I think you’ll be able to do the papers justice by summer’s end and so I want to pique your curiosity in advance. Curiosity is vital to anyone in our field, courage being the other essential. Your uncle believed you have plenty of both. I believe it, too, Helen.
Forgive me for not mentioning the papers sooner, and for writing now in this pulp-fiction manner. Don’t worry about the papers, either. I’ll help you with them. Study, but get some sun, too, and write back when you can.
Yours,
Theo Marvell
Speaking of the sun, its white brilliance was rising like a tide up the steps. Helen bumped her butt up a couple to keep her toes in the shade. She folded the lokta sheets and returned them to the envelope. Soon she’d have the damn letter memorized. So the withheld papers described experiences known only to a select circle? About the experiences she was ignorant. About the circle she had a clue.
There had been rare days when she hadn’t gone to her uncle’s after school or camp because he was hosting his “club” in the library. The one time she’d been in the house during a meeting, John had warned her to stay in the front parlor. She obeyed, but she cracked the parlor door so she could peek at the arriving guests. Most looked like professors or librarians, no excitement there. One, though, was a woman in a police uniform; another, an Indian with a long black beard and orange turban. The last to come was a Native American man. He startled Helen by looking her in the eye she’d fixed on the hall. He looked, and he grinned, and he made a circling motion with his right hand, index and middle fingers extended toward her. The wind must have followed him into the house—she felt it gust against her cheek as the parlor door swung slowly inward and latched shut.
Later, when she dared to creep to the library doors, she heard someone say, angrily, that there had been “a manifestation, a verified manifestation.” She felt sure the odd-cadenced voice that answered was that of the Native American, who said, “Yes, it’s him, of course, Nyah-Tepp.”
Nyah-Tepp was the name as she’d heard it then, meaningless. Only recently she’d realized the Native American had named Nyarlathotep, Soul and Messenger of the Outer Gods. Anyone who mentioned a god so casually had to be a member of a “select circle,” didn’t he?
As for what the withheld papers contained to make John think she needed protecting from them, she had a theory. In her new studies, Helen had read cases of scholars and cultists who’d suffered psychological repercussions from contact with Mythos documents and artifacts: crippling anxiety, obsessions, even delusions about the reality of the Mythos and its creatures. Was Marvell hinting that Uncle John and Great-Grandfather Henry had been deranged by their work? Well, as soon as Helen had learned the word eccentric, she’d applied it to her uncle. Had he been more than eccentric? What about Henry? There was that ridiculous Dunwich story Lovecraft had written, thinly disguising Henry Arkwright as “Dr. Armitage.” In public Henry had insisted nothing supernatural had happened in Dunwich—bootleggers had haunted the village, not monsters from beyond. But had Henry been less skeptical in private, in his papers?
Great. Her new job and the crumbling house weren’t enough to worry about. Let’s add mysterious documents that might disclose a family weakness to crack and start believing in the craziest mythology on record. Be fair, though. Marvell hadn’t said anything about a family weakness. Helen had concocted that herself. Which maybe supported the family weakness idea?
She needed a vacation, at least a mini-one. Today, instead of going straight to the library, she’d go to Tumblebee’s Café and dive to the bottom of a large vanilla latte. She could sit outside to answer Marvell’s letter, tell him she wasn’t angry about the withheld papers, only confused. That was close enough to the truth. And to finish the mini-vacation, she could stop in the pharmacy across the street, the one with all the homemade nostrums and the old-fashioned soda fountain. One of Mr. Geldman’s cherry colas would be just the thing to power her afternoon reading.
A Ford Econoline van pulled off West Street into College. Its battered white side bore the legend J-J REMODELING, but she could see Jeremy Wyndham in the passenger seat. Helen hoisted her backpack and went down the steps to meet him.
Jeremy introduced her to the driver, a compact man with grizzled ponytail and beard: Joe Jackman Douglass, carpenter. “Joe-Jack,” the carpenter said, before throwing open the van doors and hauling out lumber.
“That’s for frames to transport the windows in,” Jeremy said.
“Sounds good.” Would the day ever come when she wouldn’t be standing on the curb planning her escape from a work crew? “You won’t need me, will you?”
