“My pursuit is even more mysterious. The Catherine Clark disappeared at sea, but according to at least one account, was sighted here in Innsmouth a year after she vanished.”
“I don’t understand why you put so much stock in that tale. Most likely it was a different ship that was sighted.”
“Wait a minute, Leeds. You don’t know the whole story about that.” Dryden smiled knowingly and retrieved from his binder the aged log of Innsmouth’s lighthouse keeper, Dyer Gilman. Clearing his voice, Dryden read aloud:
The Catherine Clark stood on the sea about a mile off from Devil’s Reef on the night of December 21, 1873. I’d recognize that accursed figurehead anywhere. She’s haunted my dreams ever since Grant first showed me her bewitching eyes. She stood regal and calm amidst the sea’s maelstrom. Her ghostly singing echoed over the Innsmouth Coast. Some of the older families were unaffected by the noise, and harshly criticized others for being frightened. It was hard not to be afraid. It was hard not to be afraid when you saw so many of the young men wandering out in the horrific storm to stare out on the coast like they had no brains left in their heads. They stood enthralled by that accursed singing. I felt it a bit, myself, though I imagine as an old, grizzled man of the sea, I had more control than the younger fellers who began casting themselves to the sea like worms on hooks to the arms of — God only knows what.
Oh yes, though, I felt the pull. I felt the pull twanging through every quivering muscle in my body. Within every beat of the notes that hellish night sang I felt the pull to go to the sea and to follow that ocean-fairing Galatea into the depths of her darkness. To throw myself upon where ever she lay. To entomb myself in that sound, that hellish, accursed, moaning sound!
The beeping of the coffee maker wrenched Hitch’s attention back to the counter. Dryden smirked, knowing Hitch had been thoroughly mesmerized by the shadow of Gilman’s words cast over his mundane thoughts. Hitch retrieved the coffee and served Dryden and himself. He leaned over the counter, peering over Dryden’s binder.
“Let me see that article.”
“Be careful. It’s very fragile.”
Hitch looked it over with a critical eye. “This Gilman wouldn’t be related to Abe Gilman, would he? That boozer isn’t going to be a reliable witness, you know.”
“Dyer was his grandfather. I was just talking to him this afternoon. Getting confirmation.”
“You needed confirmation that he’s a drunk?”
“I wanted to ask him more about what his grandfather had seen. I didn’t tell him anything about what Dyer had written in the logbook. I wanted to see what he had to say. I don’t think anyone had mentioned the affair to him in a long time.”
Dryden sipped the coffee listlessly while Hitch studied the article in more detail.
“I really think you’re looking too hard for something that isn’t there. I think that there is something to be said about the simplest explanation here.”
Dryden frowned. “What is the simplest explanation?”
“That the ship was dashed to pieces in the surf and was never anywhere near Innsmouth. I know you hope to find the wreckage, but most likely, it’s lost forever, unless you find a way to sieve the entire Atlantic Ocean.”
Dryden’s brow furrowed but he managed to change the subject to more pleasant, emptier, topics before bidding farewell to Hitch. Dryden gathered up his articles and departed into the mist that lingered outside. It was cold but Dryden was used to it. At first it was a terrible biting thing, constantly reminding him that he was in a hostile place, so unlike home. It didn’t seem to bother him anymore.
As he slid into sleep amidst all his articles he felt his mind being pulled into a distant dream. He waited and saw the ocean creep up to meet him. In the depths of the tide pool he saw the flash of glimmering light. Dryden bent down to retrieve the stray jewel. Bedecked with winsome gems, the tapered claw was a barrette of some kind. Its razor sharp hair teeth made Dryden wince as one scratched his finger, leaving a red welt that wept a trickle of blood. He tossed it back into the water and as it fell to the depths of the churning waves he heard an echo of music bounce off the cliffs. It flooded his body with sensation and he staggered to keep his balance against the singing. It grew in volume and reverberated against the twisting caverns of his veins. He clutched himself against the pain of the melodic assault. He gazed out to the sea and saw the ship emerge from its depths. Its siren figurehead held its lifeless arms out to him. He listened and she sang. Her song rippled under his skin.
Dryden looked up to her and marveled at her topaz eyes that glittered with a demon light from beyond space and time.
“You are the song,” Dryden whispered in the darkness. She nodded with a predatory smile.
“I am the memory of man, or rather man’s desires. I am the witch’s light that burned before the creation of man. I am Lilith, Ia, Ishtar, Venus, the many guises that man has given me. I am older than the Earth. I was here before,” she said with a winged flutter of her long, silken black hair.
“Then why are you here now?” Dryden asked petulantly as she pained him with more desire by arching her naked form above him.
“I am here to make you realize your blood’s vast potential. You have within your veins the secret key to an eternity most mortals can only envy in vain as they race to the worms. You are of Deep One ilk. There are many branches of your family dwelling under the waves. You needn’t linger upon the mundane, earthly shore if you hanker for the reaches of time that beckon to your lively mind. I can take you through all the prisms you seek in your heart. I can thrall you into dimensions past and unborn.”
Dryden sweated with fear and lust and she snaked off of the ship and slimed her legs around his like two great serpents. She entwined around him, orifices sprouting from her body in a patchwork of blood-leeching passion. She kissed him and he tangled his fingers through her undulating black hair. She never stopped singing. It was the singing that penetrated into his organs and vibrated them with prickles of pain and pleasure and she sucked him, slimed him, and transformed him. She sucked every last warm drop of human blood from him and stripped him of every scrap of human flesh. He looked up at her as their maelstrom reached crescendo.
“My dear Dryden, it is time I take you to the sea,” she sang.
Mae Empson
BETWEEN A ROCK AND AN ELDER GODDESS
Finding the woman in the cave, just as his analysis predicted, forced Dennis Papadakis to face the fact that impossible things walked among humankind, whether or not “walked” was even the right word.
She was reclined in a natural pool, with only her upper half visible to him, as naked and as shapely as the masthead of a ship.
“You came,” she said simply, and the whisper echoed in his head, rather than reflecting any projection of sound from her perfectly formed lips.
He took a step towards her, and then another.
He knew what she was. And still, he’d come.
Close the doors, you uninitiated.
So began the Orphic poem from the Derveni Papyrus. Dennis knew the scrolls found in the Derveni necropolis, and their record of the elder gods beginning with black-winged Night who birthed the Sky-Aether, and all the other star-spawn. And he’d read that there was one great Deep One above even black-winged Night, and that was Primordial Boundless Chaos — also called Apeiron or Azathoth. From Apeiron, gods and planets were endlessly created and destroyed, to the tune of Rhea or Zangreus’ Phrygian flute and drum.
Dennis’s father and the other scholars had whispered about these things during the 44 years in which the Derveni scrolls had been studied and translated, cloaked in secrecy, before their release last year in 2006. But, even after the Derveni Papyrus had been translated, shared to the public, and safely housed in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, there remained another door to open, another scroll, a final initiation.