“You are so lucky that this is your party,” I said, grinding my teeth at her giggling. “Keep that in mind.”
“Don’t be like that.” Sumire took a plate from my hand and wiped it dry. “You look cute! I think you’d make a good wife, Preston.”
I grimaced and focused on pots and pans.
“Seriously. You can be my wife, as long as you’ll do all the cooking and cleaning.”
“Please be quiet.”
Sumire bumped her hip against mine and grinned.
“You love it. I can tell.”
“You can’t tell anything.”
“Sure I can,” Sumire said, placing a pot upside down on the drying rack. “Don’t lie, Preston. I have you wrapped around my finger.” She held up her bandaged forefinger, for clarity’s sake. “Admit it – it would be dull without me around.”
I snorted and added soap and hot water until bubbles threatened to overtop the sink.
“People usually keep their distance from me. Why don’t you do the same, Sumire? You seem like a smart young lady, otherwise.”
Sumire paused, elbow deep in a colander, thinking it over. She wore flimsy red soccer shorts and a men’s T-shirt with a stretched neck. Her black hair dripped with water from the shower and stuck to the back of her neck, and she smelled of April’s rarely used oatmeal shampoo.
“I don’t know. Pity, maybe?” She dried off the last of the plates. “I think I feel bad for you, Preston.”
“Nobody feels bad for me,” I growled, taking her by her shoulders and pushing her gently from the kitchen, her ancient powder-blue sandals slapping the linoleum. “How do you want your eggs?”
“Poached.”
I rolled my eyes and headed back to the range.
“You make everything difficult.”
I filled a large pot with water and set it to boil, overhearing rustling and good-natured complaints as Sumire roused the girls. I held my breath as she gently shook April into consciousness. I wouldn’t normally let a civilian take that kind of risk, but Sumire claimed to be invulnerable, so I figured April impaling her with a purloined fountain pen wouldn’t be that big of a deal. This morning, however, Sumire coaxed April awake with a minimum of resistance. As they finished straightening up and stowing the sleeping bags and pillows, I produced four plates of eggs with toast – fried for me, scrambled for April, and poached for Yael and Sumire. I collected two plates in either hand and walked out into the living room.
“Morning, Prest...Oh! I can’t believe it, Sumire! You did it!”
April howled with laughter, while Yael’s eyes widened comically. Sumire burst into hysterics again while I stood there, helpless and vulnerable, clutching four plates of cooling eggs, draped in a ridiculous novelty apron.
“None of this is improving your chances of hosting future sleep-overs, April,” I warned, setting the plates carefully down on the coffee table. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t be grumpy,” April scolded, standing on tiptoes to rub the top of my head like an obedient dog. “It’s too early.”
“It’s nearly noon,” I objected, struggling to untie the knot at the small of my back, much to the amusement of the three girls. Sumire eventually came to my rescue, and I took a seat on the floor beside April. “Some of us have been up for hours.”
“Thanks for breakfast!” Sumire shouted, picking up her fork, completely oblivious to my complaints. “I’m starving.”
That was a sentiment I shared, having bolted eight cupcakes loaded with pink frosting for dinner after the girls settled in last night. Sumire and I made short work of our meals. I was mopping up egg yolk with the crust of my toast before April made a dent in her meal. Yael split the difference, displaying excellent table manners. After she finished, I collected all the plates except April’s, leaving Sumire in charge of cajoling April into finishing at least part of her breakfast.
The drying rack was full and I had just finished adding instant coffee to a microwaved cup of water when April came into the kitchen, walking slowly and holding her plate with excessive care. I surveyed the plate as I took it, impressed that Sumire had convinced her to finish most of the toast. April shifted and refused to meet my eyes as if she wanted something, so I sipped awful black coffee and waited for her to verbalize it.
“I need to go to campus,” she blurted, toying with the hem of her nightdress anxiously. Kim Ai, our landlady, is obsessed with buying April clothing appropriate for a life-sized doll, heavy on lace and bows. “Sumire borrowed books from Professor Dawes, and she needs to return them.”
