Daughters of Arkham

by Justin Robinson

  Hester’s words changed into something else. It didn’t seem like the old woman was still speaking English, but Sindy felt she still understood her. It was an invocation to this entity, Yidhra; some request that she watch over these two women as they took steps on their journey to understanding.

  Darkness fell over the room. Sindy found she could not look up. She didn’t remember seeing any clouds in the sky. She was confident that whatever was blocking out the sun was not a cloud.

  Flames sprang to life on the candles decorating the tables and the candelabras around the room.

  Hester continued to speak, and Sindy felt the blue fire inside of her growing in power. Her entire body was a single, uncontrollable shiver, locked in on itself and paralyzed.

  The presence wasn’t just out there anymore. It was in the room with them. The stench grew stronger. She imagined a pulsing lake, teeming with life just beneath the surface of its glassy waters.

  Sindy felt herself going away. She was there, in her mind, but her body was not entirely her own. She felt a strong link with everyone around her: her mother, Corinne, Hester, and everyone in the church. It was as though they had as much say over her physical self as she did. If she moved, it would be because the group had determined that it be so.

  The room was darker than before. The candles still blazed, and there were circles of gold throughout. A dark mist twined through the people and the lights. When Sindy tried to look directly at it, it faded away, only to collect at the periphery of her vision.

  “…and bring forth the sacrifice.” Sindy could almost swear those were the first words in English that had been spoken in some time, but there was a strange accent to the words, an inflection not entirely human. Hester Thorndike did not sound quite like herself.

  None of us are, she thought. Though she’d meant it as a joke, she could not even laugh on the inside. It was too true, and far too frightening. What had she found here?

  Who were the Daughters of Arkham?

  The servants brought in Drew Marks, Corinne’s husband and the father of her unborn child. Drew was naked and tied to a stretcher. His body was covered in red paint—no, not paint, but blood from tiny cuts in his skin. They were runes. Though Sindy had never seen the runes before, she understood their meaning.

  Drew was made sacred by them.

  The scent of his blood was alive in her nostrils. It reawakened the taste of the wine on her tongue. She licked her lips at the memory and then nearly staggered as she realized what was in the sweet red wine she drank earlier.

  Blood.

  Drew’s blood.

  The manservants set Drew on the altar. He was weak, but still screaming, begging to be let go. Sindy might have felt pity or concern at another time, but she was lost in the labyrinth of her own mind. She could not have done anything because none of the other Daughters—her sisters now—were doing anything.

  Hester rose once again, producing a silver dagger from her gown. She moved to the altar. Sindy could see that yes, the old woman’s movements were smoother now. There was no hint of the arthritis that dogged her before. She circled Drew, and calling upon Yidhra, plunged the dagger into his heart.

  Sindy could swear she felt an unearthly sigh of approval.

  Abelard and the other servants picked the stretcher up again and moved to the table in front of Corinne. Sindy felt her stomach groan, and she wanted to close her eyes. The scream continued to build, but Sindy knew it wasn’t a scream. This was what madness felt like. She was positive that each woman in that room knew exactly how she felt, and when it came for them, they had allowed it in.

  Sindy fought it, even as she knew it was a losing battle.

  She heard a hissing sound, and then it was nearly free. Her brain should have cracked in half at what she was seeing. Corinne, only two seats away, was staring down at her dead husband, but it was not Corinne. There was something in her, around her, through her. The dark mist that had been circulating in the room had found a home, and that home was Corinne Blackwell. Sindy could still see Corinne inside, but was not sure if she was controlling the mist or it was controlling her.

  And then Sindy made out the shape.

  She had been looking too close. It was like trying to make out a mountainside from the shape of a single stone. Somehow, this massive shape fit into the church, despite being much, much larger. It was a paradox, but Sindy’s senses beheld it, and tried to transmit the gibbering information to her brain. She saw a serpent, though she knew this was only the barest slice of what her mind could perceive. It was the closest thing, though she knew it was akin to calling a human a mealworm.

  She watched as Corinne’s mouth opened, and it kept opening, far larger than a human’s ever could. She was unhinging her jaw in a silent scream, and her eyes were alight with that terrible madness. She put her mouth over her husband’s head and began to swallow.

  Inch by inch, Drew was consumed.

  Corinne threw back her head and screamed, and the shadow around her flexed and moved with sinuous grace, its hunger satiated. The serpent’s mouth opened and spoke to them in a voice crusted with dying stars:

  “Above all else...”

  “Sisterhood!” The roar from the collected women shook the very foundation of the old church. At that moment, Sindy knew that Faith Endicott had done this to Sindy’s father, and that Sindy, herself, as a baby in the womb, had engaged in this terrible act.

  The scream grew in pitch. Soon all Sindy could see was the blessed darkness of sleep.

  63

  Rest for the Wicked

  ‘drew’s funeral was on the following Tuesday afternoon. All of Arkham turned out for it. Sindy watched them lower the casket into the hole and found that the scream had returned. The pantomime all around her called it back, and she felt it simmering in her throat, threatening to draw her into the madness of her sisters.

