Estimated reading time — 48 minutes

“Grey rocks, and greyer sea.
And surf along the shore.
And in my heart a name.
My lips shall speak no more.”

– Charles G.D. Roberts, Grey Rocks and Greyer Sea

“Gods curse you, Whateley! Curse you to Hades! Get back, you devils! Back I say! Oh God! Oh Lord! Help my poor soul!”

These were the final words of Howard Marsh, bellowed out in a feverish panic as he was dragged shrieking and pleading into the gloomy waters of the Irish Sea. To this day, I can hear them clearly in my mind, as if he were screaming into my ears at this very moment. They haunt my every waking hour, but are especially repugnant at night, when the encroaching darkness diminishes my other senses, delivering the horrid utterances with an abominable, maddening clarity. In dreams too, I find no salvation, for Howard’s words and his awful face, twisted with shock and rage, assault my slumbering mind nightly. I have not slept a full, restful night since I witnessed my friend’s demise, snatched as he was from the jagged rocks beyond the lighthouse where we had met on that terrible night five years ago. The lighthouse is gone now, its brine-soaked masonry scattered across the seabed and destined to slowly erode into pebbles and then sand and then finally nothing until it joins the abyssal fathoms that lurk deep beneath the waves. Though Howard Marsh’s end had been of his own doing, pulled away from this Earth by the very cosmic forces that he had once sought to embrace, I cannot help but pity him, for I am not convinced that his physical ruin erased all trace of the man, nor that of the other horror that had shared the lonely lighthouse with him.

It is no simple endeavor to write an account of what I witnessed that forsaken night. My hands tremble with every vivid detail that I dare myself to recall, and what little courage remains me is fragile and fleeting. I have tried every earthly prescription known to mankind in my quest to blot out that terrible night from my mind, especially the dreadful end that befell Howard Marsh, but nothing satisfies. Liquor does not help, it only makes things worse, bringing on fantastic dreams of things Howard had only hinted at during our final conversation. I have had some success with morphine, but the White Lady’s toll on mind and spirit only helps to erode away the memories I seek to retain while doing nothing to erase that evening of alien horror. In the hopes that I can finally banish away the nightly terrors for good, as well as following the advice of Dr. Flemming at Byron House, I will now recount in full that lonely, wind-wrecked evening I shared with Howard Marsh in that doomed, crumbling edifice that was once the St. Michaels’s lighthouse.

I had known Howard for nigh on two decades before driving out to that lonely stretch of coast to see him. We had met on board the Lady Lenore, a rather poetic epithet for a dull North Sea oil rig officially dubbed Auk Field Alpha by the Anglo & Nord Petroleum Company. I was Howard’s senior back then, and I remember him as an energetic young man in his early 30s with a family. He was eager to learn the ropes of working on a rig and possessed an insatiable knowledge for all things. When not working, he would sit up in his bunk until the early hours, pouring over historical texts and scratching down copious notes in his various journals. I will freely admit that during those early days I could not stand the man, and on more than one occasion we had nearly come to blows over his incessant midnight scribblings. Eventually, I did soften towards him and after a few conversations over a bottle of rum, I discovered that we had more similarities than differences, both being keen lovers of history. I felt sorry for him as well, life as the new face on board an oil rig can be hard, and it can take a while to adjust to being away from one’s family. The other “Roughnecks” teased him ceaselessly, ridiculing his appearance, in particular his large watery eyes, small ears, and thick, wide lips. Despite this, he worked hard and was offered a promotion in a relatively short time. Our foreman, Alan Bishop, was a man not easily impressed by others, but even he took a shine to Howard and his strong work ethic. One of Bishop’s many habits was that he refused to use given names, instead barking out “Marsh” and “Whateley” whenever he needed our attention, which was frequent, given that we were part of the electrical maintenance team. This amused Howard, who also took to calling me Whateley and never by Doug, despite how many times I protested.

Though he always displayed a diligence towards his work, I had the impression that Howard was more interested in the seas around the Lady Lenore than the rig itself, and I would often catch him staring out across the crashing waves while on the platform, or gazing out of the window in our bunk room whenever a storm interrupted our schedule. He wasn’t on the rig for long, working less than eighteen months in total across several long stretches of service. I remember our final day working together; he had expressed an interest to return home and to be with his love, Livinia, whom I took to be his wife and mother of his children. I was sad to see him go and we exchanged details. He promised to write me as often as he could and keep me abreast of his future adventures.

To give him his due, he kept his word and every few weeks a letter from him would arrive from the mainland. I remember that first note distinctly, because I was taken aback by its contents. Howard told me he had decided to join the Merchant Navy, hardly a career for any man who had a longing to be by his family’s side, I thought. He explained that his service aboard one of Great Britain’s commercial vessels would afford him the opportunity to visit distant and exotic locations that he had always longed to see, including several islands in the South Seas that I had never even heard of. After five years with the Merchant Navy, he informed me that he and his wife had sadly divorced and that he had plans to immigrate to America, Massachusetts specifically. He explained that he had family living on the East Coast, in particular the towns of Kingsport and Innsmouth, and he had need of them to help unravel some mysteries in his own family tree that had so far evaded him.

I lost contact with Howard not long after he left for the states, and to my great shame, had put him far from my mind once I retired from the rig and set up a small newspaper agents in my hometown of Barton in Cheshire to help see me through to my pension age. Compared to the rig, the work was easy, but painfully banal and dull. I would occasionally reminisce about my time on board the Lenore, and look over old photographs of me, Howard, and the other lads. I did have an address for Howard, and on several occasions I started to pen a letter to him, but never managed to scribble more than a few lines before abandoning the endeavor. The more time that passed the harder it became to write him, and so I resigned our time on the rig together as a fond memory and nothing more. As fate would have it, however, I unexpectedly received a letter from Howard, nearly twenty years since we had first met aboard the Lady Lenore. It arrived with the first post and was marked with a Cumbrian stamp depicting the beautiful green valleys of the Lake District. Opening the letter, I was at first quite shocked, not so much for its contents, but for the way in which it was presented. The handwriting was sloppy, childish even, and it took me several attempts to read the first few lines. It was a stark contrast to the elegant penmanship that was characteristic of Howard’s past correspondences. Though I did not know it at the time, the words written down upon that crudely folded piece of paper would alter the course of my life forever and plunge me into an endless void from which I am yet to emerge. The letter from Howard Marsh read as follows:

“Whateley,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I know that we have not spoken for some years, and I apologize for my lack of due diligence to the friendship we once possessed. The offshore manager of the Lenore was kind enough to furnish me with your new address, and I am happy to see that you have returned to your home village. You spoke so fondly of Barton during our time on the Lenore and I hope you are settled and happy. Interestingly, I had cause to visit the village a few years back. It is a cruel twist of fate that our paths did not cross then, but I believe you were still working aboard the rig at the time. The Gunner’s Clough was everything you told me it was, with its tangled briars and bramble clogged streams. I can see why it has captured the imagination of so many of Barton’s residents. I must say, however, that despite the sinister reputation you attributed to the Clough, I felt at peace as I strolled beneath the canopy of its Witch Elm trees.

I am sorry to say that America did not work out quite as I had intended, and I returned to Britain some years ago penniless and destitute. By some small shred of luck, I managed to secure a position as a wickie up north in Cumbria a few years ago and have been working at the St. Michael’s lighthouse ever since. Unfortunately, we have recently received word that the lighthouse is due to be decommissioned and demolished next week, apparently the maintenance for such a remote tower has become too costly to justify.

I was wondering if you would care to join me here, at the lighthouse. We have much to catch up on, so how about we share a bottle of something and talk about all that has transpired since we last spoke. I greatly miss our friendship, and the memories of our time together on the Lenore are among the few happy ones I have left to keep me company on these damnable long and oppressively bleak nights. My last day will be this Sunday, why don’t you drive out here and join me? We can while away the evening with strong drink and talk of times past and then head up to the tower to watch the sun rise one last time over the lighthouse.

