Cthulhu Land of the Long White Cloud AU Read online

  “Anything, just make it stop. Make it stop and promise that my sister will be safe.”

  Everything went still, the silence so quiet that it buzzed in my ears. I dropped my hands from my head, uncurled my limbs and sat.

  “I don’t know how to save you,” I whispered. “I don’t—”

  As I have been your vessel for all these years, so too shall you be mine.

  Pain fired through my synapses, burning me out until every­thing went black.

  GRACE

  I paced outside the perimeter the rescue team had set up. They’d been here for hours and Izzy was somewhere down there, underneath it all. I couldn’t breathe. It was my job to keep her safe and she might be dead, right now, trapped under layers of rock, her body twisted and broken the same way her mind seemed to be sometimes.

  Mum was going to kill me. She’d already called, her voice so frantic I couldn’t understand what she was saying. A doctor had to tranquilize her and she was at home with Dad while I paced, wearing a trench in the ground, cursing it for the terrible quake that had probably murdered my sister.

  “Grace?”

  I turned. It was Izzy. I inhaled, relief filling me. She was alive, she was okay, and she was crawling from the rubble in a completely different spot to where the rescue team were searching. I ducked under the perimeter tape and scrambled to her.

  “You’re alive,” I whispered, holding her at arms-length. I didn’t want to draw attention, to call for help. I needed to make sure she was okay first. She let me wipe the blood from her neck with my fingers, let me check for breaks, before I crushed her into a hug. “I can’t believe it. I thought…I thought I’d lost you. I—”

  “It’s okay,” she said. She smiled, a beatific glint in her eyes. “I’m okay. Actually, I’m better than ever.”

  I frowned. It wasn’t the response I expected, given her predil­ection for anxiety. No, that was too harsh of me. It wasn’t her fault that her nerves seemed to eat her alive. She was sensitive to the world around her, open and aware in a way that others didn’t seem to be, and I loved that about her, even if it meant she needed my help. Even if it meant I couldn’t go and live the life I’d always wanted to. She was more important.

  Izzy’s inability to function as a normal person had often driven Mum and Dad to distraction. I felt that if she’d had an official diagnosis of some kind it would have made it easier on all of us. I liked to think of her as a modern shaman, but then maybe that was just a coping mechanism. She was a dreamy woman, and with a little application could make some good money from her art; it just never seemed to happen.

  “Over here!” I heard a shout, and then I was pulled away from Izzy as a medical team looked her over.

  She had mild concussion and was free of major injury, just cuts on her limbs, her cheek, and her neck. She’d been very lucky, but the way she looked at me now…I couldn’t help but wonder. Just what had happened down there to cause this shift in her manner?

  I t started off as just notes for the Doctor. He wanted me to keep tabs on Izzy, make sure there were no lingering effects from the concussion, to keep track of her behaviour in case she needed counselling from the trauma she’d been through.

  There was some dizziness, she vomited once, and her expression was vague when I asked her about specific things. Other than that she seemed fine—more than fine, she seemed better than ever. She had gained focus, was doing some kind of research online, tinkering with some…device. I didn’t know what it was and she wasn’t saying a peep. She would just grin at me, with a strange gleam in her eyes, and tell me that I’d find out soon enough.

  Some nights I would find her sitting on the balcony, her legs swinging over the edge and her gaze fixated on the night sky, a deep sense of yearning etching her face.

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to escape, to fly away?”

  I bit my tongue, held back the words that would hurt her. But then she looked at me and I had to be honest. “You know I have.”

  “I do. That was a test.” She smiled, but then she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. I know it’s my fault.”

  “No, don’t ever say that. I chose this. I chose you. You’re my sister and I love you so much.” I slipped my hand into hers and she squeezed it, her skin feeling drier than it normally did. “I might have wanted other things—I might still get other things—but this is what I want right now.”

  “I’m going to give you the universe,” she whispered, eyes filled with adoration.

  There was something about the way she said it that sent a shiver down my spine. As if she really meant it, in a way I couldn’t comprehend.

  “Come on, come inside and I’ll make us some hot chocolate before bed.”

  “No,” she said softly, letting our hands drift apart. “I want to stay out here for a bit. I’ll see you in the morning.” She smiled again, but I knew I was dismissed.

  A week later she was out of the apartment on some furtive mission. This whole secrecy thing she had going on was driving me mad and her door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open a little wider and peered inside.

  Her room was chaos. That…machine, no, machines…took prime place on her desk and there were scattered drawings around it. I stepped inside and felt anxious as I tiptoed across to her desk. Some of the drawings were of the machines, or what I assumed were parts, maybe, for inside it. Schematics? None of it made sense to me. There were maps of the area where we’d gone caving, scrawled with distances and depths. Others were drawings of space, some familiar celestial bodies and others I couldn’t identify. The artwork evoked a sense of longing, through some ineffable quality. It made my stomach ache, made me need to get out, get away from there, pretend I’d seen nothing. I turned towards the door and my mouth dropped open. I tried to take in the image on the wall. It was…

  It was stars and dark skies. It was some creature I couldn’t understand, sprawling across the wallpaper, trailing dust and debris behind it, leaving fire in its wake. It was dark and vibrant and vivid and more than alive. I fell to my knees, all the strength leaving me at the sight of this great beast. What was this? What was going through Izzy’s mind?

