Black Wings of Cthulhu, Volume 3
Page 34
James Patterway resigned his professorship at Miskatonic and went on a long sea voyage—for the benefit of his health, he said. Robert Crisson gave up his attempts at invention and devoted himself to collecting art instead, although his tastes were far too avant garde for respectable New England. Lyman Dove wrote book after book summarizing the supposed secrets of the occult, of which no one understood a word. Crisson kept financing their publication regardless, because he and Dove had become fast friends, in spite of the differences in their social origins and philosophies. I still see Dove occasionally, and we do chat about the mysteries of the plenum, but I have to confess that even I can’t understand a word of what he says about it.
Rachel was curious, of course—extremely curious—but, as her loyal knight and shield against misfortune, I told her that the four of us had been affected by some kind of residual miasma left over from her late husband’s experiment, but that it had been dispelled and that there was no further danger. I apologized for having put a hole in her roof, but explained that I obviously did not react well to hallucinations and had an unfortunate tendency to panic. I told her that I was going to stop carrying a gun and would simply have to learn to live with my sense of insecurity.
She donated all of Tillinghast’s papers to the library at Miskatonic, where they were filed away in some obscure corner. Whether anyone will ever consult them, I don’t know. She gave the university the shards of the machine as well, but without Patterway there to protect them, I think they were eventually condemned as rubbish and thrown out. She sold the house, but the new owners did not live in it long, moving out because they felt uneasy there. It gained the reputation of being haunted, but at least the commercial loss wasn’t Rachel’s.
I still see Rachel occasionally, in the suburbs of Providence or in her house by the sea, but there’s nothing between us. Neither of us is content, but there is nothing we can do to alleviate that condition. I could never substitute, in her strange eyes, for her beloved Crawford—and how can I ever marry? How can I ever forgive myself, knowing what I have done, and knowing that I did it deliberately, having taken aim?
How can I even live with myself?
I’m not sure—except when I have my migraines, and my pineal body allows my brain to see what it can now see, under the right conditions. Then I’m sure, alas. According to my ophthalmologist, things can only get worse. One day, I’ll go blind—and what will I see then? What will I be unable to avoid seeing, for lack of any possible distraction?
Monsters might come to devour me in the interim, I suppose—but that, believe me, is the least of my worries.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
S. T. Joshi is the author of The Weird Tale (University of Texas Press, 1990), The Modern Weird Tale (McFarland, 2001), Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (PS Publishing, 2012), and other critical and biographical studies. His award-winning biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (Necronomicon Press, 1996), has been expanded and updated as I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (Hippocampus Press, 2010). He has edited Lovecraft’s stories, essays, letters, and revisions, as well as works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, and other writers.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU
TWENTY-ONE TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR
EDITED BY S. T. JOSHI
S. T. Joshi—the twenty-first century’s preeminent expert on all things Lovecraftian—gathers twenty-one of the master’s greatest modern acolytes, including Caitlín R. Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Shea, Brian Stableford, Nicholas Royle, Darrell Schweitzer and W. H. Pugmire, each of whom serves up a new masterpiece of cosmic terror that delves deep into the human psyche to horrify and disturb.
“[An] exceptional set of original horror tales… [Black Wings] will delight even horror fans completely unfamiliar with Lovecraft.” Booklist
“Cumulatively creepy studies of Lovecraft-style locales where inexplicable supernatural phenomena suggest an otherworldly dimension intersecting our own.” Publishers Weekly
“Joshi’s tribute proves there’s still plenty of life in the Elder Gods yet—and plenty of highly talented writers penning dark fiction these days.” Fantasy Magazine
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