Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (8 page)

Turning, she walked amid the old stones, once again remembering all the stories she’d heard about them when she was growing up in Dean’s Corners: that they’d been there even before the time of the Indians, that they’d been erected by castaway Vikings in honor of their cruel Norse gods, that covens of witches used them for unholy rites during the time of the Salem troubles. Darlene’s favorite was the story about the Whateleys, a family of inbreds who worshipped the devil…no, what was it?…something from “outside.” For some reason, from the way people around town said it, she’d always imagined the word having quotation marks around it. She’d always been inclined to dismiss such stories, but with evidence of a freshly-doused fire amid the stones seeming to suggest otherwise…or maybe it was just some local kids sneaking a few beers away from their elders. She kicked at the blackened spot where the fire had been and looked around for the expected shards of shattered glass or crushed cans. She didn’t find any, but did notice a peculiar smell. Then, looking at her watch, she realized she needed to be heading back. The wake was scheduled for early afternoon and she needed to freshen up.

A few hours later, Darlene found herself standing in the gloom of the funeral parlor in Dean’s Corners. At one end of the room stood her uncle’s coffin. The lid was open and when she’d looked inside, decided that her uncle didn’t look much different in death than he had in life. Folding chairs had been arranged around the periphery of the room and a thick, maroon rug helped to deaden the sound of any conversation. Not that there was much talk; there were few family members in town, and those that were around refused to have anything to do with Silas Cobb. Partly because he
was
Silas Cobb, but mostly because he lived in Dunwich. Most residents in Dean’s Corners didn’t have much to do with Dunwich folk, resenting the fact that they were forced to spend their taxes offering services to a town that refused to provide them for itself.

With the afternoon sun getting low on the horizon, Darlene was about to quit her vigil when someone actually walked into the room. Was there a mistake?

“Miss Cobb?” said the man whose graying hair indicated that he was nearing fiftyish, an age that Darlene still considered attractive in a man.

“Yes,” she said, turning to face him more fully.

“I’m Dr. Sayers,” said the man, extending a hand. “I treated your uncle.”

“Oh, right. How are you? It was good of you to come.”

“Well, actually, I came to see you more than to pay my respects,” Sayers said with some embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about it,” soothed Darlene. “So, Mr. Whitney said that my uncle died peacefully?”

“That’s a relative term,” Sayers hedged. “There was no pain or discomfort at the end…it was a heart attack suffered in his sleep…but your uncle was not without a share of agitation and anxiety over the years, which I think reached acute levels in the last few weeks of his convalescence. I dare say they were a major factor in weakening his heart.”

“Anxiety over what? He had no money problems, I’m sure…and he wasn’t married,” Darlene added with a short laugh.

Sayers chuckled at her little joke.

“No, you’re right, nevertheless something bothered him.”

“He was expecting a guest from overseas…in fact, he’s supposed to arrive any time now,” offered Darlene.

“That could have something to do with it,” mused Sayers. “People who lead reclusive lives often exaggerate the importance of anything that threatens to upset their quiet routine. Your uncle could very well have worried about this visit more than it deserved.”

“In any case, he doesn’t have to worry about it any more,” Darlene said, looking over at the coffin.

“You’re staying out at the house?”

“For now; I figure I should stay at least until my uncle’s guest arrives, it’s the polite thing to do.”

Sayers nodded. “Funny thing about the night your uncle died. Whippoorwills had been gathering around the house all that day and it seemed the moment your uncle passed away…whoosh!…they all took flight at the same time, all screeching like the dickens. Whitney mention anything about that?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess for Dunwich folk, those things are normal,” Sayers laughed.

After the doctor left, Darlene decided that she’d fulfilled whatever duty she had to her uncle, and said goodbye to the funeral director who reminded her that there would be no service for the deceased and that the interment would take place the next day in Dunwich.

Leaving the funeral home, Darlene drove over to Main Street for her appointment with her uncle’s attorney, a Mr. Roland Humberton.

“It seems that your uncle was quite fond of you, Miss Cobb,” Humberton said after reading her the will. “Leaving you his house and all its possessions. Unfortunately, there is very little in his bank account.”

