This account fascinated me, for several reasons. In the first place, it was curiously parallel to the oft-repeated conclusion that not only the body of Osborn, but of others preceding him, appeared to “have been dropped from a height”; in the second, it brought Dunwich into the problem again; and finally, it added an oblique kind of corroboration to the entire structure of the puzzle— from the adjurations of Alijah Billington and the sinister reference to calling something “out of the Sky” to the actual happenings of recent date. But at the same time that it impressed me as something of value in the maze where I walked, I was aware, too, of an increasing sense of malignance, as if the very walls watched me, and the house waited for any overt move as an excuse to pounce. Moreover, I found that the account troubled my consciousness; I could not readily get to sleep, and I lay for many hours listening to the clamor of the frogs, listening to the restless tossing of my cousin in the room across the hall, listening for something more and hearing—was it dream or waking?—sounds as of great footsteps walking under the earth and in the heavens.
The frogs cried and sang all night long; there was no surcease until the dawn, and even then a few batrachian voices still rose in croaking calls. When at last I rose and dressed, I was still tired, but I had not retreated an inch from my determination of the previous night—to visit Dunwich if I could.
So immediately after breakfast I pressed my cousin to permit my use of his car, pleading a necessity to go into Arkham. He assented readily and, I thought, with a sense of relief, so that he became almost genial, with a geniality which seemed even more marked when I said somewhat hesitantly that I might find it expedient to be gone for the entire day. He himself conducted me to the car and saw me off, urging me to stay in Arkham as long as I liked, and use the car as much as I needed it.
Despite the impulsiveness of my decision, I had my initial objective well in mind. It was that same old Mrs. Bishop whose curiously oblique conversation my cousin had roughly summarized for me in one of our first conversations, and who, in her mutterings, had spoken of Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth. From what Ambrose had set down on the back of an envelope among the papers he had permitted me to see, I felt that I could find my way to her abode without difficulty, and without any need to stop and inquire the way. Moreover, since, according to my cousin’s account, she was apparently a superstitious, if cunning, old woman, I had hit upon what I felt was a bold stroke—I would approach her as obliquely as possible in an effort to draw from her something she might not otherwise say.
I found the place as easily as I had expected. The low house with the faded white siding identified itself from my memory of my cousin’s description; and the gate-post scrawled with the name “Bishop” settled any doubt that might have lingered. I went in along the path and across the porch without hesitation, and knocked.
“Come in,” came a cracked voice from within.
I entered the house, and found myself, as my cousin had done, in a darkened room. I made out the figure of the old woman readily enough, and saw that she held on her lap a black cat of some size.
“Set, Stranger.”
I did as she invited me to do, and, without naming myself, I asked, “Mrs. Bishop—have you heard the frogs in Billington’s Wood?”
Without hesitation she replied, “Aye. I been a-hearin’ ’em a-callin’ steady, an’ I know they’re a-callin’ fer Them from Outside.”
“You know what it means, Mrs. Bishop.”
“Aye, an’ so dew yew, by the sound of ye. Aye—the Master’s back. 1 knew he was a-comin’ when the house got opened agin. The Master was awaitin’, an’ he was awaitin’ a long time. Now he’s come back, an’ Them things hes come back, too, a-rippin’ an’ a-tearin’ an’ Lord knows what all. I’m an old woman, Stranger, an’ I ain’t long tew live, but I ain’t hopin’ tew die thet way. Who are ye a-comin’ an’ a-askin’ these here questions, Stranger? Are yew one a Them?”
“Do I have the marks?” I countered.
“Thet yew doan’t. But they can come in any shape They like, that yew know.” Her voice, which had begun to cackle with laughter, suddenly faded.
“’Tis the same car the Master come in—yew come from the Master!”
“From but not for,” I replied quickly.
She seemed to hesitate. “I ain’t done no wrong. ’Twasn’t me writ thet letter.
Thet was Lem Whately, a-listenin’ to talk not meant fer him.”
“When did you hear Jason Osborn?”