Yours,

Howard Marsh

PS: It would be remiss of me to not inform you of this, but I am afraid to say that during my time in America I have contracted a rare skin condition. Don’t worry, it is not contagious in the least, simply a hereditary condition that has sadly been afflicted upon my family for many generations. If you do decide to visit, please do not be alarmed by my appearance, I remain the same man you worked with on board the Lenore.”

Excited by the letter, I initially tried to call Howard and discuss his request over the telephone, but I quickly learned that there was no number listed for the lighthouse in any of the Cumbrian directories. Replying via letter was out of the question, as confident as I was in the Royal Mail, I had received Howard’s letter on a Thursday morning and getting a reply to him before the weekend was out of the question. I soon learned that it was just as difficult to locate exactly where the lighthouse was on a map, and it was only by some small miracle that the local library in Eastwich had an outdated national road index that listed a St. Michael’s Island near to the town of Seascale in Cumbria. I say near, but the term was largely relative, as I soon discovered that the island was far from any town or village on the Cumbrian coast. Seascale was simply the closest, but even that was a good twenty miles to the south of the island by car. With no way to respond to Howard’s letter, I decided it best to simply travel to St. Michael’s Island and see if there was indeed a lighthouse there. The only other option would be to ignore Howard’s request, but the thought of him sitting alone in that place eagerly awaiting my arrival, only to be disappointed if I did not show, was unbearable. So, with the newsagents left in the capable hands of a trusted employee, I set out in my car early Sunday morning and made the long trip north.

The journey was pleasant enough, though the skies grew darker and more pendulous the further I travelled away from Cheshire, no doubt I was about to experience the stormy weather that the Cumbrian coast was famed for. On several occasions, I had to pull over in order to read the map I had brought with me, and it was during these times that I noticed just how nebulous the clouds above me were becoming. In little time, the car headlights had to be turned on to assist in illuminating the darkening country lanes that my map had assured me would lead to my destination. By the time the lashing Irish Sea finally did come into view, the rain was hammering relentlessly on the roof of my car, blotting out the already weak radio signal which was little more than crackling static. The visibility in my fogged up windscreen had also grown perilously limited, and so I slowed the car down to a crawl as it maneuvered around each twisting bend and tight curve in the road. After what felt like a lifetime of cautiously navigating my way forward, I spied the flashing white of a road sign up ahead as my headlights swept feebly across the gloomy landscape. Slowing to a stop, I wound down my window, wincing as a barrage of cold rain pelted my eyes, and tried to make out what was written on the sign: “Seascale, 2 Miles”. The sign was pointing towards a narrow road that snaked its way to my left and closer towards the churning grey waters of the coast. With the maelstrom above me only threatening to grow worse, I decided a brief sojourn back to civilization would be welcomed, not to mention I could pick up a few sundries for Howard to enjoy when I finally did manage to join him at the lighthouse later.

The town came into view quickly as I followed the road down and towards the sea. Large empty fields, constrained by hedges that were little more than a tangle of thorny briars flanked either side of me, and through the downpour I could make out the silhouettes of several crumbling and dilapidated properties squatting alone just beyond the neglected farmland. A small stone bridge appeared in the road ahead and beyond this several more houses could be seen. At first, the properties were spaced out, dotted on the left hand side of the road, but as I drew closer upon the town, I could see more of them nestled together beyond a large sign that read “Welcome to Seascale.’’

The town itself was wholly unremarkable, apart from the omnipresent sea and its crashing waves to my left, it did little to stand out from the hundreds of towns and villages I had visited across Britain. The storm had of course driven most of the locals out of the streets, but a few gloomy figures could be seen shuffling about furtively in the alleyways that bisected the houses and numerous B&Bs that faced the coast. Turning right and following a road that led to a small tunnel beneath the railway overbridge, I emerged on the other side, finding a large stone hall looming to my right and a local church perched on a hillock in front of me. Passing the church and travelling towards what I guessed must be the town proper, I spied what looked like some kind of ongoing restoration project. A large, squat building appeared to be in the process of being torn down, though with the storm raging the construction vehicles crowning the structure were naturally abandoned. It was a sad sight, clearly it had once been a prominent and important building but was now little more than a skeleton of rafters and beams precariously held together by a husk of what little stone material endured. Passing by slowly, I could just make out a decayed sign still clinging stubbornly to one of the last remaining intact walls. It read, “Scawfell Hotel” in a flaking, gold lettering. As I continued making my way to the town center, I could not banish the name “Scawfell” from my mind. I was convinced I had heard of such a place before, some residual memory or half-remembered conversation perhaps. “Scawfell”. I rolled the word around my mouth a few times to see if I could invoke some kind of reminiscence, but nothing came. The sight of a newsagents and an adjoining sandwich shop up ahead quickly banished the hotel ruins from my mind, however, and I pulled over eagerly, a sudden hunger gripping me as the various advertisements for homemade sandwiches and freshly baked pork pies beckoned.

The woman behind the counter of the sandwich shop was friendly and pleasant, humming a tune to herself as she made me two large ham and cheese butties, one for me and one for Howard, which she filled to the brim. The man working the counter at the newsagents, whom I took to be her husband, was less gregarious, and appeared to be annoyed at having to put his newspaper down and serve me when I placed my basket on the countertop. He lugubriously packed my items into a paper bag, a longing to return to the sports’ results etched across his sullen face. I had learned from personal experience that working in a newsagents is hardly an exciting career choice, but I prided myself on always greeting my customers with a smile and some small talk. Not this fellow, however.

“Anything else?” He said, his words were impassioned and hollow.

“ A bottle of Island Gold.” I replied. “Oh, and can I have a pouch of Dobies #7, make that two actually, and some Hamlets, 5 pack please.”

His irritation flared slightly, and he let out a short sigh as he turned around to gather the cigars and liquor, thumping them down onto the counter.

“Will that be all, sir?” He turned his head slightly downwards and glared at me through his bushy, furrowed eyebrows.

“Yes, that’s everything, thank you.” I said, pulling out a twenty pound note. “Actually, you wouldn’t have happened to have heard of the St. Michael’s Lighthouse would you? Supposedly it’s not too far from here?”

“The lighthouse?” He repeated. “Aye, there’s a lighthouse near here, can’t say I’ve had much call to visit there, it’s out in the middle of nowhere. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I’m visiting a friend of mine who works there as a wickie, Howard Marsh, do you know him?”

He frowned and shook his head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t care to. If he’s a Marsh, he’s not welcome here.”

“How do you mean?” I scoffed.

“Let’s just say when it comes to Marshes, I ain’t got time for them and we’ll just leave it at that.” He handed me the change and nodded.

“Well,” I hesitated. “I’ll be going.” Picking up my items and turning to leave.

“You won’t be getting to the lighthouse now.” He said, picking up his newspaper. “The tide’s in, won’t be out again until, oh around 8 o’clock this evening by my reckoning.”

I paused, Howard had said nothing to me about this in his letter, I had assumed the lighthouse simply stood on the coast.

“It’s what they call a tidal isle,” he continued, not bothering to look up from his paper. “There’s a causeway that leads to it, but you can only walk it when the tide’s out, which at this time of year is either around 7 in the morning or 8 at night.”

I glanced at my watch, it was barely 1.

“8 o’clock you say?”

He nodded slowly.

“How long is this causeway?” I enquired, with the realization that my meeting was now at the tide’s mercy.

“Not too long, I think it’s just under a mile or so.” He flicked to the next page of his paper, a small smirk starting to creep across his lips.

“A mile? That’s some distance, is it safe?”

He slapped his newspaper down on the counter and stared directly at me for a few uncomfortable seconds before answering.

“Should be, I guess. There’s a handrail attached to it. Just make sure you use it. The causeway’s bound to be slippery, especially in this weather.” He gestured outside at the torrential rain. “It’s safer than it used to be anyway, now that it’s covered in concrete.”

“Safer how?” I asked.

“Before they covered it, it was a natural crossing to the island, or so I’ve heard the old codgers around here say. The Devil’s Spine they used to call it back in the old days. I suppose it was like that Giant’s Causeway they have in Ireland, you know the one made out of those columns shaped like, what do you call them? Hexagons? I suppose it was like that.”

