The Madness of Cthulhu Volume 2

by Joshi, S. T

  THE SEA-SCENTED AIR BLOWING THROUGH THE OPEN SIDE WINDOW almost served to clear away the cobwebs of the three-and-a-half-hour drive. The small office in the Midlands university where he’d started his journey seemed ridiculously far away as the vista of deep blue sea and sky opened before him.

  He’d have been tempted to stop and drink it in, if it wasn’t for the belligerent-looking farmer on a tractor following close behind him. The weather was very clear for this time of year, he mused. Particularly for the west coast of Wales, where things could get a little wild.

  Just before he began the descent down the steep hill into Narmouth, he glanced across at the headland. There were two figures standing there, waiting to dive into the wildly crashing waves. They looked like a woman and a young girl, their figures obscured periodically as the foam flew up around them. Surely they would be dashed to pieces if they dived there, he thought; the rocks looked like razors. But then the figures were gone and, within seconds, they could be seen swimming strongly away from the jagged shoreline. They were obviously practiced hands.

  Despite the small size of the town, Patrick had trouble finding the guest house. It was tucked away up a gray side street. The proprietor had tried to liven the place up by painting it light blue, but that was obviously years ago, and the paint was now peeling badly, as if the house had very bad skin.

  There seemed to be no other cars around, so he parked on the slight gradient outside the guest house. The houses opposite looked grim and uninviting. Several broken windows told him they must be abandoned.

  He walked up the steps of the house and noted the name painted above the door in black: “Glan Mor,” which he knew meant “Seaside.” It was the only hotel or guest house he could find listed in Narmouth, despite extensive inquiries and online searches. Even if it turned out to be a pit, he was only going to be here for three days.

  He rang the bell and waited. After a short while, the door opened a fraction and a face with very smooth skin and a perfect little mouth appeared before him.

  “Hello.” He extended his hand which she declined to take. “Professor Patrick Neede. I rang last week to book a room.”

  Her eyes were the lightest gray he’d ever seen. He thought the color almost ethereal, as if she were a deity, used to merely gazing down on the ants below her rather than moving among them. He found her intensely beautiful.

  At length she nodded and swung the door open. “Please come in, professor.”

  He tried not to stare at her as he heaved his heavy bag up the last step. “Thank you. And, please, call me Patrick.”

  “Elin Williams. I spoke to you on the phone.” She indicated a door to the left, and Patrick struggled and fussed his case through to a small but comfortable lounge. He collapsed on a sofa, regretting bringing so much with him.

  Elin stood looking down at him. She was striking and wore a simple white dress that ended below her knees. “I’m the owner, prof … umm, Patrick. I hope you’ll like it here. You wanted the room for two nights, didn’t you?”

  Once again Patrick found it difficult not to stare openly at her, being unused to such beauty. He nodded eagerly before Elin said “Some tea” and disappeared into the rear of the house.

  As they sat and sipped, Elin asked him why he had chosen such a lonely place and out of season at that.

  “Nobody really comes here any more,” she said. “It was popular in Victorian times.” She indicated a photograph on the wall that showed a pier, now long gone, crammed with promenading peacocks and peahens. A small steamer was moored at the far end, eager to take trippers on a jaunt around the bay.

  “But the new road means most people just drive straight past now,” she added. What she called the “new” road had been built back in the late 1950s, he remembered.

  “I’m here to research your local celebrity,” he beamed. Elin looked puzzled, her eyes searching the air for answers before Patrick stepped in with “Saint Deigion.”

  The woman seemed to stiffen in her chair. “Oh. Dyn y mor. Our ‘man of the sea.’” She seemed slightly downcast at the news. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to see the stones.”

  Patrick hesitated for a moment. “Er … the crosses, yes. You’ve seen them then?” This was the first concrete evidence of their existence beyond mentions in a dusty volume or two. There were no photographs and only one very bad drawing done by a local fisherman in the early 1900s.

