She Walks in Shadows (17 page)

When I grew weary of her haggling, I would wander away from her skirts and walk the shore, watching the fishermen empty their nets on the docks and see how the desperate fish flapped to find the edge back into life. When their struggle stopped, a strange ringing would toll in my ears and an aural soft focus would invade my vision as I found myself staring at the creature, its jaw awry, until it began to gnash and convulse again with a second gulp at life. This happened on several occasions and a town man lurking in the harbor noticed. It was Ephraim Waite, who was fascinated with the wharf and its inhabitants.

He circled me, sinister like a shark, all teeth and menace and rock-hard flesh of an ancient fossil. He spoke through a strained smile, which wavered when he realized I could not comprehend. He picked up my resurrected fish, slapped it against the deck, and shook it at me. Blood splattered my face. Terrified, I cried out and tried to run away, but he grabbed my arm. When Mother came to my rescue, she swiped his arm away from me and lashed him in his own tongue.

They argued back and forth. Sometimes, Mother would slip back into our tongue and I heard the words, “It’s in the blood.” Every time I heard the phrase, the argument seemed to abate. Next thing I know, I am standing in his library being instructed to call the Harbor Haunt Master by the Gilmans, who would tutor me until I adequately learned Yank. Mother became the cook.

I immediately took to reading and languages. I escaped into books and therefore, stayed out of Master Ephraim’s way. Mother, however, became a servant to suffering. She had acted desperately in gaining his employ.

We were but specimens to him. While he was fascinated in uncovering the secrets of our blood, it bothered him to have us roam about in his home. He said we stank up the place with our Harbor essence and would espouse phrenological theories of our features out loud as though we weren’t in the room. When aroused into a spiritual fervor by a concoction he’d made in his library, he’d roar about Devil Reef and stupid old Obed Marsh.

“Shipwrecked sailor, my eye! If you want to find your father, child, just grow some gills and go for a swim. I bet you can call on him at Devil Reef anytime, demon!”

When he was at a loss for words, he would beat us. In these instances, Mother would throw herself between us. With his fist in the air and a salacious grin, he would fall upon her and become excited by conquering things weaker than him, and fill the vessel with the only function he felt it and she and we served.

It was in this manner that Asenath was conceived. His interest in my blood-talent waned until he saw the power it had over his only golden child.

Master Ephraim had reluctantly desired access to the Marsh collection at one of the Esoteric churches. Since he now had fathered a child, he saw Asenath as an incidental excuse to take the Order oaths. He married Mother and made her lady of the house. The Gilmans took on all of the household matters, leaving my education in hiatus.

Mother was pleased with her elevated status at first, but after Asenath’s delivery, she slowly descended into a catatonic madness. Eventually, she boarded herself up in the attic and affected a black veil. She was going through the Great Change. In accepting that, she entered an extreme zealotry in which she neglected her children to prepare herself for going back to the water. Despite her baby’s wails, Mrs. Gilman had to prompt her to feed. Although I was only five years old, I changed her diapers and put bourbon-soaked pacifiers in her mouth when she teethed.

Everyone cooed to Asenath in Yank, but when we were alone, I would teach her the Deep language. It was through me she spoke her first word: “‘
Fhalma
.” This embarrassed Mother when she was still sane, while Master Ephraim was greatly impressed. He decided to resume my education and gave me free reign of his forbidden library, thinking that everything I absorbed I would squeeze back into Asenath infused with traces of our innate abilities.

Even so, he assumed I only comprehended a third of what was there and I never let on otherwise. I realized that it was better for him to think I was mostly stupid and beneath him, because Asenath’s precociousness won all of his affection and his attentions were more horrid than his despise.

II.

As we grew older, my love for my sister evolved from unconditional to concerned. Once she grew out of the sweetness of infancy, she became a little shoggoth, especially after she was told Mother had died.

When you said yes, she shouted no, and would destroy whatever porcelain bauble or glass beaker happened to be in reach. Toilet training was a farce and would begin with her running through the house, diaper flapping, and end in the library, where she’d micturate and defecate on whatever ancient manuscript was open on the table. This is how we lost the
Pnakotic Manuscripts,
a first edition of
Remnants of Lost Empires,
and
Livre d
’
Eibon
(Comte Saint-Germain’s personal copy), while Asenath earned many whippings.

