My new gothic novel Lune is now on sale at Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.com/Lune-Philip-Glennie/dp/1329780876/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451846932&sr=8-1&keywords=lune+philip+glennie
An excerpt of the novel can be found below.
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The night of the
next full moon arrived. Invisible waves
radiated from its surface and passed through cosmic lifetimes before descending
over the northern forests. No cover of clouds could block them. The waves fell
upon trees, rocks, and cabin walls alike, penetrating every crevice, passing
silently like wandering spirits. Jean and Marie-Claire Comeau were blind to the
force that slipped into their home and altered every supple cell in their
daughter’s infant body.
Marie-Claire
thought Marie was suffering from a fit of hunger when the girl began wriggling
in her arms. Yet the struggle soon grew much stronger, and Marie-Claire glanced
across the dinner table to find her husband furrowing his brow at the bundle
she held. Slowly, he was overcome by an expression she had never before seen
from him. His pipe fell from his lips and chipped its bowl against the floor.
She swallowed and lowered her eyes.
A changeling! It
was the same creature from a month before. Yet it no longer possessed the
closed and helpless eyes of a newborn cub. It wore a full coat of fur and
peered upward through abysmally black eyes. Marie-Claire yelped and hurled the
bundle into the air. The animal landed on the kitchen table and sprang from its
bonds. Here was a beast with no natural mother, one whose young animal mind had
appeared in only an instant amidst the facts of existence. It made a chirping
squeal and ran for the edge of the table, yet instinct told it that it could
not leap from the ledge without injury. It ran about the table’s perimeter,
checking the distance to the floor from every side. Monsieur Comeau wasted
little time before snatching up a cast iron frying pan from the kitchen.
Little Jacques
emerged from his bedroom with sleep-crusted eyes. He spotted the grey figure
that scampered across the kitchen table and screamed when he saw his father
raising the pan to kill it. Forever a child of the wilderness, Jacques rushed
forward and wrapped his arms around his father’s knees while his mother
struggled to take the pan from the man’s hand.
You cannot harm
this creature! shouted Marie-Claire.
You saw what
happened, answered Jean. That thing
transformed in your very hands.
It was at this
moment that Jacques became aware of his sister’s absence. He scanned the room
for an indication of where she might be, yet even during this search, he could
already perceive the truth behind what his father had said. He released his
grip on his father and looked toward the wolf cub, which was kneading the edges
of the table and still gazing with uncertainty at the drop to the floor.
Jacques cursed himself for having interfered with his father’s efforts to
destroy the thing.
Marie-Claire gave
no ground between her husband and the animal. She is your daughter, she shouted, and you would burn in the fires of hell if
you murdered her!
She is a demon
sent by Satan and it is my Christian duty to destroy her, answered the man, who
took a step forward.
Marie-Claire set
her feet more widely apart, bracing for a struggle. You know that she will not
be like this for long, Jean. Soon, she will change back into her beautiful
Christian form, and I will not have you murder her in this way. You must
confront Marie not as an animal, but as your daughter. Only then can you decide
whether you can murder her.
Resignation
flickered inside Jean after Marie-Claire had finished. He paused to gather a
fresh wave of anger, hoping that its crest would heave him into action, yet the
sensation came and went, and he felt only a further weakening of his resolve.
He could not help but love the daughter he had baptised himself—the girl he had
failed to protect from the wild spirits of the forest.
When will this
transformation occur? he asked.
In the morning.
Just as Jean felt
the approach of calm, a fresh darkness overtook him.
How do you know
this, Woman? Have you known about this monstrosity all this time? Is this the
complication Mademoiselle Tremblay spoke of on the night this—this thing was
born?
Marie-Claire held
his eyes.
So you planned never
to tell me of what happened? Is that it? Jean stepped toward her again. You
were going to keep this a secret? You would have me give sanctuary to a demon
without my knowing? The Bible tells of a man who was tricked by a woman, and
for this they were banished from Paradise forever!
He struck
Marie-Claire across the face.
Seeing the blow,
little Jacques rushed forward and rammed his fist into the softest, most
numbing place he could reach on his father’s body. The man felt his legs buckle
as he collapsed onto the floor, choked with pain, aghast that his son would
strike him where he had. Marie-Claire regained her footing, and when she saw
the crimson-blue mixture of anguish and rage that engorged her husband’s head,
she threw the swaddling sheets over her daughter and spirited her into the
bedroom.