“Ten nights after he was took, an’ then twelve nights more, an’ then the last time four nights afore they found him—like all them others afore my time—an’ like Them that’ll come after, too. Heard him jest es plain’s if he was a-standin’ where you’re a-settin’, Stranger, an’ I ain’t lived across the valley from Osborn all my life without a-knowin’ his voice when I hear it.”
“What did he say?”
“Singin’ the first time—words I ain’t never heard afore, strange words. The last time it sounded like prayin’. The middle time it was quick-spoke’ words in thet language They use—ain’t meant fer mortal man.”
“And where was he?”
“Outside. He was Outside with Them, an’ They were a-bidin’ Their time afore They got ready to eat him.”
“But he wasn’t eaten, Mrs. Bishop. He was found.”
“Aye!” She tittered. “’Tain’t always the flesh They wants—but it’s always the sperit or whatever it is thet makes a man think an’ figure things out an’ what make him dew an’ say things.”
“The life force.”
“Call it what yew will, Stranger. Thet’s what They wants, the devils! Aye, he was found, was Jason Osborn—all torn an’ mangled, they said—but he was dead, warn’t he? He was dead, and They’d had Their fill of him, They thet carried him along where They went.”
“And where is that, Mrs. Bishop?”
“Here an’ yender, Stranger. They’re here all the time, all ’round us, but yew can’t see ’em. They’re a-listenin’ to us talk, might be, an’ They’re awaitin’ at the door fer the Master tew call Them es he called Them afore. Aye, he’s come back, he’s come back o’er two hundred years, the way my grandfather said he would, an’ he’s let Them loose agin an’ They’re a-flyin’ an’ a-crawlin’ an’ a-swimmin’ an’ a-bein’ right next door to us where we are, awaitin’ tew come out again an’ git started all over agin. They know where the doors are, an’ They know the Master’s voice—but even he ain’t safe from Them if he doan’t knows all the signs an’ the charms an’ the locks. But he does, Master does. He knew ’em way back, accordin’ to the Word come down.”
“Alijah?”
“Alijah?” She tittered her obscene laughter into the room. “Alijah knew more’n mortal man; he knew suthin’ nobody can tell. He could call It an’ talk to It an’ It never got Alijah. Alijah shut It up an’ got away. Alijah shut It up—an’ he shut up the Master, too, out there, Outside, when the Master was ready tew come back agin after thet long a time. Ain’t many as knows it, but Misquamacus fer one. Master walked the earth an’ none knew him as saw him fer he was in many faces. Aye! He wore a Whately face an’ he wore a Doten face an’ he wore a Giles face an’ he wore a Corey face, an’ he sat among the Whatelys an’ the Dotens an’ the Gileses an’ the Coreys, an’ ’twas none who knew him for aught but Whately or Doten or Giles or Corey, an’ he ate among ’em an’ be bedded among ’em an’ he walked an’ talked among ’em, but so great he was in his Outsideness thet those he took weakened an’ died, not being able to contain him. Only Alijah outsmarted Master—aye, outsmarted him more’n a hundred years after Master was dead.” Her horrible laughter welled forth again, and died away. “I know, Stranger—I know. I ain’t no use to ’em, but I hear ’em talkin’
Out There, I hear what They’re a-sayin’ an’ even if I can’t understand the words, I know what They’re a-sayin’, I was born with the caul, an’ I can hear Them Out There.”
By this time I was coming
quickly around to appreciating my cousin’s point-of-view. I was aware of her disturbing sense of secret knowledge, of that feeling of almost contemptuous superiority which Ambrose had noticed; I was convinced that she held a vast store of hidden and forbidden knowledge, even though, as before, I encountered that helpless feeling of being without the essential key to understanding the information which was being offered.
“They’re awaitin’ tew come back again over all the earth—it ain’t jest here, They’re awaitin’ all over—way down inside the earth an’ under the water as well as Outside, an’ Master’s a-helpin’.”
“Have you seen the Master?” I could not help asking.
