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My Name Was Danny

A poet's piper plays at last.

By Mark E. CutterPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 16 min read
8
 My Name Was Danny
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

What? Again? His concentration broken, the poet Carlyl opened his eyes. Reaching up, he rubbed his temples and then ran both hands through his salt and pepper hair. This was the third time in a row that the candle had ruined his simple mental exercise. He blew out a long rush of air.

There shouldn't be a candle in the window. The cabin should appear as he'd seen it in real life: hunkered down amid gloomy trees, the window showing only seamless black behind its rippled glass.

The urge to write was growing stronger. He craved the endorphin rush of her perfect phrasing tumbling out of him onto the page. It was the sweetest addiction he knew. Come on, let's get moving here.

Pushing these thoughts aside, he closed his eyes again. He visualized the cabin. The image came quickly, with the ease of long practice. The unsteady glow of a candle again shone from the window.

Irritated now, he snapped his eyes open. This was getting ridiculous. How was he supposed to get any work done?

Carlyl was every bit as stellar a poet as he thought himself to be--he had even been hailed as "the most celebrated poet of our time" by Poetry magazine--but he needed the cabin to be that. And he needed the cabin to look exactly as it had in real life all those years ago. Why the cabin, he didn't know, it was a rundown old thing. It had been her wish, though, so be it.

Taking a deep breath, he told himself that this time he would write something, candle or not. Maybe it would work, regardless of what she had said.

The urge to write had blown up into rampaging need; the ache to join with her was almost physical, now.

Concentrating hard, he exerted all of his will on conjuring an image of the cabin that did not have a candle. The candle showed up anyway. He sighed and did his best to ignore the tiny flame. Holding the image of the ancient building at the forefront of his mind, he began to type.

Three minutes later, he stopped. It wasn't working. The candle's little light flickered and danced about in a most distracting way. He couldn't bond with her; none of those celestial words had come.

He read the words he'd written instead. And groaned. It was nothing but cutesy fluff. Barely worthy of a Hallmark card, he thought, sniffing. With a swipe and a click, he flicked the offending text out of existence. He sat, head down, with his hands in his lap. The need to create gorgeously--to be the vessel of her inspirations--built higher within him, becoming a flame all its own. "Where," he burst out, "is my muse?"

Carlyl had a secret, you see: he had a muse. Oh, not one of those fickle, ephemeral wisps of imagination that every creative soul is said to have--oh, no--he had a real, live flesh and blood muse who called herself Leanna. She had been with him from the beginning. Well, not the beginning beginning--he had met her in Ireland, eight years before. At the cabin.

Her assistance had rocketed him to fame. "Carlyl" was a household name, now. Not bad for a poet.

He kept her a secret for two reasons. One, because he was afraid that if he talked about her he would be placed under the care of doctors who handed out calm in paper cups. They did that to people who blabbered on about muses and magic cabins, you know. And--well . . . and because he didn't want to admit that the Great Poet Carlyl needed help with his work. He didn't like to even think about that. It didn't matter, anyway, did it? His creative process was his business. She was his secret weapon, and she was real. And for the first time in eight years, he could not reach her.

He thought about envisioning Leanna instead of the cabin. Immediately he dismissed the idea, his face growing hot. He remembered too well what had happened when he'd suggested that same thing to her when she had been teaching him how to picture the cabin in his mind:

"Ah!', she cried, ''and you think you'll be able to write a word amid your helpless slobbering?" Hah! Try then!"

So he tried. Closing his eyes, he let her face and form fill his mind. He focused all of his being upon her darkling beauty. All thought instantly fled, and there was nothing but her. He was invisible to himself. Paralyzed by her grace and struck mute, he fell inward into the deep black depths of her eyes . . . falling . . . .

Her hard slap brought him back. Her black eyes regarded him, measuring, amused. "Let's keep to the cabin, shall we?" She laughed. Her laughter rang in his ears like silver water chiming upon crystal stones.

He shoved the memory away. He wanted to write, not reminisce, and memories of her were too distracting.

Motionless at his blond wood desk, head down, consternation deepening the crow's feet around his eyes, he suddenly tensed. He whipped his head up and cocked it, listening. He heard a faint--oh so faint--sound like wind-rustled grass, or maybe trees. It drew out long and seemed to whisper his name, his real name: "Daaannyyyyy . . . ."

