In my wanderings, I made it back to the very small and cramped compartment that we had shoved William’s cot. There was no door, only a cloth covering the opening. When it rained, which it had twice already, we moved William to my slightly larger, and definitely drier, cot and Nancy would share it with him.
I pulled back the curtain to ask Nancy if our rebelling Frenchman had hidden a bottle with her, but as the curtain parted, I saw something I hadn’t seen before: William’s lips were moving.
It was subtle and his voice was inaudible, but his lips were moving.
Nancy’s hands were covering her mouth, leading me to believe that this was an entirely new development.
“What is going on?” I asked quietly, hoping not to surprise Nancy or break whatever had come over William.
Nancy jumped in surprise at my question anyway. William kept moving his lips, completely oblivious to my approach.
“He...I...” Nancy was struggling. “I was... I was just talking to him, like I have been. His mouth just started moving only a minute ago.”
I stepped aside so that Nancy could clear out of my way and I took her seat next to her father. Reaching out, I placed my hand on his forehead and leaned over, placing my ear directly over his mouth.
Still no words came out, but I could almost hear something carrying over his breath. I pushed my will through my hand and into his mind, feeling for his anchor to his body. I found it quickly. It was much stronger than it had been.
“We need to get Sebastian.” I said to Nancy.
Sebastian and Leo both came. While this was a little out of Leo’s depth, I didn’t blame him. Even with every possible form of entertainment aboard the ship, new excitement was always welcome.
Sebastian examined William in much the same manner that I had. He mumbled some sort of spells that I couldn’t make out as well, peering into William’s eyes as he did so.
Sebastian smiled directly at Nancy when he said, “He’s coming back to you.”
I could see that Nancy wasn’t convinced. “Why isn’t he here yet?” She asked.
“He traveled very far,” Sebastian answered. “It will take him some more time to finish the journey.” We could all see that she wasn’t placated by that information. “It won’t be long now, girl. Keep talking to him. We might find him back with us before we get to Tasmania.”
Even under her disappointment that her father wasn’t back yet, Nancy still had a ray of hope that she didn’t have before.
We were days away from Samoa and I had given up on the journal completely. Any hope that I was capable of translating the journal I tossed out when Nancy’s father began mumbling to himself. I had no doubts that it would be quicker to wait out the geologist.
With all of us now anticipating the waking moments of the old man, we began taking turns with him. Nancy wasn’t willing to leave her father’s side, so we were never alone with him. That was completely fine with all of us. None of us held any sort of delusions about his return. He was coming back for his daughter and she would be the one who brought him back.
Nancy and I made a habit of staying up with her father. She was telling me about how hard it had been reconciling the image of her father that she remembered with the image of her father that the world and her own mother believed in.
“They saw him as a crackpot. A man looking for fame on the backs of his dead colleagues.” She explained. Nancy looked at me. “I’ve seen things since I met you that only prove how right my father was. He had a right to be afraid.” I like to think that a normal person would have cried when she said that. Not Nancy. The young lady who I had caught trespassing on my campus was filled with righteous anger. “The world didn’t deserve a warning from him.”
I couldn’t help but agree.
Standing, I left her alone with her father. I was tired and headed back to my bunk.
As I entered, the dark almost completely hid from me that Leo was lying in his own cot. I made it all the way to my own before I noticed his eyes. They were very wide and very open.
“Leo, are you alright?” I asked.
With speed that startled me, Leo sat upright and spun his feet over the edge of his cot. He faced me and stared at me with those wide eyes. My line of work doesn’t allow me many moments of fear, but the look in his eyes was alien. I wasn’t looking at Leo.
His mouth started working and small noises began coming out. They were odd noises. First he was wheezing and then half words were coming out.
Finally he said, “This takes some getting used to.”
While the voice was his, the words were definitely not.
He tilted his head to the side and worked his mouth a little more before the next words came out.
“Time...is different for me...here,” he said. Not-Leo paused again. “Do you...remember...the long-lived child?”
It took me much longer than it should have to figure out what he was talking about. It was so out of context. Once the voyage had gotten underway and we had some time to sit and rest, I had explained fully about that situation. He had no reason to be mentioning it, though. When it finally came to me, I was just as surprised as I was confused.
He was referencing the ancient child. The boy at the border of the Dream Lands. Why would he be mentioning that?
“Yes,” was all that I said to him. I was beginning to piece together what was going on. The more that I figured out, the more furious I became.
“After...after I escaped...” he trailed off and the look in his eyes became distant for a moment before he snapped back to me. “It took me weeks to remember the spell that you taught him.” He took a deep breath. “It took me weeks to learn how to summon the Gaunt.”
“No,” I gasped with the confirmation.
“It is different controlling a body without the help of those inside it.” He laughed and it sounded so foreign, as if they had just learned how to do it. “I have been lying in that bed for...well...time has a different meaning for me here... but I’ve been lying there for a while trying to figure out how this,” he waved indicating himself, “all works.”
“Olivia...” I said.
