An Occurrence Near Dunwich || Darkest Nightmare & Shiva the Cat

[Darkest Nightmare]

“It’s really nothing. I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy—”

A large puff of steam erupted from the front of the Ford and obscured Jack Moody’s face mid-sentence. After a few seconds of frantic arm waving, his head emerged from the dissipating cloud, but with his glasses completely fogged over.

“I’m sure it just needs some water in the radiator, that’s all,” Jack continued, flashing a weak smile at Jane before removing his glasses to wipe them yet again. “Why don’t you go into the general store and get some cool lemonade? I’ll find the service man and we’ll be on the road shortly, I’m sure of it!”

It was supposed to be a pleasant half-day drive to Dunwich from Miskatonic University; you simply followed the Aylesbury pike up from Arkham. And it had started off as nicely as Jack could have hoped, with the quiet country road snaking along within eyesight of the lazy Miskatonic River until the fork at Dean’s Crossing. The fickle New England weather actually cooperated as well by delivering a beautiful and sunny early June day.

The last stretch into Dunwich had been a bit more stressful, however, with Jack’s Ford Model A making strange gassy rumblings and emitting a trace of white steam from beneath the hood. Jack had tried his best to convince Jane that the car was fine, but his assurances wore thin as the plume of steam turned into a thick column that began blowing back into their faces, ending his already floundering attempts at distracting conversation. By the time they rolled slowly into the only gas station in the small town of Dunwich the car was clanking and backfiring almost continually.

The whole fiasco was typical of Jack’s bad luck. He finally had the girl of his dreams alone for a romantic drive to the countryside and his car blows up!

I can’t catch a break!

Granted, Jane was ostensibly going with Jack only to check out the archaeological dig that was underway on the grounds of his family manor, the Whitney Mansion, but still, a week of precious time alone with Jane, no matter what the circumstance, shouldn’t have to start on such a sour note! After all, this was his big chance to impress her and hopefully turn their friendship into something more.

Cursing softly, he lifted the hood only to receive another blast of steam to his face that instantly re-fogged his glasses. Staring at the sizzling hot engine, Jack realized he had absolutely no clue what he was looking at. The various cables, tubes and boxes formed a sinister interlocked puzzle, like the internal organs of a clearly malevolent alien life form. The incomprehensibility of the apparatus bothered him, and a strange anxiety filled his head at the idea that he was missing some piece of knowledge that was important on a bigger scale. Well, he was an archaeology major, like Jane, and much more interested in what you can find under the ground than things that move on top of it, and he gave the Ford's fender a disheartened kick before turning away.

Time to find a mechanic and hopefully salvage this day by making it to the Whitney Mansion before dark. It wasn’t too far, probably ten or twelve miles outside of town by Jack’s recollection, although it had been several years since his last visit. While he knew Jane would like the archaeology dig, an old Indian burial ground he heard, he was a little nervous about staying at the mansion. His Aunt had been extremely welcoming in her letter to him, but was a known eccentric who might completely forget that she had invited them up. And his younger cousins, they'd always been a little odd in the limited times he'd seen them.

Well, every family had their black sheep, and if nothing else, he'd look even more attractive to Jane contrasted to the oddness he remembered this side of his family seemed to have.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Although she had enough delicacy not to say it aloud, Jane Houghton was seriously beginning to think they might have better luck if she tried to fix the car herself, and she knew about as much about automobiles as she did about building a rocket to the moon (which is to say, not very much indeed). However, with each ominous clunk or clink that rang out from the other side of the lifted hood, she grew more sure than an explosion of some kind was imminent, and that would be the end of it for poor Jack Moody, and probably herself.

"Um...would you like some help?" the brunette asked with just the hint of a western drawl, shrugging off her cardigan and rolling up the sleeves of her blouse as she alighted gracefully out of the car. Although she doubted she could fix the problem herself, at the very least she might be able to lure Jack away from his mechanical enemy before he took a spark plug to the face. Despite being of a curious mind, Jane had the old-fashioned distrust of most automobiles, her father only having purchased one of his own shortly before she left for college. When her family was at their townhouse in Denver, everything was easily accessed by a brisk walk or streetcar, and out at the ranch everyone had ridden horses almost from the time they could walk. But horses didn't seem to be much in fashion in this part of the country, and the Whitney Mansion, Jack had informed her, was too far for even her long, lean legs to manage.

It was only because of the mansion that Jack had managed to secure Jane's company at all. For the past three years, most of the young men who knew about the Houghton Mine, or at the very least about Big Bill Beauclair and his million head of cattle, had been eager to make the young heiress' acquaintance. Her pretty face and slender body were just the cherry on the sundae she would no doubt inherit from both sides of her esteemed family, and boys more charming and better-looking than Jack Moody had tried and failed miserably to lure the young scholar out for a Sunday drive. But Jane had denied them all with a sweet smile, always insisting there was studying to be done or letters home to write, although a few of those who had earned her professional esteem did manage to join her for the occasional brisk walk along the river; her "morning constitutional" as she (and her father, and grandfather) had always referred to them.

