The Little Yellow Bear reached the Gentle Pig’s house that afternoon. After burying his friend, he fashioned a tombstone from a plank. Carved into the tombstone were the Gentle’s Pig’s name and the simple epitaph, “Here lies my friend.” He considered saying something but ended up leaving as he had come...in silence.
From there, it was a short walk home. The quietness was unbearable. The Little Yellow Bear spent the day admiring his favorite things and savoring the memories they invoked, memories of parties and adventures and lazy days that only he was left to remember. That night, he finished off every last pot of honey he had, indulging to the point of vomiting, and slept in his own bed for what he knew to be the last time.
The next day, the Little Yellow Bear restocked his supplies, then set off for the southern swamp which, to him, had already stopped being ‘Melancholy Donkey’s Place’. The sun was setting by the time he reached the trapdoor. With all his friends accounted for save the Curious Tiger, one last adventure waited.
After some effort, the Little Yellow Bear managed to lever open the trapdoor. Gazing down the stone steps, he squinted into the darkness. As before, the stench was horrendous. He lit the lantern and, carrying it in one hand and the spear in the other, took one step, then another. Nothing rose up from the darkness to claim him.
Pausing at the fourth step, the Little Yellow Bear looked back one last time. The Black Goat stood at the edge of the woods, watching him as it had on the morning of the Fair-Haired Boy’s going away party. Maybe the storm had brought the Black Goat, or maybe the Black Goat had brought the storm. Maybe the storm was the Black Goat. It didn’t matter. The forest belonged to the Black Goat now. There was nothing left to do but finish the last adventure. Within moments, the darkness swallowed him up and he was gone.
When a traveler in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean’s Corners, he comes upon a lonely and curious country rife with backwoods rednecks and superstitious religious zealots.
It would be amiss of me to go into detail about the terrain one might come across when they enter this strange and desolate area. It should be enough for me to tell you that this story takes place in the hills of the upper Miskatonic Valley, far northwest of Arkham, and is based on two legends. The first legend is well known to most people so I won’t mention it by title here; you will certainly recognize it once my tale beings. The second legend it is based on concerns what happened in Dunwich back in 1928 at the old Whateley farm.
If you haven’t been to this area of New England, then let me provide some color for you: the countryside is rough and rambling with many hills and valleys. There are roads that run through great stretches of marshland that one instinctively dislikes. Indeed, there are fears that at evening, when unseen whippoorwills chatter and the fireflies come out in abnormal profusion to dance to the raucous, creepily insistent rhythms of stridently piping bullfrogs, one might think they are in another world. A fantasy world, perhaps. One that has its roots in gothic melodrama, or even the imaginative swept tales of the Brothers Grimm. Alas, this country is very real, with its ravines and heavily wooded hills and desolate roads that lead through sleepy little villages populated with structures that seem as if they are from another time. Most of the homes seem to harken back to an earlier century, for many are deserted and falling to ruin. Despite this, people still live here and they, too, seem to harken back to an earlier time, before cell phones were in wide use and computers had invaded our lives.
Strange things have always been afoot in this region. Four centuries ago there was talk of witchcraft and Satan-worship. Some of the older gentry in the village are descended from those who came from Salem in 1692. These families, the Whateleys and the Bishops, still remain in this section of the upper Miskatonic valley. The younger family members attend Harvard and Miskatonic University and, these days, they never return to the moldering gambrel roofs under which they and their ancestors were born.
This story concerns both families. The Whateley’s tale has been told before, many years ago, by another New Englander who hailed from those parts. His tale recounted the terrible events that occurred in 1928 that left one of the Whateley’s dead and the memory of an invisible thing rampaging across Dunwich, cutting a path through fields, trees, and ravines, leaving huge prints the size of tree trunks in its wake. This creature, whatever it was, was eventually destroyed by three professors from Miskatonic University who had been summoned to the Whateley farmhouse.
However, some say that the creature wasn’t actually destroyed, that all the professors did was send it back to the world from which it came.