“You don’t get to talk,” she interrupted. “You sold me when all I wanted to do was help you.” Her anger sounded so violent, and I couldn’t figure out if it was because her voice was being filtered through Leo’s or if she was so violently close to lunging at me.
“You will be ejected the minute that Leo wakes up.”
She laughed her foreign laugh again. It grated on my ears. “Not if I kill him first.”
“Don’t you-”
Olivia interrupted me again. “Don’t I what? Betray you? Kill your friend? No! You have no right to tell what to do.” She was spitting as she shouted. “I will control your allies in their sleep. You will forever be haunted by me.” Olivia started to cry. “We were allies...”
“No!” I was shouting back at her. “You were a disease that plagued my mind. I never wanted you in my life and when I had a chance to get rid of you I took it!”
She was whimpering. “You do not know what Timmy did to me.” She sobbed again. “You don’t know what he does to all of the creatures that he collects.”
Guilt washed over me, but I didn’t want it there. She was humanizing herself again, but she wasn’t a human. She was a broken piece of myself. “I am sorry for whatever happened to you. I was wrong for how I got rid of you, but that doesn’t give you the right to control anyone.” I shrugged and waved my hands at Leo’s body. “What is the purpose of this?”
Olivia ignored the tears on her face, but suddenly her sobbing was done. “I am not certain, yet, but I know that I want to hurt you.” She leaned toward me. “It isn’t fair that you get to live in this world while I live as a fugitive in another. So, I want you to suffer and I want to live here.”
I slapped Leo across the face, hoping that it would wake him up. It didn’t work. “What’s the point of taking them over? Take my mind, as I sleep. Control me and drive me mad al
l over again, but leave them alone.”
She frowned and it was the first thing she did that looked natural. “I attempted to, but the emptiness in your mind that was once me stops me from controlling you.”
I growled in frustration. Words were failing me.
“Sleep with one eye open, Andrew. I love this world and if I can’t live here as I once did, than I will live here however I can.” Olivia pulled a knife from somewhere hidden in the dark. The small amount of light in the room glinted off of the blade. For a fast moment, I thought that she was going to lunge at me. “I will make you suffer!” She said again and then brought the blade down into Leo’s left leg.
Olivia laughed, as if the pain wasn’t touching her at all, and the alien laughter morphed into a gasping pain that no longer sounded like her. Instead, it carried a French accent.
The screams had been out of surprise and not so much pain. Leo looked down at his hand still grasping the knife and the shouting turned toward gasps.
He looked at me and asked, “Was it Olivia?”
Leo’s intuition surprised me. “How did you know?”
He began tearing his pant leg open and examining the wound. “Two nights ago, I woke up and I was standing at the front of the boat.” He waved at our door. “Last night, Nancy was standing right there and watching both of us. It was very odd.” It was comforting knowing for certain that this was Leo. His movements and his voice were all his own. Not the possessing demon that I gave birth to.
“How did you know it was Olivia?” I asked.
Leo began tearing one of his sheets into strips. “I guessed. After hearing how you left her in the Dream Lands, I was kind of worried that she might come back.” He pulled the knife from his leg and began wrapping it with the strips as quickly as he could.
He asked, “Why was she here?”
“Payback,” I replied. “She wants to hurt me by hurting my allies.”
“Lock me up when I sleep,” Leo suggested.
I shook my head. “Then Nancy is holding a gun to my head and you’re nowhere to be found.”
“Lock us all up.”
“That won’t work either.” I sighed and lit the lantern between our cots. “Then you’re shooting yourself in your sleep, or Nancy is bashing her head against a wall. We can’t fight this by tying our hands.”
Leo finished bandaging his leg and looked at me. “Then we are powerless to stop her.”
I shook my head again. “No. We can beat her, I just need to think on it.”
“Think quickly,” my friend smiled, but the smile didn’t make it to his eyes. “I would hate to wake up with my hands around your neck.”
I nodded and laid down to sleep. I was somehow comforted knowing that the lantern was still on.
I wasn’t asleep an hour when another voice jerked me awake. I sat bolt upright and it took me a moment to recognize the voice.
Leo was already on his feet and said, “It’s Nancy.” Together we made our way quickly to her. We would have ran to her, but Leo’s wound was obviously causing him pain.
Nancy was standing outside the small half-room that her father’s cot was in.
“He’s awake!”
“Get back!” I was shouting just as loudly as she was, but my words confused her. Leo grabbed her by the shoulders and gently directed her to the side. I drew my pistol and stepped into the room.
William Dyer was sitting up on his cot, his hands rubbing his face.
I put the barrel of my gun against his forehead.
“Dr. Dyer, I presume?”
He looked up at me slowly, wary of the gun. “What is the meaning of...wait a minute. I know you, don’t I?” He looked at me, wrinkling his eyes as he did so. “Yes, you’re that silly boy who wanted to see the book get locked away.” He let out a laugh. “Andy, wasn’t it? You gave the Dean quite the heartache.” He was smiling despite the gun. “Well, I think that you should know that I fought for your way of thinking.” He pointed at the gun in my hands. “You can either use that or don’t. I don’t have all day.”