  I turned to see Izzy standing in the doorway. I looked at her and felt guilt and shame. I reached out my hand, my head shaking, trying to find the words to apologize for my intrusion.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She smiled. “You like it, don’t you?” Her eyes were fixed on the wall, but all I could see was her.

  Something was wrong. Something more than strange drawings and stranger machinery. She wasn’t acting like Izzy, who would normally have screamed at me to get out, to respect her privacy, who could have ignored me for days in a cold fury or sobbed for a week at my invasion.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said, the only words I could think of that were honest. “Where…Where did you see this?”

  She turned to face me, that glint returning to her eyes. “Under the ground. I saw a lot of things under the ground.”

  “Izzy, I’m worried about you.” I bit my lip. “I think we should go and see someone. That you should…I don’t know, get some counselling for the trauma? You were trapped underground for hours, it’s only sense that—”

  “Okay,” she said, and then she added, “but first I want to show you something. Why don’t you make an appointment for two days time, and tomorrow, I’ll show you?”

  Did I dare ask what? And why wasn’t she fighting me? “Okay,” I said, the words dull in my mouth. I didn’t know how to respond to this person. I didn’t know how I felt anymore.

  Izzy came and gave me a hug, then ushered me from the room. “I just have to finish this little project before we can go tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.” She gently pushed me into the hallway and I heard the lock click into place.

  I was drinking coffee, waiting for Izzy to emerge from
her room when the front door opened. She was a mess; mud flecked her jeans from hem to knee, and dirt caked her fingers and streaked her face.

  “Where the Hell have you been?” I asked, rushing to her side. “Are you okay?”

  She grinned. “I’m fine. Totally fine, in fact I’m amazing. Are you ready?”

  I frowned. “What, now? Don’t you need to get cleaned up? Where have you been?”

  “I’ll show you. I promise, you just have to come. Get some sensible shoes on, and say goodbye to the real world for now.”

  “The real—” I shook my head. “Fine, whatever. I’ll get my shoes.” She was back to being dreamy, to making no sense, and in a way that was comforting. I headed down the hallway to my room to find my sneakers, pulling them on and grabbing a jacket. As I walked back to the lounge I stopped outside Izzy’s room. Her desk was clear. The devices gone. I opened my mouth, but Izzy called.

  “Hurry up! We need to go.” That impatience was all her. I shook off the worry and followed her out the door, and down­stairs to the car.

  Izzy slipped into the driver’s seat, taking control with an ease I’d never seen in her. She hummed an upbeat tune, and seemed not to hear my constant questions as to where we were going and why. I gave up, leaned into the headrest and closed my eyes. I’d just have to wait.

  When we drew to a stop I opened my eyes and let out a gasp.

  The caves. We were at the caves.

  “Why? Why here?” My heart thudded and my ears buzzed. It was too soon, barely a week since the earthquake. We were still having aftershocks! Barely a week since I thought I’d lost her forever.

  “Because I made a promise down there, deep in the ground, and I need to follow though. I need to show you.”

  Izzy got out of the car and waited for me to do the same. My knees felt wobbly, but she seemed sure and confident, and I didn’t know what magic it was that had changed our roles. Was this how she normally felt; cautious and scared and uncertain of her place in the world?

  The buzzing in my ears only intensified. I stopped walking, but she grabbed my hand and pulled me, stronger than I had ever imagined her to be. We reached the place where she’d emerged what seemed a lifetime ago, reborn into this other person that held my hand.

  “Come on. We have to crawl.” She let go and disappeared between two rocks, contorting her body.

  “I don’t want to go,” I said, my voice a whisper. How could she be this brave?

  “You have to.” Her voice was tense, but then she sighed, relaxed her shoulders. “Remember how you made me? You knew it would be good for me, and it was. Now it’s your turn to trust me. I need to give you something.”

  There was nothing I wanted in that hole in the ground, but I forced myself to inch forward, to twist my body, to fit myself between those rocks despite the fact it made me shudder, made bile burn at the back of my throat.

  When I was through the gap the tunnel widened slightly, its walls were eerily smooth in the faint light from outside, too round and perfect to be natural. My thoughts skittered away from what that might mean.

  Izzy passed me a headlamp and I pulled it on, comforted by the familiar movement. I turned the light on and the beam exposed the tunnel—it was steep, but not too steep, and Izzy was already heading down.

  “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” I asked. My voice bounced weirdly off the walls as though the acoustics didn’t quite match up to the dimensions.

  “Yeah. There’s just something about it.”

  I could hear that damned smile in her voice. I just wanted it to stop. A pang of guilt hit me; I didn’t want her to be miserable, but this…joy, this inner happiness wasn’t real, it wasn’t her.

  “How long until we get there?” The wash of emotions, the confines of the space—this place—were all crushing in on me and I needed out. But not without her.

  “Soon. I promise. You’re doing great.”

  “That’s something I normally say to you.” My knees hurt. My hands. My heart. I could only focus on the movement, nothing beyond my body, beyond the figure in front of me.