II
It was in the township of Dunwich, in the large and very modern-looking farmhouse set against a hillside four miles from the village and a mile and a half from other dwellings (where, incidentally, the old Whateley farmhouse once stood back on that horrible day in 1928), where a girl named Cinderella Whateley lived with her step-mother Elizabeth Whateley and her two step-sisters, Zelma and Faye.
Cinderella wasn’t her real name, of course; her real name was Cynthia – Cindy for short. Her father christened the nickname Cinderella on her when she was toddler as a token of affection. For the purpose of this narrative, we will refer to her by this beloved nickname that bears uncanny resemblance to the classic fairy tale.
Cinderella’s father died, and since he left no will and was, essentially, the last in his line, the court saw fit to grant custody of Cinderella to Elizabeth, since she was legal next-of-kin due to the common laws of marriage. It should be noted that Cinderella’s great-grandfather was alive at this time, and living in a small apartment located in the attic of the Whateley home. He was related to the infamous Wilbur Whateley, and it was rumored he was, in fact, Wilbur’s first cousin. However, Old Whateley, as he was called in town, was too elderly and frail to properly care for Cinderella, and the court took this into consideration when granting legal custody to Elizabeth.
Cinderella was very close to her father and did not trust Elizabeth from the moment she first laid eyes on her back when she was a child. Back then, her father was absolutely smitten with Elizabeth, whose long black hair, wide, dark eyes, and her youthful figure, could entrance any man she wanted (and unbeknown to Cinderella, she had). Suffice to say, Cinderella’s father was still reeling from the death of his wife, who had contracted a fatal illness and died in agony a few weeks later. When she finally passed on, Mr. Whateley was devastated. He had his only daughter, of course, but, in a way, he had lost his soul.
Cinderella, of course, tried to make things better for her father, but a twelve-year old girl can only do so much. Cinderella instinctively knew this even at that tender age, and so it came to pass that one-day her father brought Elizabeth home and introduced her to his daughter.
In time, Cinderella came to know Elizabeth’s two daughters Zelda and Faye. Both were a year apart, with Zelda being Cinderella’s age and Faye being a year older. At first the girls got along splendidly together, and for a short time Cinderella was happy again. In a way, it was as if her mother had never even passed on. Elizabeth would pack two large picnic baskets full of food – various meats and cheeses, bread, apples and grapes and pears, carrots and greens for salads – and they would trudge into the country for the afternoon. Cinderella’s father and Elizabeth would spread out a large blanket and set the picnic baskets down and they would have a grand feast. Then, after lunch, the girls would scamper off into the fields for their own adventure while Elizabeth and Mr. Whateley reclined on the blanket. In light of how things later turned out, those times were, indeed, happy.
The happiness did not last long though. Her father married Elizabeth, and not only did she take his last name, he formally adopted her daughters. For a while all seemed well – her father continued his work at the University and Elizabeth kept house. Cinderella and her new stepsisters attended Miskatonic Middle School and later, the high school. The only people who didn’t like Elizabe
th were Cinderella’s great-grandfather and Kevin Foster, the young man who lived closest to them.
Despite Old Whateley residing under the same roof, Cinderella had only seen him four times, and she thought he was a rather creepy old man. Tall in stature, Grandpa Whateley resembled Slenderman and The Hollowers from those creepy Internet memes she sometimes saw during the brief occasions she was able to steal away from her bedroom and log into the computer downstairs. She had no idea how old he was, but to her he was ancient. He always dressed in black, and his white hair was thinning and seemed to hang about his head like that of a mad scientist. His skin was pasty and pale, his face beaded with stubble. His watery blue eyes always sparkled with delight whenever he saw Cinderella, though. He would hold out his arms and say, “Cynthia! Come to your grandpa! Come, my child!” And Cinderella would go to him, knowing that she should, knowing it was the right thing to do, but still a trifle apprehensive about it. For whatever reason, there was something odd about her grandfather.