“No, not if you’ve left the doors open.”
“They’re open. You have my cell number?”
Jeremy checked his cell. “Right here.”
A lanky boy, fifteen, sixteen, jumped out of the van at the rear end of a stack of plywood. He and Joe-Jack hustled the stack up to the entry porch. Then the boy bounded back down. He had sandy-brown hair, straight, even wispy, very unlike Jeremy’s black waves. But their identical blue-gray eyes and long, straight noses were a giveaway.
“Ms. Arkwright,” Jeremy said. “This is my son, Sean.”
She took the boy’s oversized hand. The calluses on its palm told her that this plywood hadn’t been the first he’d wrangled. “Hello, Sean.”
“Hey, Ms. Arkwright. Wow, you’re in charge of the Archives at MU? You must be like a genius.”
“Sean,” Jeremy said sharply.
But the boy’s tone was ingenuous, not insulting. Helen didn’t even break into her usual blush. “Actually, I’m not in charge,” she said. “I’m Assistant Archivist.”
“That’s still cool. I wish—”
A yell from Joe-Jack cut Sean short. He sprinted up the steps, his wish unconfided.
Jeremy watched him go, shaking his head. “Sorry about that.”
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
Joe-Jack now yelled for Jeremy, who paused only long enough to give her an absent smile before obeying the imperative call.
Helen headed for the university gates.
Halfway across the sun-struck green, she heard running footsteps behind her. Her pursuer was Sean Wyndham. Could something have gone wrong already?
Sean caught her up and skidded to a stop. “You walk fast,” he gasped.
“And you run fast. What’s up? Need something at the house?”
“No.” Sean took a few seconds to recover his breath. “I just wondered if I could ask you a question.”
Was he flushed with more than exertion? “Sure,” Helen said. “About the windows?”
“No, about the Elder Sign.”
She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”
“The Elder Sign. I thought you might know about it, working in the archives and all.”
Helen watched Sean’s flush deepen, then realized she was staring as if he’d said something shocking. Well, shocking was a strong word, but he had surprised her. She mustered a smile, as if teenage boys asked her about the Elder Sign every day. “I’ve just started studying the Cthulhu Mythos myself,” she said. “But I’ve read about the Sign.”
Sean dashed wispy hair out of his eyes. “The thing is, which is the right one? The Star or the Branch?”
“Some authorities say only the Star is authentic. Some say only the Branch. A few say to use the Star in certain circumstances and the Branch in others, but then they don’t agree on the circumstances.”
“That sucks,” Sean said. “That they don’t agree, I mean. But maybe either one would work?”
As serious as Sean looked, Helen couldn’t keep back a laugh. “Theoretically, I suppose. But then, it’s all theory, isn’t it?”
“You mean the Mythos? Oh yeah. It’s not real. I mean, it’s real like…” He seemed hung up on a word.
“Like any mythology is real, in a sociological sense?”
Sean considered this. After a moment he nodded. “I guess so.”
; “Why are you interested in the Sign?”
He shrugged. “Oh, you know. I read about it in stories. No big deal. Thanks, Ms. Arkwright.”
With that he turned and ran back toward the gates.
No big deal. No, after centuries of contentious scholarship, the question of the Elder Sign’s true form (if any) probably wasn’t the hottest issue, particularly not in a teenager’s life. Helen smiled, watching Sean’s coltish lope. She’d have to mention him in her letter to Marvell, who often laughed about the twists pop culture gave the Mythos. Making a good joke of the encounter would prove she wasn’t tying herself into such knots over Marvell’s semi-disclosure that she’d lost her appreciation of everyday absurdities.
6
Apart from the windows Dad designed himself, the ones in the Arkwright House library were the coolest Sean had ever seen, especially the one with the Black Man. He’d have to snag some of Dad’s documentation photos to show Eddy.
It was three o’clock before they had the windows in their transport frames. Dad and Joe-Jack wouldn’t need Sean again until they carried the frames to the van, so he asked if he could run up to Horrocke’s. From behind the handkerchief he was mopping his face with, Dad managed a muffled “yes.”
