The Memories of Jack Edlund – Indepentional

18th April 1888, Boston Globe

GIRL SOLE SURVIVOR OF MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT IN ATLANTIC OCEAN

The Charioteer, a passenger ship sailing the Northwest Passage, has been found after a prolonged period of radio silence during which the ship’s location and status was unknown. The Kilmartin discovered her and radioed for assistance, to which the Calgary responded. The ship had a crew of 20 as well as 132 passengers. The rescue crews from the Kilmartin and the Calgary found a single young girl. Either due to being a mute or due to the atrocities she had witnessed, the child was unable to speak.

Contact was lost with the Charioteer on the 13th of April and was reestablished on the 16th around 18:30 when visual contact was made from the deck of the Kilmartin.

The girl is under the care of The Kilmartin’s captain Elias Price and the Charioteer is being towed back to the shipwharfs of Boston for examination and repairs.

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29th of April 1888, Anchorage Gazette & News

DEEP SEA WHALE WASHES UP ON NORTH ALASKAN SHORE

Mr Argyle Lavett had a nasty shock this morning when he discovered, while walking his dog in the morning, the carcass of a marine mammal washed up on his private beach. According to Mr Lavett’s own words, the creature was the size of a blue whale but with appendages and limbs he had never seen before, which Mr Lavett assumed had been used for some kind of deep-ocean hunting. Despite these unexpected physiological traits, Mr Lavett is fully convinced it was a mammal and some species of whale. Much to the dismay of the academic world, Mr Lavett burnt the corpse before it could begin to befoul his private beach with odor.

Mr Lavett’s residence is in the area of Hooper Bay, but requested that the Alaskan Gazette & News not disclose his address, so as to avoid ‘nosy folk coming on account of this dead whale’. 

Mr Lavett is a geologist graduated from America who has on occasion worked with Anchorage University.

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Chapter 1 – Encoding

I dropped the newspaper clippings onto my desk with a sigh. I had barely spoken with my father for five years and now I had boxes and boxes of his belongings to go through, what to keep and what to throw away. If only he had remembered to do it himself before he passed. The clippings were nearly as old as I was, yellowed with age. When these were printed, I was but a few years old myself and my sister had not yet been born. Why my father had decided to keep these two clips, among his piles of old shirts, tools and maritime equipment, only he could say. On the back of the story about the ship was a portion of a weather report, but the back of the whale story caught my eye. Or rather, what my father had scribbled there. In pencil he had covered the other side with a symbol, all harsh lines and uncomfortable shapes, that I did not recognise, but over the following days I found it impossible to forget.

A knock on my door tore my focus away from the newspaper clippings and I looked up to see Miss Pierson’s face through the crack. If it hadn’t been for the chain, she would have pushed it wide open.

“Mr Edlund, there is a man here to see you.” She said, pretending she hadn’t just tried to push the door open. I saw the way she glanced at the bottle of whiskey on my desk.

“Thank you Sarah, I’ll be out in a moment.” I replied, and when she closed the door, I tossed the newspaper clippings back into the box and pushed it under my desk, hiding the whiskey away as well. I still hadn’t gone through my portion of my late father’s belongings and my sister was getting restless with my progress.

I rose to unhook the chain and chanced to look out the window of my office. The sun was beating down through a break in the clouds, leaving the office in an uncomfortable heat.

In the lobby I found Sarah at her desk, studiously avoiding looking at the man sitting on the bench opposite. He was portly with thinning brown hair and small eyes in the dress of a dock-worker. It took me a moment to recognise him; I had seen his picture in the Boston Globe just a few days before in an article concerning the kidnapping of a young woman from her family home. The police had been working on it for a week at this point with no solid leads, and the family had stepped forward for an article to voice their displeasure. 

The reason he had come here seemed obvious to me but I had long since learned not to assume. “Good day sir, I am Jack Edlund, my secretary tells me you’re here to see me?” 

The man gave a final glance at Sarah with a glint in his eye that I found distasteful, then rose to shake my hand. His grip was strong but without warmth. “Good day Mr Edlund, I am Cayson Holman. My niece is Moira Behler.” 

The woman’s name from the article. “Ah yes, grim business. I’ve read the story, but then I am sure that all of America has. Forgive me, but I assumed you to be her father.” 

“Moira’s parents both passed away when she was but a child,” Mr Holman said in tone like he had just lost out on a business deal, “so I took over her care. She was in her bedroom in my house when she was taken.” 

“Let’s talk in my office,” I said and guided him on. As he passed me, I glanced at Sarah, but she was bent over her work and so I went with Mr Holman to my office. As I closed the door behind us, I made a decision and retrieved the bottle of whiskey from underneath my desk. 

“Care for a glass, Mr Holman?” 

I saw the way he looked at the cheap label before accepting with a grunt. The silence in the office was heavy as I poured us a measure each and sat behind my desk. Mr Holman looked around the space for a moment in silence, his gaze resting on my newspaper clippings of past cases, both good and bad, as well as the single medal in its frame. 

“You’re a military man.” he said.

“I was,” I replied and put away my questions of why he would wonder about me when his niece had just been kidnapped, “but I was injured in 1909 and decided on a job closer to home.” 

“I worked for the police for a few years, until I went my own way.” I continued in response to his questioning look. 

“To be a private investigator.” Mr Holman said and took a slug of the cheap whiskey. He grimaced but didn’t put the glass away. 

I took a drink from my own glass, partly out of solidarity and partly for relief from the hangover. “I wanted to help people more directly. People like your niece.” I declined to mention the differences with my superiors that had caused my change of heart.

Mr Holman nodded and put the whiskey down, then leaned over the table. “If you say you have been following the case, Mr Edlund, you’d know that the police have been looking for my niece with nothing to show for it.” 

“And you want me to take over?” I asked to cut to the chase. Normally I would not be so short with people, but Mr Holman rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps it was the way he looked at Sarah. The hangover didn’t help.

The man nodded. “At the very least investigate in your own way. Those cops are too tied up in bureaucracy and red tape to get any real work done. A man like you, who can go where he pleases, now that’ll do the trick. And of course, I will pay you handsomely for the job.”

“Excuse me, Mr Holman, but why would you think I can find her if the police can’t? It’s true I don’t have to tell a superior where I am going or why, but the police have authority and permissions that I don’t.” 

“Surely you have connections.” Mr Holman said, as if it was a kind of pulp-book magic that could solve any problem. I did have connections, but they’re not magical. I glanced at the framed medal, though I did not need the keepsake to remember what had happened. 

I turned back to Mr Holman and pushed the memories away. “If I am going to find your niece, Mr Holman, you are going to have to tell me everything you told the police, and preferably more.”

A storm was building by the time I pulled up at the Holman residence the following day, the wind rustling the oak trees that towered over the white-painted house. I decided that Cayson Holman must be a man of means, for the street had many enormous houses with large grounds, each building spaced so far apart that they all seemed like rural villas in the midst of the city. So often during my time in the army we had seen streets where any door or window could hide a shooter, and so many years after I still found open windows upsetting, and the street by the Holman estate was a checkerboard of white-painting facades and dark windows. I shook off the memories as best I could and headed for the house.

As I approached the front door, I heard the click of a lock disengaging and Mr Holman opened the door to greet me, dressed this time in business casual. 

“Good, you’re here,” he said and gestured me inside, “I have some business partners coming in a few, so I’ll let you into Moira’s room but you just come to the dining room if you have any questions, alright?” 

I nodded, privately wondering how the man could do business when his niece had just been kidnapped. Two bored police officers were sitting in the lounge, each with a cup of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich. I figured that they had been posted here for the family’s safety. 

“Oh hey, it’s Edlund.” One of them said and got out of his seat to greet me.

“Good day to you too, Jason.” I replied, but my focus was on investigating Moira’s room. Mr Holman stood a distance away, looking back at me and the officers with disinterest.

“There’s nothing here for you, Jack.” The other officer said and took a drink from his coffee.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Graham.” I said and turned back to follow Mr Holman, ignoring the whispers behind my back. 

“They broke in through the front door,” Mr Holman says as he unlocked Moira’s door with a key, “but I got that replaced straight away. The old door is out in the toolshed, if you want to see that too.” 

“Not for the moment, no.” I said and turned my attention to the room. The room itself followed the white colonial design of the facade, but all of the furniture, bedding and personal effects that I could see at a glance gave an earthy feeling, all browns and greens, well-used but cared for.

“I’ll be in the dining room, Mr Edlund.” Mr Holman said and closed the door as he left. I was a little surprised when I didn’t hear him locking the door behind me as he went. 

Because of the kidnapping and the police’s own search, I couldn’t be assured that everything was where it was meant to be. I pulled my gloves from my jacket and began my own search. There is a framed photograph on the floor with the glass cracked. In the picture, a man and a woman in fieldwork clothes hold a baby girl swathed in a white dress, the parents beaming with pride over their child. James, Kirsten and Moira Behler, 1883, a plaque on the frame tells me. There is another, more recent, photograph on the desk. Bernard Wells & Moira Behler, 1914. Bernard Wells must be the fiancee mentioned by Mr Holman the previous day, but my interest was on Moira for the moment. Detailed drawings of whales, fish and other marine animals adorned the walls and the fascination with the ocean had been continued in a pile of notebooks on the desk. In addition to the notebooks, I found many other notes, the paper torn from various sources, written to remind Moira of tasks great and small. Mr Holman had mentioned that his niece had always been scatter-brained and prone to forgetfulness. The notes featured not only on the desk but all around the room. One of the notebooks was titled Persons and I found that it contained a list of names along with a brief descriptor of their place in Moira’s life. In it I found the name of my father, Kristian Edlund. What connection did my father have with Moira Behler? 