The sound did not come again. He looked over at the tall windows of his writing room. They were closed. He got up to check them, making sure they were all the way shut. He peered out at the dark silhouette of the tree line, looking for movement, but all was still.

He sat back down and made another attempt at penning a verse worthy of Carlyl. He got oatmeal instead of fluff that time. His hand trembled slightly as he whisked those words into oblivion as well. A breath of cold gusted through his gut. I could just be tired; that must be it. That has to be it!

Fear tightened around his throat, like the leash of a cruel master. Attempting to shrug it off, he hunched his shoulders and bent once more to his work. Need and want boiled through him. He doubled, then tripled his efforts to conjure a candle-free image of the cabin so he could write.

* * * *

Morning found him slumped at his desk. All night long he had tried and failed to connect to his muse via the cabin. Every word he had written on his own was crap.

His eyelids felt like they were coated with sandpaper, scraping against his corneas every time he blinked. The need for Leanna and her beatific inspiration roared through him like a bullet train. He sat morosely, staring at his hands, at a loss for what to do next.

Sleep, he decided. I have to sleep. Rising stiffly, he staggered off to his room, where he collapsed onto his bed.

Sleep would not come. Every time his heavy lids drew down, memories of Leanna would surface. He drank them in--drank her in, being careful not to look closely into the dark wells of her eyes, even in memory. She seemed so near, yet he could not reach her.

He could almost smell her intoxicating scent, and he breathed in deeply of a delicate whiff of wildflowers--

He bolted upright, his eyes wide, turning his head this way, then that! He could smell wildflowers. Wildflowers, and rich earth, with a faint undertone of rotting leaves. It was her scent, the way she had smelled as the two of them had rested, entwined together, on the deep softness of the grass and fern-covered mound that lay in the heart of the real cabin.

He heard that faint whisper again, like the wind calling his name. It was louder this time, and it seemed to come from both the inside of his head and the hallway outside his room. He leaped from his bed and charged into the hall. There was nothing. He searched every room of the house, but again, he found nothing.

* * * *

A week passed. In his frenzy to write, Carlyl sought, again and again, dozens--hundreds--of times a day to wish away the candle and reach his muse. All failed. Sleep became a distant hope. Food became dust in his mouth. He could not swallow it, and he spat it back out. He forgot to bathe. New lines appeared on his face, and his hair now sported far more salt than pepper. He was thirty years old; he looked and felt sixty.

In between his bouts of failure, he wandered the rooms of his house aimlessly--a reeking revenant mindlessly stalking its barrow.

* * * *

He was sitting at his desk again. He had just finished another fruitless attempt at banishing the candle from the cabin, and he was staring across his writing room at the white-painted wall opposite. Trophies and awards gleamed there. He called it his Great Wall, and he was pondering the one remaining open spot on it. He wondered if he would ever fill it now. He wondered if it even mattered. He thought it still did.

That had been four days ago.

It finally occurred to him to try the internet. Maybe it knew something about how to get the attention of Irish muses. He typed "Irish muses" into the search bar of his browser. The very first result read "Leannan Sidhe: The Irish Muse - Irish Imbas Books." He read with hopeful interest at first, then with increasing horror. By the time he finished that first article, terror had opened a cold umbrella in his chest.

He dived deeper, searching the web for more information, looking for something that might help him. Most sources agreed that he was screwed.

She had severed him from that magnificent, never-ending fountain of words. Cut him right off, with no warning or reason. Oh yes, and she was probably going to kill him, but his first grief was for the words he had lost.

Stricken, he picked up his keyboard and smashed it against the edge of his desk until it shattered. The building blocks for all the beautiful words he would never again write flew up in the air--like a fountain--then landed, bouncing across the polished wood floor.

The newfound knowledge that she would give him death before she gave him another precious word was a cinderblock that threatened to drag him down into a lightless ocean trench of depression.

* * * *

Ironically, it was his own addicted, unfulfilled desire to feel Leanna's inspiration again that prevented depression from taking him. The molten ache fighting for release created a counterpressure, a bubble inside him, that pushed back against the darkness crushing in from the outside. The bubble kept him floating on the surface of himself.

