The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction

by Paula Guran

  And breach Time’s very walls to make their kill!

  I’ve passed scarce a century on this continent of yours, Poetissime, but the pathway I have found here has long allowed me entry to all Time. Perhaps, back when you lived, as you threaded the human herds (gathering your materials, perhaps, for “The Man in the Crowd”?) – perhaps twice or thrice, on these brooding, watchful peregrinations of yours in a younger New York, you felt the cold touch of my muzzle against your hand. Perhaps you stopped, looked back, looked around, and found no one near enough to have made that contact? And, just perhaps, the chill of that moment sent frosty reverberations through your sense of Time . . . ?

  Or whilst sojourning on Brennan Farm – there pondering the ebony bird who quoth “Nevermore!” – mayhap the night wind lofted my unholy baying unto your perceptive ear. Unsure of its existence, perhaps you paused and heard instead the soft susurration of Death whispering of its inevitable approach?

  Just where, in the Realm of the Dead you dwell, Sir, is not yet known to me, so vast is that shoreless realm in which you swim. But it will be known. And perhaps a soul of your scope can understand this mystery: That from the Dead, the Great can be retrieved by those who are themselves above Death’s reach. Master, vouchsafe to harken, and to weigh the wonders that I hold in gift.

  Where the lich in the loam has lain mouldering long

  And the maggoty minutes gnaw meat off his bones,

  There Time is a monster that mows down the throng

  Of once-have-been, gone-again, featureless drones.

  And that lich’s coffin to me was a door

  Through which I went nosing Eternity’s spoor.

  But the living dead’s doorways, once opened, gape wider.

  Through these you may go where the galaxies sprawl,

  And up through the star-webs dance sprightly as spiders,

  And dart quick as rats through Time’s ceilings and walls!

  There we go feasting and rutting at will,

  And Time is a wine we imbibe when we kill!

  While I cannot cease to praise you, Mister Poe, it seems I can’t forbear now to exhort you. I urge, with every reverence, that you accede to my impassioned suit – for now I must be frank. I wish to crown you as the king among the poets of my retinue. How your silvery lyric will ensorcel them, my legionnaires! In short, I cannot take denial. You must be mine.

  Death’s whelm is as wide as the starfield, and deep as Old Night, but my eyes are the Lamps of the Tomb, and my nose is keen. The time, Mister Poe, as we two reckon it, will not be long. You will know me when you see me, Bard.

  Here, my farewell for now, this Ode and Exhortation I have penned for you alone!

  Through all the human stockyards you have trod

  Where your bestial brothers broil and bleed,

  Beseeching brute predominance, their God,

  To grant them scope to blunder, bray, and breed—

  Here you have wandered, haunted by a will

  To weave from words a world more rare and bright,

  Outreaching death, to shed its radiance still,

  When you have sunk to dust and endless night.

  But I, who lay so long entombed below

  That abbatoir by your brutes tenanted

  (Oh how their hooves did teach my soul to know

  The living deaths by which they’re tormented!)

  I who now long have walked among that herd,

  I am unroofed by Time. The eons sprawl

  Like open fields I plunder undeterred!

  My feet o’er leap the centuries’ slow crawl!

  Know, wordsmith, that it is my wish to shower

  This grandeur, this forever, this deathless power

  On your rare kind that strive for vaster views—

  You hard and hungry one whom the Abyss

  Excites to try their wings. You sterner few

  I lift up to the plane where I exist!

  Faithfully,

  Cannyharme

  A. C. Wise is the author of numerous short stories, which have appeared in publications such as Shimmer, Apex, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Her debut collection, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again, was published by Lethe Press in 2015. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story, and contributes a monthly column – “Women to Read: Where to Start” – to SF Signal.

  Wise’s favorite Lovecraft story has always been “The Color Out of Space.” With “I Dress My Lover in Yellow,” she pays tribute to “the idea of color itself as a malignant, haunting force. I also wanted to salute the tradition spawned by Lovecraft’s works, of authors swapping and mashing-up mythos, and ‘playing’ in each other’s fictional worlds. To that end, I couldn’t resist throwing in references to Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, another personal favorite that lies on the periphery of Lovecraft.”