Moira had also framed a series of newspaper clippings concerning the sailing and eventual incident of the Charioteer, the ship where her parents perished. Next to the clipping concerning the Charioteer’s incident I found another clipping that concerned an unusual whale-corpse washed up on a shore in Alaska, like the clipping my father had. According to Mr Holman, his niece was pursuing an interest as a marine biologist, which explains why she would have been interested in a washed-up sea creature. Is pursuing, I reminded myself. Keep to hope, even if my rational side protested. 

Behind the door there was a bit of broken plaster that lined up with the door-handle. I imagined that the perpetrators, after gaining access to the house, had forced Moira’s door open. Mr Holman’s family had been visiting a business partner for dinner that evening, but Moira had declined the invitation to stay at home to work on one of her projects, the contents of which are splayed across the desk. A few pages were damaged beyond repair, torn or covered in spilled ink, but I skimmed through the remains. It concerned deep-sea creatures, as well as those that hunt in the deep sea, like whales have been suspected of doing, on account of the scarring seen on some older whales and reports of whales emerging on the surface with some horrific, unearthly prey caught in their jaws. The final passage caught my eye.

“Mankind has sailed the seas for millenia and taken from its bounty for even longer, but the deep sea is yet unexplored, and what little we do know is only given to us at the whims of Mother Nature. As Lord Byron said – 

‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore.’ 

We may have dominion over the surface, but the deep sea is beyond even our reach. I believe that we will never truly know what lies in its depths.”

Where it said ‘I believe’, the words ‘afraid’ and ‘delighted’ had both been written, reconsidered and then crossed out. On a notepad underneath the documents I found more sketches of marine creatures, possibly ones from her research. They were strange, unnerving and with proportions that made me ill at ease, so I put the notepad back where I had found it; out of sight and out of mind. 

I had seen enough for now. From my suitcase I produced a brush and a container of powder, which I put to use on the door and various surfaces in the room. One of the reasons I had left the force was my fascination with unorthodox methods, this powder being one of those. It sticks to the grease left behind by our touch and leaves a visible trace of a pattern found on the tip of a person’s finger, the pattern of which is supposedly unique to each and every person. My superiors thought it was a load of rubbish, but I persisted until I was unpopular and belittled by my colleagues, at which point I departed to start my own practice. 

The powder worked its magic and soon there were white markings of fingerprints everywhere in the study. Many were smudged to uselessness, collected around the door handle, the desk and the back of the chair. With no catalogue or references to compare to, any print could be useful, so I copied as many as I could and stored them for later. In the midst of this collection work, I noticed a set on the windowsill, all by its lonesome. It matched one by the door, near as I could tell, and so I clipped them together. For all I knew, they could be Miss Behler’s, or they could be related to her kidnapping. Satisfied with my collection, I scoured the floor and the awkward places of the room, spaces where the family or the police might have missed, but I found nothing of substance; only a single sheet of paper with a drawing of a ship on a vast, empty ocean. On the side of the lonesome vessel a name was written; Charioteer. 

“You want me to do what!?” Mr Holman exclaimed and sat his cup of coffee down with a slam. From the dining room, a man in a suit glanced at us then averted his gaze as Mr Holman turned in place, his features tight. 

“I have business associates here, Mr Edlund, I can’t just assemble my entire staff on a moment’s notice,” Mr Holman blustered, then sighed, “Heck, my gardener’s even out of town.”

“It concerns your niece’s safety, Mr Holman.” I said. At the time, I could not decide whether it was the right and the wrong thing to say. 

Mr Holman looked away from me down the hallway to the dining room where his business associates whispered and chatted. “It will have to wait till tomorrow.”

“Best to call the ones on short notice first, Mr Holman, if the culprit is among those then there is no need to recall your gardener.” I said.

Then a thought struck me. “Mr Holman, when did your gardener leave town?” 

Mr Holman stared at me with puzzlement rather than anger, for once. “Just under a week ago, why?”

“Just after your niece’s kidnapping,” I thought aloud, “Did the police not request he stay?” 

“Shamus wasn’t working on the day of the kidnapping, he was watching his ma,” Mr Holman said then gasped, “Could it be Shamus?” 

“It could be anyone in your staff, Mr Holman, if the culprit was even among them, but it is suspicious that your gardener left the day after. Do you know where he went?” 

“Not off the top of my head, no,” Mr Holman said and finished his coffee. It seemed expensive, judging from the cup and the smell, but Mr Holman drank it like it was the cheapest diner brew, “But wait here, I’ll get my notebook.” 

Mr Holman left without waiting for my reply, saying a brief word to his associates before running off to his office. He returned with a ringbound notebook, evidently a record of staff and already turned to the gardener’s page.

Shamus Gallen

Gardener, Delivery Boy

Pay – $35 weekly

Address – 72nd Meldover Strt, Boston

Mother – Penny Rearden Gallen

Secretary, 14th Maple Street, Sherborn

Father – William Gallen

Sailor, Deceased

No Further Relatives

At the bottom I saw a hastily written note – Trench Lodge, Ellisville

“I keep notes on all my employees after a secretary tried to run off with the pension one Christmas.” Mr Holman said with evident pride.

“I don’t know if Shamus went down to Ellisville, but I know he borrowed a place down there, from some friend.” Mr Holman continued and took a drag from a cigar.

“I see,” I said as I handed the bundle back to Mr Holman, “Could you assemble your staff and family here in the morning?”

“My family too?,” Mr Holman exclaimed, nearly choking, “You can’t think they had any hand in this!” 

“I don’t, but I need to be able to tell them apart, Mr Holman, and for that I need as many people present as possible.” 

Mr Holman did not hide his displeasure. “If you say so. You better be worth all this trouble, Mr Edlund.” 

I thanked him for his time and left the Holman residence, ignoring the stares of my former colleagues who still sat by the door with their coffee until I closed my car door and drove off. I drove around the corner to the next block before I parked the car on the curb and leaned back in my seat with a deep sigh. I know that if I had had any alcohol in the car, I would have drank it all then and there. The derision of my old colleagues and the frustration of Mr Holman had almost been more than I could take, and my thoughts were in a jumble, memories tumbling out from hiding into spaces where they were not welcome. Thinking straight about the case was an impossibility next to that turmoil.

I pulled out my pocket watch and made an effort to focus on the hands. Each second ticked by uniformly, their solidity telling the minutes when to advance, and after a few minutes I felt my thoughts slow down until they were legible and ordered. Useful. 

Until the gathering the next morning, I felt that my hands were tied. Without any references, my collection of fingerprints was just grease on paper of no help to anyone. But there was something I could do. I found it suspicious that the gardener had left the day after the kidnapping and as I had been given no alibi, either by Mr Holman or Shamus himself, I had a much closer source to consult; Shamus’s own mother, Penny Rearden. With the address fresh in my mind I started the car and pulled away from the curb. As I drove, I heard the crackle of thunder above me, soon followed by the drumming of rain on the roof of my car. The onset of the storm seemed to dispel some of the tension that had been brewing over the city. When I pulled up to the address I got from Mr Holman, people were running for cover from the rain. It was a stark contrast to the rich, well-spaced street of the Holman residence. Mrs Gallen’s home was an apartment, one of many in a tall complex, previously some kind of warehouse or factory converted into cheap living spaces. The building stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the street which gave it a cramped appearance, even when looked at from the street. The downpour was so fierce that even running from my car to the front door left me soaked and I had to take a moment in the stairwell to gather my wits before I ascended the stairs to Mrs Gallen’s door. As I stopped in the doorway and turned around, the view of Boston Harbor in the distance struck me. Shamus’s father had been listed as a sailor, but Mr Holman’s documents had not mentioned where he had been stationed. I filed the question away with the myriad others and ascended the stairs. Mrs Gallen lived on the second floor and I left a trail of raindrops in the silent stairway till I found the door labelled Penny Rearden Gallen. The name of her late husband was still listed alongside hers. I could understand that; my own grandpa could never get himself to take grandma’s name off his door, even at the end. 

I knocked and then waited. I knocked again and called out, “Mrs Gallen,” and waited some more. 

“Mrs Gallen, my name is Jack Edlund and I was hoping to talk to you about your son.” I knocked again, louder this time, hoping that no other residents would come out. The stairway was as dead and quiet as when I arrived. Looking both ways, I reached out and turned the handle to find that the door wasn’t locked. I ducked inside and closed the door then waited a moment to listen for neighbours calling out. Silence.

“Mrs Gallen?” I called out again after locking the door. Had Shamus forgotten to lock the door behind him as he left his dear ma, or was it just Mrs Gallen’s habit to leave the front door unlocked?

The entrance was cramped, the corridor hemmed in on both sides by coats and shoes and, further on, innumerable paintings. They were amateurish but carried a certain essence, a self-taught artist with a clear reference and a strong soul. They depicted scenes of ships and the ocean, some in disarray and others on clear days. I was reminded of Miss Behler’s drawing of the Charioteer, though none of the paintings in the hallway carried that distinct loneliness. I called out to the old woman again as I was growing increasingly sure that she must be out and had forgotten to lock her door. On the floor I saw a jumble of papers, sheets upon sheets of drawings piled upon each other. From a distance I could not make them out, so I approached and knelt down to take one of the sheets from the pile when I chanced to look to my right into the living room, and the sight there was such a shock that I cried out, a wordless sound of fright, and dropped the papers and myself to the floor.

Sitting motionless in a highback chair was an old woman, still clothed but very dead, the expression on her face one of pain and shock. A wound in her chest had bled through her dress onto the floor to leave a pool of crimson. Her skin was shrivelled as though laid out in the harsh desert sun for days, but I saw no indication that she had been moved after the wound. 

