With Strange Aeons

“Evie, I really don’t have to get the fish and chips if you don’t want me to,” I said uneasily as I looked over the tentacle-framed portrait of H.P. Lovecraft on The Gillman’s menu.
The Gillman is a Lovecraft-themed seafood restaurant built right on the waterfront of the Avalon River here in Sombermorey, one I had been a fan of since they first opened when I was a child. As its name would suggest, most of the decor was inspired by The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but there was also plenty of imagery and statues from Lovecraft’s other iconic stories. Typically, I ate there with my father, but on this particular occasion, Genevieve and I were celebrating the fourth anniversary of the night we met and fell in love.
“Samantha, this was my idea,” she reminded me. “I wouldn’t ask to go out to a seafood place and then get upset that you ordered seafood.”
“But you’re getting the tofish rice bowl, right? I can get that too. I’ve had the fish and chips plenty of times before,” I insisted.
“Samantha, I …look, I really do appreciate that you eat less meat now and that you don’t eat meat in front of me,” she began. “But you’re always the one making concessions in our relationship. I know that when we first got together you had some self-esteem issues and that you thought you weren’t good enough for me. You’ve grown a lot since then, but I can tell that that insecurity is still there in the back of your mind, and it influences our dynamic more than it should. Samantha, sweetie, I love you. I adore you! I’ve never had a fourth anniversary with a girlfriend before. You’re brave, you’re kind, you’re determined, and you’re the most talented Witch I’ve ever met. We’ve literally been to hell and back together and that’s not something I’m ever going to throw away over some mundane relationship squabbling. I don’t want you to feel like you have to give in to me all the time just to stay with me. I wanted to come here because you like this place. You like fish and chips, and you like this racist, elitist, pretentious purple-prose-spewing hack of an author. I’m fine with you eating fish. Really. It doesn’t gross me out like other meat does, and fish are pretty low on the sentience spectrum. I feed it to Nightshade, and I can’t very well condemn my girlfriend for doing something that I’m fine with my cat doing.”
I snickered, then took a moment to consider everything she had said.
“Are you going to let me kiss you if my mouth smells like dead fish?” I asked softly.
“Again, if I’m fine with my cat doing it…” she said with a smile.
“All right,” I relented. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll order the fish then. Thank you. But just so that we’re clear, my conceding about not making as many concessions in our relationship is, in itself, a concession. So, you’re welcome.”
With a scoff and an eye roll, she looked back down at her menu.
“You are brushing your teeth before we make love, though,” she said in a light-hearted yet commanding tone.
“I’ll concede to that.”
After our meal, I took the opportunity of a relatively empty dining room to introduce Genevieve to The Gillman’s impressive collection of Lovecraft art and memorabilia.
“There’s nothing wrong with stories being reinterpreted to mean different things to different readers, regardless of what the author intended,” I said as we were admiring a portrait of Robert Olmstead fleeing the Deep Ones and the Esoteric Order of Dagon under the cover of darkness. “Like, I’ve always kind of thought that the Deep One’s deal with Innsmouth could be read as a condemnation of sexual entitlement rather than race mixing.”
“Uh-huh,” Genevieve said incredulously. “And how do you account for the hereditary degeneration of the Innsmouth people in that interpretation?”
“A… physical manifestation of inter-generational trauma and the internalization of the ideology that justified it?” I suggested, the ‘I’m literally grasping at straws’ meme flashing through my mind as I was speaking.
“Sweetie, there’s nothing wrong with liking old stories, but it’s incredibly disrespectful to deny their problematic aspects,” she asserted. “I get that you find Lovecraft’s anxiety relatable and sympathetic, and that anxiety was a crucial component of his cosmic horror, but an anxiety disorder doesn’t justify being a raging white supremacist or wannabe aristocrat.”
“I’m not denying their problematic aspects. I’m just proposing alternate interpretations,” I defended myself, but decided to yield the issue rather than risk the discussion escalating into an argument on our anniversary. “Come over here. I want you to get an up-close view of the life-sized Yithian statue before we go. It’s incredible.”
“Just a minute,” she said, leaning in closer to examine the portrait. “Is it… is it just me, or does this painting look like it’s in the same style as the portrait of Hades and Persephone you have in your mausoleum?”
“What?” I asked in bemusement, leaning in to see what she was talking about. “I mean… kind of, I guess. It never really crossed my mind before. What are you suggesting? That they’re by the same artist?”
“It’s at least worth asking about, isn’t it?” she asked. “There’s no name on that portrait, and you said that Elam doesn’t know where it came from or when it got there. Whoever made it at least had visions of the Underworld, and I know you’re not the only occultist who likes Lovecraft. It’s not weird just to ask. People love bragging about their art’s provenance.”
“All right, sure,” I agreed, waving over a member of the wait staff. “Hi. Is Zed around tonight?”