  The coffin was empty. They were burying it, pretending. Acting.

  In the front, Corinne Blackwell was swathed in funereal black, dabbing at the tears that would not stop coming. Sindy had watched the woman eat him like a snake would eat a mouse, and now here she was, feigning sorrow like some…

  Stars flashed in front of her eyes. She felt Eleazar Grant’s strong hands on her shoulders, steadying her. He was her new manservant, assigned to her by Hester Thorndike herself. She refused to look at his hideous face.

  She didn’t know how she got through the funeral. Corinne’s short, tear-choked eulogy was almost funny in how brazen it was. Sindy found herself holding in a laugh now; the scream had metamorphosed. But she couldn’t laugh. Not here. That’s what crazy people did, and Sindy was not that. She was holding onto sanity by her fingernails, but she was not crazy.

  Sindy was part of the parade past the bereaved widow. She saw Corinne accept the comfort of everyone passing. Occasionally, Corinne would reach up to stroke the metal pin on her dress. Sindy had a pin now as well, but the ship’s wheel with the leviathan coils had taken on a much different meaning to her. Sindy didn’t know if she could participate in this grotesque display of false grief.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she muttered.

  “Oh, thank you, Sindy.” And there was a glimmer in Corinne’s eye. It was gone in a flash, just a moment between the two women, and as Corinne embraced her young sister, Sindy had to stifle another hysterical laugh. She had to get out of there. She had to be anywhere else in the world.

  She moved past the line and found Abby and Bryce waiting for her. Abby seemed bigger every time she saw her. She imagined Abby swallowing the mangled body of Drew Marks. The laugh bubbled up inside her again. She choked it back, and it came out like a sob.

  “You okay?” Abby said, putting a concerned hand on Sindy’s arm.

  Sindy nodded.

  “I didn’t know you guys were so close,” Bryce said, nodding to the coffin. The empty coffin, Sindy reminded herself.

  “Yeah. I mean, no. Kind of.”

  “Bryce and I were going to get out
of here. Want to come?”

  More than anything, Sindy thought.

  “Hello, Abigail.” It was Hester’s voice, right at Sindy’s shoulder. She hadn’t heard the old woman sneaking up. Was she still as spry as she had been at the ritual? Was the magic lingering?

  Magic. Who thinks about magic? Sindy thought frantically.

  Hester touched the back of Sindy’s hand, and her reply to Abby’s invitation was swallowed in the bubbling madness of the terrible laugh. ‘Yes’ was a simple word; three letters, one syllable. If she could just say it, she would be free of Hester, free of the Sisters, free to live a life outside their terrible lies and rituals. But she was held fast by Hester’s touch.

  Or was she?

  Oh, there was such power in that church. Power in the rites. Power in the sisterhood. She could feel it thrumming through her bones. The lies cloaked them and freed them to do their work. She remembered the bliss she felt when she tried Hester’s first trick, the blood in the cake. This was like that, but orders of magnitude greater. Was she really willing to throw all of that away?

  “Come on, Sindy.” It was Eleazar’s voice now. She felt his arms over her shoulders, steering her away from Abby and Bryce. She thought of calling out, but she couldn’t, no more than she could have jumped to the moon. Eleazar and Hester took her back to the protective ring of the Daughters.

  64

  The Fresh Grave

  ‘bryce watched Eleazar Grant drag Sindy away from him and Abby. Although he kind of wanted to punch Laze in his smug face, he was no white knight. Sindy had made her choice, even if it was the wrong one.

  “I don’t like that,” Abby said. She was frowning. Bryce found it almost painfully cute.

  “Me neither, but there’s not much we can do. She wants to be with him, so she’s going to be with him.”

  “I don’t think she wants to be with him.”

  “You sure?”

  “No. But that… that didn’t feel like Sindy to me. Did you see her? She looked terrified.”

  “I’ve never seen her like that, but I don’t know all of her faces.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve known her forever, and she’s never looked like that before in her life.”

  Bryce watched Sindy being enfolded in the black wings of the Daughters of Arkham. She did look alone, forlorn even, though she never so much as glanced back at her two friends waiting on the lawn. Hester lingered close to Sindy, treating her more like her granddaughter than she did Abby.

  “There’s a wake at my house,” Abby said. From her tone, it was obvious she didn’t want to go.

  “Too bad. I wasn’t planning on going.”

  “Oh?”

  “No, I was thinking… here, take a walk with me.” He didn’t want any of the Daughters overhearing. They walked away from the crowd as people began to slowly disperse toward their cars.

  Arkham Cemetery was old. It had spread out from the original plots, and now took up a few small hills in the southern part of town. Originally, it was a churchyard, but the Great Arkham Fire had claimed that church, leaving the field open. All of the newer stones were toward the back. Abby and Bryce climbed a hill that was only partially covered in stone markers.

  Ahead of them were the green lawns of the cemetery. Behind them, the forest closed up, dark and secret.

  “What’s up?” Abby said, out of breath.