“Mrs Gallen!?” I cried out. Perhaps I had some naive hope that the old woman was just sitting elsewhere in her apartment, unaware of the decaying body in her armchair. But no old lady arrived. I approached the corpse cautiously, careful not to disturb the scene, for I knew that police would be combing through it in the near future. My instincts told me that I was standing before the late Penny Rearden Gallen, and the ring on her finger proved me right. She had clearly been dead for over a week, but I detected no foul odors. If not for the dried blood and her withered flesh, I would have thought she had died mere moments ago. I mumbled apologies as I did a cursory examination of her body that revealed further desecration on her shoulder and on her back. A symbol had been sliced into her flesh with a sharp blade, which I assumed had been the same blade used to stab her. From the bleeding caused by the wounds it was clear that they had been carried out before the poor woman had died. But I could scarcely take in these details about Mrs Gallen’s murder, for I had recognised the symbol immediately; it was the same as the one my late father had scribbled on the back of the newspaper clipping. The medium was different, that was all.

As I turned away from the body, my sight fell upon the scattered sheets of paper. There the symbol was repeated with ink and pencil, like an artist practicing before carving it into Mrs Gallen’s flesh. On others I found drawings of creatures. They reminded me of the drawings from Miss Behler’s study, but these had a menacing tint to them that I had not found in the study. I took a step back and attempted to approach the scene rationally. If this murder was connected to Moira Behler’s kidnapping, I could possibly find prints on the handle of the murder weapon, but I could not leave evidence that I had been here, lest a police investigation be pointed at me. A quick search of the apartment only turned up a single item of note; a brochure for Ellisville that looked to be recently purchased. I took it with me along with one of the sheets of paper and put them in my briefcase. I said a prayer for Mrs Gallen’s soul and then left the apartment. I could not lock the door behind me, so I had to hope that no one else would stumble over the poor woman.

That night I had a nightmare. Unfortunately that was not, in itself, unusual. Ever since my time in the army I had had night terrors, but this one had been unusual. It had also flown from my memory the moment I awoke and I was left only with a certainty of its unique character and a single image, like a photograph I had only just remembered seeing. The symbol from Mrs Gallen’s flesh carved into my face. 

The following morning I arrived at the Holman residence with my kit. Mr Holman met me at the front door looking none too pleased and so I made sure to work quickly, asking each member of both the staff and the family to make prints that would allow me to reference those I had found in Miss Behler’s room.

“So? Will that help?” Mr Holman asked as I worked at his personal desk. The gathering had dispersed, though everyone had been asked to remain in the building or on the grounds until I said otherwise.

“It is hard to say, Mr Holman. The technique is still in its infancy.” I said. Comparing the prints was difficult, even with the magnifying glass I had brought specifically for the task. 

“Don’t tell me I got all those cats herded for nothing.” The man said with frustration.

“Perhaps not for nothing,” I said and held a print to the light, “It remains to be seen if it is conclusive, but none of your staff or family have the prints I was looking for, the ones found on their own on the windowsill. I am missing at least two people who were in that room.” 

“If everyone leaves them behind as you say, Mr Edlund, then one of them would be Moira.” 

“Just so,” I said and picked up the two prints in question, “But if one is Moira’s and the other is a mystery, it could be Shamus Gallen’s.”

“What reason would Shamus have to go to Moira’s room?” Mr Holman said with a scoff, but then his expression darkened.

“It is possible that Shamus was involved in Moira’s kidnapping.” I said to put our thoughts into words.

I was about to continue when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. One of Mr Holman’s aides, a nervous young man named Richard, called through the door.

“Mr Holman, I believe you’ll want to see this.” he said as he entered. In his hands was a newspaper, the Vollger News & Important Communiques, a rather cumbersome title if you ask me. Richard had turned the page to an article. Mariner Widow Found Murdered. Police Asks The Town. 

“Shamus’s mother has been murdered.” Richard said and handed Holman the newspaper. 

I read the article over Mr Holman’s shoulder but saw nothing I had not already gleaned from my own visit. But what caught my eye, and chilled my blood, was the final paragraph.

The Boston Police Department requests that any conscionable citizens step forward if they have information on this case. The identity of the murder is a mystery but they left behind a clue that we implore the fine citizenry of Boston to be aware of.

The final part of the article was a drawing of the symbol I had found in the apartment, and in my father’s belongings. I was beginning to seriously wonder what the meaning of the symbol could be, both on its own and in relation to the case. 

Mr Holman read the article in silence for a moment while I thought about how much I should say and whether admitting to my knowledge about her murder was wise. If the police had already found her body and I had not already been apprehended for her murder, I considered myself out of the line of fire, so to speak. I had spoken my name aloud in front of her door, but my name did not feature in the article nor had uniformed officers come to collect me. What I had seen there, beyond the horrid spectacle of the mutilated woman and the madman sketches, still led me to believe Shamus Gallen was either responsible for, or involved in, the death of his mother. And if he had also kidnapped Miss Behler, I imagined a clock was ticking before he would perpetrate the same to her. 

Mr Holman tossed the newspaper onto his desk with a grunt and turned back to me. Richard had already excused himself and left. 

“So, what were we talking about?” he said. 

“I believe Shamus Gallen is responsible for Moira’s kidnapping.” I said, repeating myself from earlier. 

“With his mother dead?” Mr Holman said casually. 

“The two cases might not be related, Mr Holman.” I could not say that I believed he was responsible for her death as well without revealing my suspicious visit to her apartment.

“If they are, my niece has been kidnapped by a murderer.” Mr Holman said.

“Just so.” I said, wondering what to make of his tone. 

The rain began again as I drove to Ellisville and I decided to continue through the downpour, weathering the storm alongside other drivers on the motorway. Eventually Cape Cod Bay took over from Massachusetts Bay as I drove south, the storm-churned waters bringing my mind back to Moira Behler’s drawings. Marine life had never been a specific interest of mine, but a friend of my fathers had been a whaler so I had seen plenty of photographs of those underwater giants. There were whales in the drawings, but there had been other creatures as well, and those I found the hardest to dispel from my thoughts. According to the Theory of Evolution, natural creatures succeeded by changing their bodies and their tools to match where they lived. I wished fervently that I would never know the conditions under which such creatures could be created.

Ellisville was a quiet town with a few fishing tugs riding out the storm in the harbour. Trench Lodge was supposedly a small timber cottage away from the town proper, situated inside the Ellisville state park and close to a part of Salt Pond so deep, locals called it the Trench. One man, an old fella with a beard that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the Civil War, told me that it went into Hell itself. As I wandered the town asking about Trench Lodge and Shamus Gallen, the feeling of being watched was constant, and often I saw the locals looking at me, some with simple curiosity and some with hostility. Between talks with the locals I wondered if the same people had some agreement with the kidnappers. I learned precious little about Shamus Gallen, but the location of Trench Lodge was not as secret.

And so with written directions I headed for the state park. In the meantime the storm had left the bay and headed inland, pummelling the trees with rain and wind. Visibility was poor so I inched my car along the forest paths until a log cabin loomed out of the drizzle. As I parked my car at the outskirts of the lodge’s clearing, the rain let up and the wind seemed to quieten. When no one called out or moved to question me, I got out of my car with my revolver tucked behind my back, out of sight but in reach. The silence around me was broken by birdsong and occasional animal calls, the air crisp from the rain. Despite the beauty of the forest around me, my memory of Mrs Gallen’s apartment was clear as day and I approached the cabin with great care. Two cars were parked by the side of the cabin and had been there for some time; the grass underneath them was dry. The cabin itself was nothing special, but I noticed that the windows had been boarded up from within. I walked up the steps with my ears alert for any noise, anything to indicate that the cabin was occupied, but I heard nothing. No one came to challenge my arrival or to call me out, so I stood on the porch and scanned the property before knocking on the door. A long moment passed in silence and I nearly jumped when a deer called out to its fellows somewhere to my right. With a smile and a sigh at my own tension I knocked again, and this time I heard a noise from within. It was faint, but unmistakably human. 

“Hello, Mr Gallen?” I called out and resisted the urge to reach for my revolver. “I’m from the local parish, I was hoping to speak with you.” A trick from the playbook of the reporter, which the private eye borrowed on occasion. 

There was that noise again, then a shuffling sound. I heard a voice from inside the house.

“Please help me!” A woman’s voice. 

“What’s wrong, miss?” I called out and tried the door to find it locked. With my hand on the revolver I scanned the forest, but I was still alone in the clearing.

“I was taken from my home and I don’t know where I am. Please!” The voice called out. I heard more shuffling sounds from inside. 

I could not know if this was Moira Behler, but I could not ignore it either way. “Stand back!” I shouted and drew back to launch myself at the door, shattering the lock and barrelling into the room beyond. It was gloomy, lit only by the light from the now-broken door and gaps in boarded-up windows. For a moment it appeared to be a regular, empty hunting cabin with a perfunctory kitchen, a cot and a couch, but as my eyes adjusted I saw the grate built into the floor, iron bars set into a hole that had been cut through the planks.

“I’m down here!” The woman’s voice came from beneath the grate.

“Miss Moira Behler?” I called out as I approached with one hand on the grip of my revolver. I wanted to close the door behind me but that would cast the room back into darkness.

The woman’s calling became fearful. “How do you know my name?” 

I saw her then, through the grate. Shoulder-length brown hair and a simple dark-green dress, both stained from her capture and captivity. Brown eyes that reflected red in the light of the door. I saw a likeness to the young woman in the second photograph, but the difference in angle and situation made me uncertain. Moira appeared tired and filthy but not weak, and I was relieved that Miss Behler had not been subjected to the same fate as Mrs Gallen.

“My name is Jack Edlund, a private eye. Your uncle hired me to find you, Miss Behler.” I attempted to open the grate, but it was secured to the floor and did not budge no matter what I tried. 

Moria turned her face from the light for a moment. “I suppose I should thank you regardless, Mr Edlund, but I do not believe that the grate can shift. My captors never opened it, anyhow.”

I checked outside to see if anyone was approaching. “I’ll find a way down there, Miss Behler, stay where you are.”

I heard the clinking of a chain and a grim chuckle. “Not like I have a choice,” then the fear returned to her tone, “please hurry!”

