Read The Dunwich Romance Online
Authors: Edward Lee
The Dunwich Romance (25 page)
First thing I got to tell you mite not like but I hope yew do. I warn’t speakin no lies when I tell yew severul days past that you need not wurry bout gettin pregnant by me on account my seed not be compatible with yor womb. This be true, but, well, it all change after lass night when you went to the winder that them men busted out and then got ye reel close to my brother. See, theres things in my brothers skin and breth that when he get too close to someone hereabout WORK INTA that personz blood and change em, and what it done was it change YOU, it change yer WOMB so’s my seed become whut’s called POTENT.
This means, Sary, you be pregnant this very second, pregnant from our lovemakin. Hope ye dont be mad, but it just be the way it is. Tis whut the gods want. It be best that we foller what they want cuz they know what is best for us. Acorse if this don’t be to your liking, tis yore right ta git a abortion which is what that man ye know Doc Houghton know how to do.
I hope ye do not do this thogh, on account uv what be in yew now is somethin we make together, and be a expreshion of how I feel for ye.
Sary may have stared at the passage for a solid hour, but from the second after she’d read the passage, her misery had been banished, to be refilled by a joy which felt brighter than the sun. Now she knew the root of this morning’s unbidden headache and bout of vomiting—
morning
sickness.
I’m gonna have a baby! WILBUR’S baby!
When she regained control of her emotions, she read on:
What ye need to know rite off is I’m leevin all the Whateley gold to ye. It’ll provide for you always and make it so ye never have to get with fellas again for money. It be hid in the liddle fenced cemetary out back, under the slab marked Silas Ephriam Whateley. Ye’ll need a pry bar to git up the slab and a rope ta slide it back and fourth on account it is very heavy, but what ya got to do ferst is cover the wood plank hangin on the nearest ash tree. It got things wrote on it that make all who look in the grave see nothing but a skeletin, however that coffin really be fulla gold. It’s like a spell, called a Imperceptibility Conjuration.
Sary could not conceive of such an endowment. Her destitution had changed to incredible affluence in a single moment...
What also be hid in the coffin is a metal box what got in it all the most valuble pages from the books I got in the shed, mostly from the hinged book but also from other books. The payges was all copied by me so to keep em safe. Soon ye will need to start readin these pages so’s to lern em. Lotta things in those pages that’ll give ye powers like ye never dreemed, and I mean MAGICK powers.
Of this, Sary could scarcely maintain her equanimity. Was Wilbur crazy to say such things? Was there
really
such a thing as magic?
Then she recollected the Voorish Sign, and what she’d seen...
Of course there was magic!
And now it seemed that Wilbur had bestowed it unto her...
My darling, if ye choose to be a part uv all this I am talkin bout, then first chance ye get, you take the biggest chunk of gold in Great Uncle Silas’ grave, which be werth a thousand dollars eezy, and ye give it to Prudence Naller so to buy her big fancy barn which be up four sale now. Ye need that barn on account it will be big enough for all ye need. Don’t mention none to Prudence Naller bout how ye know me, just give her that bloon of gold and that ole fussbudget will be happy to sell ye the barn.
The information, of course, left Sary rather fuddled. A barn? Why would Wilbur want her to buy a barn, when his own livestock was barely existent now?
Buy the barn tomorow, then move right in, on account ye gotta get out of that tool shed an away from my house soon. My brother is fixing to bust quarters shortly and ye can’t be anyweer near him when that happenz. Move all ye need from the shed to the barn but leave the big book with hinges and other papers there. There be no need to bother with em on account all you need is already in the copies in Great Uncle Silass grave. That man I told ye about, Armitage, he know I got that big book and if it is not there after I die, he will know someone else got their hands on it. So jest leeve it. The papers I copy give ya all the power ye need for the future. Once ye read those papers in the grave, ye’ll understand why you is importint, and why our BABY be importint.
At this, Sary determined herself. No, she did not understand, but she received the distinct impression that once she read the material he’d referred to, she
would.
The
baby,
now, was most crucial to her.
Ye’ll understant more and more as time go on, by what ya learn from the papers and by what ye lern from even the air, once ye come into their graces...
Sary continued to stare and stare.
The rest uv the sheets that Kyler give will look amighty strange ta ye but that be becuz I translated the words from the good copy they got at Miskatonic which replace the mussed up words in mine. This be the rite way of the words from Page 751. They are chants, what ye say aloud three times apiece on the special days up on Sentinel Hill. Roodmas, the Walpurgis, Hallowe’en. See, I wrote the chants down in a manner that be called PHONETIC, which mean it allow you to READ the words the way they is supposed to SOUND.
These words uv the chants be the most importint words ever knowed in all the world.
Sary felt an excitement buzzing in her veins. Somehow, crazy as all this sounded, she knew it was true, as if there were some component of
the very air around her
which imparted conviction and trust...
Yes. The very air around her.
And there is other things on them sheets which be spells, incantations, hexes, and wards which ye’ll learn how ta do. These are things thatll help ye along the way, and protect ye from bad folks and such. It is a tremendiss power ye will have, Sary. Though I be ded in body I am not in spirit. Soon ye will even be able to see me when ya do the Voorish. It will be not my ghost but what’s calt my eidolon, and I’ll be able to help guide ye. Don’t be confused, my sweethart, just do all what I say, and ye will see! Grate things be comin!
I’ll be able to see Wilbur again!
her thoughts rejoiced. The same way she saw the old man, and that pale-skinned women earlier, after she’d done the sign! Wilbur would still be with her in a sense!
And what I need to explane now is this: that baby ye got in yer belly? It really be TWO babies, twins. One will be like me, and one like that One in the house, my brother. You will grow to love em both once ye find out what this be all about...
Twins? Sary’s eyes bloomed.
One like Wilbur and one...
Like that gigantic, tentacled monster inside the house...
Sary rubbed her belly through the diaphanous gown.
I don’t matter none that it be like that thing. All that matter is it be from Wilbur...
More and more, she was beginning to understand.
One more thing, then I be off. Once all be done by us that our god need to be done, the world will change for the better, back to the way it is supost to be, and I will get a new body by means of what’s called Transfiguration. Yew will too, and we will be together again. Once the earth is cleared off.
Until this time come, pleese know I love you, Sary, with all my hart, and I always will. Forever.
Love,
Wilbur
Yes.
Once the earth is cleared off.
Sary learned quickly, from the papers in the metal box in Silas Whateley’s grave, and from the density of the air in special places where the Words had been uttered, and from the muttering underneath the ground at Special Times.
And from Wilbur’s momentary presences when she made the Voorish.
She had bought the Naller barn the very next day, just as Wilbur had posthumously requested. It was a great spacious barn, well large enough for what she now understood would begin to occupy it after nine months had passed. It also possessed several smaller rooms for herself and the other things she’d brought along. She read and re-read every day now, and would continue to, and would practice all the things she was learning constantly. Wilbur’s death had given Sary a
new
life to live while not merely waiting for the time she would be with him again, but also to be a fine, resplendent mother for the two children she would soon give birth to. This she knew, for all she was worth.
She knew something else as well.
When she did indeed give birth to the twins, she would name the human baby Wilbur.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edward Lee has authored close to 50 books in the field of horror; he specializes in hardcore fare. His most recent novels are LUCIFER’S LOTTERY and the Lovecraftian THE HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. His movie HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Film in June, 2009. Lee lives in Largo, Florida.
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