  “I learned from the best.” Izzy laughed. “Come on, just a little further.”

  Then there was a rush of cooler air. It wasn’t fresh but it sign­alled open space and I pushed on, past my fear and into the open cavern. I cast my light around, trying to see why it was she’d brought me here. She took my light off me and turned on a lantern.

  It was just a cave. One of her devices was propped against one of the far walls, but otherwise there was nothing here. I was disappointed. Comforted.

  “Is this where you landed?” I asked.

  “Almost.” Izzy grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. She pointed at a shape on the ground. “There. That’s the outline of me. It was mud when I landed. It’s gotten harder since then.”

  “Is this what you needed me to see?” I frowned, not sure what purpose it served.

  “Not quite.”

  She pulled me into a hug, held me close. I stroked her hair, inhaled the smell of her, not quite pleasant but infinitely Izzy. When she pulled away there were tears in her eyes. She pointed at the spot on the ground again. “Lie down and look up.”

  “Why are you crying?” I asked, rubbing my thumbs across her cheeks, wiping the tears away.

  “Because I love you so much. You have no idea.”

  “I think I do, kiddo. Kind of love you too.” I smiled at her, relaxing now. Everything was going to be okay.

  I sat down in the space she’d pointed and then lay in the groove her body had left. It seemed to tighten around me, softer than I expected, warmer too. I looked up at the ceiling of the cave. Izzy switched off the lantern and I could see…

  Stars. I could see the vastness of space. She’d painted it there in phosphorescence, just like the one on her wall. How had she got so high?

  I tried to sit up but the ground held me tight. Something tickled the back of my neck and then pain burst through me, something else, too.

  “Izzy, what did you do?” I cried.

  “I wanted to give you the galaxy, Grace. You’ll see things you never could have imagined. He said he would keep you safe.” Izzy leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Don’t struggle. It’ll just make it worse.” She was crying harder now as she pulled a remote from her pocket, and I couldn’t move my head enough to track her movement, but she was going away, leaving me here, trapped in the ground.

  “Who is he?” I yelled after her.

  I am Te Ika.

  I heard a beep, and then the earth rumbled, shifted, tugged at what held me. More noises, followed by another and another. Explosions. The ground shivered and shook and rocks crashed from the ceiling. I struggled, trying to cover my head, to curl into a ball, but something kept the debris from hitting me. There was a ripple, a huge shudder and then I was moving, lifting, sliding through rock, flumes of dust, walls of noise, and then clearing the ground and breaching the clouds.

  The world fell away as the creature slowly absorbed me, absorbed my fears about what was happening to the island below. The hum of Izzy’s tune was the only thing I could hear…

  And then there were only stars.

  ORTENSIA AND OSVALDO

  Lucy Sussex

  EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was found in a box of books from a deceased estate, comprising largely of runs of early twentieth-century scientific journals. They were ex-Libris Brown University, culled during the 1980s due to their lack of patronage by staff and students. Certainly the subject matter tended to the abstruse if not actually arcane. From there they fell into the hands of the Emeritus Professor of Classics, outraged at this act of “Alexandrian barbarism,” as he complained to the University President. He never seems to have actually read his hoard, which he consigned to storage. Otherwise he would surely have discarded this holograph letter, extraordinary only to
a particular, discerning cognoscenti. Indeed, he was notorious on campus for his opinion that literature had ended with the fall of the Roman Empire.

  The letter was found inserted into the September 1913 issue of the Journal of South Pacific Marine Zoology. It would appear someone, perhaps the letter’s recipient, had been consulting this issue, which is referred to in the text. Perhaps they were disturbed at closing time, hustled out of the library in a hurry. Overnight, the bound volume was shelved — or misshelved, since the bindings of the University serials section at that time tended to be uniform — never to be retrieved.

  The letter might have been consigned to the trash can, had not several things suggested an extraordinary possibility: it had been annotated throughout, in lead pencil, by a hand which appeared disturbingly familiar, something supported by a marginal sketch, reminiscent of a much more widely known image.

  It may, of course, be an elaborate bibliographic hoax, but we have made enquiries with the National Library of New Zealand, as to verifying certain details in the letter and identifying the writer. Unfortunately they are currently closed for renovation, following an earthquake. In the meantime news about the discovery has leaked out already, to the wider fan community, and interest is intense. Therefore we judge the time is ripe for its wider circulation.

  To the Editor, Weird Tales, Chicago.

  Dear Sir, Please forward the enclosed to the author concerned, as a response from a keen reader. It is under no circumstances to be published. We have quite enough trouble down here, at the other end of the world.

  Yrs sincerely, Jack Smith (Capt.)

  April 11 1928

  c/o GPO

  Wellington,

  New Zealand

  Dear Mr. Lovecraft,

  I presume that you are a Mr., not Miss or Mrs. If I am wrong, then Madame, please forgive me. [Marginal pencil note: this is decidedly a first!] I am a bluff sea dog, who though retired, retains much of the rough and ready manners of my shipping days. Yet in the style of your writing, I think I sense the ineluctably masc­uline. Therefore Mister it is.