Fathomless (25 page)

“Look,” Marvell said. “We know so little that—”

“We know Aster Glass didn't hang herself in a sanitarium,” Geldman told the
Founding
.

Told Daniel. Jesus.

“But we have no idea what she did after she left it.”

“We have an idea who might know.”

“So you want to go quiz Marsh about his daughter?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Tell Daniel his mother walked out of the sanitarium alive. Tell him his grandfather Marsh didn't die years before he was born. In fact, Marsh has a very lively interest in Daniel, as the presence of his agent proves.”

“We're not—”

“We
are
sure about the agent, Professor,” Geldman said in as stern a voice as Sean had ever heard him use. It got slightly softer, slightly more distant, as if Geldman had returned to the conference table. “I've seen the Changer every day that Daniel's visited me. I've watched him trail Daniel back home. Sean spotted him at the harbor yesterday.”

“All right,” Marvell said. “We'll assume the Changer's a spy. But we can't assume he's from Marsh.”

“I know this fellow. He's been to the pharmacy many times for his employer, who does happen to be Barnabas Marsh. But putting Marsh aside, let me point out one last thing. I've designed Daniel's treatment to spare his nascent telepathy. It remains empathy for now, but empathy is enough for him to tell that we're lying about some things, by word or by omission. That's slow poison. I say we stop administering it.”

It was like Daniel had figured—felt. His father was lying to him, and Marvell knew it, and Helen and Bremerton and Geldman. The lies were huge, too—no wonder the feathers on Daniel's nape and back had risen.

“Mr. Geldman,” Marvell said. “We simply aren't authorized to tell Daniel about his mother and grandfather.”

“He's not a minor,” Bremerton said. “Technically we
could
talk to Daniel about the other side of his family. But for now we'd better respect Mr. Glass's wishes. Daniel remains financially dependent on him. Emotionally dependent, too, in ways that are just starting to change. Besides, the Order's not on good terms with Daniel's grandfather, is it?”

“When it's necessary to deal with Innsmouth, we go through Barnabas Marsh, but it's never been a pleasant experience. I don't see how it could do Daniel any good to meet him.”

“I don't know about that, Theo,” Helen said. “But I'm with Dr. Bremerton. Daniel's got enough on his plate, starting his studies, making new ties. It could be too much right now, finding out his grandfather's alive, and maybe his mother.”

“Highly unlikely she's alive,” Marvell said.

“I don't see why she shouldn't be,” Geldman said. “However, working with the Order as I am on this case, I will accede to its wishes. I'll say no more about Aster and Barnabas Marsh.”

Yeah, sure, because he didn't have to. Daniel half flapped, half hopped out of the tree trunk. By the time Sean followed, he was on the wing. He blundered against Nyarlathotep's uplifted arm, recovered, gained altitude. Did the Dark Pharaoh smile? Sean didn't have time to decide between fact and paranoia. He flew after Daniel, straight up into the dusk sky. Damn, Daniel was an arrow streaking toward the zenith, paying no attention to Sean's frantic caws. Exactly how high did the sky go in the seed world? Would Daniel hit an invisible ceiling, splat, or would he keep going until the air got too thin to support his wings, too thin to breathe? Sean veered from vertical flight and beat hard for the crescent moon, which cradled a palm that was hazier than usual, barely there. His real flesh pressed the Plexiglas shield, not the stained glass itself, but the exit connection still worked fine: He soared between the horns of the moon and into human Sean on the ladder. Something jerked his left foot off its rung—Daniel staggering back into himself. He let go of Sean as the whole ladder lurched. Good damn thing Eddy was there to wrestle it back to stability and hold it firm while Sean scrambled down.

“What happened?” she whispered. “Where's he going?”

Daniel had wandered zombie stiff toward the back gate. “We better go after him.”

“First help me get the ladder back to the carriage house. I hope they didn't hear it scrape when you guys came out of the window.”

“The library's soundproofed, remember?”

They hustled the ladder back to where they'd found it. Luckily Daniel's zombie shuffle hadn't quickened, and they caught up to him as he crossed Pickman Street and collapsed on the curb. Eddy hunkered down next to him. Sean stood guard, watching for pursuit from the Arkwright House. Marvell and Geldman had walked to the meeting. Bremerton was staying the night. Nobody ought to be coming out the driveway unless they'd been busted—

Daniel muttered something. “What, Daniel?” Eddy said.

