The Watchers Out of Time (17 page)

He returned to take up the lamp again. As he did so, he gave the bureau a shove to push it back against the wall once more. At the same moment he heard a small, rustling sound along the baseboard, and, looking down, caught sight of a long-legged frog or toad—he could not make out which—vanishing under the bureau. He was tempted to rout the creature out, but he reflected that its presence could not matter—if it had existed in these locked quarters for so long on such cockroaches and other insects as it had managed to uncover, it merited being left alone.

He went out of the room, locked the door again, and returned to the master bedroom downstairs. He felt, obscurely, that he had made a beginning, however trivial; he had scouted the ground, so to speak. And he was twice as tired for his brief look around as he had been before. Though the hour was not late, he decided to go to bed and get an early start in the morning. There was the old mill yet to be gone through—perhaps some of the machinery could be sold, if any remained—and the mill wheel was now a curiosity, having continued to exist beyond its time.

He stood for a few minutes on the verandah, marking with surprise the welling stridulation of the crickets and katydids, and the almost overwhelming choir of the whippoorwills and frogs, which rose on all sides to assault him with a deafening insistence of such proportion as to drown out all other sounds, even such as might have risen from Dunwich. He stood there until he could tolerate the voices of the night no longer; then he retreated, locking the door, and made his way to the bedroom.

He undressed and got into bed, but he did not sleep for almost an hour, bedevilled by the chorus of natural sounds outside the house and from within himself by a rising confusion about what his grandfather had meant by the “dissolution” he himself had not been able to make. But at last he drifted into a troubled sleep.

II

He woke with the dawn, little rested. All night he had dreamed of strange places and beings that filled him with beauty and wonder and dread—of swimming in the ocean’s depths and up the Miskatonic among fish and amphibia and strange men, half batrachian in aspect—of monstrous entities that lay sleeping in an eerie stone city at the bottom of the sea—of utterly outré music as of flutes accompanied by weird ululations from throats far, far from human—of Grandfather Luther Whateley standing accusingly before him and thundering forth his wrath at him for having dared to enter Aunt Sarey’s shuttered room.

He was troubled, but he shrugged his unease away before the necessity of walking into Dunwich for the provisions he had neglected to bring with him in his haste. The morning was bright and sunny; pewees and thrushes sang, and dew pearled on leaf and blade reflected the sunlight in a thousand jewels along the winding path that led to the main street of the village. As he went along, his spirits rose; he whistled happily, and contemplated the early fulfillment of his obligation, upon which his escape from this desolate, forgotten pocket of ingrown humanity was predicated.

But the main street of Dunwich was no more reassuring under the light of the sun than it had been in the dusk of the past evening. The village huddled between the Miskatonic and the almost vertical slope of Round Mountain, a dark and brooding settlement which seemed somehow never to have passed 1900, as if time had ground to a stop before the turn of the last century. His gay whistle faded and died away; he averted his eyes from the buildings falling into ruin; he avoided the curiously expressionless faces of passersby, and went directly to the old church with its general store, which he knew he would find slovenly and ill-kept, in keeping with the village itself.

A gaunt-faced storekeeper watched his advance down the aisle, searching his features for any familiar lineament.

Abner strode up to him and asked for bacon, coffee, eggs, and milk.

The storekeeper peered at him. He made no move. “Ye’ll be a Whateley,” he said at last. “I dun’t expeck ye know me. I’m yer cousin Tobias. Which one uv ’em are ye?”

“I’m Abner—Luther’s grandson.” He spoke reluctantly.

Tobias Whateley’s face froze. “Libby’s boy—Libby, that married cousin Jeremiah. Yew folks ain’t back—back at Luther’s? Yew folks ain’t a-goin’ to start things again?”

“There’s no one but me,” said Abner shortly. “What things are you talking about?”

“If ye dun’t know, tain’t fer me to say.”

Nor would Tobias Whateley speak again. He put together what Abner wanted, took his money sullenly, and watched him out of the store with ill-concealed animosity.

Abner was disagreeably affected. The brightness of the morning had dimmed for him, though the sun shone from the same unclouded heaven. He hastened away from the store and main street, and hurried along the lane toward the house he had but recently quitted.

He was even more disturbed to discover, standing before the house, an ancient rig drawn by an old workhorse. Beside it stood a boy, and inside it sat an old, white-bearded man, who, at sight of Abner’s approach, signalled to the boy for assistance, and by the lad’s aid, laboriously descended to the ground and stood to await Abner.

