at the parlor door. “Where you been, Ax? We figured you wasn’t coming.”

“Had to go get us some supplies, gents. I ain’t sitting in here with ole Clem without something to take the edge off.”

Axel hefted the crate and strode to the table where he placed it beside the remnants of their meal as though it were a king’s treasure. They crowded around. With a flourish, he whisked away the bit of tarp covering his offering. Fuzz whistled happily and Gus thumped Axel on the back in approval. Two jugs of hard cider and four tin cups snuggled in a nest of straw.

“And lookit!” Axel reached deeper into the crate and pulled out a thick smoked sausage and a loaf of bread. “Got a pot of hot mustard in there, too.”

“Well, damn, Ax,” crowed Strawberry. “You brung the party.”

Axel preened under the approbation. He drew off his heavy work gloves and clapped his hands together.

“Pass it around, fellas.” He looked around the room, noting his breath hanging on the air. “It’s colder’n a witch’s tit in here. Let’s stoke up that fire.”

Gus and Strawberry uncorked a jug and began splashing the frosty cider into cups, but Fuzz waved his hands.

“No, no, we can’t make a fire.” He jerked his head toward the coffin. “Gotta keep Clem cool.”

Axel danced toward the stove and began rummaging in the stacked wood for a few good splits to get things started.

“Clem’s dead and we ain’t.” He shoved the splits into the stove on top of the low glowing coals, and smiled as flames began to flutter over them. “He’s only going to be here one night, anyway. Once everyone comes and gets an eyeful of him, he’ll get his sendoff and be none the worse for wear.”

Fuzz frowned. He was about to remind Axel of the weight of their responsibility when Strawberry let out a shout.

“Look there, behind the stove! How’d that get in here?”

Three startled sets of eyes followed the line of Strawberry’s pointing cup. A bit of the shadow that lay along the baseboard stirred purposefully and stared back at them before skittering atop the stacked wood. Axel gave a cry of disgust and stumbled backward as the rat, a sleek and muscular creature with a murderous glint in its eye, settled on the wood and began to groom its fur.

“Why, you cocky bastard,” Axel growled. He hurled the split of wood in his hand at the rat, but the rodent was gone before the split crashed into the woodpile, knocking logs to the floor in a shower of dried bark.

“Where’d it go?” yelled Strawberry.

The men made a search of the room and restacked the tumbled wood, but the rat had vanished like smoke.

“Maybe that was another one of Clem’s pets,” Fuzz joked, and they laughed as they sat down to another hand of cards, passing a jug and the bread and sausage amongst them.

Several hands later, the cider had warmed them as much as the stove had and they had grown merry and loud. Axel regaled them with tales of his exploits among the eligible women of the valley, tales they all knew were either greatly inflated or outright lies. His face red from laughter, Axel jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the coffin and its silent occupant.

“Wonder if Clem ever had a lady friend. It’d be a miracle with a mug like his, but stranger things have happened. You know, I feel pretty bad for the old guy, living all alone up in the Deepshade, never having a good time with friends, probably never tasting good cider, drinking cold spring water all his days.”

Gus and Fuzz nodded and guffawed, but Strawberry grew pensive.

“That’s how he wanted it, Ax. Violet says his face was just as sweet as any baby’s when he was born. Then one morning, he was like this. My pap used to say something stole the real Clem and left this one in his place, one of those mountain spirits they used to scare us with. His parents raised him just the same, like some birds will do with a cowbird chick left in their nest, but he wasn’t ever right.”

A pall fell over the men, and they drank in silence, thinking about stolen babies and thieving spirits. Axel broke the gloomy spell.

“I don’t know about any of that. Sounds like boogie man stories for kids. But this here is Clem’s last chance to have a little fun. Here, Gus, gimme a hand.”

He stood, wavered a moment before finding his balance, and sloshed a slug of cider into his cup. He carried it to the coffin and plucked the handkerchief from Clem’s face. Fuzz protested, but Gus shushed him and went to stand across the body from Axel. The two of them reached under Clem and pulled him into a seated position.

“Damn, he’s heavy,” grunted Gus. He held Clem in place with one hand and reached into the coffin to plump the pillows there behind the hermit so that he was held erect.

Axel reached out and undid the black ribbon that bound Clem’s jaw. As the ribbon fell down the front of the brown tweed jacket, Clem’s mouth creaked open like a door to the abyss, his chin disappearing into the stiff collar of his shirt. Sharp, crooked teeth grinned out at them. Giggling, Gus and Axel tilted Clem backward enough to pour the cider into the awful maw. A gurgling sound issued from the corpse, as though he were an empty bottle to be filled. Fuzz, mesmerized by his friends’ daring, slapped the table and let out a high, nervous whinny of laughter.

“There you go, Clem. You’re more fun now than you’ve ever been,” he said, his voice raised an octave above normal.

Strawberry sipped from his cup, watching the shenanigans with a bleary eye. He reached over and clamped a hand on Fuzz’s jittering forearm, feeling the addled terror jumping there with a detached resignation. They should never have invited Axel to the vigil. He thought Fuzz might be about to pass out. If he were honest, the sight of Clem sitting up in the coffin with his mouth hanging open and drooling cider was enough to scare the hair off anyone.

“You fellas better put him back like he was,” he said. “Roddy will have our guts for garters.”

Axel smirked, but he helped Gus lay Clem back. When they made to bind up the dead man’s jaw, they found it would not close no matter how they strained. A queer hiss escaped Clem’s mouth, and both men stepped back.

“Careful, Ax, you’re gonna bust it,” Gus mumbled. “Just leave it. We’ll tell Roddy the bow come undone.”

