The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind: Chapter 12 - Wild Mountain Thyme
by Gaius Petronius
The Wind Beyond the Walls of the
Mind

Chapter 12
Wild Mountain Thyme

by Gaius Petronius

DISCLAIMER:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on
the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox
and Mutant Enemy, Inc. This story can be read on its own or as
a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark"
from which the Ancient Ones, the Shining Trapezohedron and the
character of Robert Blake are derived.

The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind is set
roughly in mid-season four shortly following the death of Doyle
but before the creation of Adam and the death of Maggie Walsh..

* * * * * * *

Willow stopped by the dorm on her way back
from meeting Buffy in the Quadrangle and grabbed a quick bite
to eat in the cafeteria. It was about an hour later when she reached
MacDuffie's New Age Curiosity Shop where she was supposed to join
the Guardian and Giles for a few hours of research. As she entered
through the front door and stared around, Willow was puzzled at
the darkness. Even though outside it was a bright mid afternoon,
the interior of the shop was in shadows except for the illumination
cast by one small lamp over in the corner.

Suddenly the sound of slightly off key but
enthusiastic singing drifted from the storage room that housed
the Shining Trapezohedron. Willow's mouth dropped open and her
eyes widened. It was Giles and MacDuffie and they sounded drunk.
She stood still for a moment just inside the front door.

"Oh, the summer time is a comin',
And the leaves are sweetly turnin' . . ."

The lyrics floated through the air and the
singing had a slurred drunken earnestness with the faintest hint
of a Scottish accent.

"Giles?" Willow called out hesitantly.

"And the wild mountain thyme,
Blooms across the purple heather . . ."

"Giles?" she called out again, this
time a shade louder, "Mr. MacDuffie?"

The singing suddenly stopped. Giles' voice
rang out from the storage room.

"Willow? Is that you? Come in! Come in!
You're just in time for the chorus!"

Willow hesitantly approached the open storeroom
door. As she peered in, singing erupted from the room once more.

"And we'll all go together!
To pull wild mountain thyme,
All across the purple heather . . . !"

Willow edged into the storeroom. Giles and
MacDuffie were seated on a pair of old wooden crates. In front
of them on a third crate rested a half empty bottle of single
malt scotch and the box containing the Shining Trapezohedron.
Although the box lid was closed, traces of the Crystal's bizarre
light pierced through cracks in the wood, and cast shadows across
the shelving and walls of the storeroom.

Giles and MacDuffie each held a small clear
juice glass half full with the amber liquid. Willow hesitated
just inside the edge of the doorway.

"Don't stand there like a cabbage!"
Giles announced with a cheery grin, "Pull up a seat."

Quickly, MacDuffie slid a another crate up
between him and Giles. He patted the wood top with his hand.

"Sit! Sit!" he commanded, "Rupert,
don't be such hairy barbarian! A glass for the lassie!"

Unsure whether she should sit down or flee
the room while the getting was good, Willow finally settled uncomfortably
on the empty crate. Giles fished around in a cloth bag at his
feet and pulled out another juice glass. He slammed it down a
little too forcefully on the crate. The bottle wobbled from the
vibration and the Shining Trapezohedron shivered in its box. Willow
stared anxiously back and forth between Giles and MacDuffie.

MacDuffie swept up the bottle and with a flourish
poured Willow's glass about one third full.

"There. You're all set," he said
as he turned to Giles, "Now, Rupert, where were we?"

Giles thought deeply for a minute, a vacuous
stare blanketing his face. Slowly he shook his head and began
to sing in a cracking tenor.

"And . . . we'll all go together,
To pull wild mountain . . ."

"Rupert!" MacDuffie snapped.

"Yes, what?" Giles answered in surprise.

"The topic at hand, please!"

"Which was?"

MacDuffie was about to reply, but he suddenly
stopped as if his thought had eluded him.

"Bloody hell!" he muttered, "What
were we talking about?"