But Jack, awkward and goggle-eyed as he might have been, had an ace up his sleeve that all of his predecessors had lacked: access to the Whitney Mansion. It wasn't the mansion itself that interested Jane as much as the grounds whereupon it sat, and that had centuries earlier been inhabited by by a mysterious tribe that just so happened to be the subject of her current research project. Not only that, but there was an actual dig taking place on the estate even as the students sat helplessly in the middle of the road, and the young woman couldn't help but tap her foot in slight impatience as they waited, half-expecting the excavations to be complete by the time they arrived. Still though, she was careful to ensure her faced expressed only warm gratitude towards her companion, knowing that without him there was no chance an undergrad like her would ever be allowed to take part in such an involved dig.

Besides, while Jane had to admit to only a limited acquaintance with Moody, he'd always struck her as a nice young man, appropriately serious about his studies and never troubling himself too much about girls or cars from what the campus gossip implied. Their previous conversations had been pleasant and she was inclined to think of him in a friendly light, and even now he seemed genuinely embarrassed at the mishap. She paused for a moment as she approached, realizing he probably didn't want her to know exactly how mechanically unskilled he really was, despite the fact that as a student of archaeology there was really no reason he should understand the mysteries of such modern conveniences as the internal combustion engine.

Jane laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle smile. "That sounds like a good idea. I'll get you one as well," she offered, then pushing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes (one of these days she supposed she would have to get it bobbed, otherwise her friends and sisters would never cease teasing her about her old-fashioned mane) she stepped into the rather cluttered general store.

There was nothing particularly remarkable for the establishment except for the fact the only other person inside was a gray-haired Yankee granddame with a toothless grin that was just a bit too wide to be comfortable. She was hunched over the counter and playing the world's slowest game of solitaire, her clawlike fingers shaking slightly each time she flipped over a card. Behind her, a red and white ice box decoupaged with Coca Cola ads loomed either ominously or comically; Jane couldn't decide which. But there was a faded piece of paper listing the available drinks with their prices taped in the center, and reaching into her purse the young woman pulled out a dime.

"Could I get a two Bubble Ups, please?" Jane asked, sliding the coin across the table. The clerk took a few moments to pick it up, and her movements only seemed to slow all the more as she went to fetch the beverages from the icebox. Feeling more than a little awkward as she waited for the old woman to slide the bottle across the counter to her, the student glanced back out the windows of the store, hoping to someone coming to Jack's rescue "It's a warm one today isn't it?" she continued, hoping to fill the silence with idle small talk before a more pertinent question popped into her mind.

"I don't suppose you'd know how far it is to the Whitney Mansion, would you? My friend and I were headed up there before the ah...incident," she chuckled slightly, taking a soda in each hand. "We were hoping to get there before nightfall. There wouldn't happen to be a bus or anything like that that passes through this way, is there?"

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

She touched me! By Golly she actually touched me!

That gentle contact was enough to make Jack’s heart race. Very few women, particularly ones as beautiful as Jane, purposely touched him even in a decidedly platonic area like his shoulder. Her gorgeous face filled his vision, her long brown hair lightly rustling in the afternoon breeze, and the sweet look in her big brown eyes almost felt like… sympathy?!

Well, sympathy wasn’t love, or even affection, but it was something, and Jack decided he would take it as a positive sign! He kept his smile mild, playing it cool, but the second she turned away his mouth exploded into an unabashed grin.

You suave devil Jack, you might actually pull this off!

---

Jane’s innocent question snapped the clerk out of her indifference.

“Did you say, the Whitney Mansion?”

Granny Kit, as most Dunwich residents called her now, had run the general store for almost forty years and at this point in her life preferred solitude and solitaire to making money from the increasing number of customers that the invention of the automobile and paved highways had brought to sleepy Dunwich.

“Now, why in God’s name would a sweet young girl like you want to go to that wickedly cursed place?’ Granny Kit asked. The she nodded pointedly out the window. “It can’t be because of that boy, he’s as useless as tits on a bull!”

As the women watched, Jack kicked the fender of the Ford and received another blast of steam to his face.

“If you want my advice, and I’ll give it whether you do or not, mind you,” Granny Kit continued. “You’ll get the first ride out of Dunwich back to wherever you came from and don’t get caught up in any of that Whitney Mansion nonsense. Dunwich has had its fair share of strange things, none of which makes it to the press it seems, but I reckon most of what we deal with comes from whatever is cursing that mansion and the crazy family that lives in it.