Kevin Foster, on the other hand, was a fairly young man. Blue eyed and standing at an even six feet tall and of medium build, Kevin favored goatees in the winter and was clean-shaven in the summer. He wore his dirty blond hair shaved close to the scalp in summer and let it grow out a bit in winter. He worked as a librarian at Miskatonic University and was lucky enough to dress casually for work. Kevin sported numerous tattoos of various corporate and sports team logos on his arms and back, which Cinderella thought were amusing – her favorite was his tattoo of a bottle of Heinz Ketchup on the underside of his left forearm, and the Monster Energy star logo on the other side. Kevin was a studious young man and he would take long walks through the woods, often winding up at the Whateley’s where he would sit and talk with her father about all manner of things philosophical. He lived in a modest, well-constructed cabin deep in the woods about a mile from them. Her father casually told Cinderella one time that Kevin had a personal library that rivaled that of the Miskatonic University library.
Cinderella often imagined what Kevin Foster’s house was like; to live in a house that was filled with books was something she found wonderful!
But it came to pass that one day, late in the spring of the previous year, Cinderella’s father was stricken with fever and died. He died in agonizing pain in the bed he shared with Elizabeth. Cinderella tried to be at his bedside any chance she could, but was banished from the room by Elizabeth, who said, “Go! I will take care of him, for he is my husband!” Cinderella would do as she was told and wander down to the spot in the garden where she and her father had laid her mother to rest and she would cry, hoping her father would recover.
On the sixth day of his illness, Cinderella’s father passed away. There was a quick and short burial service, and Cinderella spent the rest of that season in mourning, watering the graves of her mother and father with her tears.
Shortly after the court granted custody, Elizabeth took Cinderella’s clothes and handed her some old clothing that was nothing more than threadbare rags. “Here,” she said. “You can wear this from now on. The clothes your father bought for you will now be worn by Zelma and Faye.”
When Cinderella protested, Elizabeth slapped her across the face and banished her to the basement. There was a little room in the basement that served as a storeroom. She locked Cinderella in this storeroom and wouldn’t let her come out until the next morning. The next day, she made Cinderella prepare the evening meal. As Cinderella was working in the kitchen, she instructed her daughters to make up a bed for Cinderella in the basement storeroom. “That will be your new room,” she told Cinderella.
It didn’t matter how much Cinderella protested – she was beaten whenever she raised her voice. She tried complaining about Elizabeth to the local constable but he wouldn’t hear of it. “The court has granted your step-mother legal custody,” the constable said. “And besides, you Whateley’s have been nothing but a thorn in our side since the inception of this town! It’s about time somebody gave you a good thrashing!”
Cinderella couldn’t believe what she was hearing! The town was turning against her? First her mother, then her father perishes and her stepmother not only inherits her father’s money, but the family house and all its land? And Elizabeth’s own daughters assume possession of those things that were once Cinderella’s?
Where was the fairness in all of this?
That spring, Elizabeth and her daughters forced Cinderella into servitude. She was made to work day and night performing menial chores for them. Many of these chores consisted of back-breaking work – cleaning the floors, dusting the entire house, shaking the dirt out of the carpets, preparing all of the meals, keeping inventory of food and supplies, doing the laundry, making up the beds. After her chores were done, she would retire to the cold, barren room in the basement and curl up on the pallet that was made for her bed and cry. And as spring turned to summer, and summer turned to fall, the weather grew colder and she would curl up near the fireplace in the basement in an attempt to stay warm. By then school had started, but Cinderella was forbidden from attending. Instead, she was made to stay inside and toil at her chores all day, forfeiting her education.
Occasionally when her stepsisters were out of the house at school, and her stepmother was in town on a shopping run, Cinderella would steal away from her chores and snoop around. Most of her snooping involved sifting through Elizabeth’s personal belongings, and it was how she came across receipts for arsenic in her step-mother’s dresser. Shocked, Cinderella sifted through the receipts, finding not only proof of two tins of arsenic, the purchase dates corresponding to her father’s illness, but another receipt which was dated three years ago – preceding her mother’s death!
Was Elizabeth responsible for her parent’s death?
My God! Is she planning to kill me, too?