Jean watched from
the floor as his wife slammed the door behind her. When he had recovered enough
strength to regain his footing, he leapt after her and pounded against the
barrier with his fist. He promised God that he would kill the demon-child
before dawn, and this pledge reminded him of the axe that was lodged in the
wooden stump outside. He turned to leave the cabin, but only to find his son
Jacques still standing in the middle of the room, a look of hatred on his face.
You will pay for
what you have done, boy.
Jacques recognized
from the look in his father’s eyes that he was in mortal danger. He rushed away
from the man and hurled himself through the cabin’s front door, sprinting
toward the black forest. He could hear his father pursuing him, and knew that
it was only the meagre speed of his seven-year-old body that stood between him
and death. He led his father deeper and deeper into the woods, passing through
tangles of brush that not even the full moon’s light could reach through the
canopy of trees. He had spent most of his life among these woods and was adept
at navigating them in blindness. He listened with triumph as his father cursed
at the same brambles and soft patches that he evaded with ease. Yet his blood
froze at the thought that he was leading the man farther away from his little
sister. What if the man became so exhausted that his temper cooled, and he no
longer possessed the strength to return home and kill that sickening creature?
It took a severely
twisted ankle for Jean Comeau to give up on catching his son. He turned to
grope his way homeward, and it was only after an hour of blind wandering that
he finally arrived there. He glanced wearily toward his bedroom door before
collapsing onto the floor in a dreamless sleep.
*
Just as
Marie-Claire had hoped, the next morning brought the miraculous return of her
daughter’s perfect human form. Yet she knew she would not be able to protect
the poor girl from her husband forever. If the man wished to kill her, he was
bound to succeed. Marie-Claire held the infant tightly to her chest, and with
tears in her eyes she left the bedroom and stepped toward the body of her
unconscious husband. This would be the best and perhaps only chance she would
ever have to save the girl’s life. She stood over her husband, and when she
looked into the man’s sleeping features, she tried to convince herself of his
fundamental decency. She knew that Jean’s zeal could rival that of Abraham, but
there was nothing left to do but test his love for his family, to place her
daughter’s fate completely within his brutal hands and to confront him with the
face that would haunt him forever if he dared to rob it of life. Marie-Claire
knelt and nestled her child into the crook of Jean’s sleeping arm. Tears had
run to the corners of her mouth, and she could taste the salt that swam within
them.
Monsieur Comeau
moaned like a man possessed as he emerged from sleep, and he stiffened when he
felt his daughter’s face resting next to his own, her skin brushing against his
stubble. Little Marie giggled and reached for his nose. He blinked and glanced
about for some sign of Marie-Claire, but being unable to find her, quickly
understood the decision she had thrust upon him. He cradled the child in his
arm and rose from the floor to press her against his chest. The thought that a
child like this should suffer such damnation filled him with a rare pity. Yet
the raging flames of Christian duty had not expired within him, and thus it was
with great regret that he made his final resolution. He walked to the door of
his bedroom, and finding it unbarred, went inside to meet his wife.
Marie-Claire sat
at the edge of the bed with her eyes toward the wall. When her husband entered,
she knew from his breathing that he would allow their daughter to live. He
handed her the bundled child without a word and turned away. She stared after
him as he went, and once he had disappeared, she moved to the window and
watched him approach the wooden stump outside that held his axe. Her heart
leapt in terror, yet calmed again when Jean brought the blade down on a nearby
log. He was chopping wood to warm his family.
Jacques Comeau had not returned home the
previous night, but had found a sunken place on the forest floor and had lain
there to drift in and out of a tortured sleep until dawn. It had been a warm
night for that time of year, yet despite this luck, he began his homeward walk
with a deathly chill in his chest. Not even his young rhythms and hot blood
could keep his teeth from chattering wildly. His joints cracked like an old
man’s. As he stumbled over the final distance toward the cabin, he spotted his
axe-wielding father in the backyard and wondered how much time still lay
between him and the next world.
Jean paid little
attention as his son crossed the yard and staggered icily toward the front of
the cabin. He figured that the boy’s sorry state was punishment enough for his
insolence on the night prior. He began working away at a new piece of wood. It
was not kindling, but a long and hard trunk that he planned to hew into a
seven-foot timber. His daughter would not always be an infant, and therefore
would not always transform into a mere cub. She would soon grow into a juvenile
wolf, and it would be madness to keep her within the house beyond a certain
point of maturation. This concern impressed Jean with peculiar gravity, for he
did not yet know what unseen force had provoked his daughter’s curse. If Marie
Comeau were going to live, the cabin would require a special place for her.