“Never set eye on him. But I seen the shape he took. They ain’t one uv us doan’t know he’s back. We know the signs. They took Jason Osborn, didn’t They? They come tew git Lew Waterbury, didn’t They? They’ll come agin!” she added darkly.
“Mrs. Bishop, who was Jonathan Bishop?”
She cackled again, mirthlessly, with something akin to a bat’s sound. “Yew might well ask. He was my grandfather. He come on tew some uv the secrets an’ he thought he knew it all—he took tew it right enough an’ he begun tew call It an’ he sent It after those who pried an’ spied, but he wasn’t the Master’s equal an’ suthin’ got him the way others was got. An’ Master, they say, n’er lifted a finger tew help him, sayin’ he was weak an’ had no right tew entreat uv the stones or call out tew the hills an’ bring them hellish Things down on us an’ make hate tew grow in Dunwich, whereby it happened thet not a Corey an’ not a Tyndal but hates the Bishops.”
Everything the old woman said held a horrible significance; the Bishop letters to Alijah Billington faithfully bore out what she now told, and further verification existed, as my cousin had troubled to learn, in the files of the Arkham papers. Whatever the motivation, the manifest facts of the matter were beyond dispute; the papers recorded the disappearance and later finding of Wilbur Corey and Jedediah Tyndal, but made no suggestion of a connection to Jonathan Bishop. But the Bishop letters, presumably never seen by anyone but old Alijah in his time, had made the connection even before Corey had vanished; and now here was the old lady calmly admitting that the Coreys and the Tyndals hated the Bishops—and this surely was for no other reason but that they had rightly guessed Jonathan Bishop’s connection to those two unsolved disappearances! I was by this time considerably upset because of the conviction that, had I the proper knowledge at my disposal, I would be obtaining far more information from the old woman than I was actually aware of. Moreover, I was conscious of something infinitely terrible lying beneath her words, something that rang in her tittering laughter, something that seemed actually to have a tangible existence in the room—a vast wealth of secret, primal knowledge that seemed to extend for ages into the past, and threatened to impend for ages in the future, an ugly, evil sentience that dwelt forever in the shadows biding its time to come forth and overwhelm all life.
“You never knew your grandfather?”
“No, never. But I knew all my life what they say abaout him. He was smart, all right, but not smart enough, provin’ thet, es they say, a little knowledge is dangerous. He set up a circle uv stones an’ he called It an’ It come an’ Suthin’ more come, too, an’ took him, an’ after thet, Master sent It back an’ all the Others, too—back Outside through the circle.” She tittered again. “Doan’t yew know what runs up thar beyond the hill, Stranger?”
I opened my mouth to venture one of the key-names which had appeared in the old books so frequently, but she hushed me in manifest alarm, which though it was not visible on her features, sounded in her voice.
“Doan’t yew speak their names, Stranger. If They’re a-listenin’, might be They’ll come nearer, an’ foller yew—unless yew got the Sign.”
“Which Sign?”
“The Sign uv perteckshun.”
I recalled my cousin’s account of the two loafers who had accosted him on his exploration of Dunwich, inquiring whether he had the “Sign.” Presumably this was the same “Sign,” though there was apparently some discrepancy. I asked about them.
“It was the other Sign they meant. They’re fools; they doan’t know what it means; they doan’t keer what happens; they think they’ll get rich an’ powerful— but the Sign ain’t what they think it is. Them Outside doan’t keer abaout makin’ folks rich; all They keers abaout is comin’ back—comin’ back an’ slavin’ us an’ mixin’ with us an’ a killin’ us when They’re ready, an’ then they wunt hev any use fer them what carries Their Sign ‘ceptin’ may be if you’re powerful as Master is. An’ then you belong tew them. I know. ’Tain’t court knowin’, but I know. I heard Jason Osborn a-screamin’ the night it got him, an’ Sally Sawyer, who tends house fer my cousin Seth, she heard a rippin’ an’ a tearin’ uv boards when thet Thing busted daown the shed where Osborn was when It come, an’ it was the same with Lew Waterbury. Mis’ Frye, she seen tracks, she said, prints bigger’n a elephant’d make, an’ all kinds such prints—like es if they was made by suthin’ twicet an’ three times as big es a elephant an’ with more’n four legs, tew; an’ she seen wing marks, tew, in different places, but they jest laughed at her an’ said she been dreamin’ an’ when she tuk ’em thar, tew show ’em first off, wasn’t nary a track left—only hyar an’ thar suthin' queer, like as if the prints’d been marked aout, so none could see.”
