John Langan: Renfrew's Course

“So this is the wizard,” Neil said.

“Supposedly,” Jim said.

Six feet tall, the statue had been carved from wood that retained most of its whiteness, even though the date cut into its base read 2005, seven years ago. Jim thought the color might be due to its not having been finished—splinters stood out from the wood’s uneven surface—but didn’t know enough about carpentry to be certain.

“Looks kind of Gandalf,” Neil said.

He was right. The wide-brimmed hat, long beard, staff and robe, all suggested Tolkien’s character, an impression the squirrel at the figure’s left foot, fox behind its right, owl on its shoulder did little to argue.

“I know,” Jim said. “It’s like that statue of William Wallace—did I tell you about that? They wanted to put up a new statue of Wallace—somewhere out near Stirling, I think—so what did the artist come up with? Mel Gibson in Braveheart.”

“No wonder there’re so few Jews in Scotland.”

“Apparently, the real guy was much stranger.”

“Gibson? I know,” Neil said, starting up the hill towards the dirt path that would take them into the nature preserve.

“No, the wizard.” Once he had caught up to Neil and they were walking under the tall pine and oak, Jim continued, “In one story, the King of France was causing some kind of difficulty for the local merchants—an embargo, I think. Michael Renfrew mounted his iron horse and in a single bound crossed the distance from Kirkcaldy to Paris. When he showed up at the French palace, its doors flew open for him. The King’s guards found their swords red hot in their hands. Needless to say, Louis-the-whatever changed his mind, and quickly, at that.”

“An iron horse, huh?”

“Legend says you can still see its hoofprint on the cliff it leapt off.”

To their right, separated from them by dense rows of pine, a stone tower raised its crenellated head above the tree line. “See?” Jim said, pointing to it. “Over there—that’s Renfrew’s keep.”

John Langan: How The Day Runs Down

(The stage dark with the almost-blue light of the late, late night, when you've been up well past the third ranks of late-night talk shows, into the land of the infomercial, the late show movies whose soundtrack is out of sync with its characters' mouths and which may break for commercial without regard for the action on the screen, the rebroadcast of the news you couldn't bear to watch the first time. It is possible—just—to discern rows of smallish, rectangular shapes running across the stage, as well as the bulk of a more substantial, though irregular, shape to the rear. The sky is dark: no moon, no stars.

(When the STAGE MANAGER snaps on his flashlight—a large one whose bright beam he sweeps back and forth over the audience once, twice, three times—the effect of the sudden light, the twirl of shadows around the theater, is emphasized by brushes rushing over drums, which give the sound of leaves, and a rainstick, which conjures the image of bones clicking against one another more than it does rain.