He swore off his efforts to use the cabin to write. Never again. He was a junkie, a word junkie, he knew that now, and the cure for any addiction was abstinence. Plus, he harbored a faint hope that if he stopped trying to tap her, she wouldn't kill him.

After he made this vow, his mood improved a bit. The burning urge was still there, but now it seemed a little more bearable. Now it was a fire to be passed through, not put out. It would have to burn out on its own.

The internet had suggested that Leanna--Stop calling her that! That's not her real name!--would try to get him depressed enough to do her dirty work for her and take himself out. That trick had failed. He thought that on that score, she could pretty much kiss his a--

From somewhere inside his head, a rage that wasn't his shrieked like a hurricane. A sudden gust of wind slapped the house so hard it shook.

* * * *

The moment Carlyl stopped trying to contact his muse, the cabin began appearing every time his eyes closed. There was no longer any need to focus his concentration, the image was instantly there as if printed onto the insides of his eyelids. The candle still burned in the window. Its presence disappointed him even if didn't matter anymore whether it was there or not.

The problem was that the cabin was now the last thing he wanted to see. Ever.

The next day, There was an inky rectangle on the cabin wall next to the window that held the candle. The door stood open. A figure darker than the blackness of the yawning doorway was taking shape within it. Carlyl's eyes flew wide--he must have dozed off--and he shivered. The temperature of the writing room seemed to plummet. He knew she would be coming for him soon.

He went in the blink of an eye (pardon the expression) from shutting his eyes at every opportunity to keeping them open at all costs.

* * * *

This morning found Carlyl standing in front of his Great Wall. His eyes roamed from award to plaque to statuette. There was the Laughlin. And the Ruth Lilly he'd been awarded after "Paean" had knocked everyone's socks off. He tried to summon some feeling for these baubles and trinkets, but he was just . . . empty. Every piece he had hung here so he could savor the tokens of appreciation for his talent had drained him a little more because he knew. Deep down, he had always known. It was time to say it.

He mouthed the words once, then said them aloud: "I am a fraud." He said it again, louder. He thought he might feel better for having finally said it, but he didn't, not really.

He reached up as high as he could and pulled down two small trophies. They were older than all the others. One from grade school, the other from high school. He had won them with his early poetry. He ran his fingers over them, remembering what it had felt like to earn them, to create the work which had won them all on his own. These were Danny's trophies, not Carlyl's.

He brought them over to his desk and set them down carefully. Then he turned and started back toward the Wall. This time, he held a hammer in his fist.

* * * *

Five minutes ago, He was standing at the bathroom mirror. Bits of tape dotted his cheeks. He was twisting a stapler this way, then that way, trying unsuccessfully to find the right angle so he could staple his eyelids open. Taping them didn't work.

She was coming, getting closer. Each time his treacherous lids slipped closed, he could see the figure materializing out of the black depths of the cabin, the pale oval of its--her--face growing more distinct with each blink. He couldn't bear the thought of looking upon the face he had once loved so dearly. Still loved, in spite of his terror. That seemed to him the most terrible thing of all.

The front door crashed open, and he jumped violently. The stapler clattered into the sink. Cautiously, he crept to the head of the stairs and looked down into his front entrance. The door was blown open, its lock mechanism hanging, and the knob lay several feet away, on the tiles.

The sun had set. It was now the gloaming, the time of fairy kind, and he heard her calling to him from somewhere outside, calling for him to come, come and be with her.

Horrified, he watched his feet as they obeyed her summons. He could not stop himself. He walked out the door, crossed the driveway, and continued onto the lawn toward the woods. Deep within the gloom under trees, he saw a tiny flicker of light, like a candle. His feet bore him toward it.

* * * *

He stops in front of the cabin. He stares at it dumbly, uncomprehending. Somehow, it is here. His mind bends to the uttermost edge of snapping. This can't be real, he thinks wildly, I must be hallucinating this, th--

She is framed in the cabin's doorway. "Shush now, Daniel my lad. I'm bored. 'Tis the time of your reckoning." Her chilling giggle tinkles like ice in a crystal goblet.

