By David Accampo

May 24th

Dearest Emily,

Forgive me for not having written sooner. Your father has me up at all hours of the night, running the strangest of errands! Last night, we had to convey a large steamer trunk from the docks to the ramshackle hut in which our dear Admiral has taken refuge. Not so odd, I suppose, except for the ungodly hour and the nature of the contents of the trunk. I shall not inflict the gruesome details upon you darling, as they are not fit for man, let alone the delicate constitution of a woman. Suffice it to say, the trunk reeked of offal; and Hendricks and I were forced to wear kerchiefs over our noses to stifle the acrid stench.

Still, I should not complain. Your father is a good man, and my induction into the Order is necessary for us to live as man and wife, a dream well worth the unusual regulations placed upon it.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 7th

Dearest Emily,

You can’t know how I’ve cherished your most recent letter! Days on this infernal island have begun to wear upon me. It is only the strength of your love — displayed so proudly in your letters — which keeps me moving forward. Wearing the uniform in this oppressive tropical climate is rather less than bearable, but with every step I take through the sand, my saber rattling in its scabbard, the stiff wool chaffing my sides, brings me closer to you.

Sadly, I’ve nothing to report on your father. The Admiral sees no one now, and delivers his messages through stained parchment letters slid beneath the door of his make-shift cottage. He claims the ritual is well underway. My induction into the Order is nearly complete. I have been given the Ostrich feather to carry on my personage at all times. I’m told this is a symbol of both good omen and grave import; I endeavor to keep it close to me at all times lest the Admiral believe I’ve strayed from his words.

Hendricks has taken ill. He rarely rises from his cot. His skin is clammy, his features jaundiced. I awoke one night to the sound of wheezing and a hacking cough. I don’t suspect he will finish out his stay on the island. The Admiral informed us, via letter, that another ship would soon arrive. Hendricks and Tennyson are expected to depart on it.

They have been deemed unworthy of the Order. That leaves only myself and Albertson as the newest inductees. A part of me wishes I could hop on that steamer with him and find my way back to you. But we both know that would only be folly.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 19th

Dear Emily,

Forgive the tardiness of my reply, my love. The Admiral has kept me quite busy, making arrangements with the natives for the final feast and induction ceremony. I have completed the Serpent’s Path, and the Admiral, who I confess has grown rather bloated on this strange island diet he keeps, has emerged from his isolation. He told me today that he is proud to call me a son of the Order. I take that to have two meanings, my dear, and they both bode well for our bright future!

I was rather surprised to read the revelation in your last letter. You must heed these words: Hendricks is not to be trusted! Your father has informed me that Hendricks betrayed the Admiral’s good name. I realize it must have seemed good fortune for the fellow to seek you out at your family estate, but you mustn’t believe his agenda was purely sociable. Hendricks is a jealous man, and despite what he claims, his infirmity was not brought on by unnatural forces. His illness is mere human weakness.

I beseech you — stay away from Hendricks. The man only wishes ill upon your father and his presence brings nothing good to your family.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 30th

Emily,

We are on the eve of the final ceremony. Oh, the wonders I have seen! Your father has opened my eyes to the world, opened the inner eye, if you will, to all manner of spectacle unseen by mortal man. This new world is a thing of complex beauty, of radiant light, shape and colour. I cannot wait to introduce you to this heaven on earth.

Alas, this is not the reason for my letter. I was shocked and a bit betrayed by your recent confession, my dear. I asked you to steer yourself clear of the madman Hendricks, and yet it appears you haven’t heeded my words. I am sorry the old fellow met his untimely end, and in such a ghastly fashion. I did once call him friend, and his passing does fill me with melancholy. Surely, his illness was one of untoward carnal activity, and not due to, as he so claimed, some malignancy brought on by the Order and our ritual. I assure you, the Order seeks an end to all misery, all war! Your father has only the most benevolent intentions.

I confess, the means to this end are unusual — and often repugnant — but as the night gives in to the inevitability of the sunrise, so to is the beauty of the Order revealed.

We shall live in eternal bliss. This is my promise to you. Please, put Hendricks and his final, twisted visage from your mind. We shall brook no further talk of the putrefaction of flesh.

Soon,

Stephen

***

July 6th

Emily,

I have not received reply. Please, I am worried. I received my sash as a full-fledged member of the Order. Your father beamed with pride as if I were his own son!