I was furrowed my brow. If it was her, than it was a great deception. “Nancy, get in here,” I called.
Nancy came in with Leo right behind. I put the pistol away before she could see it. “Ask him something only your father would know. Do it now.”
She was confused, but managed to ask, “What did you get me for my last birthday that we shared?”
William frowned and shook his head. “That was years ago, darling.”
I drew the pistol and put it to his head again. Nancy started shouting “No,” over and over again while Leo quickly moved to hold her in place.
“Answer the questions, please, Dr. Dyer.” I said while pulling back the hammer on the pistol. I didn’t want to shoot him, and Leo knew that, but Nancy had no idea. Rage filled her eyes and she fought even harder against Leo’s grip.
On the other hand, if Olivia was currently wearing William’s body, the magically charged bullet had a very good chance of actually killing her and finally removing her from the situation.
William remained unperturbed throughout the entire situation.
He sighed and looked directly at his daughter. “I gave you money and begged you to keep an eye on your mother for me.”
I looked away from William and to his daughter for confirmation. She nodded emphatically. “It’s him!” She shouted.
The shouting was unnecessary. We had already gathered a few of the Innsmouth people behind us. They were watching with the kind of excitement that only a little over a month at sea could produce.
I uncocked the pistol and put it back into my holster. “Welcome back, Dr. Dyer.”
“Do you mind my asking what that was about?” William asked while his daughter pushed past me to hug him profusely.
The actual reason for my holding a gun on Nancy’s father was something that I didn’t want to share with anyone that I didn’t have to. I looked to Leo with a look begging him to save me from the truth, but he had nothing, so I grabbed the first thing that I could think of.
“You’ve been an empty husk for over a month. People who have seen the...things that we have can’t take it for granted when a body just gets up without any warning.”
William was no idiot, and he recognized that what I was saying couldn’t be the whole truth, but he refrained from saying so. Instead, the geologist gave me a small nod.
As Nancy released her father, William scratched the silver beard that covered his chin and asked, “Where are we?”
I wasn’t certain how he was going to react when I told him, so I opted for taking the long path.
“The German army has discovered something that could end the war in their favor, we’re in a race to get it.”
He looked around, eyeing the walls of the small cabin he occupied. He slapped his foot down on the boards.
William returned his eyes to me. They were wide and darted about in his skull. “We’re on a boat?”
I nodded. “We need your help, Dr. Dyer.”
He laughed nervously. “I bet you do.” He tried to stand, but his legs were too weak and he fell back onto the cot. “There are only two places that a rebellious student from Miskatonic could possibly want to take ‘Old-Man-Dyer,’ and I doubt that you’re preparing for spelunking in Australia!”
William’s nervous laughter had turned into manic shouting.
“Father,” Nancy said, “they are going to go into that city you described and they are going to take everything they can.” She grabbed William by the chin and pulled his terror filled eyes away from me and forced him to look her in the eye. “Those things you saw, do you want them in the real world? Because that’s what is going to happen if you don’t help us.”
William’s eyes kept searching about as if looking for the real world again. Finally, they fell on Nancy and his look began to calm. He reached up and touched his daughter’s face gently. After staring at her for a moment longer before turning his attention back to me.
“What can I do to help?”
Leo handed me the journal and I passed it to William. “Tell us what this says.”
He looked it over as if it were some foreign object from some long dead civilization. The geologist took his time scanning it before finally cracking it open. William flipped through the pages, squinting as he did so. He paused on several different places within the book before continuing to the next section.
“Interesting...” he mumbled. “Where did you find this?”
“In your cabin in Utah,” I answered.
He furrowed his brow, “My cabin?” He looked confused. “I haven’t been there since...” Suddenly his eyes went wide. “Oh my...”
I had waited so long to know what was going on in that damned book that my frustration was only growing. “What is ‘oh my’?”
“This is the journal I wrote while on the Pabodie Expedition. I used it to explain the difficulties we came across in the city.” He frowned. “I thought I was writing it in english, but that city plays with your mind. I can read most of it, but some of it will have to wait until we’re back in the city.” William shrugged. “These are instructions for safely navigating the city. It is a map, more or less.”
I smiled. I was genuinely happy. We would be able to use the journal in the city and the Germans were left without help. Even if they managed to get ahead of us, the city had the potential to destroy them, whereas the journal would help us stay safe.
“What about the words in the margin?” Nancy asked.
William squinted his eyes as he looked at what his daughter was referencing. “‘It will devour the world’?” He looked to Nancy and then myself. “I must have wrote it in the city. I don’t know what it references.”
While I was elated by knowing how we could properly use the book, I was slightly disturbed by the reference in the margin that not even William knew why he had written it.
Pointing at William and then Nancy, I said, “You both have a new and old assignment. Study the book. Tell us everything that you can before we get there. Using it in the city will be helpful, but knowing what we’re going into will be more useful.”
The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set Page 35