She regards him deeply for a long moment. Her eyes are polished jet, with no whites at all. They hold him fast. He wonders if they were always all black like that. Didn't they have . . . weren't they just beautiful dark eyes before? His thought cuts off as she begins to glide toward him. The forest floor is silent beneath her bare feet.

She stops and bends her face down until her nose is almost touching his. Words and images once more flow from her fountain into his mind. These, though, are horrific, bubbling up from a foul and polluted spring. Emptiness. Loneliness. Terror. Grief. Loss. Fear. Each of these emotions tear raw holes in him as her inspirations flay his soul. He shudders helplessly, tears streaming down his cheeks.

The terrible assault ceases. She taunts him, and drifts around behind him to place her hands lightly on his shoulders. He absolutely does not want this creature behind him like that, and with a supreme effort, he manages to turn and face her. She frowns. Momentarily, he is hopeful.

She bends close once more and fixes him with her gaze. Frozen, he stares back, but all he sees is the reflections of the candle flickering in her eyes like twin stars on a moonless pond. He focuses on that instead of those awful eyes and her spell shatters. He breaks away from her and flees, stumbling, back to his house. Her shrieking laughter chases him all the way there.

Upstairs once more, in the shambles of his once neat writing room, he sits at his desk and stares at the ruins of the Great Wall. It is empty now. Before its blank white slate lie the heaped remnants of the works of Carlyl, a poet who never was.

He reaches into the desk and pulls out a permanent marker. Uncapping it, he walks to the wall and writes something. He drops the marker onto the heap and returns to the desk.

"My name was Danny" is written on the wall in letters three feet high.

He doesn't know when anyone will find this message, or if they will know what he meant when they do. He hopes they will know because it's the most honest thing he has written in eight years.

He sits, hands folded on the desk before him, and waits for her. He is looking at the two trophies, and wondering what life might have been like if he had just been satisfied with the poetry of Daniel Carlyle Doody. He does not move or look up when she comes in, moves behind him, and places her hands on his shoulders once more. This time, her whisper sounds gentle in his ear.

"'Doody' means 'black.' You were always mine."

Darkness engulfs him.

* * * *

Danny wakes to the feel of movement. He is being dragged, feet first, out of the house. His shirt is rucked up almost to his shoulder blades. He hates the sensation. The rough surface of the driveway scrapes his exposed back; the cool grass of his yard soothes it. She is taking him to the cabin, to her verdant mound inside it. She will not be disturbed there. There, she can eat in peace.

Danny's eyes have closed for the final time, and he can still see the cabin. The candle is there, but its flame is low and unsteady. As Danny watches, the image of the cabin begins to dissolve. It breaks up and slowly fades into the blackness surrounding it.

The candle flickers once, then gutters, and goes out.

fiction
8

About the Creator

Mark E. Cutter

I'm re-blurbing. Again. That last was unutterably boring. Can't have that, now can we? I want flash! Sparkle! Pizazz! I want stories that reverberate through our shared humanity! For now, I have these instead. I hope you like them.

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insights

  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

  2. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  3. Easy to read and follow

    Well-structured & engaging content

  1. Expert insights and opinions

    Arguments were carefully researched and presented

  2. Eye opening

    Niche topic & fresh perspectives

  3. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

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Comments (7)

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  • Dharrsheena Raja Segarranabout a month ago

    Gosh this was so creepy! I had to Google Leannan Sidhe just to find out what Danny found out. At first I wasn't sure it you made that name up but I'm so glad I Googled it because I've never heard of this myth/folklore. Loved your story so much+

  • CJ Miller2 years ago

    Wonderful story, Mark. I really enjoyed it. Oh, and I agree with you wholeheartedly about the 'little blurb'. 😊

  • This comment has been deleted

  • Madoka Mori2 years ago

    Came to check out another linguistic antagonist! I really liked Leannan, she was creepy and terrifying and wonderful.

  • Tewahway2 years ago

    Very cool twist on the prompt. Original, creative, and unique. I didn't catch on to the fae concept until seeing the word "Sidhe". Knew Mr. Doody was in for a dark ending there...

  • Heather Zieffle 2 years ago

    Well done! I liked it very much!

  • Well done. Great story!

  • Breezy2 years ago

    I enjoyed your story and I even googled Leannan so I could learn more about your Fey antagonist. Well done!

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