“That’s interesting.” I replied. “The Devil’s Spine? That’s certainly a colorful name, how did it come to be called that I wonder?”

“How the bugger should I know?” He snapped. “Look, if you’re that interested there’s a library in town, up on Gosforth Road. Why don’t you go there and ask? I’ve got work to do.”

With that, he picked up his paper once more and shambled through a doorway behind the counter, grumbling to himself as he did so. Glancing at my watch again, I do have quite some time on my hands before the low tide, I thought. The talk of the causeway had intrigued me, it sounded just like the kind of thing Howard would have written about in his journal. Perhaps a visit to the local library would help to while away a few hours at least, and if I could learn some more about this Devil’s Spine, it would give me and Howard something to discuss, after all, my life had hardly been one of note since we last met. The rain outside was refusing to let up, so I quickly popped open the boot of my car and threw the rum, cigars, and the rest inside before jumping back into the driver’s seat. Gosforth Road was relatively close by, and had the weather been anything less than tumultuous I would have cheerfully walked there. By car, the library took less than a minute to reach, and thankfully the lights illuminating the interior confirmed that it was open to the public. Running inside, I found the smell of the building to be earthy, smokey almost, with the unmistakable aroma of ancient, yellowed papers and aged leather. Like many libraries, it was deathly silent, and I quickly realized that apart from a young woman sat at the front desk, I was the only soul inside. The gruff fellow at the store had given me enough to work with, and I busied myself stalking the shelves and browsing the card catalog looking for any local geographical or historical texts that mentioned St. Michael’s Island, the lighthouse, or the Devil’s Spine. After an hour, I had managed to assemble a small pile of relevant texts which I immediately started to skim through in the hopes of finding any crumbs of information on my selected topics. The young librarian, whose name I learned was Annabelle, was kind enough to bring me some coffee as I scoured through the assembled books as well as point me towards other sources of information, such as the local newspaper archive. Within a few hours I had managed to piece together a small spider’s web of fragmented stories, folklore tales, and historical documentation centered upon the St. Michael’s Lighthouse and the surrounding island.

The earliest mention of the isle appeared in the Cumberland Pacquet paper from 1776, which contained a reference to an Anglican Vicar named Frederick Cooper. The paper reported that throughout the latter half of that year, Cooper had delivered a series of fiery sermons at the St. James church in Whitehaven that addressed reports of blasphemers said to be operating in and around the Devil’s Spine. The sermons spoke of strange noises, dancing lights, and unholy Pagan rites that several unknown residents of Cumberland had been engaging in whenever the tide was low enough to permit entry onto the Devil’s Spine and attached island, which at the time appeared to be named by the locals as the Witch Mound. The island’s reputation was just as sinister as the Spine’s and from a tome dedicated to the geography of Cumberland, I learned that it once housed a curious arrangement of stone monoliths, not unlike those in Salisbury. These, however, appeared to be strange in their form, for they were not hewn or smooth, but geometric columns, similar to the hexagonal shapes that formed the Devil’s Spine, only reaching much greater heights and widths. All manner of myth cycles and local folklore were attached to these columns, but the most prevalent was the legend of Long Polly, a spectral hag who was said to haunt the stones with her disciples. Her coven was said to call upon a terrible black demon that lived beneath the isle and there was talk of dark pacts and sacrifices made to the stones at the times of Walpurgis and Hallow’s Eve. Frederick Cooper had warned his congregation on numerous occasions to avoid ‘Trafficking with the wicked sprite of Long Polly and her hellish imps’ in his sermons and had also condemned the use of ‘Pagan offerings made to false idols’. In particular, he appeared to be greatly vexed by the locals’ use of a heathen hieroglyph said to ward off evil and asked that his flock look to the Lord for their salvation from dark powers. There were later records of arrests made relating to these incidents, though the details were scarce and the names of the perpetrators and the outcomes of the arrests were not published and no other account of them could be found, at least not in the texts I had to hand. The only other mention of the Witch Mound spoke of a local legend recorded in 1906 by the anthropologist and antiquarian Sir Robert Shaw in his book titled Cumberland Folklore & Devilry. Sir Robert had written of an account given to him by a Seascale man who spoke of the strange noises that could occasionally be heard emanating from the rocks around the Witch Mound, whenever the tide was out and the wind was strong. The sound was difficult to describe, for it resembled no known speech spoken in the region. Sir Robert had done his best to write down what the Seascale man told him, recording the sinister sound as something resembling, “Tekeli-li.” Though he took great pains to assure the reader that even these queer letters failed to truly capture the haunting and morbid essence of the sound as described to him.

At some point, around a century after Frederick Cooper had first warned of the ill omens surrounding the island, the lighthouse had been commissioned and built upon the island, which had now been given the name St. Michael’s. The stones must have been destroyed to make way for the lighthouse, and the Devil’s Spine had reportedly been covered with steel reinforced concrete around the same time. Apart from the strange whistling sound that could occasionally still be heard, no further reports of strange lights or devil worship persisted and all later writings discussing the island and the lighthouse were painfully banal and mundane in scope.

By the time I had finished my impromptu investigation, it was nearly 6 o’clock and the sun had vanished, giving way to the chilling shadows that accompanied the growing autumnal darkness. The worst of the storm had mercifully passed, though it was still ferociously windy and hopelessly damp outside. With more than enough time to make it to the Devil’s Spine for the low tide, I jumped once more into my car and made my way out of Seascale and back to the main road that led to the north. Though the rain had cleared, visibility was still poor due to the lack of streetlamps beyond the town and my feeble headlamps struggled to banish away the perpetual gloom that enveloped the lonely road ahead. Reading the map was even more difficult in the oppressive dimness and I struggled to pinpoint exactly where I was as I wrestled with it and a small pocket torch I had brought for just such an occasion. I was about to pull over but as my car crested a small hillock in the road, I suddenly spied the St. Michael’s lighthouse casting its lambent beacon across the churning waves. Relief washed over me, with the lighthouse’s aid I could easily reach my destination, and I tossed the map and torch aside and instead followed the lighthouse’s guiding beam.

Arriving at the coast, I found a small patch of flattened earth that was slightly elevated from the road and that served nicely for a parking spot and so I pulled the car in, facing the lighthouse directly. From my vantage point, I could see that the bulk of the causeway was still submerged by the thrashing waves, though for a brief moment I thought I could spy the very top of the grey concrete structure breaching the water on the side closest to the coast. It was around 7 o’clock and assuming that the store clerk had been accurate with his tidal knowledge, I had an hour or so before the causeway emerged from the briny fathoms. The beacon’s light swept across my car as it made its languid sojourn across the waters, illuminating everything briefly in a cold, pale glow before plunging me once more into the Plutonic depths of the lonely Cumbrian countryside. The signal from my radio offered little more than an incessant buzzing static, but I fiddled with the tuner in the vain hopes of finding something to help me pass the time. As I strained to hear through the hissing and crackling, I suddenly became aware of a sound beyond, something outside of the car. It was faint and distant, and I fancied that I had imagined it when I wound my window down only to be greeted by the billowing winds and crashing waves. I was about to dismiss the matter and return to the radio when I heard it again, a sort of whistling sound coming from the direction of the lighthouse. My mind struggled to form exactly what the sound was, it was almost like a voice whispering feebly into the night’s air, but there was a musical melancholy to it, and it was oppressively Stygian and lonesome. As I struggled to make sense of the odd notes, I felt a sudden rise in the air around me. It is difficult to truly describe, but it was almost as if the air around me was vibrating, ululating in unison to the whistle. I remembered Sir Robert’s account of the Seascale man’s encounter with the strange noises around the lighthouse and that is when the words started to form before me in horrid clarity. I cannot say if it was the sound that formed the words, or the words that formed the sound, but it was unmistakable in its utterances, “Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li.” I felt a chilling dread grip my heart, freezing it momentarily and I could feel the beginnings of panic creep over my skin. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, another sound bellowed out into the night, drowning out the wind and the waves and the strange musical whisperings. I physically jumped, striking the top of my head on the frame of the window as it roared out once more. It was the lighthouse foghorn. It took me a few moments to appreciate that although shocking, the booming cacophony was wholly mundane in nature and did not warrant the alarm and panic that it had briefly fostered upon me. What happened next, however, was remarkably abnormal, for almost as if in response to that second mournful dirge the light of the beacon shifted in its composition, transforming from a pale white glow to a chalcedonic green hue that slowly deepened in tone to a dark emerald. Absurdly, despite the obvious dimming, the beacon continued to give off a glow on the very outer edges of the beam in a nimbus of pinks, oranges, and blues. I was struck with the paradoxical realization that the light was somehow both dazzlingly bright and unfathomably dark at the same time. The closest comparison I can put into words is the remarkable displays of the aurora borealis, with its shifting cosmic arcs and shimmering chromatic waves. After a few seconds, the bizarre display shifted once more, transforming into a cold green gold.

