The Dunwich Romance (8 page)

But along my walkin root back home, I run into that Kyler fella—who Sary say she never heer of—and he look at me that funny way he look sometimes and kind of smile and tell me, “Aye, Wilbur. Ye be cheerful today, and I am appraised as to why,” so I ast him “How ye know why—ah,” (and then I smile too), “on account you’re a soothsayer, huh?” Then he tell me, “The love ye most seek out with thine heart, ye’ve already just got. Nay?” Funny thing for him to say. Always like him, and just about him only in this cursed place, but it come to me that he must mean Sary, and theer aint no way he could know bout her being at my place. So I just tell him, “I sure hope so, Kyler, cuz youre right, I am a might cheerfull today and it be on account of a gal.” Then he just nod, still smyling. Not once did he ask why I done had one a the Hutchins dogs over my shoulder, neither, and there aint no way he didnt notice. So I bid him a good day but befor I can walk off, he say, “And it mite pleese thee much to know that what it is ye most strive for, ye shall achieve by way of them ancient books ye keep.” I stop right then and their and turn bak, knowin full well that what I strive fore most, even more than Sary, is to open the Gate. Wanted tew ask him why he think that but no words cud make their way passed my lips.

Then he say in the end, “Nay, though ye’ll not achieve it by the manner in which ye hope most.”

And then he nodded with that smile and that was all.

Got me thinkin as I walk back. Like maybe he be a reel soothsayer and not just pretend. And if this be, I don’t keer if I kant open the Gate the way I hope long as I open it one way or anothur. But acourse he is likely not a reel fortune sayer.

Walk back double fast to be agin with Sary, even thogh I figure she be sleepin. First, though, I had to feed that One inside so I throw the ded Hutchins dog in the house. Could sense in my brain how close it is all getting and how smart it become. But my biggist worry still be its size, which is why I ben feedin it smaller food. I did the Voorish Sign so to look at it and it seem to have grown mutch since last time. Grandsire were right but the proper time still be far off. Mite have to start feedin it hardly nothing cos I cant ferget my grandsire’s dyin’ words about how it can’t be let to bust quarters afore the night.

Then I fetch what were in the traps and see Sary already out awaitin for me. Made me feel good.

Inside, we talked mutch, and I seed she took a gander at the Dee but I know she wudn’t ever be able to understand. If she got religion atall, it be the Christian one. Grandfather always say I should mind my tongue about the Old Ones, so I did. I reckon she had even less lerning than me so how can I spect her to calclate things like what my grandsire call the “Holy Adjudicata and Protocall” bein tampered with purposeful by folks in the past who translayted from other langwiges? When I tell her about how I have to go back to Miskatonic, she say a right smart thing, that sinct Armitage throwed me out that first time, he’d likely do the same a secund, and I got the impression that a stick in the dirt like him wouldnt give me what I want even for alla Grandsire’s gold. But I be glad Sary say such, cos it got me thinking bout a better way, and I’m surpized I didn’t think on it afore this. But in the name of Him Who Is Not To Be Named, I just HAVE ta git the proper translation of page 751. Ef I don’t, like my grandfather warn, it all be no use.

Dang! Whats wrong with me? I ben thinkin so hard about the flaws in that blasted Dee copy, I must uv lost all my sense! Shouldnt never have sent Sary to Obsorns by herself, not aftur she say how they razz her that last time n try to fuck her. I best go there myself right now—

Seven

In a manner close to childlike, Sary fairly skipped her way towards Osborn’s General Store, which—even when not considering the ignoble character of most of its patrons—was a mercantile establishment she’d never cared for. No negativity, however, wielded the power to vandalize her current disposition, (one which could only be construed as one of unbridled gaiety). Not even the present surroundings could inhibit her; generally, when she traversed the more remote areas (especially those in proximity to Sentinel Hill) she always had her cause for trepidation. The aforesaid hill, for that matter, rose westerly of the path she now scurried along at this precise moment: it and the straggly, rock-strewn meadows fringed by the distant line of unnaturally contorted trees had frequently imparted to her a kind of skulking dread, as though such inanimate things were valuating her with sentient aversion.