“Sumire can return her own books. Why do you need to go?”
“I want to borrow a book,” April explained, sticking out her small pink tongue at me. “I’m working on something.”
I set my coffee aside carefully, which was probably a good move, because I could already feel the sour twinges of heartburn.
“What are you working on?”
I kept the question casual, but I wasn’t pulling anything over April. She shook her head violently.
“You wouldn’t understand. Can we go?”
“Yeah, Preston,” Sumire added, putting her arm around April from behind and resting her chin on the crown of April’s head. “Can we?”
I nodded, pouring the acidic remains of the coffee down the drain.
I decided to tag along. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I wasn’t going to leave April to do it unsupervised, even if she was right – I probably wouldn’t understand.
***
“Can I be honest?”
“Aren’t you always?”
“I try.”
“Admirable. Go ahead. Be as honest as you like. I won’t tell.”
I smiled. She didn’t.
“Sometimes I question your motivations, Mr. Tauschen.”
Yael shrugged apologetically, her hands buried in the front pocket of her scuffed grey windbreaker. I crossed my arms and did my best to look distracted, and we had ourselves a showdown.
She was dressed casually, pajama bottoms and grey sneakers, windbreaker zipped to the chest, a slate-colored flannel top peeking out from beneath. There were dark smears beneath her eyes from yesterday’s makeup, and purple streaks in her shoulder-length brown hair thanks to April’s hair chalk. Circular bruises discolored the skin of her lower neck and upper chest, bluish-yellow and oddly regular. She wore her hair down this morning, which looked unusually girly.
“What does that mean?”
“Why are you walking us to school?” Yael smiled demurely, but did nothing to disguise the seriousness of her inquiry. “April walks to school three times a week without your assistance.”
I glanced at the gate to the Estates. Sumire had volunteered to help April dress and comb her hair, a process submitted to reluctantly and at cost. It could take a while.
“Today has nothing to do with April,” I lied. “I have business of my own with Professor Dawes.”
Technically, it was Holly’s business that I wanted to ask about, but Yael didn’t need to know that.
“Hmm.”
Yael didn’t seem impressed.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, scrambling for conversational position. “Why are you going along on Sumire and April’s errands?”
She shook her head and clicked her tongue, as if disappointed by my response.
“You haven’t noticed?” Yael frowned. “I’m surprised.”
“Noticed what?”
“There have been some strange things happening around Carter lately. Not just the murders. Talking shadows, faceless men, sightings of horrors out of the Deep and Avici.” The boredom in her voice making it clear she was relaying what she considered old news. “You really didn’t hear anything?”
“I don’t think so,” I admitted, wracking my brain for evidence to otherwise. “What are you talking about?”
“The murders,” Yael said with a shrug. “Three girls, all students from Carter, all walking to or from the school.�
��
“What?”
“I just explained.”
“First I’ve heard of it…”
“Really? No one has talked of anything else for days now.”
“I…ah. Not really one for small talk.”
“Multiple murders count as small talk?”
“How long has this been happening?” I asked, ratcheting up the intensity inadvertently. “Look, Yael, this is important...”
“It is, isn’t it?” Yael held her ground and neutral expression. “You and April live like hunted animals. Sumire wants to help April move beyond paranoia, but I assume survival mechanisms are best left alone. What are you running from?”
“You’re a smart one.” My mouth was suddenly dry. It took an effort to prevent my hands from straying to the thing I keep in my front pocket, for emergencies. “You’re asking the wrong question, though.”
“Oh? What would be the right question?”
“Why are we so afraid to go back?” I shook my head to dispel old ghosts. “C’mon, Yael. Level with me.”
Yael smiled and offered a half-wave to someone behind me. I turned around, but Leng Street was empty as always, save for her mangy orange cat, white-tipped tail swinging lazily from side to side as it watched us.