“I know what you are thinking, crazy old lady at the store spewing nonsense, but the tale of that house and family is as tragic as you’ll ever hear. Madness, murder and horrors that people can’t even talk about afterwards. It’s not right that so many of them kill themselves, is it?”

Granny Kit shook her head, crossed herself for good measure, then sighed and looked at Jane with sadness.

“I can tell you’ve got a hard head about it, so I can get Old Shep to give you a ride up. He’ll charge a dollar or two, and you can leave your car here for the boys to fix. When you are up there, find my grand niece Helen who works as a maid in the mansion a couple days a week. If you need help, or want to leave, tell here and I’ll send up Old Shep to rescue you. God be with you, my Dear.”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

“Did you say, the Whitney Mansion?”

There was a strange inflection in the crone's voice that made Jane's brows knit together in confusion. "Yes, the Whitney Mansion," she repeated slowly. Some instinct in her made her glance around the store to make sure they weren't being overheard, as though there was something forbidden in the name. Then again, judging by the expression on the old woman's face it might as well been a cuss of the most offensive degree. "We are headed the right way, aren't we? I was under the impression there was an archaeological excavation taking place there."

Briefly, her eyes drifted out the window to glance at Jack. Could it all have been a ruse? Was this just an elaborate scheme to get her alone? If it had been any other man, she might have lent the idea some credence. But Moody? Impossible. From what little Jane knew about the fellow, he scarcely kept company with women at all (and indeed, there had been certain hushed rumors around campus saying he really preferred the company of men). It just didn't seem in him to lure her all the way out to the countryside for nefarious purposes.

No, clearly this was just one of those suspicious old New England beldames, a relic of a prior century that hadn't the education to see past the wicked shadows into the light of progress and knowledge. Why, she even said the place was cursed! A patient, patronizing smile slowly began to cross Jane's face as she raised the soda bottle to her lips, taking a long drink of the ice-cold beverage.

She might have been content to let the woman ramble on, but her comments about Jack did raise the young woman's hackles just a little. It reminded her too much of the way the other boys, the ones she didn't like, would gossip about the scholar behind his back. Jane's expression remained cool as she stared the old woman down. "As a matter of fact, his relative is the current owner of the Whitney Mansion," she replied, inclining her head in her companion's direction. "I assure you, Ma'am, Jack Moody might not be all that handy with a car, but he's certainly not crazy, and I doubt his relations are either."

Jane's tone might have been polite enough for the nouveau riche society of Denver, but the edge on her words would have caused an absolute scandal in the ballrooms of proper Boston society. She'd made a few such faux pas in the past, but the slight embarrassment had always been overcome by a severe sense of justice, and while she didn't regret saying what she said the young woman wholly expected the storekeeper to throw her out bodily, assuming she could get out from behind the counter in time. But to her surprise, the proprietress seemed wholly unfazed and the remark, and merely continued on with her warnings.

“I know what you are thinking, crazy old lady at the store spewing nonsense, but the tale of that house and family is as tragic as you’ll ever hear. Madness, murder and horrors that people can’t even talk about afterwards. It’s not right that so many of them kill themselves, is it?”

"Murder?!" Jane couldn't help but gasp, her polished facade dropping as her curiosity overcame her propriety. "When was this? I never heard anything about a murder. Or a suicide, for that matter." She looked back out towards Moody again. He'd never said a word to her about either. Had he purposely kept it back, or was he as ignorant of the fact as she was? Assuming it was a fact at all, that was. Suspicion kept back into her gaze when the old woman decided to relent and offer arrangements for a ride up to the mansion.

"Thank you," the young woman replied, taking the second bottle and turning towards the door. "I'll have to ask my friend about it, but I think that'll suit us just fine."

With the bell of the screen door clanging behind her, Jane made her way through the steam and dust to Jack's side, offering him the sweating glass bottle in relief of his efforts. "The shopkeep in there says someone named Old Shep can give us a ride up to the house if you want to leave the car here," she remarked, taking another drink and staring at the Ford the way she might have stared at a horse with a broken leg.

There was no choice for it. Despite asking around, there was no one willing to take the pair all the way back to Arkham, so unless they wanted to spend the night at the service station, Old Shep and his rusty black truck it was. Shep himself wasn't nearly as garrulous as the old woman had been, and barely said a word after he'd been paid his wages. The silence in the back of the cab was deafening to Jane, and eventually, just to say something at all, she leaned over and brought her lips close to Jack's ear.

"Do you know anything about a murder?" she whispered, her breath warm and still slightly citrus-y from the soda. "The old woman back there seemed to think the place was cursed..."

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"I assure you, Ma'am, Jack Moody might not be all that handy with a car, but he's certainly not crazy, and I doubt his relations are either."