I left the cabin and closed the door to give it some semblance of normalcy in case the captor returned while I was looking for a way down to Miss Behler. On the side of the cabin was a double-door entrance to a basement that was locked with a padlock. I had seen no keys inside the cabin so I placed my revolver against the metal and muffled it with a bunched-up sheet before blowing the lock apart. Even with the muffling I found the sound of the shot too loud and I knew that if any of the occupants of the cavern were close then they would have heard it for sure. The doors opened to a wooden staircase that led onto a stone floor and just inside was a lantern that lit up with no trouble, showing a roughly-hewn tunnel that led down into the earth and Miss Behler at the edge of the light, chained to the floor and squinting.

“I think they have the key.” Miss Behler said and pulled on the chain for emphasis. 

“I would imagine as much, but thankfully I have a backup.” I said and held up the revolver. Firing the revolver would be a horrendous racket in the closed space of the tunnel, but I saw no alternative.

“Do you know who kidnapped you?” I asked as I examined the chain to find a weak spot.

“No, I don’t–” she started, then hesitated, “I don’t remember.” 

“Cover your ears.” I said and readied the revolver. The noise and echo battered my hearing in the tight space, but the chain gave enough after a single shot that I could break the rest apart with a rock. 

“Are you hurt? Can you walk?” I asked with my ears still ringing.

Miss Behler said nothing but stood up on her own power and hurried out of the tunnel towards the light of the forest. I made to follow, but a sensation halted me. The tunnel continued beyond the reach of the lantern and through the solid black of the darkness further on I felt the overpowering sensation that I was being watched, that just out of the reach of my light was some presence that was observing me. I would love to say that I made a dignified exit, but that would simply not be true.

Out of the tunnel, I found Miss Behler hiding at the corner of the cabin, peeking out at the parked cars. She was pale in the sunlight, the stains of her captivity all the clearer for it, but it was clear that the prospect of freedom and safety gave her strength.

“The green car is mine,” I said and holstered my revolver, “Let’s get away before they return.”

“Where am I?” Miss Behler said and looked around the clearing with a dazed expression. 

She had said that she did not know where she was, but something in her tone struck me. “You are in Ellisville, Massachusetts. Southeast of Boston. Your kidnappers took you here.” 

“Why don’t I remember?” she said and then winced, touching her temple. 

Perhaps her captors had hurt her in some way that I could not see. “Miss Behler, it is best that we leave before your kidnappers return. We can talk later.” 

I found it difficult to judge from her expression whether or not she understood me, but she followed me to my car where she consented to staying in the boot until we were closer to town. I did not want one of her captors to pass us by on the forest path. I swore to drive carefully and locked the boot before climbing into the driver’s seat. 

Chapter 2 – Storage

I had to fight my urge to floor the speed pedal as I drove out of the clearing and I thought that if I ever had to return to that cabin, it would be too soon. The dirt-road out of the forest was quiet and I encountered no other drivers until I made the turn out of the forest and onto the northbound road from Ellisville when a yellow car, spotted with dents and rust, turned the corner in front of me with considerable speed and swerved at the last moment to avoid a collision. Out of reflex I pumped my horn but the driver had no regard for my anger and continued on into the forest. The encounter had been over so quickly that I had no impression of the driver. Once the other car was out of earshot I called out an apology to Miss Behler for my sudden stop and continued onto the road into Ellisville. Some time before we entered the town proper, I pulled over and got Miss Behler into the passenger seat. We drove in silence, and the few questions I had were answered with great hesitation, if at all. I remembered her uncle’s comment about her forgetfulness, and in the moment it seemed to be a great understatement. The one thing that seemed to have stuck in her mind was that she was not at home and that she did not know me. All other subjects were as water off a duck’s back. 

“Where are we headed? My home?” Moira asked as the town came into view and the forest fell away behind us. 

“No, we’re headed for the nearest telephone, Miss Behler, so that I can phone your uncle and tell him that you are safe. After that, we’ll go home to Boston. If necessary, there should be uniformed officers there.” I replied, wondering how much of that decision stemmed from my own bitterness towards the police. I had succeeded where they had failed, and I wanted them to know it.

“My uncle’s house, you mean.” She replied with palpable bitterness and none of the confusion I had experienced thus far.

“Is that not where you live?”

“It is, but,” she hesitated a moment, choosing her words, “I would not call it my home.”

A heavy silence fell, but my mind was so crowded with questions that I could not let it linger.

“Miss Behler, I am sorry to ask you this so quickly, but the men who took you, did they give any reasons?”

When Miss Behler did not reply, I was compelled to continue. “It is just that your uncle never received any ransom notes or any of the like.”

Miss Behler looked out the window for a moment longer in silence before replying. “I can’t remember their faces or much of what they said, but they were waiting for someone.”

“Someone?” 

Again she paused, then growled with frustration. “I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember!?” Her growl grew louder as she tore at her own hair. The shift was so sudden that it took me a moment to compose myself. 

With one hand on the wheel, I reached over blindly and took her hands. “Miss Behler please, calm yourself. You were taken against your will and kept prisoner. The shock is simply messing with your head.” 

Whether because of my entreatance or through some internal resolve Moira let go and sunk back in her seat. A few strands of her brown hair had come away in her clenched hands. “Thank you, mister detective, but it is not so simple. I have always had trouble with my memory, an obstacle that has only grown greater over the years. My doctor calls it dementia and says it will likely only increase in severity as I get older.” 

I thought for a moment that forgetting my time in the army would be a blessing, but I had former comrades from the army that suffered from it as well and I had seen enough to know that it was a curse, pure and simple. A black stormcloud with no silver lining.

“My condolences, Miss Behler. I did not know.” I said.

“My uncle considers it simple forgetfulness and has called it as such to my poor fiancé.” Miss Behler said with a grim chuckle. “Would not want to upset the poor man and send him running before the marriage.” 

I parked the car by the town’s grocery store. According to the locals I had asked earlier, it was one of only three telephones in the town, the other two being with the police and the park ranger office. 

“Miss Behler, please stay in the car. I need to inform your uncle of the situation and assure him of your safety. Once I return we will drive straight to Boston.” 

Moira simply nodded, curled up in her seat and looked at the floor. 

Just as I was turning to exit the car, I felt a hand on my wrist. 

“Mister detective, I remembered a little more. The men in the cabin, the ones that were holding me, they sometimes spoke of a ‘Master’. They never mentioned a name or much beyond the title, but they were supposed to come soon, perhaps even today.” 

A ‘Master’? Was this some kind of cult? “I will keep that in mind, thank you Miss Behler.”

I stepped out of the car. The sky was overcast yet again and the streets were deserted save a few stubborn or desperate souls. I hoped no one would remember that I had arrived in town earlier that day alone, for I still held my unfounded suspicions about the locals.

The woman behind the counter asked no questions, but simply took my dollars and pointed me to the telephone. On the counter was a stack of newspapers, the same daily issue of Vollger News & Important Communiques that I had seen back in Boston earlier, but I did not give much thought to why a newspaper covering events in Boston would be so far away from its principal city. I rang up my local bar back in Boston and gave a message for Sarah to contact Mr Holman with the news that his nephew was safe. I considered asking her to look into anyone that could count for this ‘Master’, but I had nothing to go on and in all likelihood I would not be in contact with Sarah until my return to the office. As I left I was aware of the owner staring at me, but I saw no cause for alarm. I was a stranger in their town. God willing, we would be out of Ellisville within the hour. 

This is where the troubles began. As I stepped out of the store, I spotted a car driving out on the road that ran by the store and it was plain to see that the driver was in no particular hurry to move on. Normally I would not make any notice of something so minor, but I recognised it as one of the cars that had been parked by Trench Lodge. 

I dove back through the door to the grocery store and looked at my car, but I could not see Miss Behler. I figured she had hidden on her own accord because she had spotted the car before me, but when it had passed us by and I hurried back to my car she was nowhere to be seen, not in the cabin nor the boot. I stood up and frantically scanned the lot in front of the store only to catch a glimpse of a green dress rounding a corner. With a curse on my lips I sprinted after her and found Miss Behler walking along the street with her arms crossed over her chest and looking up and down the street, a confused and scared expression on her face. 

“Miss Behler!” I hissed and approached her. Any moment now the car I had spotted could turn onto the street and see us.

She stopped and turned towards me without a hint of recognition. “Who are you and how do you know my name?” she called out with no regard for the situation. 

It took all my restraint not to seize her by the arm and drag her back to the car. “I am here to take you home, Miss Behler. You were taken away against your will, remember?” 

Moira’s expression became confused, then fearful and she slumped against the wall. Her hands clenched in a white-knuckled grip and for a moment she struggled with herself. 

“Forgive me, for I do not remember your name, but I know you speak the truth.” she said and unclenched herself.

“For now, please miss, we need to get back to my car.” 

“Jack Edlund,” I said as we were safely back in my car, “my name is Jack Edlund.” I reached into my glove compartment and took out one of my business cards.

“Jack Edlund.” she repeated and stashed the card within her dress.

I moved to start the car but then Miss Behler spoke again. “Is there a reason why we have not yet gone to the police, if there are men hunting us?” 

I sat in silence for a moment and found that I could not give her a reason. I must have been carrying more bitterness from my time in the force than I would have liked to admit, for the option had not sprung to mind.

“You are right, Miss Behler. Let’s go to the police.” I said and took a deep breath. The officers here in Ellisville would be unaware of my reputation and I would just be another citizen. 

As I got out of the car again I decided against locking the car to prevent Miss Behler wandering again. Perhaps my urgent need put the clerk off, for the woman behind the counter of the establishment answered my question with no request for payment and only a little stammer, and soon afterwards I pulled out of the store’s lot away from where I saw the car and headed along the route described to me. I could not escape the sensation of being hunted as I drove through the slim streets and stared at every car I saw. For a moment I was transported back to the war, with every window and every darkened alley a potential threat. My relief at seeing the police station was short-lived.