  I Dress My Lover in Yellow

  A. C. Wise

  ——

  Enclosed are the documents deemed most pertinent to the ongoing investigation into the disappearances of Rani Alam and Casey Wilton. In addition to one photocopied document are several hand-written copies of original documents from the Special Collections of St. Everild’s University Library. These documents have been compared to the originals, and have been found to be faithful and unaltered. The primary handwriting has been confirmed as that of Ms. Wilton. The interstitial and marginal notes on both the photocopy and the hand-written reproductions are confirmed as being written by Ms. Alam.

  Excerpted from “The Phantom Masterpiece: Blaine Roderick’s Lost Painting”, Great Artists of New England, A. Jansen and Tucker Cummings, eds, University of St. Everild’s Press, 1984.

  It is likely Blaine Roderick’s career as an artist would be largely unremembered today if it were not for one extraordinary painting or, rather, the lack of a painting.

  Little is known about Blaine Roderick. His earliest surviving works date from 1869, just six years before his disappearance. These works consist primarily of commissioned portraits, along with the odd landscape, and are considered largely derivative of his contemporaries while lacking their best qualities. It is known Roderick supplemented his portrait work with irregular teaching stints, the last of which was his position at St. Everild’s University.

  One painting falls completely outside the pattern established by the artist’s early works. This is Roderick’s famous (or infamous) lost masterpiece, “Mrs. Aimsbury in a Yellow Dress,” known colloquially as “I Dress My Lover in Yellow, I Dress My Lover in Ruin.”

  By most accounts, “Yellow” is not only Roderick’s masterpiece, but far surpasses those contemporaries he is so often accused of imitating, though many claim the painting is elevated solely by the mystery surrounding it. Alas for history, judging the matter is impossible. All that remains of the work is the original frame and a handful of accounts written prior to its disappearance.

  Even these primary descriptive sources are considered problematic among scholars, going beyond the subjective and ranging from extreme praise to outright condemnation. Their unreliability, in all cases deemed to be tainted by personal bias, has led many scholars to believe some accounts may be deliberately false.

  Regardless, the majority of these accounts focus on the feelings evoked by the work, rather than its content, making them of questionable value to begin with. An example of one such account was penned by Giddeon Parson, one of Roderick’s aforementioned contemporaries. Parson calls “Yellow,” “a vile piece of filth fit for nothing but the fire, though I suspect even flame would disdain to touch it.”

  A slightly more tempered account is offered by Vincent Calloway, a frequent contributor to the society pages of the Tarrysville Herald, who had occasion to see the work at a fundraiser to benefit the university:

  Regardless of what one thinks of Blaine Roderick’s skill as a painter, the mastery of his brushwork, his use of light, and the startling effect of his palette cannot
be called in to question here. However, one must question his powers of observation. As a personal friend of both Mrs. Aimsbury and her husband, Dean Howard Aimsbury, the portrait struck me as executed by someone who had never laid eyes on its subject. From whence did Roderick draw the wan coloring of Mrs. Aimsbury’s cheeks? Never have I known her features to be so sharply sunken. It is most unsettling; one can almost see the skull beneath the flesh.

  If the effect is meant to be satirical, it misses the mark, and is furthermore an unwise choice for an unknown artist relying upon the Dean not only for his commission, but his continued employment at the university. The less said about the lewd manner in which Roderick paints the dress slipping from Mrs. Aimsbury’s shoulder, the better.

  Colorful descriptions aside, a few incontrovertible facts remain. The subject of the painting was Charlotte Aimsbury (nee Whitmore). The portrait, commissioned by Charlotte Aimsbury’s husband, Dean Howard Aimsbury, was full-length, oil on canvas, measuring 103¾ by 79 inches. That is where the certainty ends.