*****

They sat in the candle glow, too much cider and the heat of the stove weighing their eyelids down. Axel snored from the lady’s settee in the corner, and Fuzz pillowed his head on his arms at the table.

“Do you hear that?”

Strawberry, his chin drooped forward onto his chest, lifted his head with an effort and focused on Gus. He tilted an ear to the room and listened. At first, he heard only the hiss and crackle of the fire and Axel’s rhythmic snorts. He was about to say as much, but Gus held up a finger, then pointed across his chest at the coffin.

A sigh, a sound as soft and distant as the night wind in the eaves high above them, issued from the box. It was like no sound Strawberry had ever heard, not in nature nor made by man, and it doused him in sudden icy sobriety. He and Gus stared into each other’s wide, disbelieving eyes. The sound came again, a feeble exhalation like the echo of a whisper. This time, it was accompanied by a stealthy rustling, a scratching so minute it could have been imagined, stopping and starting with sly awareness. But Strawberry knew he was not imagining it, and as he held his breath and listened for several long minutes, he recognized it.

“Jesus, it’s the rat!”

Both men leaped up and rushed to the coffin. The rat had fled at their first movement; they heard it jump to the floor and saw it fleeing along the baseboard toward whatever secret tunnel it had there. They surveyed Clem and readily found the damage. Most of one ear had been gnawed away, and a small portion of the flesh along his mandible.

Gus placed his hands on the coffin’s rim; his shoulders slumped. Then he began to chuckle.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” hissed Strawberry. “How are we going to explain that?”

Gus waved a hand before his face, struggling to get his laughter under control.

“Roddy can patch him up some. But look, all we have to do is turn him around so his good ear’s facing out. Violet, and maybe her husband, are the only ones going to come up here and look at him. Everyone else will only see him from back where Roddy sets up the chairs. It’s not our fault this place has rats.”

Strawberry considered this. It did not seem like a great plan, but it was the only one they had. Together, he and Gus moved the wheeled bier so that Clem now faced the opposite direction, and put the hand brake on again. In the process, their huffing and puffing woke Fuzz who came to see what had happened.

“Oh, my Christ,” he wheezed. “How’d that rat get in here, anyway?” He found his handkerchief and dropped it once more over Clem’s face. “We’ve got to stay awake from now on.”

A loud snore from Axel punctuated the thought, and the three men sat down to play cards.

“Didn’t it seem …” Strawberry began, then stopped, shaking his head.

Gus gave him a sharp look. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing. Just, it almost seemed like Clem was calling that rat. That weird sound before … well, it wasn’t the rat made that sound. Like a damn whisper straight outta Hell.”

Strawberry saw the fear kindle in Gus’s eyes, but the man only shook his head. “Don’t go making up spook stories, Strawberry. This vigil thing is just getting to us. That and too much cider.”

He dealt the cards, but the game felt disjointed and dull. It was not long before all three had fallen asleep once more.

*****

The first pale glow of sunrise slipped into the parlor through the front, east-facing window. Strawberry, his head on the table beside Fuzz’s, opened gummy eyes and stared at the light for several breaths before he remembered where he was. He could see Axel curled on the settee, his back to the room. His gaze wandered to Fuzz, whose arms dangled below the table, his cheek stuck to the oak and his mouth open. He heard voices murmuring and lurched into a seated position.

Gus and Roddy were by the coffin, whispering and gesticulating. Strawberry drew in a great snort of air, ran a hand through his hair, and stood, every sinew creaking. The two men looked over at him with white, frightened faces. He made his way to them.

“What’s wrong?” he said in a low voice, glancing back at Fuzz and Axel. “You two look like you’ve seen the devil himself.”

“There’s not going to be any funeral,” Roddy said. “I’ve to get over to Violet’s and … well, shit, I don’t know what I’m going to say to her, but we for sure can’t have an open casket service.”

Strawberry nodded. It hadn’t occurred to him that they could simply close the coffin for the funeral.

“Gus told you about the rat getting Clem’s ear, eh? I’m real sorry that happened, but I don’t know what we could have done to stop it.”

Gus held out a hand, silencing him.

“It’s worse than that Jack,” Gus said, and Strawberry stiffened at being called by his proper name. Nobody but Edna called him Jack. Not unless there was real trouble.

Wordlessly, Roddy reached out and plucked away Fuzz’s handkerchief. Strawberry raised a knuckle and bit on it to keep from screaming. Clem’s face had been denuded of flesh, gnawed to the bone. His lips were gone, and his pointy little teeth snarled up at Strawberry. His eyes, and the lids that had shielded them, were gone from their sockets, leaving dark, clotted pits.

The men lifted their gazes from Clem’s missing face and stared at one another.

“Never in my days have I seen such a thing,” Roddy said. “I’ve never had rats anywhere near this place, not with all the barn cats around. My god, would you look at him!”

Neither of his companions accepted the offer. Strawberry cleared his throat, feeling as though he might retch or weep.

“Violet told Edna …”

He stopped and swallowed, loosened his collar that felt as though it were choking him. He had never taken seriously the stories surrounding the hermit of Deepshade Hollow. He’d always thought Clem was just touched, squirreled away out there by his parents, and then by Violet, the way some families would keep the special ones private. He looked down in shame and horror.

“We should have never brought him here. Whatever he was, he wasn’t like us. Violet told Edna that Clem was fierce about never wanting any part of people. Never wanted anyone seeing his face. Not ever.”

The men shuffled their feet, awkward and speechless. With an oath, Roddy turned to lift the coffin lid that rested against the wall. Gus helped him slide it into place.