Despite my own rage, I would try to protect her as Mother had protected me. Despite my myriad disfiguring lacerations, she was an ungrateful child. She would thank me by stealing a goldfish — Mother had given me a dozen or so before she left — out of the tank and lay it to dry on Mr. Gilman’s secretaire to go unnoticed for hours. After discovering my 12
^th
fish in this manner, I had had enough.

I found her outside throwing acorns against a tree and I yanked her up to standing by her arm.

“How about I bury you back here? Would you like that?” She twisted under my grip and I only squeezed her wrist tighter. “You are so careless with life; why should anyone let you have your own?”

“But they don’t glow. Only humans have it. Father said.”

“And he says I and mother aren’t human. You think we don’t have the glow?” She stopped her sobbing and looked up at me wide-eyed.

“All living things have a glow.” I continued. “It’s the spark of life. You have it. I have it. The goldfish have it.”

“Says who?”

“Says I. Dig them all up. Now!” I pointed at the impressive pet cemetery that had been plotted in the corner of the garden.

She cupped the earth in her hands until all 11 goldfish in their various stages of decomposition were revealed. I made her take the 12
^th
fish out of my palm and place him with his kin. I hadn’t done it since I walked the docks, and I was unsure I could do it still, but I stared at the corpses until I heard the toll in my ears and my vision blurred. One by one, they began to flap until the shallow grave became an earthen sea of hopping fish. Her latest victim moved towards Asenath, each hiccough like an accusation to the child. When its tail-fin brushed her foot, she ran screaming into the house.

I found her in the library, huddled under the globe, sucking her dirty, grave-digging thumb.

“Did you learn your lesson, then?” I asked sweetly and gestured for her to come out of hiding.

“Why didn’t you do that for Mother?” she muttered.

We had all been instructed not to tell Asenath the truth. That Mother had died was a white Christian lie like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, except this truth was painful. She hopped into my arms and began to cry, repeating over and over, “You could do that for Mother! You could! You could! Why don’t you?” At some point, she would have to know and I committed my first of many small defiances against Master Ephraim.

“Because Mother isn’t dead.” Her sobbing stopped. She wiped her snotty nose and considered me.

“What do you mean?”

“She went to sea. Now she’ll never die.”

“Can we go see her?”

“No, I am afraid not. But she is in a better place, I am sure.”

She thought on this for a while.

“Will you go to sea?” she sniffed.

“Hopefully.”

“Will I?”

“I don’t know. We aren’t as pure blood as she. I more than you. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I think I would like it. The sea, I mean.”

III.

After that, Asenath channeled her energy into learning, devouring any story I could tell her about our heritage and about the mysterious histories in the neighboring towns. We had made a great discovery in the library: a locked trunk full of esoteric lore that Asenath picked with a bobby pin and insisted I pursue with her. At the bottom, wrapped in one of Mother’s black silk scarves, was a yellowed and worn copy of the
Necronomicon
, in which we found much missing information about the Old Ones and what it was exactly Master Ephraim sought in our race — the subtle art of transformation and transference of the life-glow. This was how I was able to resurrect the fish and we learned it was only the beginning of a great trick, which we immediately practiced all afternoon until Mrs. Gilman rang the dinner bell.

Before we went our separate ways — I to the kitchen to serve and she to be served — I held Asenath back. Every night, he quizzed her on the day’s lesson and I knew he would not approve of our new curriculum.

“I don’t think you should tell your father about this lesson.”

“Why not? It is very clever. He should be proud!”

“No. I think he’ll be mad we broke into the trunk. Promise me you won’t tell.”

“I promise.”

When Master Ephraim began his usual interrogation, Asenath ignored him, stabbing at the
lapin à
la cocotte
and chasing carrots around her plate. I was in attendance by the sideboard.

“Child, did you hear me?” She nodded.

“‘
Fhalma
—” He clicked his teeth. “Er, Eunice taught me about ….” Dread rumbled in my stomach.

“History.”

“History, eh?”

“Em-hmm. The Arkham Sisters.”