Cinderella understood now that Elizabeth had murdered her father to gain his money, his belongings, and his house. In doing so, she had also gained a servant, the daughter of her late husband.
As the fall months turned to winter and then back to spring and then summer, Cinderella thought desperately of a means to escape, but there was none. After her chores were completed for the day, she would gaze up at the tiny window of her basement room, yearning to feel the fresh air of the lush forests. Instead, all she had was the drab, clammy basement!
When her father was alive they would get a stream of visitors every week, everybody from the delivery people, to travelers, to Kevin Foster, the man who was their closest neighbor. These people had seemed to enjoy their company. Since her father’s death, their visits suddenly stopped. Cinderella had asked Elizabeth about this the previous winter. “They stopped coming around,” she said, “because you’re a Whateley and everybody around here despises the Whateley’s.”
Cinderella had almost answered, “But you’re a Whateley now too. Did you forget?” But she didn’t. To do so would only invite her stepmother’s fury.
One day, after completing the day’s work, Cinderella was chained up down in her basement room. Moping on her bed, she heard voices outside. Curious, she stood up and, craning her head, looked out the little window that was set up high on the wall.
Kevin Foster was standing just outside her prison, talking to Elizabeth.
She had to listen carefully to hear what was being said. “It’s been almost a year since I’ve last seen Cindy,” Kevin said (because the name Cinderella was one used only by her father, Kevin referred to her by her Christian name). “Does she still live here? I thought I saw somebody who looked like her working in the garden.”
“That was my daughter Faye,” Elizabeth told him. “Cindy no longer lives here. I sent her to live with a relative in Kingsport. I don’t think you’ll be seeing her anymore since she—”
Cinderella couldn’t take it anymore. She was so taken aback by Elizabeth’s response to Kevin’s question, she shouted out, “Kevin, I’m here! I’m down here! Look!” She started jumping up and down and waving her arms.
Kevin turned and saw her. For a moment their eyes locked, and he smiled, raising his hand to wave. For a moment their eyes locked, and he smiled, raising his hand to wave. He didn’t see the look that came over Elizabeth’s face, one of unbridled fury and rage.
Suddenly, Elizabeth launched herself at Kevin and brought him down. Cinderella heard him give a strangled yelp, then they were both out of her line of sight. She heard Kevin Foster give a bloodcurdling scream, which was suddenly cut off. A fountain of blood spurted into the air. Elizabeth yelled for her daughters. “Faye! Zelma! Get over here!”
There was the sound of running footsteps and Faye and Zelma joined their mother. The three women crouched out of her line of sight and all she heard was muffled grunting, the gnashing of teeth, the ripping of cloth, and what sounded like a frenzied struggle. More blood squirted. Then the struggle ceased and there was silence.
No, not quite silence.
There was the sound of chewing. The wet, slurping sounds of feeding.
Elizabeth turned to look at Cinderella. Cinderella’s heart froze. Elizabeth grinned with bloodstained teeth. Her face was smeared in blood; it was in her hair, along the front of her dress. Her stepsisters sat up, also stained with blood. They looked like they’d just gorged themselves at a pig roast.
Cinderella fainted away in dead shock.
III
Afterwards, Cinderella was sternly punished – no food or water for three days and an extensive paddling by Elizabeth. Then, Elizabeth told her she had to resume her work around the house. “The garbage is filling up and the house needs cleaning,” she said. “Snap to it!”
Cinderella went about the next few weeks in a daze. What kind of monsters were her stepmother and to have killed Kevin Foster like that? This was just unbelievable. She felt bad for Kevin, and every evening at supper she was banished back to her basement room and given a supper of an awful, lukewarm stew that consisted of stringy meat, soggy potatoes and hard carrots. The broth was cream-based, not a beef-based broth at all, and the meat itself tasted more like pork than beef. Who made stew out of pork? She was forced to eat this wretched meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next three weeks. “You’ll eat it even if you puke,” Elizabeth said when Cinderella protested. “We made it especially for you. You eat every bit of it!”
A Mythos Grimmly Page 38