Unfortunately, any festivity was cut short by a terrible native uprising. Apparently, these ragged savages have lost several of their womenfolk, and they believe the Order is responsible. Clearly, they do not have the blessed insight of Those Beyond The Sky.

The Admiral has called for swords to be drawn.

I go to my duty.

Love always,

Stephen

***

July 16th

Dearest Emily,

I haven’t the words.

Our battle was hard-fought and won. Arrow and spear are no match for sword and rifle and good old English strategy, you see.

There is more to say, and I do so now with heavy heart.

Your father, our good Admiral Wellington, has passed on. The old man fought bravely, as best he could in his engorged state, but the cunning tribesmen brought him low with a cowardly arrow’s shaft. For a moment, all seemed lost, as the Admiral dropped to his knees in the dust, his jacket stained with crimson.

However, we in the Order have been prepared for the moment of transmogrification. What a glory to behold! It must have seemed a terrible thing to these dim savages as the Admiral’s skin split, as his true personage was revealed, sloughing off his old fleshy casing as though it were nothing more than a long coat taken off on a spring day. The tentacles burst forth, crimson and sea-green. His vengeance was swift and terrible.

I am proud to say that we passed the final test. The Order, brothers all, rallied behind this fearsome new leader, this great king descended down from beyond the sky as our ages-old prophecies have foretold.

Your father will be missed, but his passing brings about a new understanding. A new world! We are not alone. A time of great prosperity is at hand, dearest Emily, and it begins on this small island. We must prepare the way of the Others. The time has come for you to join me, my love. On this island, we shall be married, in honour of your father. I have sent a man named Hickory to fetch you. He should be there shortly after you receive this letter.

I tremble with anticipation to think we shall finally be together! We will finally begin our life! What will you think when you see me, I wonder? I have begun the slow transformation already. My skin is softening, loosening. It loses some of its colour and resolve. I will have no use of it before long. I am larger than you will recall, but it’s the steady diet of meat I must consume. I admit, I didn’t think my tastes would change quite so drastically, but I can already feel the delicate flutter of tendrils within my body. It is a marvelous sensation, and one I am sure you will quite enjoy.

Be courteous to our man Hickory.  I have instructed him to treat you firmly and ensure your passage to the island. I realize you didn’t expect our new life to begin in quite this fashion, but I know you’ll soon come to understand the beauty of this life.

I count the days to your arrival, my love.

Yours in eternity,

Stephen

By David Accampo

Finding no further answers, I called Mrs. Macready. Phone picked up on the second ring.

“Oh, Bill — I was just thinking about you.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Macready–”

“Please, call me Helen, Bill. No one except the kids at school call me Missus. Haven’t felt like a Missus since Tom died anyway, really…”

“Helen…sorry…listen…I found something at the house today. I’m…I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“You know old houses. They do tend to collect little histories, don’t they? If they could talk, I wonder what they’d say.”

“There was something…buried…in the backyard.‚”

“Ah. I see‚” She stopped then. I could hear rustling. After a moment, she spoke again, “Well I’m sure it’s nothing, Bill. Just old buried treasures, you know? One man’s junk, all that.”

“Listen, Helen…would you…would you maybe like to have tea? Over here?” It was a dirty trick, but I knew it would work.

“Oh, well. Yes, of course, Bill! When…when…do you mean now…? I mean, I could, I just have to, well, sure, I mean…”

“Now would be great, Helen. I’ll put on a kettle.”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, sure Bill. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in a few!”

I rummaged through the boxes, still packed. Wasn’t even sure I had a pot for tea. It was dusk; long shadows crawling across the cluttered living room, still dim from the lack of electrical lighting. A brisk wind rattled the old windows, blew open the flimsy screen door to the back yard. I wasn’t used to it all, the space, the wind, the shadow. Nothing’s every truly dark in the city. Someone shines a light on everything. Here, lights are just dim stars on a black canvas. A mirror to the night. Somewhere, a dog barked three times and was quiet again.

I was still fidgeting with the gas stove when Helen came rumbling up her her dead husband’s old Chevy. The bald tires slid across the dirt and gravel as the truck clanked to a stop. It was already a sound I was beginning to hate.

We sat. Drank tea. Helen did most of the talking. She asked a lot of questions. About the city. About what it was like working on Wall Street. About how I liked the country now. My answers were brief. I spent the rest of the time fiddling with the old coffee mug I was using for the tea. She wasn’t going to say anything unless I brought it up. You could see it in the way she’d watch my face as I answered, and then, when I was done, look away quickly, trying to form a new question before I could say anything else. It was awkward and a little sad.