Sean took off. He’d already snuck a look at Helen Arkwright’s Yellow Pages and found Geldman’s Pharmacy. It was on the corner of Gedney and Curwen, a couple blocks beyond the old railroad station. He found Gedney without a problem. It was a funky street. Half the shops were trendy, in restored buildings. The other half were ratty and run-down: a barber’s, a newsstand, a Portuguese grocery with dried fish and hundred-year-old sausages hanging in its streaky window. That place would have made Mrs. Ferreira puke.
Geldman’s, next to the grocery, across the street from a café, was obviously old but as shiny as the newest boutique. Its spring-green trim looked freshly painted. Its plate-glass windows were spotless. Even the yellow-glazed bricks of the building—the pharmacy occupied the whole first floor, an apartment the second—gleamed like someone had scrubbed them that morning. Suspended on chains in one window were two glass urns shaped like upside-down teardrops. You’d think they’d have ferns or spider plants in them; instead one held an emerald-green liquid, the other a ruby red. Freaky. Plus there was a scale outside the door that would give you your fortune with your weight. Sean didn’t have time for that.
He pushed open the plate-glass door and stepped inside to the ringing of an invisible bell. The bell had to be electronic, which jarred the mood, but the anachronism of silent yet powerful air-conditioning was sweet after his run from the Arkwright House. Seeing no one in the pharmacy, Sean peeled his damp T-shirt from his belly and basked in the arctic breeze.
Apart from the electronic bell and the AC, the inside was as old-timey as the outside. To the right of the entrance, separating the shop from a private back area, was a wooden counter. Frosted-glass panels stretched from countertop to ceiling its whole length, so all Sean could see of the regions beyond was vague shadows. At the nearer end, the glass panel was framed to slide back, and the shadow behind it was unmistakable: an antique cash register. Like a priest taking confession, Geldman could open the panel to deal with customers. With Sean’s luck, he’d be an old dude who hated kids.
Sean decided to look for the powders himself.
At the back of the shop was a soda fountain right out of a classic but colorized movie: Besides the rainbow of syrup bottles doubled in the backsplash mirror, its countertop was bubble-gum pink, its stools spearmint green.
In the middle of the shop aisles of oak shelving were loaded down with bottles and boxes and tins, with paper sacks taped shut and cloth bags secured with drawstrings. Like in a regular drugstore, signs hung over the aisles, frosted glass like the counter panels—Geldman must have had a fetish for the stuff. But etched on them weren’t the usual ANTACIDS or DEODORANTS or FEMININE PRODUCTS (stay away). Instead they read: LIVER, STOMACH, LUNGS, BOWELS, FEMALE PARTS (the “Feminine Products” after all).
Still fanning his belly with his shirt, Sean wandered down EYES/EARS/NOSE, then up FEET/BACK/JOINTS, which put him next to the window with the hanging urns. Could he dip right into the colored liquids, or was there wax over the surface, like on Rachel’s homemade jam? He was reaching out to poke the nearer urn, the red one, when he heard a soft cough and about jumped out of his skin, or at least his T-shirt. Pulling the shirt down, he turned.
The man behind him was a couple inches shorter than Sean, but he stood so straight so easily that Sean had the odd impression he was looking up at the guy. His hair was a bushy and glossy brown, kind of young-Einsteiny. Although his pale skin was otherwise unlined, he had crinkles at the corners of his eyes, which were as black as uncreamed coffee, and his smile exposed teeth as white as his lab coat, on which he wore a tag inscribed: “Solomon Geldman, Apothecary.”
“How do you do?” Geldman said. He had a slight accent, German maybe, or East European. “A hot day, isn’t it?”
“Real hot, sir,” Sean said. “Not in here, though.”
“No. Excessive heat would be bad for the stock. Is there something I may help you find?”
Since there weren’t any aisles labeled SORCERY SUPPLIES, asking Geldman for the powders looked like the only option. “I was looking for some stuff. This guy told me you’d have it.”
“What might this stuff be?”
Though Geldman didn’t sound sarcastic, “stuff” now struck Sean as a stupid thing to say. What was the word the Reverend had used? Materia. Lots more professional. “Materia,” Sean said firmly, like he said it all the time. “The Powder of Zeph and the Powder of Aghar.”