I cannot say for how long I gazed at the light as it rotated slowly across the sea and the coast. By the time I managed to break its spell, I could see that the tide had fully retreated and the grey, slimy concrete of the causeway was now clearly visible and accessible. I wasted no time and grabbed my belongings from the boot of the car. I have no idea what possessed me to take the next item from the glovebox of my car, but I did so decidedly once I remembered that it was there. Be it paranoia or some unconscious awakening of survival instinct, but just as I was about to make my way towards the Devil’s Spine, I quickly returned to my car and retrieved the revolver. The gun had once belonged to my grandfather, who had brought it back with him when the war ended and gifted it to my father, who in turn gave it to me, something of a family heirloom that was quite illegal. I had thought about handing it over to the police but always decided against it. I had precious few memories of my grandfather, and this lone artifact was one of the few remaining pieces of him in my life. I had no idea if the thing even worked, but it was loaded with six brass shells and the weight of the grip in my palm was reassuring.

Making my way to the causeway, I soon learned that the small set of steps leading down towards it were hopelessly slick with a disgusting briny sludge that I assumed must have been deposited by the retreating waves. The slime was omnipresent and slippery, and I was forced to hold my pocket torch in my mouth so that I could at least grasp onto the railing that jutted precariously out of the concrete. I managed to slowly pull myself along the railing, despite the ferocious October winds battering me incessantly. Once or twice, I felt my feet slip on some horrid, jellied deposit, but I managed to stay steady as I progressed sluggishly forwards and towards the sweeping beacon of the lighthouse. The whole scenario felt like a dream, as if I were trapped in one of those awful somnambulic shambles where the dreamer is unable to run or even walk without expending a Herculean effort. As I lumbered across the path, I could just about make out the patterns of hexagonal shapes in the ground where the grey concrete had eroded and thinned from years of tidal scourings. I wondered how many more waves the concrete could withstand before great chunks of it fell away to reveal the antiquated horror of the Devil’s Spine that lay beneath. Every few minutes, the sickly green-gold light of the beacon would wash over the causeway, briefly illuminating my way before plunging me once more into Stygian blackness. These times were the most dreadful, as the beacon brought not only light but also the deep shadows of whatever it cast itself upon. I half-fancied all manner of strange sea dwelling creatures crawling across the exposed seabed, disgusting crabs, floundering fish-things, and stranded jellies danced before my eyes whenever the light washed over me. The foghorn sounded again, causing me to physically jump in fright as its mournful dirge filled the air once more. Finally, after nearly forty minutes of struggling against the winds, I eventually reached the island where another set of steps leading upwards greeted me. With one last burst of what little energy remained in my legs, I ascended them triumphantly.

The island itself was small, with the lighthouse and adjacent stone cottage taking up the bulk of available space. Most of it was little more than black jagged rocks with a few slick cyclopean stones which I half imagined to be remnants from the supposed hexagonal columns that once formed the Witch Mound mentioned in Sir Robert’s book. There was little to nothing in the way of flora, except for an emaciated skeletal tree that stood alone, anemic and withered to the east of the island. A small oil lamp attached to the wall of the cottage with a large, rusted nail swayed rhythmically in the wind, its iron frame clanging against the grey slate from which the cottage was made. The adjacent door, which appeared to be crafted from little more than driftwood, was gnarled and decrepit and slightly ajar, banging and slamming against its frame. The lights of the cottage appeared to be on, though the shutters had been pulled across the windows, obscuring whatever lay in the rooms beyond. Lashed by the winds and soaked to the bones, I wasted little time in approaching the door and entering the cottage. A small hallway with two doors on either side greeted me as I entered. A fifth door, at the far end of the hallway directly in front, was open and beyond it I could see the spiral iron staircase which I guessed must lead up to the lighthouse tower. There was a coat rack crudely nailed to the wall on my left, with a few scattered coats, caps, and scarves piled up ignobly on the hand carved pegs. Beneath them lay three sets of large boots, all of which appeared to be mud clogged and sodden. I wiped my own boots on the coarse burlap doormat, expecting my friend to hear me and come out to greet me. I heard nothing, however, save for the muted winds still billowing outside.

“Howard!” I shouted into the deserted hallway. “Are you there Marsh? It’s Whateley.”

Nothing. Shrugging, I removed my boots and placed them next to the others. I also removed my soaked coat and hung it up on what little space remained on the rack. Not wishing to intrude but also motivated by the possibility of a hot cup of coffee, I walked to the nearest door on the right, making sure my footsteps were loud and deliberate in the hopes that my host would hear them. The room beyond was the bunk room, confirmed by the presence of four large wooden bed frames, each with a small chest positioned nearby for personal items. A small adjacent bathroom with a tin bath and an attached shower accounted for the next door. There was no toilet in the bathroom, so I guessed that there must be one in an outhouse outside. The idea of braving the storm in order to make use of that particular facility did not appeal to me, so I made a lighthearted note to myself to take it easy on the rum I had brought. The doors on the other side opened into a combined kitchen, sitting room, and study. The kitchen was basic, consisting of little more than a stove and some cupboards. I placed my bag of sundries upon the counter, again deliberately and with intent to alert Howard to my presence. When only silence followed, I instead decided to boil some coffee in preparation for my host’s eventual appearance. The sitting room was dark, but looked somewhat cosy and comfy, with several large chairs positioned against the far wall with a log burner between them, which I was overjoyed to see was currently aflame and glowing with the lambent embers of several burning logs. Above the fire, I could see an old portrait depicting a beautiful woman with long, flowing, black hair and deep green eyes. I neared closer to warm my hands and take a better look at the painting but instead noticed a small folded up note with “Whateley” scribbled in pencil sat on the mantlepiece waiting for me. I picked it up and unfolded it, greeted by the same atrocious handwriting I had seen in Howard’s letter.

“Make yourself at home. Making adjustments to the lens. Will be down shortly.”

I had no way of knowing when the note had been written but guessed that he had penned it sometime in the evening, knowing that I had missed the morning’s low tide and my opportunity to cross the causeway before nightfall. At least he was home, I thought. Glancing around the room, I could see the walls were resplendent with sagging bookshelves crammed with various tomes, novels, manuscripts, and grimoires. The collection was eclectic and disorganized, many of the books focused on topics such as geography, naval history, folklore, and ocean mythology. This is classic Marsh, I mused. How little he must have changed since I last saw him. One manuscript in particular stood out to me, yellowed and frayed, it looked hopelessly ancient and crinkled next to the various books and tomes. I reached out gently with both hands and pulled it from where it had been sandwiched between a small leather bound book titled De Vermis Mysteriis and a larger worm-eaten text called Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The manuscript appeared to have been well read, with notes scribed upon the cover haphazardly. The title, Things of the Water, was scrawled in a spidery handwritten script on the inside of the cover with the words Cthaat Aquadingen in parentheses underneath. I moved closer to the glowing log burner and angled the manuscript so I could see more of the text inside, noticing some signs of fire damage along its edges. The light, however, did little to illuminate the actual purpose of the manuscript, as it moved dizzyingly from one topic to the next, with no discernible order. The best I could guess, it was some kind of treatise on magic, with various formulas, sigils, and rituals scrawled upon it in various languages, most of which I could not recognize. Various queer hieroglyphs were illustrated on many of the pages, odd arrangements of star-like shapes with ocular patterns inside. One of the pages had an old charcoal sketch that had been crudely glued to the paper that appeared to depict an image so alien that I simply could not understand what the artist’s intent behind it had been. I turned the manuscript over in my hands at every possible angle I could in the vain hopes of making sense of the art. The best I could describe it was that it appeared to show a set of spherical shapes resembling bubbles, mounted upon what looked like a mass of writhing shadowy tendrils. Curiosity consuming me, I gently peeled away the bottom right corner, pulling away enough of the sketch to reveal some crabbed handwriting on the other side that simply read “The Danforth Nightmare”.