Not
this
day, though.

I only juss met Wilbur today and I’se already gettin’ good feelin’s for him. Ain’t never met no one nicer’n him...

She walked round the rest of Sentinel Hill’s brush-hummocked elevation. She whistled a tune—“Yes, We Have No Bananas”—then offered a cheerful wave to a group of overalled denizens lounging higher among a nearby hill’s rock-strewn rise. No response was made to her gesture, just blank, decrepit stares, but Sary didn’t care.
Why, ya bunch’a old toads,
she thought.
But I hope yew all have a good day anyways!

The road—more a trail than a genuine road—straightened through the next meadow, Dunwich Village hulking haggardly in the distance. Sweeps of uncut hay shivered about her, though she perceived not even a wisp of wind. Then...

Is that...a person?

The thing that she first connoted as a bent scarecrow soon turned out to be a person indeed. No apprehension retarded her gait as she proceeded, yet as she did so the figure’s details advanced in clarity. A man, shaven-headed, stood beside a lone tree, nearly as if awaiting her. He wore a long-tailed black coat, a white shirt with bow tie, black slacks and leather shoes, but though the apparel clearly had been fine in days agone, they were now quite tattered and threadbare. He stood with the aid of a cane which seemed topped by some flying creature, and though Sary had never been to a moving-picture show, she remembered the time her mother had taken her to Innsmouth on the bus: when the smoke-spewing vehicle had passed through Kingsport it had slowed at an intersection. This pause had given Sary time to glimpse a moving-picture theater, whose marquee had read NOSFERATU and had sported an advertisement poster featuring the quite scary visage whose most salient features were a thin face and bald head, large receded eyes, and cheeks so gaunt they appeared as if in shadow. It was this image she immediately affixed to this waiting person. Closer, she detected the reason for his cane: a severely curvatured spine; then more eccentric facial details came to her heed. Sary possessed no creative alacrity whatever, yet an onlooker who did might describe the man overall as
cadaveresque,
and with a cast of eye (blue eyes they were) that suggested an accursed affinity of misanthropic revelation. At alternate moments he seemed somnambulant, as though not aware of her approach at all, yet other moments he seemed vibrantly notified of all in his range of sight and even beyond. It was then that Sary took note of sinister artwork on his hands and neck, a process she’d heard of called tattooing. Lastly, and most shockingly, the road-stander harbored a metal ring through his nose, akin to the rings implanted to lead cattle or horses.

But when he at last addressed her directly with his foggy blue eyes, his general aspect of negativity evanesced to something rather the opposite. A precipitant smile, in fact, struck her as humanitarian.

In the most archaic Yankee dialect she’d heard in some time, he voiced, “Young gull, greetin’s ta ye on this acme of a day. A day of
wonders,
be this, aye?”

Sary considered the uncharacteristic words, then realized the bald man was correct. “Has been for me, yeah.” She blinked, remembering Wilbur’s mention of a
bald
man. “Say, are yew that Kyler man Wilbur tell me ‘bout?”

“‘Tis true,” the voice creaked in reply. “I espied him not long ago.”

“He tell me yew’re a
fortune-teller...
”

The man seemed to stand atilt. “Cahn’t say I am, cahn’t say I en’t. But heer’s suthin’ I
cahn
say: eff’n it’s Osborn’s whar you be a-headin’...” but then the remainder of the remark retroceded like something lost in smoke.

Sary didn’t care for the man’s elliptical words, nor in the way his brow cocked; she tried to return a skeptical facial gesture and adjoin it with a similar tone. “Oh, so yew’re tellin’ me I’m in the way fer a bad time in thar?”

Kyler’s head gleamed in the sun. “Mebbe at fust. Thing abaout auguries, like many setch bodements, is they hev a fancy ta change jest as a man’s heart cahn change.”