As Abner came up, the boy spoke, unsmiling. “Great-grampa’ll talk to yew.”

“Abner,” said the old man quaveringly, and Abner saw for the first time how very old he was.

“This here’s Great-grampa Zebulon Whateley,” said the boy.

Grandfather Luther Whateley’s brother—the only living Whateley of his generation. “Come in, sir,” said Abner, offering the old man his arm.

Zebulon Whateley took it.

The three of them made slow progress toward the verandah, where the old man halted at the foot of the steps, turning his dark eyes upon Abner from under their bushy white brows, and shaking his head gently.

“Naow, if ye’ll fetch me a cheer, I’ll set.”

“Bring a chair from the kitchen, boy,” said Abner.

The boy sped up the steps and into the house. He was out as fast with a chair for the old man, and helped to lower him to it, and stood beside him while Zebulon Whateley caught his breath.

Presently he turned his eyes full upon Abner and contemplated him, taking in every detail of his clothes, which, unlike his own, were not made by hand.

“Why have ye come, Abner?” he asked, his voice firmer now.

Abner told him, as simply and directly as he could.

Zebulon Whateley shook his head. “Ye know no more’n the rest, and less’n some,” he said. “What Luther was abaout, only God knowed. Naow Luther’s gone, and ye’ll have it to dew. I kin tell ye, Abner, I vaow afur God, I dun’t know why Luther took on so and locked hisself up and Sarey that time she come back from Innsmouth—but I kin say it was suthin’ turrible, turrible—and the things what happened was turrible. Ain’t nobody left to say Luther was to blame, nor poor Sarey—but take care, take care, Abner.”

“I expect to follow my grandfather’s wishes,” said Abner.

The old man nodded. But his eyes were troubled, and it was plain that he had little faith in Abner.

“How’d you find out I was here, Uncle Zebulon?” Abner asked.

“I had the word ye’d come. It was my bounden duty to talk to ye. The Whateleys has a curse on ’em. Thar’s been them naow gone to graoun’ has had to dew with the devil, and thar’s some what whistled turrible things aout o’ the air, and thar’s some what had to dew with things that wasn’t all human nor all fish but lived in the water and swum aout—way aout—to sea, and thar’s some what growed in on themselves and got all mazed and queer—and thar’s what happened on Sentinel Hill that time—Lavinny’s Wilbur—and that other one by the Sentinel Stone—Gawd, I shake when I think on it…

“Now, Grandpa—don’t ye git yer dander up,” chided the boy.

“I wun’t, I wun’t,” said the old man tremulously. “It’s all died away naow. It’s forgot—by all but me and them what took the signs daown—the signs that pointed to Dunwich, sayin’ it was too turrible a place to know about…” He shook his head and was silent.

“Uncle Zebulon,” said Abner. “I never saw my Aunt Sarah.”

“No, no, boy—she was locked up that time. Afore you was borned, I think it was.”

“Why?”

“Only Luther knowed—and Gawd. Now Luther’s gone, and Gawd dun’t seem like He knowed Dunwich was still here.”

“What was Aunt Sarah doing in Innsmouth?”

“Visitin’ kin.”

“Are there Whateleys there, too?”

“Not Whateleys. Marshes. Old Obed Marsh that was Pa’s cousin. Him and his wife that he faound in the trade—at Ponape, if ye know whar that is.”

“I do.”

“Ye dew? I never knowed. They say Sarey was visitin’ Marsh kin—Obed’s son or grandson—I never knowed which. Never heered. Dun’t care. She was thar quite a spell. They say when she come back she was different. Rightly. Unsettled. Sassed her pa. And then, not long after, he locked her up in that room till she died.”

“How long after?”

“Three, four months. And Luther never said what fer. Nobody saw her again after that till the day she wuz laid aout in her coffin. Two year, might be three years ago. Thar was that time nigh onto a year after she come back from Innsmouth thar was sech goins-on here at this house—a-fightin’ and a-screamin’ and a-screechin’—most everyone in Dunwich heerd it, but no one went to see whut it was, and next day Luther he said it was only Sarey took with a spell. Might be it was. Might be it was suthin’ else….”

“What else, Uncle Zebulon?”