“Mr Edlund, you drove past it, that’s the police there.” Miss Behler called out as I drove past the station without slowing. I wanted to tell her to hide herself, but we needed to avoid sudden movements that could have drawn attention to us.

“Look at the cars parked outside.” I replied and kept my eyes fixed on the road, looking as nonchalant as I could.

I heard Miss Behler gasp as she recognised the cars from the cabin, as well as the one that had nearly forced us off the road at the exit to the forest. To top it all off, a police officer walked through the doors to the station talking to a group of men who all walked to the grouped cars. In the blink of an eye, this town had become dangerous. It was clear that whoever had been involved in Miss Behler’s kidnapping must have powerful connections to have the means to enlist the police like that. I turned the first corner I could and ended up in a back alley that was only occupied by a scraggly garden and an outhouse. 

Would they dare to abduct her again in broad daylight? Normally I would not assume so, but when I saw how the locals glared at me with suspicion and how the police had treated them, I decided that my presence in Ellisville was an annoyance at best. The locals would side with locals.

“Miss Behler, if they see you it will be harder for us to escape the town. Can I ask you to hide below the seat?” I said and looked at her.

The dazed expression she had had on the street had returned. “Hide from who? What?” she said. 

Again I thought of my former comrades that suffered from Miss Behler’s condition. Shadows of their former selves, barely able to function. 

“Men are after us, Miss Behler, coming to take you away from your home. If you hide, they won’t find you.” I said, angry at myself for talking to her like a child. We just needed to escape Ellisville onto the highway, then–.

Miss Behler gasped and touched her temple. “It is quite alright, I understand, mister detective. I’ll hide.” Above us a woman leaned out of her window and shouted something. I ignored her while Miss Behler slipped off her seatbelt and pressed herself beneath the dash. The space was cramped, but you would need to be at the side of the car to see her from the outside. Of course, if an officer were to look inside and see a woman hiding from view, he would not need to recognise Miss Behler to become suspicious.

We drove out of the courtyard and back onto the streets while the woman shouted at us. She threatened to call the police on us as we turned away, but her words barely registered, occupied as I was by thoughts of how to escape the town. Ellisville was not a large town so the police would not have difficulty in erecting a blockade. As I wondered whether or not to attempt an escape or to hide, I thought back to my time in the force, the many cases I had worked and the things I had learnt in that time. Silence descended upon the car, for Miss Behler was occupied with her own thoughts. I drove randomly around town as I pondered and schemed, all the while keeping an eye out for cars I could recognise as belonging to the kidnappers or the police, until my dredging struck upon a possibility. One of my first cases, a woman had looted a jewelry-shop just before opening hours and had then left the scene in a vehicle. Roads had been closed off but none of the blockades saw anything for hours. It was not till we searched inside the blockaded area and found that it contained a harbourside warehouse that she was found, huddled behind a door she could not lock after her forced entry.

I made for the harbour as soon as I could. No cars turned after me, and neither did any pedestrians. No sirens blared. A turn later and we were alone on the road, the only car headed for the water. It was the middle of the day, and Ellisville’s dockside was vacant now that the storm had passed. I assumed the workers were either away for lunch or still out on the water, but I did not dwell on the question for I quickly saw what I had hoped for; a warehouse with one of its wide loading doors unlocked and open. I considered hiding Miss Behler away first, but one look at her and I realised what a stupid idea that was. She was frightened, and it would only take a brief lapse for her to start wandering again,  and so I kept her with me as I parked the car out of sight. 

“Are we going home?” she asked as we got out of the car and headed to the warehouse.

“Soon, Miss Behler.” I said to placate her. 

The warehouse was frigid and filled with the odor of fish, but we were out of sight of anyone searching the roads. We quickly found an unlocked office where we could draw the blinds and sat on the floor to wait. 

“So how long are we going to stay here?” Miss Behler asked. She had her knees up by her chin and her arms around them to keep warm. 

“Hard to say,” I replied, becoming aware that the last time I had eaten was a small breakfast, “hopefully they will assume we made it out of town before they put up their blockade and widen their net. When they do that, we can slip through.”

“And if they don’t?” Miss Behler asked. When I had no reply, she sighed and looked away to some memory only she could see.

I had no intention of ignoring the poor woman, but I had no answer for her. I did not know the Ellisville police force, nor anything about their ties to her kidnappers, and so I could not say how they intended to canvas the town. And as I had yet to see the man with my own eyes, I could not even be sure that Shamus Gallen was involved. Finding his mother in her own living room, her body mutilated with that mysterious symbol, was not difficult to recall, and nor would I need to refer to the sheet of paper I had brought with me to remember the symbol that had been carved into her flesh. It is, perhaps especially now, the clearest memory I have, or perhaps my mind found it a good substitute for other memories it would gladly have me forget. 

I glanced at Miss Behler and wondered if I should tell her about Mrs Gallen. She had a right to know about the man that I suspected had aided or participated in her kidnapping, but I could not, at that moment, decide if it would help her to know that one of her kidnappers would be capable of such a vile act. On second thought, I didn’t even know if it was connected to her at all. Maybe Shamus running away was just unfortunate timing, or maybe he was a victim as well, pursued by a deranged madman with no regard for the life of an old woman. 

I pushed the thoughts away before they could derail further and decided that my priority had to be Miss Behler’s safety and to escape from Ellisville. Justice could come later.

“Miss Behler, do you know anything about your captors? Anything they said, anyone you recognised?” I asked. While the information could be useful, talking could also just pass the time.

The dazed expression passed over her features, but it was like a cloud driven by a strong wind, for it was soon gone. After its passing she looked determined, though also pained. Again she put a hand to her temple. 

“There was one I thought I recognised from my uncle’s house, but I can’t recall their face or their name.” 

“Shamus Gallen.” I supplied without thinking.

Miss Behler looked at me for a moment then shook her head. “That might be so, mister detective, but sadly my mind is not a reliable witness. They could have been three, maybe four people. I remember hotdogs.”

“And they never spoke of any reasons for your abduction, a ransom or a list of demands?” 

Again she shook her head. “Not in any way that I remember. Maybe their ‘master’ would have presented them.” 

“But they must have wanted something,” I said and glanced out of the office to find the warehouse still empty, “perhaps an inheritance or such?” 

Moira Behler chuckled. “It is funny I suppose, mister detective, but there are some things that I remember with crystal clarity. The inheritance in my father’s will is one of those things. It is substantial, but it is locked away until such a time as I am legally married. My godly parents made sure of that.”

I remembered the photograph on her desk. “Hence your fiancé, Bernard Wells.”

She nodded. “Doubtless he has an arrangement with my uncle to share the inheritance in some fashion. I have met the man, but I cannot say how aware he is of my condition and its implications.”

“Implications?” 

For a moment the pain won out over the determination. “My doctor says that my condition might well be passed onto my children, and to their children and so on. A grim fate, I am sure you would agree.”

I did, and we had a moment of silence while the warehouse creaked around us. Earlier she had all but confirmed the presence of Shamus Gallen among her kidnappers, and so I thought again of the state of Mrs Gallen, and the symbol that I had seen in three separate places now. I had brought my briefcase with me from the car, and so I took out the sheet of paper I had brought from the apartment. The edges were stained rust-red which only added to its unnerving appearance.

“Miss Behler, have you seen this symbol before?” 

As she held the paper, a confused expression spread over her features, but then she gasped in pain and turned away, eyes squeezed shut. The paper slipped from her hands and drifted down to the ground.

“Miss Behler, are you alright?” I asked, my voice raised in surprise.

“My apologies, it’s just,” Miss Behler said with a hiss, “I have seen it before, of that I am absolutely sure, but when I tried to remember where I felt a stabbing pain in my head, like I had been lanced with a dagger of ice.”

“So you have seen it before.” I said and hurried to hide the parchment away. 

Miss Behler took a moment before replying as she rubbed at her temple. “It’s hazy, but I remember that I was young. Maybe it was on the ship, the Charioteer?” 

If it is that long ago, I reasoned to myself, surely it cannot be related to Mrs Gallen’s murder. 

“Why can I not remember?” Miss Behler said with clear frustration. 

“Memories from our distant youth are rarely crystal clear, Miss Behler.”

“On the contrary for me, mister detective, after a point I remember my childhood very well.”

“Which point?” I asked without thinking. 

“The day my parents died,” she replied without skipping a beat, and then continued, “my earliest memory is waking up in a ship’s cabin, but my whole life before that point, as well as any and all memories of my parents, are gone. Logically I know I lived it, but I have no evidence beyond my name and a single photo of them. James and Kirsten Behler.” She said the names of her parents like an incantation, something etched into her memory through long repetition.

“Do you remember anything else from your kidnapping?” I was asking partially for my investigation, but also out of interest in her memory, for the event in question had only been a week in the past at that point. 

She shook her head. “It all happened so suddenly, mister detective. That is all I remember.”

I nodded to show my understanding, but the question of the symbol still gnawed at me. Perhaps Miss Behler and Shamus Gallen had seen the symbol at a common source. Once I return Miss Behler to her uncle, I’ll have to look into that. I can’t get it out of my mind. 

In that moment the ship that Miss Behler had mentioned coalesced in my mind. The Charioteer. That was one of the ships from the article my father had kept. Had Miss Behler been that survivor?

“Miss Behler, I apologise if this brings back uncomfortable memories, but were you the child they found in the Northwest Passage, on a ship adrift at sea?” 

She nodded. “I am, yes. There had been an accident on the Charioteer that had left everyone dead, myself being the sole exception. Elias Price, the captain of the Kilmartin, said he had never seen anything like it.”

Miss Behler was silent for a long moment. “It was like they had all just died. There were no wounds or cysts or ulcers, nor any blood. The only clue was that their faces were contorted, frozen in a final expression of terror. I have no memory of it myself, but that was what Captain Price told me.”