I confess to an almost overpowering clamminess of the skin and prickling of my scalp. The woman spoke so intensely that see seemed little aware of me; evidently everything she had heard, coupled with what she had learned of her own forebear, caused her to brood endlessly about the mysterious and horrible events of the countryside.
“An’ the wust uv it is, yew doan’t see Them a-tall—but yew can tell when They’re near by the smell, the wust smell ever—like suthin’ straight aout uv Hell!”
Though I heard and understood her words, I was no longer actively listening.
Some of the things she had said were beginning to fit into a pattern, a pattern so suggestive that I sat cold with horror at the thought of even so much as contemplating it seriously. She appeared to reverence the “Master” and had referred to him as over two hundred years old; now, Alijah Billington could not conceivably have been the object of her reference. Was it, then, Richard Billington—or rather, that elusive person written of by the Rev. Ward Phillips as “one Richard Bellingham or Bollinhan”?
“By what other name do you know the Master?” I asked.
She grew instantly canny, and her suspicion of me was immediately evident.
“Ain’t none knows His name, Stranger. Yew can call him Alijah if ye’ve a mind tew, or yew can call him Richard, or yew can call him suthin’ older’n thet.
Master lived here a little while an’ then he went away to live Out There! Then he come back agin, an’ then he went Out There agin. An’ now he’s back. I’m an old woman, Stranger, an’ all my life I heard tell uv Master, an’ I lived all my years a-watin’ fer him, an’ expectin’ him back, as ’twas foretold he would come.
He’s got no name, he’s got no place, he comes an’ he goes in time an’ aout uv time.”
“He must be very old.”
“Old?” She tittered, and her claylike hand made a scraping sound along the arms of her rocker. “He’s older’n me, he’s older’n this house, he’s older’n yew—an’ all three uv us put together. A year ain’t nothin’ but a breath tew him, and ten years hardly a clock’s tickin’.”
She spoke in riddles I could not penetrate. Yet one thing seemed clear—the trail to Alijah Billington and his activities led farther back into time, perhaps even beyond Richard Billington. Just what, then, was Alijah up to? And why had he suddenly taken leave of his native shores and returned to England, from which land his ancestors had come many decades before? The primary assumption which had seemed to me so self-evident that I had immediately accepted it without cavil—that Alijah had taken himself off, after dismissing the Indian, Qu
amis. to avoid any further implication in the weird and terrible things that went on in his vicinity—seemed no longer so obvious. But if this were not so, then what indeed was Alijah’s motivation for his flight? There was nothing to show that the authorities were even within throwing distance of Alijah as the party responsible for the untoward events of that neighborhood—specifically, the disappearances and even stranger reappearances.
The old woman was silent now. Somewhere in the house I heard a clock ticking. The cat on her lap stood up, arched its black back, and padded to the floor.
“Who sent yew here. Stranger?” she asked suddenly.
“No one sent me. I came.”
“Came with a reason, yew did. Dew yew belong to the Sheriff’s men?”
I assured her that I did not.
“An’ yew doan't carry the Elder Sign?”
Again I replied in the negative.
“Take keer whar yew walk, take keer what yew talk, or Them Outside will see yew an’ hear yew. Or Master will, an’ Master doan’t like people tew ask questions or pry raound too much, an’ when Master doan’t like suthin’, Master calls It from the Sky or the hills whare’er It lies.”
The Lurker at the Threshold: Posthumous Collaborations Page 42
