We went up to the sleeping quarters and found beds made up, pewter water-pitchers neatly placed beside them. The kitchen was likewise untouched by anything save the dust of the years and that horrible, sunken stench of decay. The tavern alone would be an antiquarian's paradise; the wondrously queer kitchen stove alone would fetch a pretty price at Boston auction.
"What do you think, Cal?" I asked when we had emerged again into the uncertain daylight.
"I think it's bad business, Mr Boone," he replied in his doleful way, "and that we must see more to know more."
We gave the other shops scant notice--there was a hostelry with mouldering leather goods still hung on rusted flatnails, a chandler's, a warehouse with oak and pine still stacked within, a smithy.
We entered two houses as we made our way toward the church at the center of the village. Both were perfectly in the Puritan mode, full of items a collector would give his arm for, both deserted and full of the same rotten scent.
Nothing seemed to live or move in all of this but ourselves. We saw no insects, no birds, not even a cobweb fashioned in a window corner. Only dust.
At last we reached the church. It reared above us, grim, uninviting, cold. Its windows were black with the shadows inside, and any Godliness or sanctity had departed from it long ago. Of that I am certain. We mounted the steps, and I placed my hand on the large iron door-pull. A set, dark look passed from myself to Calvin and back again. I opened the portal. How long since that door had been touched? I would say with confidence that mine was the first in fifty years; perhaps longer. Rust-clogged hinges screamed as I opened it. The smell of rot and decay which smote us was nearly palpable. Cal made a gagging sound in his throat and twisted his head involuntarily for clearer air.
"Sir," he asked, "are you sure that you are--?"
"I'm fine," I said calmly. But I did not feel calm, Bones, no more than I do now. I believe, with Moses, with Jereboam, with Increase Mather, and with our own Hanson [when he is in a philosophical temperament], that there are spiritually noxious places, buildings where the milk of the cosmos has become sour and rancid. This church is such a place; I would swear to it.
We stepped into a long vestibule equipped with a dusty coat rack and shelved hymnals. It was windowless. Oil-lamps stood in niches here and there. An unremarkable room, I thought, until I heard Calvin's sharp gasp and saw what he had already noticed.
It was an obscenity.
I daren't describe that elaborately-framed picture further than this: that it was done after the fleshy style of Rubens; that it contained a grotesque travesty of a madonna and child; that strange, half-shadowed creatures sported and crawled in the background.
"Lord," I whispered.
"There's no Lord here," Calvin said, and his words seemed to hang in the air. I opened the door leading into the church itself, and the odor became a miasma, nearly overpowering.
In the glimmering half-light of afternoon the pews stretched ghost-like to the altar. Above them was a high, oaken pulpit and a shadow-struck narthex from which gold glimmered.
With a half-sob Calvin, that devout Protestant, made the Holy Sign, and I followed suit. For the gold was a large, beautifully-wrought cross--but it was hung upside down, symbol of Satan's Mass.
"We must be calm," I heard myself saying. "We must be calm, Calvin. We must be calm."
But a shadow had touched my heart, and I was afraid as I had never been. I have walked beneath death's umbrella and thought there was none darker. But there is. There is.
We walked down the aisle, our footfalls echoing above and around us. We left tracks in the dust. And at the altar there were other tenebrous objets d'art. I will not, cannot, let my mind dwell upon them.
I began to mount to the pulpit itself.
"Don't, Mr Boone!" Cal cried suddenly. "I'm afraid--"
But I had gained it. A huge book lay open upon the stand, writ both in Latin and crabbed runes which looked, to my unpractised eye, either Druidic or pre-Celtic. I enclose a card with several of the symbols, redrawn from memory.
I closed the book and looked at the words stamped into the leather: De Vermis Mysteriis. My Latin is rusty, but serviceable enough to translate: The Mysteries of the Worm.
As I touched it, that accursed church and Calvin's white, upturned face seemed to swim before me. It seemed that I heard low, chanting voices, full of hideous yet eager fear--and below that sound, another, filling the bowels of the earth. An hallucination, I doubt it not--but at the same moment, the church was filled with a very real sound, which I can only describe as a huge and macabre turning beneath my feet. The pulpit trembled beneath my fingers; the desecrated cross trembled on the wall.