The sound of the boiling coffee disturbed my reading, and I quickly placed the manuscript back where I had found it before removing the pot from the stove. The smell of the coffee was warm and inviting as I strained the thick black liquid into two clay mugs I found on the counter nearby. I was about to call out to Howard once more, but the sounds of footsteps coming from beyond the kitchen made this unnecessary. Excitedly, I grabbed the two mugs and made my way into the hall, ready to surprise my friend. The sounds were coming directly from the door at the far end of the hallway, or more precisely from the rickety iron staircase beyond. The footsteps were slow and heavy, but regular, and I guessed that Marsh was likely fatigued from a hard day of work. Still, there was something unaccountably “off” about the metallic thudding that accompanied the sound as it echoed in the chamber around the stairs. It was almost like a slapping sound, as if each step was being struck by something wet and damp that momentarily clung to its surface before being peeled away. As I strained to hear the strange footsteps growing closer, I noticed a pair of large boots placed at the base of the staircase. Though it was dark and shadowed beyond the door, I could see that these boots were prodigious in size, almost comically so. I couldn’t make out their total composition, but they appeared to be perhaps as long as fifteen inches, with a vast broadness across the width. There was something so singular and odd about the craftsmanship of the heel and arch of the boots that made them look more like flippers than footwear. The only comparison I could make at the time was the bespoke shoes one sometimes sees being worn by those born with legs of varying lengths or perhaps a prosthetic of some kind. The sounds were growing nearer, however, and regardless of the oddness behind my host’s movements, I was growing excited to finally see him after so many years apart. That elation, however, swiftly left my body as Marsh finally appeared before me. I almost gasped as he rounded the staircase and came into sight. It was difficult at first to really understand just what it was that unnerved me enough to take a few steps back, spilling some of the scolding coffee on my hands, but as he came into view it was painfully obvious that a great change had wrought itself upon him. He was tall, strikingly so. I had always been the taller of the two of us, but that was apparently no longer the case. He must have gained something like a foot in height from the last time I saw him, and even then, I could tell he was stooped at the shoulder, leaning forward in a queer manner that made him look awkward and stiff. His legs were long, even accounting for his height, and there was something strange about the area around his knees that I could not readily identify. He was, thankfully I thought, heaped in all manner of thick clothing, including a large overcoat, a thick knitted jumper that covered his neck, and various scarves arranged around his face in a manner that suggested an ignorance of their true function. A grey flat cap was perched precariously atop his oddly elliptical head, and a pair of leather gloves lay stretched upon his large, flat hands and pulled across his long, spidery fingers. It was his eyes, however, that truly shocked me. Howard had always had large, protuberant eyes. But, by some cruel method, be it injury or the strange malady he had alluded to in his letter, the space between them had unaccountably widened, pushing them far away from each other like opposing magnets until they lay almost on the side of his head. They glowed too, or at least they did so for a brief moment as they were illuminated by the light of the hallway as he bent down and sat upon the step, reaching out for his colossal boots. With a great, awkward effort, he finally managed to fit his long, flat feet into the makeshift footwear, squeezing each into their respective boot with an obvious strain. Though he had asked that I not be disturbed by his appearance, my reaction to him was uncontrollable and for a brief moment, I thought about the revolver in my pocket. I could not think of any disease or genetic condition that could account for so drastic a change in my friend’s countenance, much less the prestigious changes to his height and length of his limbs.

Finally, he walked towards me, lowering his head and bending down slightly in order to pass through the door frame. Hypnotically, I reached out and passed him one of the mugs, which he took in his large hands, the size of which made the mug look little more than a child’s teacup. Without saying a word, he gestured towards the kitchen with a nod of his misshapen head and shambled inside. Hesitating slightly, I reluctantly followed behind him. As he lurched over to one of the two chairs, his crooked form was briefly illuminated by the glowing embers of the log burner, causing an amber nimbus to crown his body, making him appear even more alien and otherworldly. With a great flopping gesture, he awkwardly threw himself down into one of the chairs, causing the leather to creak in protest at his cumbersome bulk. The chair barely managed to contain him, and parts of his clothing or perhaps even parts of his body seemed to ooze and flow beyond its confines. Once seated, he looked towards me with his large eyes, which shined like opals in the glow of the fire, and bid me to join him. As I neared closer, I detected an awful fishy smell that seemed to linger over him, that intensified with proximity, and I shuddered internally to think at what manner of uncleanness could be responsible for such a stench. Finally, I joined my host at the fire and sat down myself, taking a sip of coffee which thankfully helped to mask the awful odor emanating from him. He said nothing, but continued to stare at me with those large, watery eyes, neither of which so much as twitched, let alone blinked, as we sat opposite one another in the shadowy dark. A few minutes passed, during which time he continued to glare at me in silence, ignoring the coffee in his hand. Unable to stand the oppressive quiet any longer, I pointed up towards the painting above the fireplace.

“That’s an interesting piece.” I said, “It’s very well done, is it yours?”

Without taking his eyes off me, he nodded slowly. Then, from underneath the various scarves wrapped around the lower parts of his face, I heard a guttural splutter, something halfway between a cough and a sigh. It was only by reluctantly leaning closer towards him and the horrid stench that I was able to make out that he wasn’t coughing at all but speaking. Strange choking words, hideously liquescent, were spilling forth from his melting mouth.

“Yes, Whateley. She belongs to me. A distant ancestor. Innsmouth. Livinia Marsh.”

His words chilled me, each syllable causing my skin to crawl. Though there was nothing at that particular moment to cause me to dread what he was saying, the way certain words were punctuated with a disgusting, slimy emphasis unnerved me greatly. “Whateley”, “Innsmouth”, and “Livinia” in particular were spoken with a certain degree of clarity that gave me the impression that he was attempting to fight through the abundant phlegm nestling in his throat to attempt, at the very least, a partially correct pronunciation.

“Oh.” I replied numbly, not really knowing what to say, “ Well, she’s very beautiful.”

At this, his eyes did the impossible, they widened even further and fixed upon me with an intensity that I could only describe as malicious.

“I’ve brought you some things.” I stumbled, immediately changing the subject.

I stood up and made my way over to the bag containing the tobacco and rum. The removal of my nostrils from that miasma of sickening fetor that surrounded him was a welcomed reprieve and reason enough to move, but the way he had glared at me when I mentioned the painting had me in a panic. Regardless, I produced the cigars and liquor from the bag, ignoring the sandwiches as the stench had killed any appetite I may have had.

I turned to face him, goods in hand. “ Look, your favorites, Island Gold and Hamlets.”

