Read Online The Dunwich Romance by Edward Lee - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Edward Lee
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aversion.
Not this day, though.
I only juss met Wilbur today and I’se already gettin’ good feelin’s for him. Ain’t never met no one nicer’n him...
She walked round the rest of Sentinel Hill’s brush-hummocked elevation. She whistled a tune—“Yes, We Have No Bananas”—then offered a cheerful wave to a group of overalled denizens lounging higher among a nearby hill’s rock-strewn rise. No response was made to her gesture, just blank, decrepit stares, but Sary didn’t care. Why, ya bunch’a old toads, she thought. But I hope yew all have a good day anyways!
The road—more a trail than a genuine road—straightened through the next meadow, Dunwich Village hulking haggardly in the distance. Sweeps of uncut hay shivered about her, though she perceived not even a wisp of wind. Then...
Is that...a person?
The thing that she first connoted as a bent scarecrow soon turned out to be a person indeed. No apprehension retarded her gait as she proceeded, yet as she did so the figure’s details advanced in clarity. A man, shaven-headed, stood beside a lone tree, nearly as if awaiting her. He wore a long-tailed black coat, a white shirt with bow tie, black slacks and leather shoes, but though the apparel clearly had been fine in days agone, they were now quite tattered and threadbare. He stood with the aid of a cane which seemed topped by some flying creature, and though Sary had never been to a moving-picture show, she remembered the time her mother had taken her to Innsmouth on the bus: when the smoke-spewing vehicle had passed through Kingsport it had slowed at an intersection. This pause had given Sary time to glimpse a moving-picture theater, whose marquee had read NOSFERATU and had sported an advertisement poster featuring the quite scary visage whose most salient features were a thin face and bald head, large receded eyes, and cheeks so gaunt they appeared as if in shadow. It was this image she immediately affixed to this waiting person. Closer, she detected the reason for his cane: a severely curvatured spine; then more eccentric facial details came to her heed. Sary possessed no creative alacrity whatever, yet an onlooker who did might describe the man overall as cadaveresque, and with a cast of eye (blue eyes they were) that suggested an accursed affinity of misanthropic revelation. At alternate moments he seemed somnambulant, as though not aware of her approach at all, yet other moments he seemed vibrantly notified of all in his range of sight and even beyond. It was then that Sary took note of sinister artwork on his hands and neck, a process she’d heard of called tattooing. Lastly, and most shockingly, the road-stander harbored a metal ring through his nose, akin to the rings implanted to lead cattle or horses.
But when he at last addressed her directly with his foggy blue eyes, his general aspect of negativity evanesced to something rather the opposite. A precipitant smile, in fact, struck her as humanitarian.
In the most archaic Yankee dialect she’d heard in some time, he voiced, “Young gull, greetin’s ta ye on this acme of a day. A day of wonders, be this, aye?”
Sary considered the uncharacteristic words, then realized the bald man was correct. “Has been for me, yeah.” She blinked, remembering Wilbur’s mention of a bald man. “Say, are yew that Kyler man Wilbur tell me ‘bout?”
“‘Tis true,” the voice creaked in reply. “I espied him not long ago.”
“He tell me yew’re a fortune-teller... ”
The man seemed to stand atilt. “Cahn’t say I am, cahn’t say I en’t. But heer’s suthin’ I cahn say: eff’n it’s Osborn’s whar you be a-headin’...” but then the remainder of the remark retroceded like something lost in smoke.
Sary didn’t care for the man’s elliptical words, nor in the way his brow cocked; she tried to return a skeptical facial gesture and adjoin it with a similar tone. “Oh, so yew’re tellin’ me I’m in the way fer a bad time in
Not this day, though.
I only juss met Wilbur today and I’se already gettin’ good feelin’s for him. Ain’t never met no one nicer’n him...
She walked round the rest of Sentinel Hill’s brush-hummocked elevation. She whistled a tune—“Yes, We Have No Bananas”—then offered a cheerful wave to a group of overalled denizens lounging higher among a nearby hill’s rock-strewn rise. No response was made to her gesture, just blank, decrepit stares, but Sary didn’t care. Why, ya bunch’a old toads, she thought. But I hope yew all have a good day anyways!
The road—more a trail than a genuine road—straightened through the next meadow, Dunwich Village hulking haggardly in the distance. Sweeps of uncut hay shivered about her, though she perceived not even a wisp of wind. Then...
Is that...a person?
The thing that she first connoted as a bent scarecrow soon turned out to be a person indeed. No apprehension retarded her gait as she proceeded, yet as she did so the figure’s details advanced in clarity. A man, shaven-headed, stood beside a lone tree, nearly as if awaiting her. He wore a long-tailed black coat, a white shirt with bow tie, black slacks and leather shoes, but though the apparel clearly had been fine in days agone, they were now quite tattered and threadbare. He stood with the aid of a cane which seemed topped by some flying creature, and though Sary had never been to a moving-picture show, she remembered the time her mother had taken her to Innsmouth on the bus: when the smoke-spewing vehicle had passed through Kingsport it had slowed at an intersection. This pause had given Sary time to glimpse a moving-picture theater, whose marquee had read NOSFERATU and had sported an advertisement poster featuring the quite scary visage whose most salient features were a thin face and bald head, large receded eyes, and cheeks so gaunt they appeared as if in shadow. It was this image she immediately affixed to this waiting person. Closer, she detected the reason for his cane: a severely curvatured spine; then more eccentric facial details came to her heed. Sary possessed no creative alacrity whatever, yet an onlooker who did might describe the man overall as cadaveresque, and with a cast of eye (blue eyes they were) that suggested an accursed affinity of misanthropic revelation. At alternate moments he seemed somnambulant, as though not aware of her approach at all, yet other moments he seemed vibrantly notified of all in his range of sight and even beyond. It was then that Sary took note of sinister artwork on his hands and neck, a process she’d heard of called tattooing. Lastly, and most shockingly, the road-stander harbored a metal ring through his nose, akin to the rings implanted to lead cattle or horses.
But when he at last addressed her directly with his foggy blue eyes, his general aspect of negativity evanesced to something rather the opposite. A precipitant smile, in fact, struck her as humanitarian.
In the most archaic Yankee dialect she’d heard in some time, he voiced, “Young gull, greetin’s ta ye on this acme of a day. A day of wonders, be this, aye?”
Sary considered the uncharacteristic words, then realized the bald man was correct. “Has been for me, yeah.” She blinked, remembering Wilbur’s mention of a bald man. “Say, are yew that Kyler man Wilbur tell me ‘bout?”
“‘Tis true,” the voice creaked in reply. “I espied him not long ago.”
“He tell me yew’re a fortune-teller... ”
The man seemed to stand atilt. “Cahn’t say I am, cahn’t say I en’t. But heer’s suthin’ I cahn say: eff’n it’s Osborn’s whar you be a-headin’...” but then the remainder of the remark retroceded like something lost in smoke.
Sary didn’t care for the man’s elliptical words, nor in the way his brow cocked; she tried to return a skeptical facial gesture and adjoin it with a similar tone. “Oh, so yew’re tellin’ me I’m in the way fer a bad time in
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