We exited together, Cal and I, leaving the place to its own darkness, and neither of us dared look back until we had crossed the rude planks spanning the stream. I will not say we defiled the nineteen hundred years man has spent climbing upward from a hunkering and superstitious savage by actually running; but I would be a liar to say that we strolled.
That is my tale. You mustn't shadow your recovery by fearing that the fever has touched me again; Cal can attest to all in these pages, up to and including the hideous noise.
So I close, saying only that I wish I might see you [knowing that much of my bewilderment would drop away immediately], and that I remain your friend and admirer,
CHARLES.
Oct. 17, 1850.
DEAR GENTLEMEN:
In the most recent edition of your catalogue of household items(i.e., Summer, 1850), I noticed a preparation which is titled Rat's Bane. I should like to purchase one (1) 5-pound tin of this preparation at your stated price of thirty cents ($.30). I enclose return postage. Please mail to: Calvin McCann, Chapelwaite, Preacher's Corners, Cumberland County, Maine.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
I remain, dear Gentlemen,
CALVIN MCCANN.
Oct. 19, 1850.
DEAR BONES,
Developments of a disquieting nature.
The noises in the house have intensified, and I am growing more to the conclusion that rats are not all that move within our walls. Calvin and I went on another fruitless search for hidden crannies or passages, but found nothing. How poorly we would fit into one of Mrs Radcliffe's romances! Cal claims, however, that much of the sound emanates from the cellar, and it is there we intend to explore tomorrow. It makes me no easier to know that Cousin Stephen's sister met her unfortunate end there.
Her portrait, by the by, hangs in the upstairs gallery. Marcella Boone was a sadly pretty thing, if the artist got her right, and I do know she never married. At times I think that Mrs Cloris was right that it is a bad house. It has certainly held nothing but gloom for its past inhabitants.
But I have more to say of the redoubtable Mrs Cloris, for I have had this day a second interview with her. As the most level-headed person from the Corners that I have met thus far, I sought her out this afternoon, after an unpleasant interview which I will relate.
The wood was to have been delivered this morning, and when noon came and passed and no wood with it, I decided to take my daily walk into the town itself. My object was to visit Thompson, the man with whom Cal did business.
It has been a lovely day, full of the crisp snap of bright autumn, and by the time I reached the Thompsons' homestead [Cal, who remained home to poke further through Cousin Stephen's library, gave me adequate directions] I felt in the best mood that these last few days have seen, and quite prepared to forgive Thompson's tardiness with the wood.
The place was a massive tangle of weeds and fallen-down buildings in need of paint; to the left of the barn a huge sow, ready for November butchering, grunted and wallowed in a muddy sty, and in the littered yard between house and out-buildings a woman in a tattered gingham dress was feeding chickens from her apron. When I hailed her, she turned a pale and vapid face toward me.
The sudden change in expression from utter, doltish emptiness to one of frenzied terror was quite w
onderful to behold. I can only think she took me for Stephen himself, for she raised her hand in the prong-fingered sign of the evil eye and screamed. The chicken-feed scattered on the ground and the fowls fluttered away, squawking.
Before I could utter a sound, a huge, hulking figure of a man clad only in long-handled underwear lumbered out of the house with a squirrel-rifle in one hand and a jug in the other. From the red light in his eye and unsteady manner of walking, I judged that this was Thompson the Woodcutter himself.
"A Boone!" he roared. "G--d--n your eyes!" He dropped the jug a-rolling and also made the Sign.
"I've come," I said with as much equanimity as I could muster under the circumstances, "because the wood has not. According to the agreement you struck with my man--"
"G--d--n your man too, say I!" And for the first time I noticed that beneath his bluff and bluster he was deadly afraid. I began seriously to wonder if he mightn't actually use his rifle against me in his excitement.
I began carefully: "As a gesture of courtesy, you might--"
"G--d--n your courtesy!"
"Very well then," I said with as much dignity as I could muster. "I bid you good day until you are more in control of yourself." And with this I turned away and began down the road to the village.