Everyone called the owner of The Gillman Zadok, and nobody believed that was his real name, even though it’s the kind of name that would be quite popular here in Sombermorey. I guess everyone figured it would be too big of a coincidence, and had seen too many strange phenomena to believe in coincidences.
“Samantha!” Zadok greeted me warmly as he came out of his office, extending his right arm for a handshake.
Zadok must have been in his seventies by now. He was far from frail but he did carry a sterling and ebony cane for extra support. He was bald with what little hair he had left cropped close to the scalp, but his face bore a thick and dark grey beard that seemed fitting for a man with such a biblical name. He wore a pair of circular spectacles framed in gold, and a dark suit with a number of garish and eye-catching accent pieces.
“You have no idea how relieved I am to see you,” Zadok went on. “When Cataline told me that Ms. Sumner was wanting to speak with me, I was worried that Marley had finally managed to drag your mother back to my satanic fish fry and she wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to remind me how much she despises it!”
“It’s nice to see you again too, Zadok,” I smiled, shaking his hand. “And my mother is Mrs. Sumner.”
“Of course. Of course,” he laughed. “But it is just you and your father, right?”
“No, I’m actually not dining with my father tonight,” I told him. “Zadok, this is Genevieve, my girlfriend. Tonight is our anniversary and she wanted to do something special for me so she finally agreed to come here.”
“Oh my god, I am so sorry. Of course the lovely woman standing right next to you is your girlfriend! Eve, it’s so nice to finally have a chance to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you. How are you finding things?”
“Your tofish is terrible,” she replied flatly.
“Of course it is; it’s tofu!” he chuckled, before letting out a nervous sigh. “…Please tell me that’s not what you wanted to speak to me about.”
“It’s not. Don’t worry,” I assured him. “No, you see, several years ago I came into possession of a portrait of Hades and Persephone. I have no idea who made it, but Genevieve just noticed that your painting of Innsmouth here is quite similar in style, and she thinks it’s possible that it might be by the same artist. We were curious if you knew anything about them?”
“Ah. Well, that’s kind of a complicated question,” he said, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. “I bought this place and everything in it in an estate sale. It used to be a residence, and while I’d always intended to renovate it into a seafood restaurant, the Lovecraft theme came specifically from the collection of paintings that came with the estate. The paintings were all original, and all by the same artist as near as any of the appraisers could tell. Their running theory was that the house’s former owner made them.”
“And were they all depicting scenes from Lovecraft?” Genevieve asked.
“No, not at all. There was just an overall occult motif to the collection, and some were based on classical mythology, so a portrait of Hades and Persephone wouldn’t be out of the question,” Zadok replied.
“Who was the former estate owner?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that. Just some wealthy recluse with no relatives, I suppose,” he said. “If I ever knew their name I’ve forgotten it, and I’m not sure where I’d start looking to find it.”
“Hmm. The firm that conducted the estate sale wouldn’t have been Crow, Crowley, & Chamberlin by any chance, would it?” I asked.
“Now that I do remember. Yes, Mr. Chamberlin seemed overly eager to divest himself of such a lovely and sizable piece of riverfront property. It was almost enough to queer the deal – err, if you’ll pardon the expression – but my own due diligence couldn’t turn up any reason not to buy the place. It’s been over twenty years and I haven’t turned up any skeletons in the closets or asbestos in the walls, so I suppose Chamberlin just found this place as tasteless as your mother does.”
“We’ve been inside Chamberlin’s villa. Tasteless wouldn’t come close to describing it,” Genevieve said. “You’re right; this place is way too valuable for someone like Chamberlin to just pawn off on the first bidder without a good reason. You said that there were plenty of non-Lovecraft paintings that came with the collection. What happened to them?”
“They’re in the basement, along with the other more peculiar curiosities that came with the estate,” Zadok replied. “I treat it as a kind of private gallery."
"Private as in completely off-limits, even to long-time customers? On their anniversary?" I asked, making the best puppy dog eyes I could at him.
"I... suppose I could let you take a quick look around, so long as you promise to be careful," he reluctantly agreed. "If you'll come this way, then."
He led us to the basement stairs, which were behind a locked door with a non-descript placard that simply read private, tucked down a hallway that guests typically wouldn’t have reason to venture down. I had seldom noticed the door myself on previous visits, and had never given any thought to it.
“This looks like it used to be some sort of rumpus room,” I said as we reached the bottom of the short spiral staircase. The basement was mostly filled with boxes, but it was fully finished with panelled walls and hardwood floors, so it had clearly been intended as a living area and not just for storage. There was even a built-in bar in the corner of the room. “Why don’t you use this as a dedicated bar and billiards room?”