The woman’s composure cracked for a brief moment. “My parents felt no pain. They had simply,” her lip quivered, “stopped living.”

My curiosity had been piqued. “Did they ever discover what really happened on the Charioteer?” 

Miss Behler wiped away a tear and shook her head. “If so, they never informed me. Sailors, physicians and engineers from the Kilmartin and Calgary went over to inspect the Charioteer, but they found nothing out of the ordinary. No faults with the engines or the foodstocks or the medicinals. They took the Charioteer back to the shipyards and it was put right back out on the sea. Still sails, as far as I know.”

Miss Behler winced in pain, then looked at me in silence for a moment as if weighing me up. “If you ask me,” she said slowly, “the Charioteer was attacked from the ocean.”

“But didn’t you say, Miss Behler, that none of the bodies showed any signs of sickness or injury?” I replied.

“None physical,” Miss Behler replied, “and it’s not like I have any idea or clues beyond that. Whatever happened, I have no clue why it only spared me.” 

Miss Behler leaned forward, hugging her knees against the cold. “My only crystal-clear memories are of my sketches and my work. Even way back on the Kilmartin, in Captain Price’s care, I sketched on any spare paper I was given. I remained in contact with the captain for years, and later he confessed to me that the subjects of my drawings would often upset him and make him feel ill at ease, but when I pressed the man he could never put a finger on why.”

“Do you remember what you were drawing back then?” I asked. By this point my stomach was beginning to protest.

Miss Behler nodded vigorously. “Easily, for it is still the primary subject of my drawing and my studies even today. As far back as I remember, I have had a fascination for marine life, especially that which dwells deep down. It is what I study and what I put my pen to drawing.” 

Miss Behler’s gaze had become distant. “Others have echoed Captain Price’s sentiment, that my drawings upset them. One of my professors, James-John Hampstead, has asked me not to sketch during his lectures on account of the last drawing he saw, but I often forget his request. I mean no ill will, it’s just that it feels important, like there’s something only I can put to paper, that only I can draw. In 20 years I still haven’t managed a satisfactory attempt.”

I remember thinking back to the unsettling creatures on the pages scattered about Miss Behler’s office, and I hoped I would never see whatever it was she was striving towards.

As Miss Behler fell silent, I noted that her fingers danced along the fabric of her dress. tracing patterns that sent my mind back to that blood-spattered apartment. 

I tore my eyes from the emerging symbol. “Perhaps you met my father, Kristian Edlund. He was a sailor on the Calgary.” 

Miss Behler’s expression lightened for a moment. “Ah yes, I remember Mr Edlund. On quiet evenings he would come over and tell me bedtime stories to help me sleep. One time,” Miss Behler chuckled as she recounted the story, “when the ships were anchored to wait out a storm, Captain Price tried to tell me a bedtime story because Mr Edlund was busy, but the poor man was dreadful at it and just upset me more. Mr Edlund said he had a son a little older than me, and I take it that that must be you, Jack Edlund.” 

“When I was young, my father often told me stories of his time at sea, but he never mentioned the incident in the Northwest Passage. He passed away two weeks ago, and as I was going through his belongings I found some newspaper cutouts that spoke of the Charioteer.” I surprised myself with how easily I spoke of my father’s passing.

“My condolences, Jack Edlund, your father was a good man.” Miss Behler’s sincerity was clear.

“Thank you, Miss Behler.” I said the words but at that moment I wondered if this stranger had known my father better than I had. He had been so distant after I joined the army, and upon my return I was so wrapped up in my own mind that I barely paid him any heed till it was too late. For the first time in many years, I truly missed my father.

But if he had kept the cutout concerning the Northwest Passage because he met Miss Behler, what was the other cutout about? I could not recall him being especially fascinated with marine life. His knowledge on the subject had been purely practical, what a sailor needed to know about dolphins and seagulls and whales to survive at sea, so why had he been interested in a washed-up corpse in Alaska?

My thoughts were interrupted by the shuffling of feet. Judging by the expression of alarm on Miss Behler’s face, she had heard them too. I put a hand on my revolver and looked from our hiding spot, hoping to see a group of dock-workers oblivious to our presence. In truth, what I saw could have been dock-workers, but they were accompanied by police and a short man in a bowler hat and a suit. The policemen carried pistols and the workers a variety of tools that they carried as weapons. After a moment I recognised one of the dock-workers; he had been one of the men talking to the officer in front of the police station. I sat back down with a sinking feeling in my stomach and drew my revolver. It only had six bullets, and I had not brought additional bullets. Those were in my car. I signalled to Miss Behler to hide and looked again. The group was definitely heading our way with one of the dock-workers out in front guiding the rest. I cursed my bad luck and turned back to Miss Behler. 

“Miss Behler, we are about to be discovered. When I call out, I need you to run for my car. It is our only hope. I will distract them and cover our escape.” I did my best to sound hopeful about the plan, but it was desperate at best.

The fear was evident on Miss Behler’s face, but I did not know if she had understood my plan or even remembered it. I had no time to be sure, so I took a deep breath and leapt from my hiding spot with the revolver raised.

“Everyone stay where you are,” I called out and stepped away from where Miss Behler was hiding, “I won’t hesitate to fire.”

The men froze where they were.

“Put the gun down, son.” One of the officers said and reached for his own firearm.

The report of my gun echoed through the warehouse, bringing up uncomfortable memories that I had to suppress. The policeman swore to high heavens and abandoned his attempt, for my bullet had hit the floor just beside his foot, and I was sure that he knew it had been no accident.

“I warned you once, I will not warn you again.” I said and raised my gun, this time aiming for the man’s chest. 

“Ah, so you must be the man my people told me about.”

The voice was brash and the speaker used to attention. The man in the bowler hat stepped past the officer with a smile, either ignorant or oblivious of my warning. 

“They said some busybody had gotten involved with our affairs, and I must admit I was unsure what to expect.” The man said and took off his hat with a flourish. 

“Damian Vollger, associate professor of deep-sea marine life at Arkham University.” 

“I don’t care if you’re from the White House, stay where you are.” I repeated, ignoring my own command about not giving a second warning. The man’s eyes were unsettling, like they were weighing up a side of meat. Evaluating my worth. 

“Now, now, I can’t do that. Not when you have something of mine.” Mr Vollger replied and donned his hat. 

“That’s bullshit, I haven’t taken anything from you.” I said. The workers and the officers had spread out while my attention had been focused on Mr Vollger, cutting off Miss Behler’s escape. I could shoot but there were over a dozen of them, and I only had five bullets left. 

“That is, to ape your own coarse language, bullshit. You broke into our private cabin and left with a vessel sacred to our church. Not just theft, sir, but theft from the church.” Damian Vollger said with a tut. His eyes were fixed squarely on my own, rather than the gun trained on his chest. 

“I told you, I did not take anything,” I repeated, “now back off!”

Mr Vollger looked past me to the abandoned office beyond. “Now Miss Behler, please come out. I know you’re there.” 

“Hey fancy-pants, you’re-.” I started to say, only to be interrupted by footsteps behind me. 

“Professor Vollger?” Moira Behler said as she stared at Damian Vollger, both fear and anger in her eyes. She had come out and was standing beside me.

But Mr Vollger looked back at me, ignoring the young woman. “See, sir, you did come away with something, the evidence is plain to see.” 

It took me a moment to connect the pieces of what Mr Vollger was saying. “Miss Behler is not some object, Mr Vollger.” 

At that point one of the policemen cautiously stepped forward. “Put away the gun, mister, we’ll let you go if you don’t cause any trouble.” 

“If I don’t cause any trouble,” I shouted with incredulity, “these men are kidnappers and murderers!”

Damian Vollger sighed and signalled to his men. “It is plain to see that this will get us nowhere.” 

“Stay back, I warned you.” I said and brandished my revolver, though I must admit that at that point I had lost faith in its intimidating power. 

The men that Vollger had signalled raised their improvised weapons and charged at me. Vollger’s manner had unnerved me and so my reactions were sluggish, but I still fired my revolver into the chest of the closest goon, the man doubling over with a groan and a clatter as his hammer fell to the floor, but his two friends charged on undettered. A second bullet caught one in the arm but did not drop him, and my third shot went wide as the two men charged me to the ground and knocked the wind out of me. The impact left me dazed and winded and I was only dimly aware of them ripping the gun out of my hands. It was only after the fact that I remembered hearing Moira Behler shouting for help as Vollger’s men took her away. At some point the police officers must have left, for when I regained my senses I was being dragged out of the warehouse towards the docks, my boots dragging on the ground and blood dripping onto my waistcoat. I wanted to struggle, but my instincts told me to wait it out for the moment. Two men were dragging me by the shoulder and grumbling with the effort, each of them also holding on to their weapons. Eventually they hauled me to the edge where wind-tossed waves broke against the side of the dock and let go of me for a moment to catch their breath before surely meaning to toss me in. When I was free, I took my chance. I moved as quickly as I could and reached for one man’s waist where I could see the grip of my revolver sticking out, pulling the trigger as soon as I reached it. The man grunted and collapsed with his hands feebly clutching at his groin but I was already turning my gun on his companion, the other man reaching for the claw-hammer in his belt. If he had simply rushed me with his fists I believe he would have come out victorious, for I was far more dazed than I was letting on. I fired again and caught the second man in the stomach before I closed on him and slammed my now-empty revolver in his face. Gasping for breath, I rose to my full height and stood there to catch my breath. For the briefest of moments I thought I saw the symbol etched into the choppy waves below me, but I dismissed the thought as best I could and turned away. 