  Bryce sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy, but Abby needed to hear it. “I think they’re dead.”

  Abby looked around. “Bryce, we’re in a cemetery. Most people think that’s normal.”

  “No, not them. Well, yeah, them. But I’m talking about the fathers. All the missing fathers, I think they’re dead.”

  “I told you my dad is dead. Yours, too.”

  “I think they were murdered.”

  Abby turned to look at him, but it was not the expression of shock he expected. Only a few months ago, Abby had been a picture of innocence. Now there was something flinty behind her eyes. Bryce felt a sudden pang of grief for her.

  “I think the Daughters of Arkham wait until they conceive daughters and then they kill their husbands.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s definitely something shady going on. Try and think for a second about how many of the people we know in this town that don’t have fathers.”

  Abby was quiet, and Bryce knew that she was running those numbers in her head, that she was trying to calculate the obscene mortality rate for the men of Arkham.

  “So what do you want to do?” she asked.

  “Dig him up.”

  “What?”

  “I’m coming back here after dark, and I’m going to dig Drew up.”

  “Your plan is grave-robbing?”

  “I’m not going to take anything. I just want to see what actually killed him.”

  Abby opened her mouth, and then shut it again. A moment later, she said, “Before Duncan Koons, I would have called you crazy. But if Drew was murdered, the Daughters could cover it up without even trying.”

  “Does that mean you believe me?”

  “It means you and I have a lot of talking to do first. And then I’ll help you.”

  “What?”

  “The soil’s loose, this is the perfect time, right?”

  “Well, yeah. But it’s not safe. And you’re…”

  “A girl?”

  “I was going to say pregnant.”

  “Then I’ll hold the light for you. You’ll need light.”

  He wasn’t going to talk her out of it. Her face was set in an expression he had seen before but not on Abby. That was all Iron Maiden. He hoped that was as far as Hester’s influence extended. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll need light.”

  “Good,” she said.

  After they left, he noted that neither her mother nor her grandmother checked up on Abby after the funeral. Maybe they figured she couldn’t get more pregnant. Maybe they were too busy with their new daughter.

  Bryce and Abby decided to drive over to Middleton to hit a hardware store. It was better to buy a shovel somewhere that no one knew them. It would also give them a chance to fill in some blanks. He listened in horror as Abby described what happened during the failed procedure at the clinic and the swift cover-up that followed. She told him all about her fake iron supplements and how they were actually birth control. That meant that the Daughters of Arkham were actually controlling the reproductive systems of their children. No wonder they were so pissed off at Abby.

  In return, Bryce filled her in on all of his investigations and how that had led him to the man posing as Sindy’s father.

  “Sindy’s father is dead too?”

  Bryce shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. All I know is that your mother has been paying an actor to call Sindy on her birthdays and holidays for the past ten years.”

  He got what he needed at the hardware store, though the clerk gave him and Abby (who likely appeared to be his very pregnant child-bride) a strange look. Afterward, they went into a coffee shop to pass the time until they could drive back to do their errand under the cover of darkness.

  As the day went on, a thought itched around the back of Bryce’s mind. It was only as dusk began to fall that he figured it out. They were only a couple blocks from the community theater where they had found Burton Fell, the man pretending to be Sindy’s father, and only a little farther from the pharmacy he had driven Abby to. Bryce frowned.

  “What?” she asked. She held her coffee cup in both hands, like a raccoon clutching a rice ball.

  “Nothing. It’s just that… Middleton has become the place where we hide our secrets.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking around. A flush crept onto her cheeks, masking her freckles. “Oh.”

  “I wonder if we’re really out of your mother’s reach here.” Fell certainly wasn’t. Bryce could have driven to his house; the route was still etched in his memory.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know what a
ny of this means.”

  “What about Koons?” Bryce said.

  Abby shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do. If he wants to go to trial for something he didn’t do, and I can’t prove he didn’t, then that’s what’s going to happen.”

  “The Daughters like their martyrs.”

  “I guess they do.”

  “Won’t be me.”

  “What?”

  “This. Whatever is happening, it’s not going to be me. I’m not going to get murdered like my dad.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Abby muttered into her coffee.

  “What?” Bryce asked, a grin spreading over his face.

  “I won’t let that happen,” she said again, this time meeting his gaze.

  The barista began to stack the chairs on the tables.

  Bryce stood up and held out his hand to Abby. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

  They drove back into town. It was a weeknight. The people of Arkham were already in bed or headed off to it. The cemetery appeared deserted. Other than the light of the moon and stars, it was pitch black.

  Bryce grabbed the tools from the trunk and prepared to climb the short stone wall that separated the cemetery from the street.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Abby asked him.

  Bryce turned around and saw Abby standing by the road. Her hip might have been stuck out. It was tough to tell because she seemed to be deliberately emphasizing her pregnant belly.

  “What, your doctor didn’t prescribe rock climbing?”

  Abby shook her head and walked along the side of the wall to a small side gate. She pushed it open, gave him a meaningful look, flipped her hair, and walked inside.