“I’ve heard of no such sisters. Witches, I bet.” He chewed over this a bit while I refilled his glass with wine. “When did these sisters live? During the Trials?”

“Very recently.” She paused and then smirked at me. “Mistresses of transference. People say they’ve lived for centuries swapping bodies! And people don’t speak of it because they are
Deep Ones
.” He gestured at me with his forked potato.

“What have I told you about teaching her that drivel? If I wanted her to know about nonsense such as that, I’d throw her into the sea with her mother. See if she’d swim.”

This was the first time Master Ephraim had ever spoken the truth about Mother in front of Asenath.

She dropped her utensils and pushed her plate away, muttering under her breath, “It’s not nonsense. Eunice and I can perform that which you’ve only dreamed of performing.”

His crooked shark teeth jutted over his lips as he smiled.

“You and … that thing there … are talented, I admit. But you are weak, not only by your sex, but from your relations.” He glared at me. “You are both incapable of ruling over the material world. I expect you to resume the curriculum I designed, Eunice, or I will throw you to the sea, as well.”

“Yes, Master Ephraim. I am sorry.”

“Excused.” I curtseyed and turned to retreat into the kitchen.

“‘
Fhalma!
”

I looked over my shoulder at Asenath. She widened her eyes and locked me in her gaze. When I blinked, I saw myself standing stiffly against the sideboard. I dropped the gaze with myself and looked down to see Asenath’s navy blue cotton dress. I looked up at Master. He looked between me in Asenath’s body and Asenath in my body. He narrowed his eyes and considered my body and asked incredulously, “Eunice?”

I answered, but my words rang in Asenath’s soprano.

He rolled his eyes to Asenath’s body. “
You
are Eunice?” The head I looked out from nodded. “And Asenath is there?” Her giggle trickled out of my smile.

“How is this possible?”

“Silly man,” Asenath cackled from my body. “It isn’t always a secret, you know; sometimes, it is simply legacy. You knew this when you chose our mother. You knew being merely human wasn’t enough. Without us, you are nothing.”

“The trunk. You jimmied the trunk! Ungrateful demons, have you no respect!”

He stood up so quickly his chair tumbled under him and in one fell swoop he crossed across the dining room table and struck my body so hard that it knocked Asenath’s body out, too, and we both awoke in our own minds and swollen skulls.

He ordered us separated. He would undertake Asenath’s education, while I was exiled to the attic, only allowed to leave at night.

IV.

I became a living ghost. I would sleep during the day and live during the night. Sometimes, when I awoke, I’d find a smuggled text from the library
sans
a remorseful message from Asenath. I would strain my eyes reading faded texts about the witches of Arkham, or debates over Mother Hydra’s fecundity. When I grew weary of study, I would venture out of the house to go to the Harbor and night-fish.

The waters at Innsmouth are famous for their plentitude, but my expeditions were never very successful. Perhaps there was a certain vibration in my line, a contamination in my lure, that foretold nothing but ill-will would come to whoever was greedy enough to take a bite. Or, perhaps it was because I was impatient and couldn’t cast the line far enough, or let it sink deep enough, before it seemed like aeons had passed and I reeled it in. Even so, it was peaceful. My mind could wander while I watched the Devil Reef appear and recede with the tide. Lore had it that fish-people moonbathed on its shores. Sometimes, I would fantasize that I would see Mother there. But all that was a long time ago. The reef was abandoned — perhaps they knew it would be destroyed.

My mind would wonder about the household and what was transpiring while I slept during the day, or remember my mother’s transformation during her illness and how, in her sobbing, there was something of a song that I wondered whether I would sing one day, and how she always spoke of taking to the water.

My existence was thus for several years. Then, one April evening, a great struggling awoke me. There was screaming, which at first sounded as if it emitted from Asenath, but, like a dying operatic singer trilling her last scale, it went from soprano to alto to baritone to silence followed by Master’s heavy footfalls up the stairs. When the door unlocked, my mother’s light frame stood in the doorway. After rubbing my eyes, I realized it was Asenath, now 15 and completely grown during my years of confinement. I wondered if my body appeared as changed; she was unconcerned with re-acquaintance.