“I dun’t know what yew’re talkin’ ‘baout,” Sary said, amused. She planned to return to her trek forthwith, but the road-stander hastened to add:

“Mebbe I ought come with ye—”

“Naw, no thanks—”

“—while ye be in thar a-fetchin’ yew’re rock candy. ‘Tis of sorts a
devoir’
a mine—a
duty,
I mean ta say—ta give a jest’n proper
warnin’
, so’s a man’s
heart
hev a chance to
change...
”

Sary had already stopped and turned. It was not the mention of a
warning
which caused her to halt, nor any of what she didn’t understand, but instead...

Haow’d he know I’m goin’ ta buy rock candy?

The question gave her a motive to add credulity to the man’s repute.
‘Sides, he a friend of Wilbur’s.
“Wal, sure,” she invited. “Yew can come along if ya want...”

Very few minutes had elapsed before the duo approached Osborn’s. Even with his cane-assisted limp, his pace was difficult for Sary to keep up with. Not once did she catch his eyes straying to her physique, and this was an observation that relieved her.

“Thar it be,” he intoned minutes later, but Sary had scarcely heard him, for the sudden launch of a whippoorwill from a brown, desolate stand of bushes gave her a disruptive start.

“Could be a bad omen, could be good,” Kyler reflected more under his breath.

Sary dismissed the comment, not quite positive what an omen was. Instead, she watched the queer general store seem to grow twice as large with each forward step—queer inasmuch as it occupied the sagging wood-plank shell of the old Congregational Church which she’d heard had been standing for a long time, since before something called the “Revolution” that took place in a time when men wore three-cornered hats. When the building’s looming shadow cloaked them both, even the open air behind them affected an unnaturally darkened hue.

Kyler chuckled waveringly. “Haow’s
that
fer a omen?” he said, indicating with his eyes the store’s most conspicuous feature: the broken steeple of the House of God this place used to be in days bygone.

Sary twitched at an unanticipated chill but made no reply.

Kyler held the creaking door for her, and they entered

A proverbial cracker barrel sat in the room’s front, though Sary had never dared take a cracker—even when making a purchase—since the first time years ago when she’d tried. Tobias, the dismal stick of an old man who tended the counter, had railed, “Get yew’re dutty whore hand aout’a them crackers! We dun’t care to et nuthin’ that’s ben touched by hands which’s ben corn-fingerin’ fellas and jerkin’ their dutty peters!” and then one of the Langs—God knew which one, for a plethora of them had been born—swatted the back of her head. In fact, Sary braved an entrance to this drear, shelf-crammed place only when an unavoidable necessity arose. Many of the churlish loafers who frequented the store had done business with Sary, and not one of them had ever offered a kind word, while most had talked her price down, knowing full well the extremes of her poverty.

“Wal, jest
look
what fall off the shit wagon’n roll in my store!” cracked the gaunt, whisker-chinned Tobias.

“Ee-yuh!” the Lang man joined in. “It be the hoo-er!”

“Stew Face!” blurted Henry Wheeler, the fence-post digger whose great belly seemed draped over his belt like a lard-satchel. “And look who be with her! The cripple with the balt head!”

All of the men wore rope belts, hand-stitched boots, and clothes whose blemishes had been constantly corrected by make-shift patches. Stains were rife on these clothes; and had Sary commanded a sense of smell, she might’ve suspected that the denizens’ apparel was washed even less than those who wore it. Amid the cramped room sat a card table bearing several illicit liquor bottles, along with evidence of gambling. In a corner was a typical tin water pail sufficing for a spittoon; Sary took uneasy note that its contents of expectorant was half an inch from overflowing.

Tobias leaned over the counter, his high voice aggravating as an unlubricated caster. “Hey, cripple, why’n’t yew clip-clop thet thar cane aout’a heer rut naow, and yorself’n yor whore with it?”

“Ef ye insist,” Kyler calmly replied, “but haow much sense be made aout’a runnin’ off payin’ customers, on accaount I dun’t espy much in the way’a
business
heer,” and then the man produced a quarter. “A wrap’a licorice is whut I fancy.”