  The supposed masterpiece either depicts Mrs. Aimsbury clothed in a formal yellow gown, partially clothed in the same, or nude, having just stepped out of the gown pooled at her feet. She either faces the viewer, stands in profile, or looks back over her shoulder. Her expression is one of fear, as though she intends to flee; surprise, as if the viewer has intruded upon her private chambers; or suggestive, as though the viewer is fully expected and welcome.

  Most accounts describe the background as largely obscured, as though prematurely stained by a patina of smoke. Those descriptions that purport to be able to make it out chiefly describe indistinct figures, or a city shrouded by fog or blowing sand. However other accounts have the backdrop as nothing but a series of doors receding down a hallway, all closed save for one.

  One account – most outlandish and therefore likely false – claims the backdrop depicts an abattoir. This description, as preposterous as it may be, has led some to speculate Roderick reused his canvas, painting Mrs. Aimsbury atop a wholly different scene meant to be a commentary upon the deplorable conditions faced by immigrant workers in America’s slaughterhouses.

  Beyond its physical appearance, the ultimate fate of “Yellow” is a matter of much debate as well. Later in his life, long after the disappearance and presumed deaths of both Blaine Roderick and Charlotte Aimsbury, Dean Aimsbury admitted to cutting the portrait from its frame and burning it. However, when questioned, the Dean’s housekeeper, Mrs. Templeton claimed if evidence of such a burning existed she would have found it. She is further reported to have said the Dean was “poorly” and “prone to confusion and fits of imagination” at the time of this confession.

  Amidst this confusion, one thread of commonality does exist across all accounts of the painting: the mention of the artist’s use of color, in one form or other. Here again we find equal parts praise and damnation, everything from “brilliant, pure genius” to “having the appearance of a palette mixed by a blind imbecile, producing an effect not unlike physical illness.” But every account does mention color, with at least one calling Roderick’s use of it “near-supernatural, for good or for ill.”

  * * *

  Casey – Before you get pissed at me for writing on your research notes, I submit for your consideration this: You have not taken your nose out of your books in almost three weeks. There’s more to life than studying. I am officially kidnapping you for a movie night. No excuses. It’s a double-feature: House of Wax and Dementia 13. I promise, you’ll love it. I’ll even make dinner. Kisses, Rani.

  “Toward a New Understanding of Color Theory” by Blaine Roderick (incomplete draft), St. Everild’s University, Special Collections, 1877.02.01.17.

  [Appended note from Robert Smythe, Head of Special Collections, 1923–47: The following selection from the papers of Blaine Roderick represents an early draft of an unpublished treatise on color theory. It is remarkable for the way it mixes scholarly writing and personal musings, lending credence to the theory Roderick suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness at the time of his disappearance and presumed death.]

  If we are to follow slavishly in the footsteps of Isaac Newton, Moses Harris, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, we are left with only the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors upon the wheel, leaving no room for the creation of truly transcendent art. While theirs are serviceable models, they admit no space for otherness, for the ethereal, the cosmic, that which goes beyond the veil.

  What of ecstatic experience? What of true seeing, but also in the act of seeing, being seen? What is needed from a new theory of color is a way to go between the shades we accept as representing the full spectrum. There are cracks through which we must pass to appreciate the fullness of the universe.

  But yellow is problematic. What yellow? Not the color of daffodils, sunlight, or the delicacy of a canary’s wing. No. The yellow of bruises, aged bone, butter on the cusp of spoiling. There’s a taste to it. Slick with rot just starting to creep in. Yellow is joy, hope, life, but its underbelly is cowardice, madness, pestilence. They are not mutually exclusive; they are but two sides of the same skin. Pierce one, and you pierce the other as well.

  There are shades between shades, hues that exist on the periphery of common understanding. Purple bleeds if you slice it deeply enough. I have seen such a color, printed on my eyelids. It is an infection, this color, a fever. Hungry. It means to devour me whole.

  I want

  Yellow remains problematic.