Darlene was a little stunned about the revelation (money or no money)…she hadn’t come to see Humberton about any will, just to find out what would happen to the house. But as she considered it, who else was there that her uncle could have left it to? Which presented her with another problem: what to do with it. She had no intention of moving back to the area, let alone Dunwich! So selling was her only option. Unfortunately, however, that would have to wait until she could get rid of her uncle’s expected guest.

“Mr. Humberton,” she said. “I want to put the house up for sale as soon as possible.”

“That can be arranged.”

“The only thing is, I have to stick around long enough to welcome a guest my uncle was expecting from overseas. Can a sale be delayed until after he leaves?”

“Not a problem, it’ll take some time to transfer ownership of your uncle’s property to you and arrange paperwork for the sale,” said Humberton. “And besides, it being Dunwich, well…don’t expect a quick sale, that’s all.”

“I didn’t,” laughed Darlene. “But will it be necessary for me to stay in Dunwich until the paperwork is taken care of?”

“No, it can be done without your presence.”

That was a relief!

Humberton cleared his throat.

“Yes?” she said.

“You’ll excuse me for asking, Miss Cobb, but in all the time I’ve known your uncle, he has been a solitary and reclusive fellow. When, he offered to underwrite your college expenses years ago, many people in town were taken aback. And now, after many more years, comes his sudden invitation for you to visit. Doesn’t all that strike you as strange?”

“How so?”

“That he might have had some reason for what he did.”

“He was a good man, anxious to help a niece he could see wanted desperately to make something of her life,” explained Darlene, herself suddenly not quite convinced.

“Hmmm, maybe.”

“What other reason could there be?”

“Well, you must be aware of the talk around town about your uncle…”

“Oh sure, heard it from my own family…but he’s just eccentric, that’s no crime is it?”

“Of course not but, well, he’s from Dunwich you know, moved there deliberately before he was married. No one moves to Dunwich, only
out
of it.”

“So now you’re going to remind me of the strange doings up there?”

“I’m sure I don’t need to do that…but…well, he’s dead now, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Despite her challenge to the attorney’s hints, Darlene left Humberton’s office with new doubts about her uncle’s reasons for inviting her to visit. Helping to entertaining his guest suddenly seemed like an inadequate excuse…and what about paying for her college tuition? Even that seemed a bit implausible in hindsight. Maybe some clue could be found among her uncle’s papers at the farmhouse.

But whatever idea Darlene had of going through her uncle’s desk drawers was dismissed when she arrived back at the house and was informed by Whitney that her uncle’s guest had arrived.

“He’s waiting in the living room,” said Whitney, inclining his chin.

“Okay, I’ll go in and see him,” said Darlene. “Does he know about Uncle Silas?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I had to tell him when he inquired about him.”

“Good,” Darlene was glad she didn’t have to be the one to explain the bad news. “By the way, I’ve decided not to keep the house, but selling it might take some time and I can’t afford to remain in town as long as it might take. Are you available to stay until it can be sold?”

“I can do that.”

“Thanks.” That was another concern off her mind. Then she thought of something else.

“Whitney, do you have any idea what my uncle had been spending his money on? Attorney Humberton told me his bank account was almost empty.”

Whitney shrugged. “He liked to collect things,” he gestured around the room, indicating the various knickknacks that filled up corners and furniture surfaces. “I gathered some were expensive and he’d sometimes trade what he had for things he didn’t. At least it seemed to me that items around here were constantly disappearing and being replaced by others. Most of his transactions were conducted by mail.”

“That’s why he needed such a big mailbox outside,” concluded Darlene…she’d always wondered about that.

“Its size did come in handy for the bulkier items,” confirmed Whitney. “It was before my time of course, and it wasn’t as if he confided in me, you understand, but it was my impression that it was Dunwich’s reputation that first drew him here from Dean’s Corners. I’m told before he became infirm, he often went up into the hills to look over the stone circles and was seen sometimes over at what’s left of the old Whateley place. But all that was a long time ago, before his wife died…hmm, now that I think of it, I think I heard tell that she was distantly related to the Whateleys. Anyway, he hadn’t been out of the house much in recent years, that’s why he spent so much of his time doing business through the mail.”