  “Yes, I have. You’d be better off leaving them be. It’s very dangerous out there. People get drowned all the time around here. The beach falls away sharply, so it’s very deep. And the tides coming round the headland are so strong …”

  Patrick nodded, glad of some local knowledge. “I’ll be going at the neap tide tomorrow morning. I should be safe, because the water will be very low then.”

  There was an awkward silence. Patrick broke it with: “This is a sort of homecoming for me, in a way … even though I’ve never been here before.”

  Elin looked at him as if he had just disclosed some awful secret. Her voice was very small and quiet when she spoke again. “Oh? How so?”

  “Well, my mother was born here. In Bridge Street. She left a long while before I was born, of course. Do you know where it is?”

  Elin nodded, seemingly with a sense of relief. “Yes. It’s only two streets over. You should be able to find it easily.”

  “I don’t know—it’s quite a maze. I had trouble finding you. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to show me tomorrow?”

  Elin clattered her cup into her saucer and stood up suddenly. “Rhiannon,” she cried, quite loudly. Within seconds a girl of about nine or ten appeared in the doorway. It was clear from the family resemblance that the girl was Elin’s daughter. But in contrast to her mother, the child was peculiar-looking, with huge, liquid eyes so large they stopped just this side of being monstrous. He felt uncomfortable looking at her. She reminded him of a doll that had the wrong eyes pushed into its head.

  “Rhiannon, show Pa … the professor to his room, will you?”

  The girl nodded and stepped to one side to allow Patrick to steer the large case past her. He followed her up the narrow stairs to a door on the first floor. “Here we are,” she said in a slow manner as she opened the door for him. After a nodded thanks, the girl departed.

  His room was small but comfortable. Patrick’s heart lifted when he saw that he had a view over the dismal row of houses opposite to the sea beyond. He began to unpack the oversized suitcase, placing the object that had drawn him to this odd little town on the bedside table.

  The book had a rubbed cloth cover with letters in faded gold—The Lives of the Early Welsh Saints. It had been written in 1875 by the Reverend Eli Morgan and contained a 15-page chapter that was of special interest to him: the story of Saint Deigion.

  The clergyman’s over-elaborate Victorian English revealed that Deigion was “inspired by God” to erect a line of crosses on the beach at Narmouth. It was in the very same spot several years later that he walked into the sea during the throes of a religious ecstasy, never to be seen again.

  It was claimed that the present town had grown up at this remote spot precisely because of the “miracle of Deigion.”

  But Patrick was most fascinated by the hints of several other scholars that Deigion had kept alive elements of the old Celtic religion, alongside the Christianity he professed to spread. Yet nobody had ever produced any evidence for this. Puzzled at his colleagues’ lack of intellectual curiosity on this point, Patrick had become intrigued when Reverend Morgan’s book revealed that the inscriptions on the crosses were written in ancient Celtic. If not carved by Deigion’s own hand, they would certainly have been made under his direction; Patrick had decided he had to see for himself.

  After consulting a meteorologist colleague, he’d discovered that the only time the tide would be low enough to see the crosses fully was at the neap tide of the spring or autumn equinoxes. He’d planned this expedition for four years, but had always missed the dates du
e to other commitments.

  Today was September 21st and tomorrow would be both the equinox and a full moon. The waters would be at their very lowest. And at this time of year any seaside resort was bound to be empty of tourists, which was an important bonus as far as he was concerned.

  He took his shoes off and lay down on the bed to rest after his long drive. The tea had revived him somewhat, but a quick nap wouldn’t hurt, he thought.

  * * *

  The town was tiny and seemed half-dead, with meagerly stocked shops that opened for just a few hours each day. The streets were mostly deserted. He supposed this was due to its isolated position, though he was surprised the picture postcard views didn’t draw the tourists in.

  Then again the view seemed cold and empty without the basic human comforts. And they were something this town seemed to ignore. Even the pubs—usually the mainstay of such communities—had doors that were resolutely barred to visitors.