Giles pondered for a moment. His eyes lit up
with the victory of certainty.

"Oh . . . yes! Quite right!" he exclaimed
and then paused, ". . .The end of the world!"

"Right!" MacDuffie agreed, "The
end of the world!"

There was another pause. Suddenly, in a drunken
toast, Giles raised his glass.

"To the end of the world!"

MacDuffie hesitated, still sensing, even in
his intoxicated state, that there was something inappropriate
about such a toast. But then, he shrugged his shoulders as if
he didn't care to analyze the nuances of the proposal and instead
lifted his glass as well.

"Damn good then! To the end of the world!"

Both Giles and MacDuffie took big swigs from
their glasses.

That was enough for Willow.

"Hey!" she shouted at them both.

"What?" Giles gagged on his drink
and slopped a little on his shirt front.

"We're supposed to be doing research here!"

"But we are . . ." MacDuffie protested.

"Oh, right! Look at you two! It's not
even three in the afternoon . . . and you're drunker'n skunks!"

"We most certainly are not!" the
Guardian huffed as he turned to Giles for support, "Are we
Rupert!

"I, for one, am in perfect control of
my facilities!" Giles announced with his nose firmly pointed
in the air.

"That's faculties, Giles," Willow
said.

"Those, too!"

"You guys are plastered!"

"Perhaps we are properly snobbled,"
MacDuffie admitted. Again, he looked over to Giles, "Do you
think?"

Giles cupped his hand in front of his mouth
and blew into his fingers. He then sniffed his breath and recoiled
sharply.

"Whew! Oh dear. I'm afraid so."

"Now we've gone and bloody done it,"
MacDuffie answered discouraged.

"Yes I suppose we have mucked up things
quite badly," Giles confessed "But . . . well . . .
it is the end of the world."

MacDuffie thought about that for a moment.

"Right . . .!" he finally announced
with conviction

The Guardian picked up the open bottle and
poured a splash more of scotch into both their glasses. When he
turned to Willow's, she quickly put her palm over the mouth of
the glass.

"To the end of the world!" MacDuffie
raised his glass in another toast.

Giles and MacDuffie clinked their glasses and
took another swig. After MacDuffie swallowed, he noticed Willow
hadn't touched hers. He waved his hand at her in encouragement.

"Well, go on!" he encouraged her.

"Guys, this is real raunchy stuff."

"Piffle!" Giles spat out.

"What?" Willow said, not believing
what she had heard.

" . . piffle? . . ." MacDuffie asked,
astonished as well.

"Piffle! It's a perfectly good word!"

"If you say so . . ." Willow said
shaking her head.

"Rupert . . . nobody says piffle!"
MacDuffie proclaimed as he turned to Willow and held up his
glass for her to see, "And as for you, Lass, this is a gift
from the Great Goddess. When she created the world and all things
in it, She had high hopes for humankind. But Her joy quickly turned
to sorrow when She saw how ill we treated the rest of Her creation.
And so, to remind us, She wept bitterly. These . . ." he
said seriously indicating the scotch, ". . . are Her tears."

Willow picked up her glass and stared at the
amber liquid.

"So when we partake," MacDuffie continued,
"At first we feel the rush of Her joy . . . and then, shortly
thereafter, the depths of Her sorrow."

Slowly Willow lifted the glass to her lips.
She sipped ever so slightly at the scotch in the glass. Suddenly
her face puckered up at the bitter and highly aromatic taste.

"Eeewww!"

For a moment, Giles and MacDuffie stared in
silence at Willow.

"Rupert . . . we should be ashamed of
ourselves," MacDuffie finally said, shaking his head, "We
are a pair of complete and utter baboons!"

MacDuffie stood up and took Willow's glass
from her hands.

"My deepest apologies, Lassie."

MacDuffie, his gait a touch uncertain, walked
out of the room. In a moment he returned carrying Willow's glass
and a bottle of Evian water. Willow and Giles stared up at him
from their seats, while MacDuffie loomed over them.