“Devil’s work,” said the old man instantly. “But I fergit—ye’re the eddicated one. Ain’t many Whateleys ever bin eddicated. Thar was Lavinny—she read them turrible books what was no good for her. And Sarey—she read some. Them as has only a little learnin’ might’s well have none—they ain’t fit to handle life with only a little learnin’, they’re fitter with none a-tall.”

Abner smiled.

“Dun’t ye laugh, boy!”

“I’m not laughing, Uncle Zebulon. I agree with you.”

“Then ef ye come face to face with it, ye’ll know what to dew. Ye wun’t stop and think—ye’ll jest dew.”

“With what?”

“I wisht I knowed, Abner. I dun’t. Gawd knows. Luther knowed. Luther’s dead. It comes on me Sarey knowed, too. Sarey’s dead. Now nobody knows whut turrible thing it was. Ef I was a prayin’ man, I’d pray you dun’t find aout—but ef ye dew, dun’t stop to figger it aout by eddication, jest dew whut ye have to dew. Yer grandpa kep’ a record—look fer it. Ye might learn whut kind a people the Marshes was—they wasn’t like us—suthin’ turrible happened to ’em—and might be it reached aout and tetched Sarey….”

Something stood between the old man and Abner Whateley—something unvoiced, perhaps unknown; but it was something that cast a chill about Abner for all his conscious attempt to belittle what he felt.

“I’ll learn what I can, Uncle Zebulon,” he promised.

The old man nodded and beckoned to the boy. He signified that he wished to rise, to return to the buggy. The boy came running.

“Ef ye need me, Abner, send word to Tobias,” said Zebulon Whateley. “I’ll come—ef I can.”

“Thank you.”

Abner and the boy helped the old man back into the buggy. Zebulon Whateley raised his forearm in a gesture of farewell, the boy whipped up the horse, and the buggy drew away.

Abner stood for a moment looking after the departing vehicle. He was both troubled and irritated—troubled at the suggestion of something dreadful which lurked beneath Zebulon Whateley’s words of warning, irritated because his grandfather, despite all his adjurations, had left him so little to act upon. Yet this must have been because his grandfather evidently believed there might be nothing untoward to greet his grandson when at last Abner Whateley arrived at the old house. It could be nothing other by way of explanation.

Yet Abner was not entirely convinced. Was the matter one of such horror that Abner should not know of it unless he had to? Or had Luther Whateley laid down a key to the riddle elsewhere in the house? He doubted it. It would not be Grandfather’s way to seek the devious when he had always been so blunt and direct.

He went into the house with his groceries, put them away, and sat down to map out a plan of action. The very first thing to be accomplished was a survey of the mill part of the structure, to determine whether any machinery could be salvaged. Next he must find someone who would undertake to tear down the mill and the room above it. Thereafter he must dispose of the house and adjoining property, though he had a sinking feeling of futility at the conviction that he would never find anyone who would want to settle in so forlorn a corner of Massachusetts as Dunwich.

He began at once to carry out his obligations.

His search of the mill, however, disclosed that the machinery which had been in it—save for such pieces as were fixed to the running of the wheel had been removed, and presumably sold. Perhaps the increment from the sale was part of that very legacy Luther Whateley had deposited in the bank at Arkham for his grandson. Abner was thus spared the necessity of removing the machinery before beginning the planned demolition. The dust in the old mill almost suffocated him; it lay an inch thick over everything, and it rose in great gusts to cloud about him when he walked through the empty, cobwebbed rooms. Dust muffled his footsteps and he was glad to leave the mill to go around and look at the wheel.

He worked his way around the wooden ledge to the frame of the wheel, somewhat uncertain, lest the wood give way and plunge him into the water beneath; but the construction was firm, the wood did not give, and he was soon at the wheel. It appeared to be a splendid example of middle nineteenth century work. It would be a shame to tear it apart, thought Abner. Perhaps the wheel could be removed, and a place could be found for it either in some museum or in some one of those buildings which were forever being reconstructed by wealthy persons interested in the preservation of the American heritage.

He was about to turn away from the wheel, when his eye was caught by a series of small wet prints on the paddles. He bent closer to examine them, but, apart from ascertaining that they were already in part dried, he could not see in them more than marks left by some small animal, probably batrachian—a frog or a toad—which had apparently mounted the wheel in the early hours before the rising of the sun. His eyes, raising, followed the line of the wheel to the broken out shutters of the room above.