“Well, I was planning on going through Uncle Silas’ papers, but I guess that’ll have to be put off for a while,” Darlene said. “Right now, I have a guest to entertain.”

Darlene crossed the foyer into the living room and as she did so, her guest rose from where he was sitting in an old wing-back before the empty fireplace. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but she was surprised to find that the man before her barely came to her waist in height. At the moment, he was swathed in a cloak of some kind with a hood fallen behind his head. His features seemed vaguely Asian but because his skin was slightly disfigured from what Darlene guessed was burn damage, she couldn’t be sure.

“I’m Darlene Cobb, Silas’ niece,” said Darlene, extending a hand.

The little man nodded his head slightly but didn’t offer his own hand in return.

“I am pleased to meets you,” he said in heavily accented English…or was there something wrong with his voice? “My name is Shuri.”

“Welcome to my uncle’s home, Mr. Shuri,” replied Darlene, motioning for her guest to retake his chair. “You have already been informed of my uncle’s death?”

Shuri nodded. “Yes, very tragic. Very untimely. I have traveled a very long way to do business with your uncles.”

“Where do you come from, if I may ask?”

“Very far,” Shuri said again. “Far to the East, near the land you knows as Burma.”

“That is far away. But, if I may ask, what is the nature of the business you were to have with my uncle? Perhaps it’s something that can yet be completed?”

“Perhaps. You are his niece? The daughter of his brother, Joshua?”

It was an odd way of putting it, and certainly strange to hear this stranger from the other side of the world speak of her in such familiar tones. What exactly had her uncle told Shuri about her and why the need for such detail? “Yes, I am she. Does that make any difference?”

Shuri visibly relaxed and leaned back in his chair.

“Very much so,” said Shuri. “Your uncles spoke very highly of you, and was eager that I should meet you.”

“Why was that?”

Shuri didn’t answer, instead, he leaned over and took a suitcase that had stood behind his chair out of Darlene’s line of sight. Placing it on his lap, he clicked open the lid and reached inside. A moment later, the suitcase was back on the floor and in his hands he held a plain loose-leaf binder filled to its capacity with sheaves of paper.

“This binder contains the full history of my peoples, called the Tcho Tcho.”

Darlene had never heard of them.

“We are a very old peoples and growing fewer with each year that passes,” continued Shuri. “Your uncles, as you no doubt know, was a seeker of knowledge. Objects, whether books, idols, or even stones and plants that furthered that knowledge were precious to him. He was very eager to acquire them.” Shuri looked around the room. “And I can see that he had much success at it. There, for instance, is a carving of Chaugnar Faugn, very rare. And there, a porcelain figurine of Tsathoggua. Most delightful to behold however is this she-goat, a fetish hand-woven by the Tcho Tcho.”

Here, Shuri took down the goat from the mantelpiece.

“It is a figure very holy to my people, the fleshly appearance of Shub-Niggurath, she who has guarded our fields and blessed us with many offspring for countless centuries.” Suddenly, Shuri became more somber. “Unfortunately, due to transgressions we do not understands, the goat of a thousand young has abandoned us. The Black Lotus lies withered in our fields and the sounds of young ones do not ring amid the barren hills of my homelands.”

“That’s…too bad,” was all Darlene could say, not really able to identify with what was clearly some uncivilized tribe in the back country of…Burma, was it?
Where exactly was that, anyway?

Shuri replaced the stuffed goat and extended the binder to Darlene.

“Take this, as your uncle’s heir, it is yours now.”

“Oh…well, okay. But what was it that my uncle was to give to you in return? One of these statues or a book….I can tell you he left very little money in his accounts.”

Shuri smiled. “All in good times.”

Now Darlene was worried. It didn’t sound as if Shuri intended to leave any time soon, and the last thing she wanted was to have to entertain him indefinitely.

“Well, as much as I understand the unexpected circumstances of your arrival and the problems they might make to your travel plans, Mr. Shuri, I feel it is my obligation to tell you that I have no plan to remain in Dunwich. As a matter of fact, I had intended to leave for New York as soon as possible.”