Daniel coughed. His voice remained thick, but the second time, Sean heard him all too clearly: “I'm going to Innsmouth.”

Couldn't blame Eddy for sounding confused, since she hadn't heard a word of the meeting. “Innsmouth? Why?”

“They can't keep me from going. I'm walking if you or Sean won't drive me.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Oh hell. Sean turned. Daniel's tight-stretched mouth and far-focused eyes told the story: Anyone who tried to stop him was in for a fight. They didn't need to have it on the curb, though. “Hey, come to the car. Before someone sees us.”

“You're driving me?”

“I'm with you whatever you decide to do, okay? Let's talk about it first, that's all.”

And Daniel's eyes came into focus, first on Sean's sneaker, then on his face. After a few seconds, he must have sensed Sean's sincerity, because he nodded like a rational human being.

So, maybe, they wouldn't be heading toward Innsmouth at midnight. Because if Lovecraft had been even a tiny bit accurate in his description of the town, midnight was not the best time for a visit.

 

18

They
sat in the Civic until just before their curfew, then huddled in the common room to continue the great Innsmouth debate. First Sean had to tell Eddy about the meeting, and good thing he got that done in the car, because her indignation over Mr. Glass's lies and the ongoing cover-up packed some decibels. Even Helen didn't entirely escape her outrage, though Marvell (damn straight) got the worst of it. She could halfway understand them not telling Daniel about his grandfather, but to let him go on thinking his mother had killed herself? That was the most messed-up thing she'd ever heard.

With Marvell crossed off Eddy's hero list, Geldman jumped straight to the top. He had to have known Sean and Daniel were inside the
Founding
. Orne might have told him about the seed world, or else he'd sensed it for himself. Either way, while seeming to go along with the Order and Mr. Glass's demands, he'd provoked Marvell and the others into revealing the truth.

They all agreed that lying to Daniel about his mother had been dead wrong. The question that kept them up until 2
A.M.
was how Daniel should follow Geldman's lead about Barnabas Marsh. Daniel insisted on going to Innsmouth, ASAP. Sean argued they should wait for the right moment, like broad daylight, after they'd left notes about where to search for their bodies. Eddy held out for exhaustive pre-trip research until it was clear that logic wasn't going to budge Daniel. By then they were so tired, Daniel grudgingly conceded that no one was up to driving to Innsmouth that night.

They reconvened the next morning, an encouragingly bright Sunday, and Daniel talked them into an immediate trip. They told Helen they were going to hike in the state park at Ipswich and loaded the Civic with a convincing array of coolers and backpacks. On the way out of Arkham, they stopped at the pharmacy for Daniel's potions and so Sean could leave a note with his crow bro, Boaz. He wanted to mark the envelope,
DO NOT OPEN UNLESS WE GO MISSING
,
but Daniel nixed that. Geldman would probably mind-read their destination right away, no call for Movie Moment melodrama. Though kind of lamenting the missed opportunity, Sean kept his message brief:
We're going to Innsmouth. If we're not back tonight, do whatever you think you have to, thanks. S & D & E.

If Geldman read Sean and Eddy's intentions, he said nothing about it. Whatever he might have said to Daniel in the exam room stayed in the exam room.

The scale out front, reticent for once, dispensed no fortunes.

Back in the Civic, Eddy used her laptop and Tumblebee's Wi-Fi signal to run a search for Innsmouth. Most results referred to Lovecraft's story rather than to the actual town, and the only tourist information was on fan Web sites—the official town page was skeletal, with a conspicuous lack of charming seaside photos and chamber of commerce hype. However, it did have a map and directions. A search on Barnabas Marsh produced an Innsmouth address of 4 Washington Street, the fact that Marsh was mayor of the town and owner of the Marsh Metals Refinery, and a phone number. Daniel refused to call it. He didn't want to warn Marsh his long-lost grandson was coming. That way, Daniel figured, he might startle something out of him.