  Why yellow? Because she must be dressed so. She is saddled with a husband she cannot possibly love. Too old. The yellow in the pouches under his eyes is common age, weariness. Is the shade I offer any better? Aging slowly toward death would be far kinder. More natural, certainly. But we are not natural creatures, Charlotte and I.

  I’ve seen bones in the desert, scoured by sand. A shadow walks from the horizon, tattered by the wind. His darkness is the space between stars. It is not black. It is a color for which I have not yet discovered a name.

  The wheel, were we to rearrange it, swap red for orange, yellow for the lighter shade of blue, would at first seem an affront to the artistic eye. But it brings us closer to what is needed for a true understanding of color. One must break to build. See how the meaning of color is changed as it is brought into contact with its opposite and its mate?

  It is not simply a color, it is a door. She is a door. I know she has dreamed as I have. She has seen the lost city, where we are all hungry. She has seen our king in terrible rags, fluttering like flame in the wind. I tried to speak of it to her, but Charlotte looked so frightened when I touched her shoulder. (Yet I fear she understands far better than I. She will run ahead and I will be left behind.) I only meant to rearrange her into a better angle of light. It left an imprint on her skin, an oval the size and shape of my thumb. I have dreamed the dress in tatters, like the wrappings of the dead.

  * * *

  Casey – I’m sticking with what works. You can be mad at me later. So, movie night take two? I’m sorry I fell asleep last time. I haven’t been sleeping well. I wish I could say I was out getting laid, or even being responsible and studying like you. But it’s just bad dreams. My dad prescribed me some pills, but they didn’t help. Seriously, this shit is supposed to knock you out, put you under so deep you don’t dream. But fucking every time I go to sleep I see this fucking city. It’s creepy. I don’t believe in that reincarnation shit my parents do, but I’m always the same woman and she’s me in this city that burns and drowns and is washed in blood. I don’t like her. Us. The city. Fuck.

  See? I’m so tired I’m not making sense. But I’ve got my coffee and I’m good to go, so tonight it’s your turn to cook. We still have wine from when my parents visited. You can even pick the movies this time. Kisses, Rani

  P.S. The sketch you left in the hall? I don’t know if you meant me to see it, maybe it just fell out of your bag, but it’s really good. Is it supposed to be me?

  From the diary of Charlotte Aimsbury,
St Everild’s University, Special Collections, 1877.02.21.1:

  10 August 1874

  I met Mr. Roderick today, the artist my husband has commissioned to paint my portrait. First impressions do count for something so I will say this: I do not care for him. The whole time I sat for Mr. Roderick, he never touched charcoal or paper. He simply stared at me in the hideous dress he . . . Well, I cannot imagine where he found it, whether he had it made, or whether he purchased it somewhere. Whatever the case, how is it that the dress fits me so well? Mr. Roderick would not answer my questions. He only insisted I wear it, and that I have always worn it. I could not make sense of him.

  He was so insistent, growing flushed and agitated, I finally agreed, though I did not enjoy wearing the dress. There is a weight to it. The feel of it is wrong. It is . . . unearthly. I cannot give it a better word than that. It is compelling and repulsive at once, and yet, for all the madness of Mr. Roderick’s words, it is familiar. I do not pretend to understand how such a thing could be possible, but I do believe the dress is mine, and that Mr. Roderick has it in his possession because I must wear it. I have always worn it.

  Yet, I feel horrid with it on my person. The silk whispers whenever I move. At times it is like the wind, or sand moving over stone. Other times, I feel there are actual voices inside the dress.

  Even if this were not so, Mr. Roderick’s gaze alone would be bad enough. I felt like a cut of meat, sitting so still while Mr. Roderick examined me, and he the butcher. I finally asked him if something were wrong, and he snapped at me, commanded (his word, not mine) me not to speak.

  I would be tempted to cancel the entire undertaking, but Mr. Aimsbury is set on this idea and it would displease him greatly if I were to protest. As for myself, I have no desire for formal portraiture. Such paintings survive long after one has passed, and all future generations will know of you is the expression you happened to be wearing that day, the way you tilted your head or lifted your hand. Everything you were is gone.