“Well don’t tell Chamberlin I said this, as he’ll think I’m quite mad, but I have enough money,” Zadok said glibly. “A bar isn’t really the kind of atmosphere I was going for with this place, and all the Lovecraft art is upstairs, so everything down here is off-theme. It just wouldn’t make sense to open it to the public. And anyways, a basement bar beneath a seafood restaurant’s a little too 1980s’ sitcom for my tastes.”
I nodded, though I didn’t entirely agree with him that the basement was off-theme. All the walls in the basement were nearly completely covered in dozens of portraits of various sizes, all similar in style and motif. None of them were explicitly from the Lovecraft Mythos, but they still very much carried a feel of cosmic horror with them.
“This one’s interesting; Moloch, the antithesis of the Horned God, gnawing at the taproots of the World Tree,” Genevieve commented as she honed in on one of the larger portraits. “Tell me this doesn’t look like something from one of our visions.”
“Yeah, I can’t deny the similarities with this one. This was definitely made by the same artist as the painting in the mausoleum,” I nodded, before scanning the entire collection for anything that might catch my attention. “Eve, come look at this one.”
I led her over to a painting of a fair-haired maiden goddess holding up a rose to a bearded figure cloaked in darkness. He had pricked a finger on one of the rose’s thorns, having drawn a single drop of blue ichor.
“This is Persephone and Emrys, from the creation story in the book Leon gave me,” I claimed. “She’s Fairest Persephone here, not Dread Persephone, but it’s her.”
“Oh yeah. There’s no doubt that’s her,” Genevieve agreed. “We’ve only ever seen Emrys’ avatar, but I think you’re right. That’s supposed to be him. At least half of these paintings are visions of the Astral Plane. Zadok, do you mind if we take some photos of these?”
“Ah, by all means,” he replied, obviously somewhat at a loss at our conversation.
While Genevieve went about the task of photographing each of the paintings on her phone, I turned my attention towards the other items in the room to see if I could find any evidence of who the artist might have been. I opened up a few boxes, swiftly sifting through each’s contents before moving on to the next, until I finally managed to hit paydirt.
“Wow,” I murmured to myself as I gazed upon a glossy, slate-grey death mask mounted onto a polished cherrywood plaque. I had never seen one in person before, but I had always found the practice intriguing. I delicately reached out my hand to stroke it, and found it surprisingly cold to the touch. I took a moment to appreciate the fact that this was an impression of a real person’s face – a man’s face, I thought, though it was hard to tell for certain – before it rotted away forever. It was made to preserve the most fundamental symbol of individual identity, in the last expression it would ever take.
It was only after I had fully taken in the mask itself that I noticed there was a bronze placard fastened beneath it.
“ ‘That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die’,” I read aloud what I’m fairly certain is the most well-known Lovecraft quote in the world. “Zadok, is this the artist’s death mask?”
“That seems an odd thing to do; make a death mask and then just abandoned it in the deceased home as it’s seized by the bank,” he commented. “I think it’s more likely that it belonged to the artist themselves. I never put it upstairs, despite the Lovecraft quote, since I don’t really have a story to go with it.”
“It could still be a lead. There’s a good chance it was a close friend or relative of the artist, even if it’s not the artist themselves,” Genevieve said as she crouched down beside me to examine the mask for herself. “Rosalyn might be able to take it into Thorne Tech for us and run it through their facial recognition system to see if it matches anyone in their database.”
“I’d rather not owe them a favour,” I said with a shake of my head. “We don’t need them anyway. This is a perfect object to perform a psychometric reading on.”
Examining the mask carefully, I gently unhooked it from its plaque so that I could handle it freely. Holding it firmly in my left hand while slowly and deliberately tracing its contours with the fingers of my right hand, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, opening my mind to whatever visions the mask had to impart.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Zadok asked, his voice suddenly stricken with concern. “Samantha, please put that back. It’s quite fragile.”
“This is the artist’s death mask. I’m certain of it,” I said, already too committed to the reading to stop midway. “This place was his home, and these paintings were his creations. Enough of his identity was tied to both that it impressed itself upon the death mask. His death was a suicide, but not one of despair. It was planned, and he wasn’t alone. The other person made the mask before the artist was even cold. It was vital that the mask absorb as much of the artist’s identity as possible, before the body was cast into the blazing crematorium and the soul cast into cold Hades. This mask is an anchor. It has to be. It’s here to keep the artist’s spirit earthbound. That’s why Chamberlin didn’t want this place. It’s haunted, and he’s not powerful enough to move or break the mask against its owner’s will.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense. Zadok’s been here for over twenty years and says he’s never seen a ghost,” Genevieve reminded me.
I opened my eyes, and turned to give an inquisitorial look at Zadok. This time he didn’t look confused, or concerned. He looked contrite.
“I said I never found any skeletons,” he said softly. “Never said anything about ghosts.”