“Your daughter lived here before me, isn’t that right?” I asked.

“Yes, yes…‚” she said, “our little Becky, bless her heart. Grew up in our little neck of the woods, and never left it. She and her husband bought this house just a mile up the road.”

“Must have been nice.”

“Oh yes…well, you know the boys went off to school and such. But Becky…she…this was always her home, was always going to be. Boys so often run off, you know, but girls — we do like to settle, don’t we?” She looked at me and smiled as she said this. She was wearing red lipstick. A little was smeared across her yellow teeth.

“She was happy here, then?”

“Even as a little girl, she’d spend all her days out in the woods. We’d have to holler for an hour to get her to come on home for supper! More at peace there than anywhere else at all.”

“Why’d she leave, Helen?”

Helen pats her hair, looks away. She puts her hands in her pockets, the motion of a smoker looking for her pack. She catches my stare and stops. She smiles in defense.

“Oh, Bill…” she sighs. “You know how it always happens. Alex, that was her husband, he got himself a job upstate a ways and they just had to move is all. Believe me…it wasn’t easy for her to leave.”

“Can I show you what I found?”

The smile doesn’t drop on the widow’s face, but I can see the light’s gone out of her eyes. She’s frozen still, one hand still in the pocket of her purple sweater, one hand still holding the tea cup I found in one of the boxes.
Quietly, I rise from the sofa, walk into the kitchen, and grab the box. I return to the living room, carrying it in front of me. Helen is no longer staring at me. She had slumped in her chair. She stares now at her tea cup, tracing one finger slowly around the chipped rim.I tell her I was mending the fence, the one she said was “torn up real good in the last storm.”

The post-hole digger I was using struck something solid. I thought maybe it was a gas line or water pipe. It wasn’t. It was the box.

“It’s old and rusted but I don’t think it was down there for a very long time,” I say.

“You never know in these parts.”

“Had a lock on it, too. Thought that was a bit odd. I was able to snap it off with the post-holer.”

As I say this line, Helen’s tea cup clatters to the ground and shatters. The warm liquid pools on the worn floor, seeps into the cracks in the wood. She apologizes profusely; I wave it off, grab the nearest towel from a box — a bath towel — and throw it over the mess.

“I’ll clean it up later‚” I say. And then I open the box and set it down on the  coffee table.

Helen doesn’t look inside, so I keep talking. It’s my turn for the questions.

“I wasn’t sure what I was looking at at first, Helen. It looks a little like a small animal. But here…these bones…the skeleton here…this is a baby.”

Helen stifles a little gasp.

“Except…it’s not, is it? Look…is this…what was this…? A tail? Is this a barb at the end? This tiny bone? What are these…these…fibrous tumors twisted all the way through the rib cage? And then…and then…the shape of the skull. That’s not a baby. Look at the length of the incisors. And the way it opens…the way it folds out.”

“Some kind of monster,” says Helen.

“Some kind of joke‚” I say. “But who would play such a horrible prank? College students? The local boys? The type who make up crop circles for fame and fortune?”

“Nobody ‘round here would do that,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper now. She twists her hands together.

I reach into the box, pull out something metal.

“And then I found this in the box‚” I say. I hold up the spoon.
“A little baby spoon, right? Is that what this is? I’ve…I don’t have any kids, Helen, so I don’t know.”
“Yes‚” she says, tears welling in her eyes. She coughs as she speaks, “Yes, yes. That’s what it is, it’s a silver spoon. An ornament.”

“The kind of thing that someone engraves, is that right? A message to the baby. This was covered in filth. the box must have leaked. I cleaned it up, though. I cleaned it up. There’s an engraving there.”

”Yes‚” says Helen.

“It says: ‘To my precious little one, love Grandma.’”

“She was so precious,” says Helen, “I didn’t even see the forked tongue or the tentacles. She was just my little grandbaby, Bill. How could we have known? Becky, little  Becky…she loved those damned woods so much. How could we have known the trouble they would cause?”

Helen begins to cry then, the old widow, alone in the night in the dim light of my house. I look at the terrible thing in the box, I try to imagine its inhuman, mewling cries. We are  silent for a long time, Mrs. Macready and I, until the wind kick up again and slams the screen door against the wood siding, startling us both. In the distance, in the dark, the woods loom.