"Don'tchee come back!" he screamed after me. "Stick wi' your evil up there! Cursed! Cursed! Cursed!" He pelted a stone at me, which struck my shoulder. I would not give him the satisfaction of dodging.
So I sought out Mrs Cloris, determined to solve the mystery of Thompson's enmity, at least. She is a widow [and none of your confounded matchmaking, Bones; she is easily fifteen years my senior, and I'll not see forty again] and lives by herself in a charming little cottage at the ocean's very door-step. I found the lady hanging out her wash, and she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I found this a great relief; it is vexing almost beyond words to be branded pariah for no understandable reason.
"Mr Boone," said she, offering a half-curtsey. "If you've come about washing, I take none in past September. My rheumatiz pains me so that it's trouble enough to do my own."
"I wish laundry was the subject of my visit. I've come for help, Mrs Cloris. I must know all you can tell me about Chapelwaite and Jerusalem's Lot and why the townfolk regard me with such fear and suspicion!"
"Jerusalem's Lot! You know about that, then."
"Yes," I replied, "and visited it with my companion a week ago."
"God!" She went pale as milk, and tottered. I put out a hand to steady her. Her eyes rolled horribly, and for a moment I was sure she would swoon.
"Mrs Cloris, I am sorry if I have said anything to--"
"Come inside," she said. "You must know. Sweet Jesu, the evil days have come again!"
She would not speak more until she had brewed strong tea in her sunshiny kitchen. When it was before us, she looked pensively out at the ocean for a time. Inevitably, her eyes and mine were drawn to the jutting brow of Chapelwaite Head, where the house looked out over the water. The large bay-window glittered in the rays of the westering sun like a diamond. The view was beautiful but strangely disturbing. She suddenly turned to me and declared vehemently:
"Mr Boone, you must leave Chapelwaite immediately!"
I was flabbergasted.
"There has been an evil breath in the air since you took up residence. In the last week--since you set foot in the accursed place--there have been omens and portents. A caul over the face of the moon; flocks of whippoorwills which roost in the cemeteries; an unnatural birth. You must leave!"
When I found my tongue, I spoke as gently as I could. "Mrs Cloris, these things are dreams. You must know that."
"Is it a dream that Barbara Brown gave birth to a child with no eyes? Or that Clifton Brockett found a flat, pressed trail five feet wide in the woods beyond Chapelwaite where all had withered and gone white? And can you, who have visited Jerusalem's Lot, say with truth that nothing still lives there?"
I could not answer; the scene in that hideous church sprang before my eyes.
She clamped her gnarled hands together in an effort to calm herself. "I know of these things only from my mother and her mother before her. Do you know the history of your family as it applies to Chapelwaite?"
"Vaguely," I said. "The house has been the home of Philip Boone's line since the 1780s; his brother, Robert, my grandfather, located in Massachusetts after an argument over stolen papers. Of Philip's side I know little, except that an unhappy shadow fell over it, extending from father to son to grandchildren--Marcella died in a tragic accident and Stephen fell to his death. It was his wish that Chapelwaite become the home of me and mine, and that the family rift thus be mended."
"Never to be mended," she whispered. "You know nothing of the original quarrel?"
"Robert Boone was discovered rifling his brother's desk."
"Philip Boone was mad," she said. "A man who trafficked with the unholy. The thing which Robert Boone attempted to remove was a profane Bible writ in the old tongues--Latin, Druidic, others. A hell-book."
"De Vermis Mysteriis."
She recoiled as if struck. "You know of it?"
"I have seen it...touched it." It seemed again she might swoon. A hand went to her mouth as if to stifle an outcry. "Yes; in Jerusalem's Lot. On the pulpit of a corrupt and desecrated church."
"Still there; still there, then." She rocked in her chair. "I had hoped God in His wisdom had cast it into the pit of hell."
"What relation had Philip Boone to Jerusalem's Lot?"
"Blood relation," she said darkly. "The Mark of the Beast was on him, although he walked in the clothes of the Lamb. And on the night of October 31, 1789, Philip Boone disappeared...and the entire populace of that damned village with him."