  At last he found a tiny corner newsagent’s shop that was open. He pushed the door and an old-fashioned bell rang to announce his entrance. It was very gloomy inside the cramped space, and it was several moments before the proprietor emerged from the dimness.

  The man had a large wisp of white hair on top of his head and a pair of gooseberry eyes set in a pale face. His colorless cardigan had obviously been a comfortable home to several generations of moths.

  Patrick nodded to the man and muttered a subdued “G’morning,” even though it was now mid-afternoon. The place had a smell like old sardines, and he felt reluctant to touch anything. He looked over the magazines on display, recognizing the cover of one as being at least six months old.

  There didn’t seem to be newspapers on offer, so he asked for his usual title by name. “Not today,” croaked the seedy little man.

  Patrick felt slightly crestfallen. “Will you be having a delivery later?” The man merely stared at him, as if unused to dealing with customers, before shrugging his shoulders.

  “Thank you,” muttered Patrick, turning to the door. As he reached for the handle, he heard a whispering begin. He knew he should simply ignore it, but he felt uncomfortable at being talked about and turned to glance back at the man, expecting to see a companion or co-conspirator at his side. The man stood alone, staring. The shop was silent once more.

  Patrick pulled open the door and was glad to be back out in the daylight, able to breathe in a lungful of clean air.

  After a few minutes’ walk, he finally came to Bridge Street. Number 3, the house where his mother said she’d lived, was brown and shabby; it looked abandoned. No wonder Mum left this place as soon as she could, thought Patrick. The phrase “narrow horizons” seemed to have been invented for it, despite the view out over the bay.

  He continued his exploration of the maze-like streets, eventually coming upon a small square where several streets met before continuing their near-precipitous descent to the quayside.

  Patrick could see the back of a figure and welcomed the opportunity to strike up a conversation, hoping for a nugget or two of “local color.” As he approached, he realized his hopes would be dashed.

  The man stood at the corner, face pointing straight up as he opened and closed his mouth in rhythm, gulping great mouthfuls of sky into himself. He looked as if he was drowning in air.

  Dressed in shabby old clothes, the man was either deranged or in distress. Patrick was uncomfortable with the afflictions of others, so he backed slowly down one of the streets, unnoticed by the stranger. Feeling guilty at being such a bad Samaritan, he continued his exploration of the peculiar town, clustered around its tiny bay, guarding it jealously.

  Some of the buildings looked very old, but nowhere did Patrick find a single church, chapel, or other place of worship. As an academic theologian he always looked for such places—they told him a lot about the people who built it. It wasn’t that he was a particularly devout man, but for a town that had been founded in honor of a Christian saint, the omission seemed puzzling to him. It was possible that the old clergyman had been mistaken on that point, of course. Maybe the entire town was in fact trying to hide from God.

  After wandering around the corpse of a place in the cutting wind for nearly half an hour, he returned to his room and read for the rest of the afternoon.

  As he ate the tasty but spare evening meal provided for him in the small dining room, it became clear that he was the only guest currently in residence. Elin appeared to tend to his needs periodically.

  When he asked her why there were no places of worship to be found, she gave a vague answer about the townspeople “not having got round to building any.” Patrick began to wonder if the town’s founding fathers, the followers of Saint Deigion, had been closer to pantheists than Christians, preferring to worship in the presence of nature than in any house of God.

  Patrick smiled to himself as he ate, convinced more than ever that the town was a goldmine of pre-Christian worship. There was at least a brace of articles if not a book in it: a few more jewels for his crown.

  As he walked back up to his room, he anticipated eagerly the secrets that the crosses might yield to him tomorrow.

  * * *

  Before retiring for the night, Patrick set his traveling clock for the ungodly hour of 6 A.M. He turned the light off and stood looking out over the water, lit eerily by the full moon.

  There seemed to be no activity in the tiny town. No streetlights, no cars. But then he noticed that there were people moving about, more than during the daytime in fact.