Did they
want
to startle somebody who was probably a Deep One? Probably Big Boss of the Deep Ones, since he was the Order's contact? Sean kept his qualms to himself. Sleep hadn't taken the edge off Daniel's anger, so let somebody else piss him off. Like Marsh if he wouldn't see them.

Route 1A took them through Ipswich and into Rowley, where they hit the only snag of their trip. According to the map, their turnoff would be a road marked
TO INNSMOUTH & INNSMOUTH HARBOR
. They couldn't find it. Eddy made Sean pull into a gas station for directions. The old guy at the register grumbled about “those damn Lovelace fans” who were always stealing the damn Innsmouth sign. No use replacing it—it'd be gone by the next weekend. Anyhow, the Innsmouth road was just north of the gas station, to the right. The one without a sign.

It was reassuring that Lovecraft geeks routinely visited Innsmouth without being sacrificed to Dagon or even getting a selfie with Deep Ones to post on their blogs. Maybe it was because of the treaty Marvell had mentioned. Like, if the Deep Ones didn't harass visitors, the Order wouldn't harass them.

They pulled back onto 1A. A kiwi-green Volkswagen Bug passed them and took a squealing right onto the signless road, probably geeks in a rush to see infamous Innsmouth. Sean didn't try to keep pace with the Bug. The road ran through a salt marsh, two narrow lanes frequently punctuated by age-grayed timber bridges, and neither road nor bridges had guardrails. No way Sean was going to immerse Daniel again by plunging the Civic into a bog. He poked along at twenty miles an hour until they left the marsh for undulating dunes. There sand blown across the blacktop was the big hazard, and he dared to up their speed to twenty-five. A couple miles into the monotonous landscape of stunted pines and bayberry, beach roses and dune grass, they started to pass brick foundations poking out of the sand like the jaws of primordial whales. Eddy speculated that a slow tsunami of dunes had engulfed the houses. That was what happened when people clear-cut the coastal forest, but she still felt sorry for the homeowners who'd fought sand until brooms weren't enough, and shovels weren't enough, and fences sank in the gritty flood.

As they began glimpsing the ocean, Daniel spoke for the first time in an hour. “My mom took me somewhere like this when I was four or five. My father was gone on business, so it was just her and me and wrecked houses in the dunes and a beach with nobody on it. We stayed in a tent for a week. There was a man, older than my father. She didn't tell me who he was, but he walked with us every day, up and down the beach. He rode me on his shoulders.”

“You think it was your grandfather?” Eddy said.

“Maybe. My mom said not to tell my father about him, or about our beach trip either. I remember that.”

Sure enough, the dunes gave way to the kind of lonely beach Daniel had described. The road bottomed out in a shallow parking lot drifted with sand. From there it climbed more solid ground, a rocky rise that crested over an abrupt river valley, a long crescent of bay, and a town that looked like Kingsport or Arkham must have looked a century before. No scenic pullover here, so Sean swerved the Civic as far onto the shoulder as he could, and they emerged wordless to check out Daniel's ancestral home.

*   *   *

Lovecraft
had written that Innsmouth was falling apart, with caved-in roofs, boarded-up buildings, and crumbling steeples; with rotting wharves, a silt-clogged harbor, and nothing left of the old lighthouse but the foundation stones. If he'd seen that kind of dilapidation for himself, then the townspeople had gotten busy since his visit. True, there didn't seem to be any new houses, and there were many vacant lots, especially in the harborside neighborhoods. But the remaining buildings were either in decent shape or under restoration—most streets had a house or two surrounded by scaffolding, and new shingles and fresh roof decking were everywhere. As for the clogged harbor, it was deep enough for the tugs and barges tied up at one new pier and the fishing boats and cruisers tied up at a second. No rotting wharves, either, but the ancient breakwater did have only the blackened base of the former beacon, topped now by modern jetty lights.

Eddy pointed out landmarks she recognized from the town Web site map: the Manuxet River, which cut the town in two as it rushed in churning falls to the harbor; New Church Green, where Lovecraft said the Esoteric Order of Dagon had its headquarters; and the town square, actually a town semicircle. Daniel pointed to a neighborhood well back from the water, where the houses were big enough to qualify as mansions. Washington Street had to be in that area.