Anyone on the docks, as well as the policemen in Vollger’s pockets, would have heard the shots, so I had little time to waste. I ripped a handkerchief from one of the men and pressed it to the wound on my face before hurrying from the scene, hoping that my car was still where I had left it. As I ran to the afternoon-shadows of the warehouse I heard shouting behind me, but they concerned the bleeding men and not the man escaping the scene, and so I made it to my car in short order. It was untouched, but only just; a tow-car had been sent to retrieve it, seeing as the owner was supposed to have drowned. The driver of the tow-car shouted at me in broken Italian as I leapt into the driver’s seat and sped away with no firm destination in mind, only an understanding that I needed to be away. I could not imagine that Moira Behler had much time left, but I had no idea where the kidnappers had gone and I had been in too much of a hurry to search Mr Vollger’s two goons for any clues. I drove as calmly as I could until I was out of Ellisville and turned down an overgrown path in the surrounding state park before I shut off my car and thought it over. They must have gone somewhere, either off the grid or private, to do whatever they intended. The lack of a ransom note was now a foreboding fact in my mind, for there would be no need for a ransom if you did not intend to return the victim. I only knew of two members of the group; Shamus Gallen, likely too poor to own much of anything useful aside from his apartment, and this Damian Vollger. I had heard of the surname, for my father had worked for Vollger and McMason’s Northwest Shipping before signing on to the Calgary where he eventually met a young Moira Behler.  The newspaper that I had seen in the Holman residence and in Ellisville had carried his name as well. If it was the same family, Damian Vollger had means aplenty. I thought of how he had described Miss Behler as ‘a holy vessel’ of their religion like you would for a crate rather than a person. I saw no signs of any police blockades along the roads, which I assumed to be because of Miss Behler’s capture and my supposed death. As I left the town, I hoped looking into this Damian Vollger would tell me what I needed. I inquired at the first house I found, a dwindling homestead with a herd of meandering cattle, and was directed to a nearby hotel where I could find a telephone. The roadside hotel only relinquished it for my use after payment. I phoned for Sarah straight away and was surprised at my relief when I heard her voice. 

“Mr Edlund, how good to hear from you. Is your investigation proceeding?” She asked. I could hear the rowdy bar in the background.

Pleasantries would have to wait, and I had little wish to divulge details of the case with the hotel receptionist standing behind me. “Sarah, I need you to look into someone, and quickly. A Damian Vollger, quite possibly a wealthy man. Ties to Arkham University. I think he is a member of a religion, and I need to know which one and where he lives.” 

Sarah stuttered for a moment. “Alright Mr Edlund, I’ll see what I can find. How can I reach you?” 

“On this number, Sarah, the Seafoam View Hotel. I’ll stay the night here, call back as quickly as you can. Thank you.” I said and hung up. Sarah had connections and I did not think I had time for any other options.

The chilly reception at the desk did not abate when I asked for a room for the night. I cannot tell you much about the quality of my stay there; I had little appreciation for the hotel or the comforts it offered for my mind was on Moira Behler. I ate and drank and rested as much as I could, for I knew I would need it. Just as I was resigned to head to bed, there was a knock at my door.

“Hello Sarah,” I said into the telephone, the receptionist again looking over my shoulder, “I hope you have something good for me.” 

“I hope I did not disturb your sleep, Mr Edlund.” Sarah said.

“Never mind that, Sarah. What’d you learn?” 

Sarah sighed. “Nothing good. Mr Damian Vollger is from Germany with an address here in Massachusetts. He owns a shipping company as well as a dockyard, and carries the title of Father Supreme and Master in the Church of the Second Coming, also based here in Massachusetts.”

“Did you find his address?” 

“With the help of a golden handshake, yes I did. I found a maid that used to cook and clean there, before she decided to leave. Claimed that the mansion gave her nightmares.” Sarah repeated the address a few times while I ensured I had it written down. 

I heard the rustle of paper through the telephone. “The shipping company is Vollger and McMason’s Northwest Shipping.” Sarah said.

“Alright, thank you Sarah, I need to go. Take a note of how much you paid that maid, I’ll refund you.”

I was about to wish her a good night and hang up when I had a thought. “Sarah, this church he was connected to, do they have any property in Massachusetts?” 

More paper rustling. “They have a couple churches in the state,” Sarah said and then seemed to stop herself, “and one more thing, they have a private lodge, used for visitors and somesuch.” 

“Where is that?” 

Sarah’s reply sent a chill down my spine. “Trench Lodge, Ellisville. Sorry Jack, that’s all it says here. No address.” 

My mouth had become dry, so I had a hard time responding. “That’s quite alright Sarah, I happen to know where that is. Good night.” I hung up and returned to my room. 

Hours of attempted rest had prepared my body for sleep, but I had to leave straight away. That Vollger’s company worked the Northwest Passage where Moira Behler had been found struck me as a coincidence worth nothing, but I would have to puzzle that out later. I left without informing the cold receptionist and hurried to my car. I sat for a moment to collect myself and reload my revolver, placing the spare bullets in my jacket. All told, I had 12 bullets. 6 in the chamber and 6 to spare. The hour was far too late for any shops to be open, so the ammunition would have to be sufficient.

I drove in a circle around, rather than through, Ellisville in the hope that I could avoid the cops in Vollger’s pocket until I reached the state park boundary and headed towards Trench Lodge. As I turned into the forest and onto the path, I heard the crack of thunder above me, followed by the incessant drumming of rain on the car. It was so intense that I could hardly see where I was going and I had to crawl forward so I did not hit trees or other drivers on the path. My instincts screamed at me to hurry, but I would be unable to help Miss Behler if I had an accident, and so I had to endure the pace as I crept through the storm and hoped that my memory would carry me back to Trench Lodge despite the poor visibility. When I thought I was on the last stretch I cut the lights of my car so my approach would be less visible, and so I made the final approach nearly blind. After what felt like an eternity I saw the outline of Trench Lodge through the downpour, along with what seemed like a fleet of vehicles. Near a dozen cars were parked in the clearing around the cabin, but I saw no people. I sat there for a minute, preparing myself and waiting to see if any sentries would present themselves, but when none did, I gripped my revolver and stepped out of the car then ran to the cabin. The wood was cold and clammy as I leaned against it and waited for shouts of alarm. When none came, I went to the door to the cabin and found it open and unlocked. As I stepped inside I saw a light coming from the hole in the floor that looked down into the tunnel beneath the cabin, and I heard the voices. Counting them by ear alone was difficult, but I estimated at least ten people, droning on and on in a language that sent a chill down my spine. I will admit I had never been an avid church-goer, even before the war, but it did not sound like Latin. It was strange, from another origin altogether than the tongue used for the Holy Bible. And underneath the chanting was another voice; a woman crying out with fear. Moira Behler. I returned to the storm and went around the house to the basement entrance. They had put the lock back on, but it was only for appearance’s sake; they had not replaced the one I had broken earlier that day, and so I ripped it off and braced myself. Had I known then what I know now, I doubt I would have dared step into that tunnel.

But I did. As refreshing as it was being out of the unrelenting downpour, the tunnel’s darkness was oppressive and the only light came from lanterns placed throughout the tunnel. It was their light I had seen from the cabin. Up ahead, the chanting voices were growing in intensity and so was my unease. They set my thoughts on stories of Satanic ritual sacrifice and much less savoury religions around the world and so I ran down the tunnel, heedless of the possibility of sentries. Then I heard a sound that stopped me dead; a gurgling roar surged past me in the tunnel and sent a terror through me unlike any I had ever known, even during the bleakest moments of the war. No human throat could have emitted such a cry, and I dreaded to think of any other earthly creature that could. I remember looking at my revolver and thinking it was such a meager weapon, but it was all I had. But I started moving again, somehow, and found myself in a vast cavern. So much of it was swathed in darkness that it was difficult to determine its true size. A fissure cut through the floor and carried the sounds of crashing waves from somewhere deep below, as well as the smell of salt water. Before this fissure, a figure was chained to the floor, surrounded by onlookers. From a distance, I realised that they had drawn on the floor in chalk, and I thought again of some evil cult. I know I will never forget the marking they had made on the floor until the day that I die, for it was the same symbol I had seen in my father’s possessions and in Mrs Gallen’s apartment. 

Moira Behler cried out against her captors and tore at chains that had been set around her wrists, but to no avail. Her captors wore robes that looked to be made of burlap and stood around her in a circle, arms raised in the air and chanting phrases in their mysterious tongue. As I approached I heard that unearthly roar again and it nearly sent me flying from the scene. As it was, my legs quivered and my steps faltered for a moment before I could summon the bravery to continue. I was determined that Damian Vollger and his men were a deranged cult, and Moira Behler was to be their next victim. I gripped my revolver as a talisman and soldiered onwards. The cult seemed oblivious to my approach until I was a stone’s throw from them, at which point one of the robed men raised their head to look at me across the way and signaled for their compatriots to continue.

“Ah, the investigator from the harbor,” Damian Vollger called and threw back his hood, “so you survived. No matter, we are beyond you and your paltry weapon now.” 

I found myself unable to respond, for Mr Vollger had an energy in his gaze that reminded me of my time in the war, of looking in the face of shell-shocked soldiers that had lost all touch with reality and could only hear the thunder of artillery. Mr Vollger carried insanity in his eyes, but I think even back then I knew that the man’s mind had not suffered in the same way that my friends had. His madness had come from somewhere else.

Mr Vollger turned away from me in a frenzy and looked upon the circle of cultists before joining their chanting with renewed energy. Moira Behler’s cries turned desperate as she tossed and turned in her chains, fraught with agony. To my shame I stood there motionless as I looked at the horrid spectacle before me, stunned by the frenzy in Mr Vollger’s eyes and the unearthly cries from Moira Behler. I vividly remember the sensation that I was witness to something beyond the world of Man, to something that we should not see for our own good. The chanting from the cultists reached a crescendo and Moira Behler arched her back in a sudden motion. Sickly light erupted from her mouth face and seemed to stay in the air, coalescing in shapes and angles that drove a spike of raw fear into my being. At that moment I collapsed as my knees gave out in fear. The shape in the captured light was only the merest hint before it dissipated, but Damian Vollger and the other cultists were ecstatic and renewed their chanting so that it now filled the entire space and crowded my senses. 