"You both are to be sworn to the utmost
secrecy of what is about to occur!" he announced.

"I Swear!" Giles cried out, swaying
a little in his seat as he raised his hand in preparation of taking
the oath.

"Me, too," Willow grinned.

"Neither of you are to speak or utter
a single word of what you are about to witness!"

Giles nodded with an enthusiastic drunkenness.
Willow's eyes widened. This was wilder than even she could have
imagined.

"For I am Anson," MacDuffie declared
to the low ceiling and nobody in particular, "23rd Laird
of Clan Mac Du Fie, Guardian of the Watchers and of the Gates
of Dawn. If word of this were to leak back to the Clans . . .
!"

"We already promised," Willow interrupted.

"Yes, quite right." the old Guardian
nodded, "Well, here goes."

MacDuffie set the glass of scotch in front
of Willow, opened the water bottle and poured water into the glass
of scotch so that it was diluted and now about two thirds full.

"There!" he proclaimed with finality,
"The deed is done. Now try."

Willow tentatively picked up the scotch and
water and took a small sip. Her face puckered again but nothing
like it did with the straight liquor.

"It's still a little bitter," she
complained mildly.

"As it and life should be," MacDuffie
responded.

Willow sipped some more from her glass as MacDuffie
sat back down on his old crate.

"Now . . ." he continued, "where
were we?"

"Piffle?" Giles asked.

"No!"

As MacDuffie and Giles bantered back and forth,
Willow smiled with affection at both of them, and the scotch began
to do its work.

Giles waved his finger in the air.

"I remember!" he proclaimed, "Singing!
'Oh the summer time is a' coming!'"

"Rupert!"

"I like to sing . . ." Giles answered
meekly.

"You're not helping!" MacDuffie snapped,
"Now what was so important that we were here to discuss?"

"The end of the world?" Willow volunteered
gently.

"Right! The end of the world! Now . .
."

MacDuffie suddenly stopped as if the rest of
his thoughts were waylaid on the path from his brain to his vocal
chords. There were a few moments of silence during which Willow's
grin broadened under the influence of the scotch. She looked back
and forth shaking her head in amusement at the two drunken men
sitting beside her. Then, Giles began singing very quietly. This
time his tenor was on key.

"Oh the summer time is a coming . . .

And the leaves are sweetly turning . . ."

MacDuffie joined him as their two tenors blended
in a lyrical rendition of the old Scottish folk tune.

"And the wild mountain thyme,
Blooms across the purple heather.
Will ye go, Lassie, will ye go?"

As Willow listened to the song, the grin changed
on her face. Her brow furrowed as she sensed the longing in the
lyrics. Suddenly, surprising herself, she began singing the second
verse in a plaintive gentle soprano. Her voice had an almost childlike
sweetness with a twinge of sorrow. While she sang, MacDuffie and
Giles turned and stared at her in respectful silence.

"If he will not go with me," she
sang slowly and sadly and a little bit drunk,
"I will surely find another,
To pull wild mountain thyme,
All across the purple heather.
Will ye go, Laddie, will ye go?"

There was another moment of silence. Then all
three joined in singing quietly.

"And we'll all go together,
To pull wild mountain thyme
All across the purple heather.
Will ye go, Lassie, will ye go?"

The sound of Willow, Giles and MacDuffie's
singing drifted softly through the empty shop.

"And we'll all go together,
To pull wild mountain thyme,
All across the purple heather.
Will ye go, Laddie, will ye go?"

With the song complete, there was another moment
of silence. Then the sound of one person clapping and laughing
voices rang out from the storeroom.

"Bravo! Bravo! What a beautiful voice!"
MacDuffie announced.

"Not bad, eh?" Giles smirked and
swayed on his crate.

"Not you, ya drunken yob!"

"Oh, piffle!"

"Hey, guys!" Willow grinned, "What's
a girl gotta do ta get a refill around here?"

 

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