He was standing up now, his back facing me. I could see that he was removing the portrait from the fireplace, reverently holding it in his hands before placing it down by the side of his chair. I pretended not to notice and turned around once more to grab a box of matches from the bag as well as two small glasses from a nearby cupboard. By the time I retrieved these, he had returned to his chair and was once more staring at me. I made my way back to my seat, sitting down and showing him the bottle of rum, before twisting the cap off and pouring us each a small draught of the golden liquid. Once more, he reached forward with a giant hand and took what I offered him. Raising my glass, I attempted to cheerfully toast, “May the best of your yesterdays be the worst of your tomorrows.” But before I could finish, he had already thrust the glass underneath his scarf and drained the glass of its contents. The residue that remained on the glass after he had drunk from it momentarily caused bile to build up in the back of my throat, but I managed to conceal this from him. As revolting as he was, I felt pity for him and wondered just how terribly loathsome it must be to have such a dreadful affliction, little wonder, I thought, that he chose to work alone in such a remote place. For some reason, this thought stuck in my mind, as if it had been incorrect in its assumption somehow. I quickly banished the thought, however, and finished my own drink, pouring us each another, ignoring the sticky mucus that clung to the lip of Howard’s glass. He greedily slurped the second down quickly, just as he had the first before thrusting his glass out towards me and silently demanding a third. I knew that Island Gold had always been his tipple of choice and happily refilled his glass. I then produced two cigars and offered him one, but to my surprise, and admittedly relief, he refused, pointing to his neck area and shaking his head. Given his labored breathing, I wondered if his condition would only be exacerbated by the smoke, and I asked if he would mind if I still lit one. He made a simple gesture that I took for confirmation, and striking a match I lit my cigar and took a few deep puffs, sending a cloud of smoke into the air that mercifully masked the fishy smell marinating my host.

“ So,” I said, taking another pull of the cigar, “This is the final night for you then, this place is getting demolished next week?”

“The. Final. Night. Yes.” He replied, his voice still a sickening molasses.

“ And then what?” I asked. “Do you have anything else lined up?”

“Return. To. Sea.” He said, each word a mucus laden labor.

“The sea?” I inquired. “I would have thought you’d have had enough of that Howard, what with the Lenore and your stint in the navy. Is there no work on dry land that interests you?”

“None.” He flatly replied, gesturing for the bottle of rum by my side. I handed it to him, and to my horror he shoved the whole bottle beneath his scarf and drank greedily and directly from it. No more rum for me, I lamented.

Another period of silence passed between us, albeit one punctuated by the occasional slurping that accompanied each swig of rum my host took from the rapidly emptying bottle. In an effort to drown out the horrid sound, I attempted to resume conversation.

“You mentioned in your letter that you visited Barton a few years ago. I’m curious, what caused you to visit my neck of the woods? I can’t think of much in Barton that would attract outsiders.”

“Family.” He said, “Kin in Barton. Marshes.”

“Oh really? That’s interesting, I knew a few of the Marshes living in town, not personally, mind, always kept to themselves. I remember old Sebastian Marsh, poor fellow, how the children tormented him. Sad really. I remember going down to the Gunner’s Clough as a kid and seeing that strange cottage he lived in. It’s not there anymore, I think some hooligans burned it down a few years back on Halloween, nearly took the whole woodland with it. I wonder whatever happened to him?”

“Returned. To. Sea.” He replied again, his words now even more slurred now that the rum had hit him.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Returned. To. Seascale.” He replied, and I realized that he had simply stumbled on his words, and I had interjected too soon.

“Oh, I see, of course. I passed through Seascale on my way here actually. Nice enough place, though it seems a little run down. Can’t say I heard a good word spoken of the Marshes there. Strange, Barton is the same. To hear the old codgers tell it, you’d think the Marshes had come straight out of Hell.”

As the last words left my mouth, I suddenly became aware once more of my friend’s shocking physical appearance, almost as if I had forgotten about it during my ramblings. Those sinister, unblinking eyes gazing directly into mine and that hideous labored breathing and those awful sputum soaked words. He did look like something that had crawled out of the pit, and I shuddered as I half-imagined what he must look like beneath the layers of clothing he was clearly wearing for the sole purpose of concealing his true face. Almost as if to banish the thought from my mind, I continued talking, desperate to maintain the illusion that I was talking to a fellow human being and not some alien entity that had come from the great beyond.

“I seem to recall Sebastian having a nephew, a boy around my age. Went insane from what I hear. They locked him up at Byron House, do you remember me telling you about that place? Filled to the brim with loonies. This nephew, I can’t remember his name, seemed to have developed an intense phobia of reflected surfaces, spectrophobia I think they call it, or is it eisoptrophobia?”

“Robert.” My host replied.

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Robert. His name wasn’t Marsh, but his mother, she was a Marsh for sure, especially with those eyes,” I winced internally, but continued. “You know, us Whateleys are related in some way to the Marshes, at least that’s what my grandfather used to say. Distant cousins perhaps. I guess most people in Barton are related on some level if you go back far enough. Birtles, Slaters, Quilts, Duncalfs, they’re all intertwined in some way.”

My host continued to stare, not once acknowledging my words, or nodding in agreement or asking a question. His reticence was beginning to unnerve me, but I chalked it up to the great effort he needed to muster in order to speak. I switched topics, instead bringing up the research I had done at the Seascale Library before joining him. As I sat in the dark and talked about the Devil’s Spine, the Witch Mound, and the legend of Long Polly, he leaned in closer. Though he said little, occasionally nodding or grunting, I could tell that he was listening intently to every word I said. I couldn’t help but feel like he was somehow growing suspicious of me in some way, as if I were discussing matters that should remain unsaid and buried forever in the annals of history. When I finally reached the topic of the strange whistling sound, “Tekeli-li”, that had occasionally been reported by locals, he shot up from his seat with alarming celerity and placed one of his hands towards me in protest. The gesture shocked me, and I watched in horror as he tilted his head towards the door of the room, angling it as if waiting to hear something echo from the corridor beyond. When no sound came, he slowly sat back down into his chair and resumed his silent glaring.

I decided to put some more coffee on the boil, which my host refused with a simple raising of one of his monstrous hands. I could feel the rum making me drowsy and the thought of sleeping in the lighthouse was not one I wished to acknowledge. As I stood waiting for the coffee, I happened to glance out of the window close by. The tide had returned and the whole island was now surrounded by black, churning waves that crashed and sprayed upon the sharp rocks beyond the cottage. The lighthouse beacon, still displaying that strange green-gold beam occasionally swept over the waves as I watched. As it passed by, I could swear that for a brief moment I could make out some other kind of movement out in the water. It appeared to be something in the undercurrent and as a wave crashed and settled upon the surface, I could make out the ripples of something else beneath the surface, something moving. The closest approximation my mind could conjure at the time was that of a large school of fish swarming under the water and I turned to ask Howard about the phenomenon but found that he was rising from his chair once more. He stood up, his head almost touching the cottage ceiling, and with one of his hands reached down and took the portrait of Livinia that he had so oddly removed from the mantelpiece.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, attempting to hide the discomfort in my voice.

He pointed up to the ceiling. “The beacon. Must check.”

And with that, he left the room, stooping and shambling out of the door. I heard those flat, slapping footsteps make their way towards the entrance of the lighthouse tower and then slowly fade out of my hearing range with a few soft echoes on the stairwell. Somewhat relieved by his absence, I returned to my seat, but not before retrieving the manuscript marked Things of the Water from where I had left it. For whatever reason, something in that odious tome had lodged itself into the back of my mind, something that I had perhaps skimmed past that refused to leave me in peace. Sitting down and lighting another cigar, I reasoned that my host’s telltale footsteps would quickly alert me to his presence, and I could simply put the manuscript back where I had found it without him realizing. I cannot say exactly why I was so reluctant for him to see me reading it, it was, after all, simply an odd collection of texts, but I found myself loath to be caught with it in my possession. He had acted so strangely towards my retelling of Cumbrian folklore that I worried he would react even more aggressively should he discover me reading the manuscript. Flicking through once more, careful not to let cigar ash collect in the central crease, I came across several hideous pages of forgotten lore that chilled me as I sat alone in the dark. More monstrous woodprint images and sketches of strange creatures and beings danced on the yellowed pages, illuminated by the dying embers of the fire. Freakish entities with names like Ubbo-Sathla the Unforgotten Source, Hastur the Unspeakable, and Great Cthulhu. The last of which was said to slumber eternally, dead but dreaming in the phantom city of R’lyeh deep beneath the gloomy waters, where no light can penetrate. Again, I returned to the horrid sketch marked the “Danforth Nightmare”, but this time I found a cross reference to the image on another page that was titled “Shoggoth of the Lost City”. This too, was a disgusting mass of black tendrils and ocular spheres with no discernable central structure to make sense of the ungodly arrangement of eyes, mouths, and less obvious organs. Another reference on this page led me to a section marked “Dagon’s Mirror” which was occupied by an ancient woodblock image of what I guessed must be the eponymous ornament. At first, the picture appeared to simply depict an ornate mirror, baroque in style and decorated with intricate carvings upon its frame. But closer inspection revealed that most of the images were disgusting hybrids of human and fish and other oceanic creatures the likes of which I had never seen. I could not help but think that some of these carvings were attempts to give form to the strange names I had read in the manuscript and wondered if the queer amalgamations of octopi, anemone, and crustaceans were meant to depict Ubbo-Sathla or Great Cthulhu. It was then, after turning the page, that I came across the item that unnerved me far greater and with an awful intensity than any of the previous drawings, incantations, and rituals combined. It dropped onto my lap as I angled the manuscript closer towards the light of the fire, it was a small folded up piece of paper. Placing the rest of the tome to one side, I unfolded the object, expecting to be greeted by another monstrous sketch, but instead found it to be a letter.