Geldman’s eyes fixed on Sean as if they wanted to swallow him whole, but only in a nice way; they’d be sure to spit him out afterwards as good as new. Sean took a step back, hitting bottles on the nearest shelf with his elbow. They rattled a protest.
Geldman took no visible notice. He smiled again. “Ah. I regret, young man, that your friend was mistaken. I couldn’t supply you with those items. Something else, perhaps? A cooling drink? I recommend our sarsaparilla. Let me offer you a glass on the house, since I’ve had to disappoint you.”
Sean watched the man head toward the fountain bar. After a second, he followed—what else could he do? Either the Reverend had put him on about Geldman’s or, like Horrocke’s, it kept the good stuff behind closed doors. Whoever seeks, enter.
Maybe Sean hadn’t sought hard enough yet. Maybe he had to prove he was a legitimate customer. He sat on one of the spearmint stools and watched Geldman pour black syrup into a glass. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Geldman?”
Geldman began to jockey the lever of a brass spigot shaped like a horse with a curled-under fish tail for hind legs. It hissed soda water into the glass. “Yes, young man?”
“The guy who said I should come here? His name’s Redemption Orne.”
Geldman’s only reaction was to pause in stirring the sarsaparilla. For a second, he stood absolutely still. Then, as gently as before, he plied his long-handled spoon, swirling tendrils of syrup through the fizzy water. “Reverend Orne sent you, did he?”
“Yeah, Reverend Orne.”
Geldman set the glass on the pink countertop. “The sarsaparilla,” he said, not smiling, not frowning. Neutral. “It will take me ten minutes to compound what you want. And how much of each?”
Once again, seeking had paid off. Sean had to stay businesslike, though. “Like, three pinches?”
“A half ounce of Zeph and the same of Aghar should do. And am I to put them on Reverend Orne’s account?”
The Reverend really came here? Came here a lot, too, because otherwise why would he have a private account?
“Young man?”
Geldman was waiting for an answer, and his steady gaze added to Sean’s confusion. Okay, if Geldman wanted to put the powders on the Reverend’s account, that meant Geldman assumed they were for the Reverend—Sean was just the delivery boy. If Sean told him the truth, would G
eldman refuse to make the powders?
That would suck, so Sean blurted: “I guess you could put them on the account. If you think the Reverend wouldn’t mind.”
“If he sent you, I’m sure he’d wish it.”
Geldman moved soundlessly to the counter. He opened a door Sean had overlooked, half wood, half glass panel, and vanished into the back. The door closed soundlessly behind him.
Sean took a nervous sip of the black drink Geldman had left him. It was like root beer, except more bitter and at the same time more sweet, and immediately after swallowing he did feel cooler. Sipping, he looked at the nearest bank of pharmaceuticals. STOMACH things, but no Alka-Seltzer or Pepto-Bismol in sight. Everything looked homemade, and there, practically in his face, were tall green bottles labeled “Patience Orne’s, #6, for dyspepsia, one tablespoon at need, no contraindications.” Patience was the real Redemption’s wife, a witch. Geldman must have named a medicine after her because wannabe witches shopped at his pharmacy. Or did “Patience Orne’s, #6” mean it was her own recipe?
Sean finished the sarsaparilla and roamed the aisles. There were more medicines labeled “Patience Orne’s.” Others were labeled “Dame Eliza’s,” “Hungry Tom’s,” “Dante Salvatore’s,” “Kokokoho’s.” Kokokoho was the Nipmuc shaman who’d been friends with the real Redemption. Cooler and cooler. The most common label was “SG’s,” which had to stand for “Solomon Geldman’s”—since all the labels were hand-printed, he’d probably gotten sick of writing out his name. Another “Patience Orne’s,” this one for “general biliousness.” The Reverend had to be kind of weird, didn’t he, hanging out in a place like this? Maybe he was as big a nutcase as Eddy thought. It was one thing to have an alias on the Internet, where everyone used screen names, but apparently the Reverend used his alias with Geldman and even had an account as Redemption Orne. Or maybe Redemption Orne was the Reverend’s name, because Mr. and Mrs. Sadistic Orne had decided to name their kid after some ancient preacher. If that was the case, the Rev could naturally get obsessed with his namesake.
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