  The strong moonlight was throwing deep shadows, so he couldn’t be sure. But it did seem as if there was movement, almost as if some broken procession was making its way along the street as it headed toward the shore.

  Patrick wondered what their mission was. Possibly some nocturnal fishing. Then he noticed the small boat drifting on the silvery-gray sea. It was being drawn inevitably toward the shore, it seemed to him. He had no binoculars with him so he couldn’t take a close look, but he was certain he saw something, or someone, lying in the bottom of the boat. He strained his eyes uselessly in the pale light, unsure of whether he’d seen a movement in the prow.

  Under the tiny vessel the sea twisted and shrugged, a huge animal struggling to slough its troublesome skin. He watched it drift and turn in the moonlight until the sky clouded over and the boat became obscured by heavy rain. As rain bullets pinged dully against the window he smiled to himself; it always rained in Wales.

  * * *

  That night he was awakened by the strengthening rain and his clock told him it was 2.25 A.M. He plumped up his pillow and attempted to return to the dark depths of his unconscious.

  But just as he was drifting off, he heard voices whispering. This went on for several minutes without ceasing. Frustrated, he sat up in bed and strained to catch what was being said. It wasn’t English, that was for sure. And, even though he couldn’t speak Welsh, he knew the sound of the language from childhood hiking holidays. It definitely wasn’t Welsh either.

  He got out of bed and walked across to the door of his room, thinking the voices were coming from the corridor. But as he approached the door, he fancied the voices were coming from the room next door, through the wall. Cautiously, he edged the door open a crack. The corridor was filled with only darkness and silence.

  He closed the door softly and stood listening once more. Gradually the whispers grew quieter before fading altogether. He stood there for several more minutes in the dark, to ensure they didn’t return, before climbing back into bed, puzzled.

  It reminded Patrick of what had happened in the shop that afternoon. He listened to the sound of the rain on the window panes filling the night before sleep welcomed him back.

  The rest of the night passed in shallow sleep and half-dreams of perfect white crosses, etched deeply with Celtic writing, rising unbidden from the sea.

  * * *

  He rose very early and dressed warmly. He struggled into the waders he’d bought the previous morning and waddl
ed down the stairs, feeling like a monster from some old horror movie.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was surprised to see Rhiannon in the hallway. It wasn’t yet seven, and he’d expected her to be in bed at this time of the morning instead of standing before him, staring at him with her solemn, large eyes.

  “Oh, uh … hello,” said Patrick. “Is your mother not around?” He felt suddenly that if he could gaze into Elin’s wonderful gray eyes, it would be an omen of good luck.

  The girl shook her head slowly. “She had to leave,” she said, equally slowly. It seemed to be her only speed, he thought.

  As he edged past her, Patrick said “Well, can you tell her I’ll be back before lunch, please?” He tried not to notice the girl’s strange glare, but was sure he caught her nodding out of the corner of his eye.

  Once outside, Patrick felt much easier. He quickly made his way to the end of the street and then down the steep lane leading to the beach. The rain had stopped during the night, leaving a sky that was light gray and gave an even, milky light.

  The narrow band of shingle at the top of the beach soon gave way to a grayish sand. A dozen yards further on, he could see the sand become even grayer in hue. Elin had been right: the beach did fall off sharply not that far from shore, and he found it necessary to take the descent quite slowly.

  He scanned the beach, his hopes falling with every second, before he finally spotted the crosses. They were just a line of darker gray stumps against the sand, but his pulse quickened in excitement at being so close to his goal at last.

  Then his boot sank into the ground and he discovered that the darker gray stuff wasn’t sand at all, but a foul-smelling mud.

  He rushed forward as best he could while the mud sucked at his feet, gripping him for seconds at a time before releasing him again. By the time he got near to the stone crosses, he was panting with exertion, his shirt damp with sweat.

  They stood in a line, like five figures heading out to sea. There was a space between the third and fourth stones where another might once have stood.