“It started several weeks ago. No one was particularly suspicious. They thought it was the standard cultist activity,” Yael admitted, crouching down and cooing at the cat, who continued to watch me suspiciously. “It was the cats who told me that something was wrong.”
“Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re as nuts about cats as everyone else at the Estates.”
Yael chose to ignore my complaint, focusing on her pet.
“What do you think, Dunwich?” Yael asked the cat, running her fingernails along the cat’s spine. “Is our mystery killer lurking about this morning?”
I intended to offer a retort, but the intensity in the cat’s stare dissuaded me. The brass-toned eyes seemed to peer deep inside of me, and then, finding my interior life wanting, lost interest. I was dumbfounded and a little ashamed.
“Don’t want to discuss it in front of Preston, Dunwich?” Yael scratched beneath the orange cat’s chin. “I don’t blame you.”
“Goddamn it, Yael...”
Yael’s eyes snapped to me, hot with indignation. She stood, brushing fur from her hands, ignoring the mewling from the cat twining between her calves.
“Mr. Tauschen,” she said flatly, looking me directly in the eye, “I really do not care for that sort of language.”
“What?”
“I would appreciate it if, in the future,” Yael continued icily, “you choose your words more carefully.”
She turned her back on me and stepped away, folding her arms. I scratched my head and did my best to look hurt. I assumed we were going to await April and Sumire in silence, but Yael surprised me again.
“Another thing, Mr. Tauschen...”
She gave me the kind of look a bad poker player gets, when dealt a winning hand.
“...I speak fluent German.” My blood went thick and sluggish; the air thinned spontaneously. The sound of Sumire joyfully chasing April down the stairs was distant and tinny. “So I get it.”
“What?”
“Your name. Tauschen.” Impatience flashed in her eyes. “Is it supposed to be a joke?”
I shrugged, and felt good about the nonchalance involved. I’d had a lot of time to practice.
“It’s just a name.”
“April, too. Ersten. Those are fake names, aren’t they?”
I didn’t say anything. I was waiting to see what Yael did with her insight.
“Not the kind of fake names most people would pick, though. It’s almost like you wanted them to find you, like you are winking at whoever might peruse you.”
I let her say it. It sounded better, the way Yael told it.
“I honestly can’t imagine you’re responsible,” Yael admitted, with a frown, like that bothered her. “You don’t seem like the type to play games.”
I just nodded. Yael was getting by without my help.
2. The Oppression of Architecture
The secret kept from itself. An ache residing deep within the infrastructure. The peculiar distress of bad signal and lost data; catalogued and projected shortfall. Her hand hesitates at the doorknob; her face wears the beginning of an expression.
The Randolph Carter Academy was a ghost town populated solely by graduate students, short of sleep and exhibiting the unhealthy pallor obtained by spending days in a poorly ventilated building heated by a wood-burning stove, reading ancient books and worrying over Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.
Seriously. That’s a major at Carter.
Yael trailed behind with her cat, while Sumire and April walked ahead, holding hands, and chatting. I did my best to keep my eyes open, but didn’t see any of Yael’s mystery men. There were several stray cats lurking along our route, tracking our movements with stoic and vaguely predatory patience, but that was probably Ulthar being nosey.
Yael hurried off on her own as soon as we crossed beneath the school gates, leaving Sumire, April, and myself to track down Professor Dawes.
We located him in a classroom in the Esoteric Studies building, lecturing a motley collection of graduate students. We huddled in the doorway and caught the end of his lecture.
“…our primary concern – the first manifestation of the Outer Dark – that of artifacts.” Dawes operated a projector with one hand, cycling through a series of archive photos as he spoke. “While many are suspected, we have confirmed only a few here at Carter. The Sundered Altar, for example, sealed in the basement of this very building, or the Blind Mason’s Compass and Rule, discovered in the marshes adjoining the Empty District, used by the Engineering Department to measure the impossible dimensions of non-Euclidian objects. The Orchids of Yuggoth are presently under cultivation in a closed laboratory in the Biology building, grown in conditions that simulate the dark side of the moon. In the Architecture department, a study group has labored for years over records of the Pallid Mask, last seen in doomed Roanoke, which causes travelers to lose their way and animates shadows. The art department is naturally concerned with the impossible colors – verghast, celestewhite, and infraviolet – while Textile Arts students hunt for the rumored tools of the Three Graces – needle and thimble, scissors, and mirror.”