“Dear Mr. Elliot,

The Ubbo formula you sent me did indeed work, and through it I was able to glimpse the depths of Y’hanthlei and beyond even that to the Corpse City of R’lyeh. I cannot say where I will make the trip to first, providing of course that the Sign works as intended. As you are already aware, my time on this plane is fleeting and the transformation has only been accelerated by my use of the formula.

The Mirror is indeed a conduit between this Earth and Those Who Dwell Outside. Its original purpose, as far as I can tell, was to call Them down from the stars as well as spy upon Those who dwell in different times and different spaces. Its creator is believed to be none other than Abdul Alhazred, the author of that dread tome we call the Necronomicon. I have also read, however, that it is even older than this, with some texts stating that it hails originally from some unnamed city of brass domes and rubied spires that once dominated the southern plains of the lost Hyborian Age. The Order of Dagon, fearing that the Mirror could be used to summon the dread protoplasmic horror from beyond the Six Thousand Steps, had the thing removed from Innsmouth, where it eventually found its way into Dunwich. They could not destroy it you understand, for even the Deep Ones fear the reprisals of He Who Is Not To Be Named. My grandmother, Livinia Whateley, through her inhuman father, inherited the Mirror and fled Innsmouth with that rogue warlock, Abner Marsh.

I cannot tell you exactly how I came to acquire the Mirror. There are of course other parties involved in this matter who wish to remain nameless. However, as promised, should you find time to attend the next Walpurgis Sabbath, I will introduce you to Mr. Pendle’s latest form as well as that extraordinary painter of nightmarish canvases, the immortal Mr. Bickham.

This will be my last letter to you. For now, recite the incantation of the Black Goat every seventh night and you will know the faceless things of the air who take their body from human blood, and you may call upon them to take you to the Sabbath, should you choose to join me there. It is likely that by this time, my transformation will be complete, and I will be in a much stronger position to show you the Final Seal that will awaken the Shoggoth.

I am yours in the name of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.

Sabastian Fredrick Marsh.”

I reread that last line several times, stunned by the name that only a few hours ago I had discussed with Howard. Could this really be the same Sebastian? Surely it must be, for the coincidence was too great to consider. Howard had mentioned that he had visited Barton, he even spoke of the Gunner’s Clough. Could it be that this very manuscript once resided in that crumbling cottage, its frog-faced owner pouring over the incantations and formulas to commit some kind of hellish witchcraft? I cannot say for certain how long I sat there in the dark with the manuscript and that terrible letter. There was no sign of my host and the coffee I had made had long since grown cold. The fire had almost died, and I hastily threw a few more logs onto the embers, determined that the darkness would be kept at bay by its light and warmth. The roaring of the waves outside had intensified, and they were now accompanied by a howling wind that blustered around the cottage, rattling the windows and driftwood doors like dry bones. Despite the waves and the wind and the occasional crackling of the fresh logs, I must have somehow managed to drift off, for my mind was carried away into the blissful oblivion we call slumber. It was to be the last restful sleep of my life.

It was the blast of the foghorn that awoke me suddenly from my dreamless sleep, jolting me as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt. It bellowed out again from the top of the lighthouse tower, so close and so loud that it caused the very walls of the cottage to shake. The waves outside were crashing with an intensity I had never heard before, and when I peered out from the window, I found to my horror that the black, roiling mass was now only twenty or so feet away from the cottage. They had somehow risen to engulf most of the island, leaving behind only a small patch of rocks upon which the lighthouse and cottage now stood precariously. Again, the foghorn roared, so loud this time that I covered my ears with my hands. Frantically, I left the room and made my way towards the tower staircase, determined to see if I could find my host and ask him to cease the infernal bellowing or at the very least find something to cover my ears. Upon reaching the doorway to the stairs, I was once more greeted with that godawful fishy stink that seemed to cling to Howard and all that he touched. I could see that his large, misshapen boots had once more been placed at the base of the stairs and I made my way over, producing the pocket torch I had brought with me. The feeble beam managed to penetrate the darkness of the stairwell, but not so much as to banish the oppressive darkness of the tower base. I stepped over the boots, covering my nose from the stench that was covering them. Slowly, torch in hand, I began my ascent up the rickety staircase, which spiraled upwards and into the shadowy blackness above. I could make out a glow at the very top, that same phantom golden green that had emanated from the beacon. It was then that I noticed the first piece of discarded clothing on the stairs. It was one of the scarves Howard had worn around his face. The torchlight revealed that it was covered in some translucent jelly, something akin to frogspawn, I thought. I did my best to avoid coming into contact with whatever disgusting organic mass it may have been, only to find more clothing articles as I continued my journey upwards. A coat, some more scarves, a knitted jumper, a cap, even a pair of trousers. Each was either dripping with a gelatinous mess or encrusted with a stale yellow-green deposit that resembled fish scales. The last article, a stained vest, was found just outside the service room at the very top of the stairs. The glow from the beacon was now more intense, creating a nimbus of light that faintly illuminated the workbench and various boxes stacked against the walls of the cramped room. A small wooden ladder led to a trapdoor above, through the cracks of which the strange light shined even more intensely. I paused at the base of the ladder, the foghorn had not sounded again since I started my ascent and I prayed that it would not do so again, at this proximity, it was likely to deafen me. There were, however, several other sounds coming from beyond the trapdoor. One was that awfully familiar slapping sound of Howard’s large feet pacing back and forth above me. The others were voices, one a croaking, coughing guttural sound that I too took to be Howard and the other was a softer, feminine voice, seductive and gentle. Making out what they were saying was difficult, and so I gingerly took to the ladder and made my way up, slowly pushing the trapdoor just enough to see and hear what lay beyond. The glow was blinding, the lighthouse lens appeared to have ceased revolving and was instead now fixed in place. Attached to the lens by means both mechanical and electrical was an object that almost caused me to cry out in panic, for it was the mirror, Dagon’s Mirror, that loathsome device illustrated and discussed by Sabastian Marsh in that dreaded manuscript, replicated before me with abominable accuracy. Though I could only make out part of the mirror through the glow, it looked even more hideous, resplendent in its full ornate horror and oceanic regalia. The light casting from its surface was impossibly radiant, making it difficult to see who or what was also in the beacon chamber with me. I could see a figure, which I took to be Howard, given the odd proportions and contours of his body that I was now fearfully familiar with. He was indeed pacing back and forth, each movement and jerk of his body a blasphemous mockery of human gesticulation. Mercifully, I could not see his face, only the outline of his elliptical head, and each time he spoke, he turned to face the surface of the mirror. The woman’s voice, I could not place, however. It almost appeared to echo around the chamber with no obvious source. I could not tell if it was something that existed only within the confines of my own mind or if it was some kind of floating specter all around me. It was only Howard’s voice, that repeated certain words or spoke in response to the woman’s voice, that convinced me that what I was hearing was real and not imagined.

