With Special Emphasis on Substitutional Arithmetic and Anvil-Locked Epistemologies
by Ignatius Mosswind, Naturalist in the Art of Unearthly Exegesis, Syracuse University.
Caution: Features spectral educators, recursive songcraft, and documents that rewrite themselves when left in cabinets.
Not suitable for impressionable minds or those taught by substitutes named Dide Merrill. Read thrice; forget once.
The Vilecreek Testament
Volume II: The Ledger in the Furnace
Assembled from the journals of Mordecai Vilecreek; annotated by I. Mosswind (SU), 1937 field edition
“In order to speak it, one must first burn the page. But the page remembers.” – F. Percy (fragment, 1859)
The Cabinet Beneath the Anvil
The cold, fine snow had begun falling just after dusk, collecting in the bent hollows of the split-log siding on Abner Percy’s Forge Store. The windows glowed soft orange behind layers of soot, and from the stovepipe came the slow, thumping rhythm of bellows-work—steady as a sleeping man’s breath.
Mordecai Vilecreek approached without knocking.
Inside, he found Abner hunched by the fire pit, watching three iron nails cool atop a plank of hemlock. One had curled upon itself as though trying to forget it was ever straight. Another sang faintly when the fire popped. The third—Mordecai knew without asking—had been struck in the old way.
[Editor’s Note: “Old way” is a phrase appearing throughout Vilecreek’s journal, never defined. Interviews with Abner Percy yielded no elaboration. He only said: “Some things you strike, and they stay struck.” – I.M.]
“’Course you’d show up now,” said Abner, not turning. “She’s been talkin’ through the stove all week.”
Mordecai did not ask who she was. He simply took off his gloves and stepped closer to the low iron cabinet beneath the anvil bench. It bore seven padlocks; only one remained fastened. Abner knelt—grunting—and opened it with the soft reverence of someone who believed the hinges could lie.
The ledger was wrapped in sailcloth stitched with twine. When Mordecai unfolded it, the edges disintegrated like cornmeal.
On the inside cover: Josephine M. Percy – Bellmont Outlet School, 1851. In a faint second hand: Franklin J. Percy – additions, 1859. And beneath that—crossed out twice in scarlet pencil: Dide Merrill (substitute).
Mordecai ran a finger down the first page. Spelling lists. Attendance logs. A drawing of a fish with too many eyes. Multiplication tables—annotated with strange pairings like:
- 4 × 3 = door.
- 7 × 6 = bed of hush.
- 9 × 9 = Vilecreek.
[Field Annotation #12: This page has been chemically tested for substitution inks. Results indicate at least three separate ink compositions, ranging in formulation between 1870 and 1910. Further analysis suggests overlaying charcoal dust affixed with whale-oil varnish. – I.M.]
Mordecai turned the page and froze. There, in pencil faint as a fever dream, was a map—if one could call it that. A series of lines, broken curves, stars marked with ciphered letters: T, G, Ͻ, and a mirrored V. At the bottom, in what may have been Abner’s boyhood hand:
DO NOT READ IN THE ORDER OF THE EYE.
Behind him, Abner spoke slowly. “She always told me the wrong way round was the way to find it. Not find it like find, but find like… reckon a thing you knew and lost. Like teeth.”
Mordecai blinked. “You remember the old song?”
Abner nodded. “One your dad used to mumble. They sang it once. Down at the old forge school.”
He hummed, then sang low:
“Plank to the pail, and nail to the god,
Spine to the bellows, foot to the sod.
Burn it again, and write it once more—
Three times the lesson to open the door.”
Silence followed. A single pop from the fire startled both men.
Mordecai turned back to the page and whispered: “Three times the lesson…”
Abner stood suddenly. “Don’t speak that here.”
[Author’s Footnote: This moment appears redacted in some versions of the journal. One version (SU Archives) bears a scribbled annotation in Mosswind’s hand: “⚠ Map is no map.”]
Outside, the snow was falling harder now. The moon, faint through heavy clouds, painted the drift into the likeness of a trail—one that led south from the forge, past the slag piles of Lyon Mountain, down the old plank road, and into the black lattice of woods the locals called Shatagee.
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?