PETER AND THE WOLF
by Michael Koshkin

Austin, Texas--Bone-throwers...Cane-chewers...Devil-worshipers... They've been called every name under the moon. Occult enthusiasts, Henry Rutherford Jones and Dana Jean Clementine live in a strange and strict moral world impenetrable by modern goons.

They live their lives with a simple and cold methodology. Every third day, they seek the blood of a coyote, the bones of a sewer rat, and the marrow of a blind possum. They dress in black to reflect no light. They walk through the rolling fields of central Texas, in search of coriedue*.

There, they strip down, paint their faces in blood and howl for the spirits. When the earth begins to shake, they know the spirits are ready. Rutherford snaps the rat bones in his hands and throws them to Dana Jean's naked feet. She is overtaken. Her eyes roll back, her throat up to the wind, her arms out, palms up. Rutherford rubs the marrow on her breast and the words burn through the marrow, leaving scared messages from a 17th century Puritan family.

They later take the three word phrases from Clementine's branded flesh, like under apple tree, older than hills, your strange eyes, and they craft songs from them. The outcome is dark, sweet, haunting...