With an effort of will, Moira Behler contained her pain and turned to me. Despite being over a dozen metres away, I felt the intensity of her gaze and focus like the heat of a bonfire. 

“Please, Mr Edlund, help me. Stop them,” she cried out between sobs, “stop me.” 

If she had not spoken to me at that moment, God knows what would have happened next. As it was, I regained some of my strength. I stood on unsteady legs and raised the revolver I still carried, unsure what to do but resolved to do something. I like to think, perhaps arrogantly, that Damian Vollger saw it coming in those last moments.

I aimed my revolver as best I could and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot cut through the chanting and left a moment of silence in its wake, followed by a thud as one of the cultists collapsed to the ground. Before they could react I fired again and again until it was empty and the revolver clicked uselessly in my hand. Another cultist had taken a bullet and was groaning on the ground.

“What are you doing!?” Damian Vollger cried and turned back to the other cultists, signalling to them like a conductor, but their momentum was gone. Moira Behler’s cries of agony took the chanting’s place and again a miasma of sickly light filled the space above the circle. Damian Vollger cried out in his odd language but it was clear on his expression that whatever he said had no impact; the shape coalescing within shifted. The chanting cultists stopped and the cave fell into silence, but this time it was tinged with terror. In that moment we were like cavemen hiding from the unknowable terrors of the primordial night. A sensation of being watched washed over me and, like a fool, I looked to the shape in the light. I could not, and still cannot, define its shape in such a way as to communicate it, but it was awful in every sense. Ungodly and unearthly. The sight of it brought such a thrumming pain to my head that I feared my head would explode, eyes squeezed shut against the pain. But when I opened them again I found the cave still; the cultists were lying on the ground still as corpses, as was Damian Vollger. The miasma of light was gone and Moira Behler was the only one in the cave aside from myself who still breathed. I pushed the pain in my head aside and hurried to her side with the empty revolver gripped in my hand. Her clothes were filthy with sweat and blood that had run from her nose and her eyes. Her breathing was ragged though not on the verge of death, but her eyes carried such pain and weariness as I had ever seen. With my hand on her back she sat up and beheld the ruin left in the cavern. None of the cultists had moved; they were all dead. 

“Mr Edlund,” Moira Behler said in a whisper, “I am sorry that you were involved in this.” 

“Nonsense, Miss Behler,” I said in as cheery a tone as I could manage, “let’s get you home now, away from this.” The cheer was like ash in my mouth, but I could find no other recourse against what we had just witnessed. 

Moira Behler shook her head slowly, pain evident in each motion. “I cannot leave, not now. I must not.”

She locked eyes with me again and it took all I had not to look away from what I saw in her eyes. “Did you see it too? The shape in the light. I have finally found it, the thing I have been sketching all these years.” 

“That’s good.” I replied, furious with myself for offering platitudes at a time like this. 

“You do not understand, Jack Edlund. I cannot leave this cave. I don’t know how much time I have left, before–” she gasped with pain, but then quieted herself.

“Before what?” 

With surprising strength she gripped the barrel of my revolver and rested the metal against her forehead. “Mr Edlund, you have to shoot me. There is no other way.”

Again I was brought back to my time in the war, back to comrades shredded by fire and bullet, waiting only for death. Moira Behler’s expression spoke of a resolve to that end, and I could not find it in myself to deny it. 

Chapter 3 – Retrieval

I do not know if I now carry the same affliction that Miss Moira Behler carried throughout most of her life. My memory has become less reliable; when I returned to Boston, a woman accosted me on the street and it was only after I had fended her off that she told me she was my sister. The day after, a man came to my door, saying that a woman had called his pub asking for me because I had not turned up at the office for days. Since then I have started writing a journal of sorts for myself, attempting to detail my life in unchanging writing so when my ailing mind cannot help me, I can turn to its pages for aid. 

In the aftermath of the cult’s ritual and Miss Moira Behler’s death I managed to disturb the scene enough that the local police never managed to ascertain who had killed over a dozen people in one night, nor how it had been carried out. One was easy enough; the young Moira Behler had been shot through the head and the firearm never found. The rest had a variety of injuries but nothing fatal, with no common, or logical, cause of death. One elderly journalist compared it to a lesser-known incident in the Northwest Passage where a great number of people had died in equally mysterious ways. I considered approaching Mister Holman to relay how his niece had died, but exposing myself as being linked to the scene was a dangerous move, so instead I went to ground, hiding away in a cabin I rented under a false name. I penned a hasty letter to my secretary saying that I would be away for an extended period and not to wait for my return. Upon my return to Boston, I had forgotten all about this letter and indeed about my secretary.

For a while I felt lost, utterly unsure what to do or where to go. I believe it was at this stage that the troubles with my memory began, but due to the nature of such a problem I find it difficult to pin down. I had acquired a desire to paint or to sketch, even though I had never before exhibited any artistic desires. I filled page after page with demented creations that left me wholly unsatisfied, yet also disturbed, for they reminded me of the drawings I had seen in Miss Behler’s study and on the floor of Mrs Gallen’s apartment. One day, as I had fallen asleep in a rocking chair with my pen in hand, I awoke to find the symbol from Mrs Gallen’s apartment sketched on the page before me. It filled me with such revulsion that I burnt the page and all the sketches I had made up to that point. Yet, that very evening I began anew.

In desperation I drove to the address that Sarah had found for Damian Vollger. What I found was a mansion with a view of Plymouth and Cape Cod Bay and I imagined that the building could have matched up to its picturesque surroundings if it had been in a good condition, but whatever this Damian Vollger had done in his spare time, it had not been maintaining the mansion. It was dilapidated and dusty, with cobwebs in the windows that had not been smashed. Ragged curtains covered some windows but others revealed equally sad interiors. To my surprise I found the front entrance unlocked and though the door squealed as I entered, there was no attempt to bar my way. No servants or footmen called out to me as I stepped past the threshold into the mansion. It was as abandoned as it appeared; everywhere was cold and dusty. 

My hope, or more accurately my desperation, was that Damian Vollger’s interest in Miss Behler’s affliction came from research, research that he had kept or found within his mansion. Due to the mansion’s size it took me a little while to locate the study, but the books within provided little comfort. The ones that talked of the subject, even tangentially, read like the ravings of madmen or con-artists writing fiction. Abyssal civilisations from before the age of mankind, visitors from the stars guiding mankind’s actions from behind the scenes. More than once I nearly threw the books out in frustration, but as my affliction grew I held onto hope as best I could, if hope was indeed the word. One book spoke of life-cycles of extraordinary creatures. I know not how the author came by this knowledge, but for the majority of the book I saw no reason to question the knowledge itself. It spoke of cocoons and parasites and spores, nature in all its macabre glory. And so the author turned to the matters of the deep sea. The section was unassuming, with no adornment beyond an illustrated title, but the contents chilled me to the bone. Not simply because they were unsettling, but because I felt that they were true. As I read the words and parsed the damning sentences, my mind seemed to verify it from some source that I dared not consider. 

Deep in the ocean, life follows different rules. The surface world and all of our ambitions and knowledge does not extend to what one might find in the depths, and there is no mercy or care to be found in the darkness below. For all the glory and carnage and beauty of human history, not an ounce of it has touched the abyss and it persists as it has done since our planet was created out of the cosmos. Entire generations of creatures have lived and died and lived and died beyond the reach of the Sun, having never known light. Creatures from these ancient spaces need not be constrained by the tawdry laws of biology that we humans have ‘determined’. 

One such creature, described by the book, caught my mind like a vice. There was no illustration, no attempt at imagining or deceiving about its appearance, or perhaps the author had never seen one themselves. If they had, they too would have found it irresistible to draw. Instead, the author had drawn a symbol in place of the creature. It was the one I had seen in my father’s clippings and in Mrs Gallen’s apartment and in the newspaper. 

The creature lives a long, solitary life, if there even existed more than a single entity on Earth. It does not breed like Earth-creatures. Instead, to this end it preys uniquely upon a single species; Man. The sight of it is fatal, except to the unlucky few who have the disposition for it, and these become unwilling cocoons for its transcendence into a new state, through which it moves beyond the pull of gravity into the cosmos beyond. I know not its true appearance, but I suspect that before this state, it would resemble a deep-sea whale unlike any other, for the corpse of one such creature washed up on a shore in Alaska shortly after a young Moira Behler saw it alive with her own eyes, becoming the sole survivor of an entire ship of people whose minds could not contain the magnitude of what they saw. I am sure that if I were to compare where the Charioteer was found and the location of the beach on which the whale-like creature was found, they would not be far apart. The people on that ship passed away without awareness of their own death, no pain or suffering. All that was reserved for a young girl who grew into a forgetful woman no one cared for and who was eventually shot to death in a cave in Massachusetts. But not before the creature found another vessel. The realisation of what had happened in that cave struck me dumb and I knew then why my memory had begun to fail me. I remembered Moira Behler’s words and the desperation in her eyes before I pulled the trigger. I cannot say what this creature intends once it is free again, if it intends anything at all, but whatever Moira Behler learned or felt in that horrible ritual beneath Trench Lodge, she became resolved that it could not, that it must not be set free. To this end she was resolved to die. 

13th of March, 1915, Boston Globe

MURDERER OF THIRTEEN FOUND, DEAD BY OWN HAND

In the night, neighbours reported a shooting in 142nd North Str, to which the police responded. A single man was found dead at the scene by his own hand, having used a firearm against himself. Upon examining the scene, the police found evidence linking the man to a mass-murder that happened last year but where the murderer was never found. Jack Edlund, a private investigator, went to Ellisville last year to look for Moira Behler, who had been reported kidnapped a week prior. The police will not divulge the full sequence of events, but Jack Edlund murdered a full thirteen people in the days that followed, one of them the poor Miss Moira Behler. 

Mr Edlund’s family has declined to comment.