“The stars are right.” She spoke. “The blood of this last offering will awaken the spawn of Ubbo-Sathla. That blasphemous abomination without form from beyond the Six Thousand Steps. It will awaken Father Dagon and Mother Hydra from the fathomless depths, and we will dance and frolic for all time.”

“But.. he is my friend.” Howard’s voice replied, somehow clearer and more human than before. “I gave you the keepers here. I gave you my wife. My children. How many more? You promised that when this was over, I could go back. I don’t want to be this thing anymore.”

“And you shall, my child,” the woman promised, “The Old Ones have that power, they can reverse the process, if that is what you truly desire?”

“It is.” Howard replied, stopping before the mirror. “I don’t want to go back to the sea, I don’t want to dance forever in the dark. Pickman was right. I don’t want to live forever.”

“Then give me this man, this Whateley. Allow him to take your place. His blood will open the Final Seal and awaken the Shoggoth. You will be free. You will return to the wretched world of men.”

“Yes!” Howard proclaimed, excited now. “Yes. What I desire!”
The guttural, phlegmy tone had returned to his voice now, drowning out the humanity that had briefly surfaced within him.

“Then bring him to me.” She continued. “Bring him and you will be free of your great burden.”

I sensed movement, and then with a sudden and terrifying alacrity he was upon the trapdoor. I cannot tell if he had heard me or was simply on his way to claim me from where he thought I must be in the study, but his motions were too fast for me to react to. The light from the mirror struck me as the trapdoor flew open, and I shielded my eyes from the blinding glare. I heard a terrible sound, something akin to a mix of shock and ravenous excitement, ejaculated from Howard’s inhuman lips and then felt a gnarled claw reach out and grab me, pulling me off of the ladder and up into the chamber above. The glow was now overwhelming, and I couldn’t make out much beyond the mirror. I couldn’t see his face but I knew it was the Howard fish-thing that had a hold of me.

“Fool!” He spluttered. “They want you Whateley. They are taking you, not me. Down to the depths you go. Down the Six Thousand Steps to the Shoggoth!”

I fumbled frantically, desperate to retrieve the old service revolver from my pocket, praying to whichever god would listen that when I did find it, it still worked. My other hand I used to hopelessly try to wrangle free from his vice-like grip, but his was too strong. I felt my fingers move across his awfully wet and scaly arms as he lifted me higher and I could now feel the top of my head glance across the chamber ceiling. He was taking me towards the mirror and closer to the sounds of the unseen woman’s sardonic laughter.

“Howard!” I screamed. “If you’re in there somewhere, please, let me go. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He laughed. “Hurt. Me? You cannot hurt me! I am eternal!”

He laughed once more, but by this time I had found the revolver, the feeling of its grip in my palm a blessed relief. I pulled the gun free and unable to truly see what I was firing at, I cocked the hammer back and pulled the trigger. The shot boomed into the chamber, causing a sharp ringing to spike in my ears. I must have struck something, for I heard him cry out in pain, though his grip on me did not cease. I fired again, another shot ripping through the air and this time he mercifully let go, roaring with an inhuman cry. Now on my knees, with no time to stand, I fired a third shot, this one missed, instead ricocheting off the iron window frame and striking the surface of the mirror. I heard a deep and low cracking sound, like a whaler breaking through the thick Arctic ice followed by a crystalline shattering sound as the brilliant radiance around us vanished, plunging the entire chamber into blackness. I heard the faint cry of a woman scream out in pain as a million shards cascaded to the floor.

“No!” I heard Howard scream, his bulk floundering on the floor.

I wasted no time and, mad with panic, leapt down through the trapdoor and towards the staircase. I heard something heavy drop behind me followed by the frantic slapping of inhuman feet. I did not have a plan, I just knew that I did not want to stop running, even if it meant drowning in the waves outside, for the merciful embrace of Triton was preferable to facing the horror behind me. The speed at which I descended the stairs must have been prestigious, as each article of Howard’s discarded clothing caused me to jump several sets of stairs in one bound. I think I injured my ankles, but the adrenaline coursing through my body allowed me to continue. I heard my pursuer roar behind me, spitting out all manner of curses and threats as I reached the bottom of the staircase. I could see the driftwood door at the other end of the corridor that led to freedom and hobbled forward, hearing something heavy hit the ground directly behind me. In one last burst of mad hysteria, I quickly turned heel and with my eyes closed fired the remaining three shots in the direction of the stairs. The first two must have missed, but the last found its mark and I heard another scream of rage and pain. I turned and sprinted as fast as my legs would allow towards the door, slamming into it with my shoulder. The wind outside was howling madly, and the black waves were now even closer to the cottage than before, barely 10 feet of jagged rocks stood between me and the briny depths. It was then that I saw the sight that mercifully permitted me to pass out and escape from this nightmarish scene. For the waves around me were frothing and foaming, not from the wind, but from the mass of hideous creatures breaching the surface. A nightmare legion of unblinking eyes and slimy mouths. A horde of batrachian monstrosities resembling nothing less than the awful fish-frogs carved onto the frame of what Sabastian had called Dagon’s Mirror. They bleated and croaked, hopping in and out of the lapping waters in a ghoulish frenzy. I thought of the gun in my hand, and cursed that I had no shots remaining, if only I had saved one for myself, I thought. Behind me, I heard Howard suddenly cry out in a panic. Turning, the waves and the wind battering me from all sides, I could see the waters surround the entrance to the cottage. Dark waves crashed and smashed upon the outer walls, breaking the windows and flooding the inside. The horde was upon Howard now, clawing at him, pulling him into the water. A dozen flabby claws clung to his scaly body, dragging him into the briny depths where he belonged.

“No!” He screamed in panic, his human voice returning to plead with his captors. “I don’t want to go! Take him! Leave me be!”

The sight of Howard in all his horror was enough to send my mind reeling into oblivion. Although his body was identical to that of the fish-frogs pulling him down into the waves, there was a vestigial likeness of the man I once knew still stretched across that monstrous face. He looked at me, with all the malice he could muster. As I felt the sweet embrace of nothingness consume me, those final words cried out in the coming darkness that I happily welcomed.

“Gods curse you, Whateley! Curse you to Hades! Get back, you devils! Back I say! Oh God! Oh Lord! Help my poor soul!”

It was morning when I finally awoke and the sight of the amber sunrays breaking over the Cumbrian countryside was nothing less than glorious. Picking myself up, I gazed out at the now calm waters of the Irish Sea and the lapping waves gently breaking upon the shore. There was no sign of the lighthouse, the island it had once sat upon and the causeway leading to it were barely visible over the morning’s retreating tide, but the tower, along with the adjacent cottage were no more, lost forever and scattered across the seabed, home to nothing more than clinging barnacles and skittering crabs.

They never found Howard’s body, nor the bodies of the three men who had worked at the lighthouse. I later learned that Trinity House, the authority responsible for maintaining the St. Michael’s Lighthouse, had no record of a Howard Marsh in their employ. Though he is gone, I think of him often. I have dreams, vivid, terrible dreams in which he is forced to eternally dance and frolic in the forgotten and fathomless depths of the Corpse City. Forced to live forever as one of the fish-things, longing for the day when he and the rest of his kind shall rise up out of the ocean and reclaim the Earth in the name of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. Though the horror he and Livinia had sought to unleash upon the world has been dispelled, I cannot help but wonder what became of the mirror. Surely it is gone, its thousand shards swept out across the seabed and its hideous frame bent and warped by the wave’s ceaseless crashing, I wonder if such a thing can ever truly be destroyed. And what of the Shoggoth? Has that formless horror been returned to its eternal slumber beneath the Six Thousand Steps that lay deep below the Witch Mound? I can only pray that it has. And yet, every night I hear it. Whenever Howard creeps into my dreams and I see his awful face and hear his awful voice, there is something else, something outside, something beyond. I can hear it now as I write down these words, “Tekeli-li”. Oh god, it’s here! The revolver!

Credit: Nick Lowe

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