She would say little more; in fact, seemed to know little more. She would only reiterate her pleas that I leave, giving as reason something about "blood calling to blood" and muttering about "those who watch and those who guard." As twilight drew on she seemed to grow more agitated rather than less, and to placate her I promised that her wishes would be taken under strong consideration.
I walked home through lengthening, gloomy shadows, my good mood quite dissipated and my head spinning with questions which still plague me. Cal greeted me with the news that our noises in the walls have grown worse still--as I can attest at this moment. I try to tell myself that I hear only rats, but then I see the terrified, earnest face of Mrs Cloris.
The moon has risen over the sea, bloated, full, the colour of blood, staining the ocean with a noxious shade. My mind turns to that church again and
(here a line is struck out)
But you shall not see that, Bones. It is too mad. It is time I slept, I think. My thoughts go out to you.
Regards,
CHARLES.
(The following is from the pocket journal of Calvin McCann.)
Oct. 20, '50
Took the liberty this morning of forcing the lock which binds the book closed; did it before Mr Boone arose. No help; it is all in cypher. A simple one, I believe. Perhaps I may break it as easily as the lock. A diary, I am certain, the hand oddly like Mr Boone's own. Whose book, shelved in the most obscure corner of this library and locked across the pages? It seems old, but how to tell? The corrupting air has largely been kept from its pages. More later, if time; Mr Boone set upon looking about the cellar. Am afraid these dreadful goings-on will be too much for his chancy health yet. I must try to persuade him--
But he comes.
Oct. 20, 1850.
BONES,
I can't write I cant [sic] write of this yet I I I
(From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann)
Oct. 20, '50
As I had feared, his health has broken--
Dear God our Father Who art in Heaven!
Cannot bear to think of it; yet it is planted, burned on my brain like a tin-type; that horror in the cellar--!
Alone now; half-past eight o'clock; house silent but
Found him
swooned over his writing table; he still sleeps; yet for those few moments how nobly he acquitted himself while I stood paralyzed and shattered!
His skin is waxy, cool. Not the fever again, God be thanked. I daren't move him or leave him to go to the village. And if I did go, who would return with me to aid him? Who would come to this cursed house?
O, the cellar! The things in the cellar that have haunted our walls!
Oct. 22, 1850.
DEAR BONES,
I am myself again, although weak, after thirty-six hours of unconsciousness. Myself again...what a grim and bitter joke! I shall never be myself again, never. I have come face to face with an insanity and a horror beyond the limits of human expression. And the end is not yet.
If it were not for Cal, I believe I should end my life this minute. He is one island of sanity in all this madness.
You shall know it all.
We had equipped ourselves with candles for our cellar exploration, and they threw a strong glow that was quite adequate--hellishly adequate! Calvin tried to dissuade me, citing my recent illness, saying that the most we should probably find would be some healthy rats to mark for poisoning.
I remained determined, however; Calvin fetched a sigh and answered: "Have it as you must then, Mr Boone."
The entrance to the cellar is by means of a trap in the kitchen floor [which Cal assures me he has since stoutly boarded over], and we raised it only with a great deal of straining and lifting.
A foetid, overpowering smell came up out of the darkness, not unlike that which pervaded the deserted town across the Royal River. The candle I held shed its glow on a steeply-slanting flight of stairs leading down into darkness. They were in a terrible state of repair--in one place an entire riser missing, leaving only a black hole--and it was easy enough to see how the unfortunate Marcella might have come to her end there.
"Be careful, Mr Boone!" Cal said; I told him I had no intention of being anything but, and we made the descent.
The floor was earthen, the walls of stout granite, and hardly wet. The place did not look like a rat haven at all, for there were none of the things rats like to make their nests in, such as old boxes, discarded furniture, piles of paper, and the like. We lifted our candles, gaining a small circle of light, but still able to see little. The floor had a gradual slope which seemed to run beneath the main living-room and the dining-room--i.e., to the west. It was in this direction we walked. All was in utter silence. The stench in the air grew steadily stronger, and the dark about us seemed to press like wool, as if jealous of the light which had temporarily deposed it after so many years of undisputed dominion.