Professor Dawes glanced in our direction, and offered us a quick nod, then returned his attention to the students, busily tapping away at laptops.
“Naturally, acquisition of such artifacts comes at great cost and ridiculous complexity. After the ill-fated expedition to the basalt mines of Mnar, and the acquisition of the Sundered Altar – which you should see while it is on display at the main library, even if it causes your tear ducts to bleed – the study of such objects was restricted to graduate students working on faculty-approved projects. As you explore the history of these items, do note the sacrifices made by their discoverers and researchers. More than a few archivists have gone mad and plucked their eyes from their heads to bring you the margin notes provided in your text, so please do not skip them. Pay particular attention to the break out lesson regarding effective application of the Yellow Sign, in regards to artifacts from the Outer Dark. It is considered to be the most potent of wards, and you will encounter it repeatedly during your academic and professional career.”
The clock tower struck eleven. The students glanced at the Professor, fingering backpacks and laptop bags.
“Enough for today, then,” he said ruefully, as the students hurriedly abandoned the classroom. “Make sure you finish the third chapter of the Dhole Chants before next Tuesday!”
Dhole were horrible enormous worm things that lived in a giant pile of bones in the Underworld – according to the Professor, anyway. All I saw was darkness, and a few drug-induced hallucinations. I have no idea whether the chants were about the monstrous scavengers, or by them, and I didn’t plan on asking for clarification.
>
We waited until the classroom was mostly evacuated before we cornered the Professor.
“Preston. A pleasure to see you here.” Ian Dawes offered me his cool, parchment-dry hand, and I shook it carefully. The professor wore a seersucker suit with thin blue stripes and polished calfskin shoes, white hair neat and combed back, smelling vaguely of pomade and pipe tobacco. He really was the nicest corpse-eater anyone could ask for. “What brings you to campus today?”
“Escorting the girls,” I said, remembering my earlier deception. “I do need to have a brief word, though.”
Dawes gave me a subtle appraisal.
“In private?”
“If you have a minute.”
“I do, as it happens,” Dawes said, tousling April’s head fondly while she wrapped herself around his waist. Sumire laughed and aided the professor in the process of extraction. “Let’s head to my office, shall we?”
It was a quick walk. Dawes used the opportunity to encourage Sumire to consider the graduate program at Carter. By the time he led us up the cookie-and-cream marble stairs to his third floor office, even I was ready to apply for financial aid. Sumire was reserved, however, offering polite, but minimal response.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no other college in this city, but there are whole neighborhoods I have never seen. Maybe Carter has a cross-town rival for the occasional lacrosse match, but I doubt it.
The office was narrow for its length, densely furnished with aged leather furniture, and absolutely choked with books. Overflowing shelves dominated the walls. The writing desk and antique table were both lost beneath piles of leather-bound volumes and portfolios of illuminated manuscripts. There was an inert fireplace at the far end of the room, long ago transformed to a storage nook and filled with cardboard boxes. A substantial chandelier provided light, but numerous sconces were scattered about the room, stocked with half-consumed candles. An ominous and antiquated pictogram was incised on the inside of the door.
Sumire took three books from her bag, wrapped in canvas and twine to protect them from damage, and handed them carefully to Dawes, who then set them in a pile with the same care I show to the morning paper I never ordered. April was persuaded to whisper her request in the professor’s ear, and then Dawes spent several minutes locating an index card, which he had April read aloud, and then several more searching for a specific volume stored in the library adjunct. He wrote out what seemed like unnecessarily detailed directions on expensive stationary and then gave them to Sumire. I could hear April giggle as they ran out of the office and down the hallway, in an impromptu race.
The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) Page 3