Scrunching my brow in confusion, I looked back down at the mask, and saw that its eyes were now wide open.
With a scream, I reflexively threw down the mask and stumbled backwards, with Genevieve protectively rushing to my side. The mask didn’t shatter, as I might have expected, but was instead caught by an unseen, astral hand. A stygian blue mist began to condense around the astral figure, and I watched as he lifted the mask into the air and placed it upon his vaguely formed head. The stygian light shone out from the open and empty eye sockets, the mask imparting a face and identity to the otherwise anonymous entity.
He looked down at us from a lofty height of nearly seven feet, his posture not aggressive but aloof, as though he might swat us down as effortlessly and indifferently as a pair of mosquitos. He stood between us and the stairs, the only way out of the basement. There was no time to make a spell circle, so we couldn’t banish the thing back to wherever he had come from. There wasn’t time to summon my spirit familiar Elam, either. Sometimes he came without being summoned when he sensed I was in danger, but that was normally when he knew I was doing something risky to begin with. He wasn’t coming now, at least not immediately, and I wasn’t sure what we should do.
“I’m going to make a break for the other side of the basement, and when it goes after me you make for the stairs!” Genevieve ordered.
“Evie, no! Eve!” I screamed as she dashed away from me and right past the masked spectre.
He made no attempt to grab her when she came within reach, nor did he chase after her. He just stood there, staring at me with an unreadable masked face, folding his fingers together and dropping his long arms in front of himself, possibly trying to look as non-confrontational as possible.
“Now surely a Witch like you has seen scarier things than me?” he asked, his voice saturated with a rich, resonating timbre that made it sound like he was speaking through a pipe organ.
“I… I have,” I stammered. “I was right though, wasn’t I? You’re the artist of all these paintings? And the ones upstairs?”
“And the one in your possession,” he said with a sage nod. “I never sold a single painting in my life, or gave one away, but that insipid old Crow stole one to use as collateral against a debt I owed him, and squirrelled it away in his family’s cemetery for safekeeping.”
“I know that cemetery. I live there now,” I told him. “It’s still hallowed ground, and still imperceptible to most people, so you won’t be able to find it without me. Let us go and –”
“Do you like it?” he cut me off.
“The… cemetery?”
“The painting.”
“I… Absolutely," I said with an over-eager nod. "It’s a beautifully haunting depiction of Hades and Persephone ruling the Underworld together. I’ve been there, in my astral form at least, and you skillfully captured their essence. It was the first thing I noticed when I first stepped into that mausoleum. It really adds a sense of gravitas to the place.”
“…Keep it,” he said, sighing as he sat down upon one of the boxes, the cardboard’s lack of deformation proving that he had no weight to him. “Crow, Crowley, Chamberlin; I hated the lot of them. As my creditors, they stood to inherit every asset I had, including my paintings. They were my life’s passion, a part of me, and I couldn’t stand the thought of them being auctioned off to make those rich bastards just a little bit richer, so I… well, you saw.”
“I did,” I said, gently taking a seat beside him.
“You come here often, don’t you Samantha?” he asked.
“Since I was a kid. I love the paintings upstairs, and so does my father,” I replied. “Thank you for letting Zadok share them with the world.”
“It… was nice to finally have my art appreciated by someone, and Zadok has proven a trustworthy caretaker of my legacy,” he said. Reaching up to his face, he pulled off his mask and lowered it to his lap. “And it’s good to know that the final lost piece of my collection is well-loved and well-cared for, as well.”
With that, his spectral form dissipated, and I caught the mask as it fell to the ground.
“Zadok, what the hell?” Genevieve demanded angrily as she marched across the basement. “You knew that thing was down here?”
“I… yes, but he manifests so seldom, and never without cause. I had no reason to think that your presence would summon him. Please, I never meant either of you any harm!” he pleaded.
“And no harm was done,” I said, gently placing my hand on Genevieve’s shoulder to try to rein her in. “We came looking for answers, and we found them. Thank you, Zadok.”
“He still lied to us!” Genevieve shouted.
“To protect a secret he had every right to keep,” I reminded her. “Zadok, I’m sorry for performing a reading on the death mask without your permission. You don’t have to tell me anymore. Whoever the artist was, however you became the curator of his collection, I’m glad you did.”
“I’m so sorry, Samantha. I would never have intentionally put you in danger.”
“I believe you,” I assured him. “Come on, Eve. We’ve overstayed our welcome.”
“Your dinner is on the house,” he offered. “It’s the least I can do. If you ever want to take another look down here, all you need to do is ask. And… I’ll look into finding a more appetizing vegan entrée for the menu.”
Genevieve just rolled her eyes, unappeased by the meagre peace offering.
“Yeah, because some bland and soggy tofu was what really ruined this night for us."
Category:The Vesper's Bell
Category:Ghosts