“Ahh, so he’s of that blood as well,” Granny Kit mused, shaking her her sadly. She gave a grunt, and nodded sharply at the girl. “Best not to get involved with that Whitney lot, but it appears as if it may be too late for you.” She was a bit more standoffish now, as if Jane had become a lost cause and not worth further effort saving from whatever sinister fate she was concerned about. After Jane’s question about murder and suicide, Granny Kit remained coy. “Your lad will know better than me, I suppose, that’s if all the truth about what happens up at the mansion makes it out to the rest of the family. I’d be curious to hear what he knows of it myself.”

Jane’s return and suggestion they hire a car to go up to the mansion was both a relief for Jack, but also somewhat embarrassing. The fact that he didn't find the solution to their predicament made him feel not very chivalrous, so much so that he felt obliged to try and call for a taxi on the pay phone to demonstrate that he could get a better option than this “Old Shep” that Jane had found. After several long minutes of fruitless calls, very conscious of Jane waiting in the shade while finishing her rapidly warming bottle of soda pop, he admitted defeat and settled for Shep’s rusty truck. He made sure to load Jane’s luggage for her and was quick to pay for the ride before Jane could offer, so perhaps he’d get some credit yet for handling this debacle like a gentleman.

The battered truck, no doubt more suited for hauling passengers of the four footed variety, was an inglorious vehicle in which to escort Jane to the mansion, but at least they were moving and should arrive before dinner. Leaving the paved highway behind meant a bumpy ride on gravel roads, and the cab was soon dusty as the heat forced them to keep the windows down. Combined with the sour faced old man that drove them, it was a less than romantic final leg to their voyage and Jack sat in depressed silence as he struggled to think of a conversation starter. Instead, his mind replayed every little awkward moment of the day over and over again, as if hoping he could alter the past by identifying what he should have done or said after the fact.

"Do you know anything about a murder?”

It was Jane who broke the silence first.

Jack turned his head eagerly at her voice. He hadn’t noticed, however, that Jane had leaned in and whispered her words to him, and he was startled as their faces nearly collided. Not just their faces, actually, but their lips had almost brushed! His heart pounded as he realized how close he’d come to kissing her, even if by accident. Jack sat more upright to offer some space, but Jane still remained tantalizingly close.

"The old woman back there seemed to think the place was cursed...”

Had she ever been so close to him before? Had any girl that he had romantic aspirations towards been this near to him?!

For a few seconds, Jack was felt like he was in a waking dream. Jane’s gorgeous face filled his vision. Those doe-like brown eyes seemed impossibly large and her soft and oh-so-kissable lips seemed to float before his eyes like an irresistible target. He could smell her, or rather the lemony traces of Bubble Up on her breath. And speaking of breath, was that hers that he felt on the flushed skin of his face? Even on a hot day like today he could be content basking in the puffs of intimate warmth coming from those luscious lips. Could he hear her heart beat as well?! No, that was actually just his own racing heart pounding in his ears, but it was still a big part of the sensory overload the young man was experiencing that left him speechless and tingling.

Lord, she was beautiful.

The bumpy jostling of the truck with their faces this close together threatened an accidental union of their mouths of the kind that Jack typically only imagined before falling asleep. It was like tiptoeing on the edge of a fantasy come true, and he was all too ready to plunge over the side headfirst.

If I leaned forward an inch, maybe two, we’ll be kissing!

She had asked him something. His love struck mind was slow in processing her questions. All he could think about was that this might be the clearest sign yet she was interested in dating him. His body was urging him to kiss her, while his mind trembled in terror at the thought. The resultant expression on his face was an odd mix of wide-eyed surprise and an awkward, quivering smile. He gave a nervous swallow.

Murder? A curse?

His brain resumed functioning as he thought about her strange questions.

You fool, she wasn’t trying to kiss you! Snap out of it!

He retreated imperceptibly, maybe a half inch, to give a safer buffer between their faces and that distancing helped clear his desire addled brain. Brows furrowed as he nibbled his lower lip in thought. It was an odd question, but also an uncomfortable one as he’d heard strange stories about his Aunt and the mansion, of course, but the exact details and veracity had never been quite clear over the years.

“Murder?” he asked, giving her a quizzical look.

Something bothered him as he tried to think about any murders at the Whitney Mansion. It was as if he couldn’t trust his immediate reaction that he’d never heard of such a terrible occurrence. The directness of her question felt almost accusatory, and he felt oddly defensive. His family always approached sensitive topics from a sidelong angle, speaking in veiled truths or polite euphemisms about people that “needed to get some country air” or “had an accident cleaning their gun.”

Was there something he’d missed over the years about the mansion’s history? Some clue to a darker past that had passed by his awareness as his relatives had danced around the truth? He felt like there might be, and fought back a sudden urge to immediately review everything he could recall being told about his Aunt and the mansion. Trying to suppress the urge triggered a strange anxiety, as if some subconscious part of his brain wouldn’t let him leave the topic, that he had to do it now or he'd forget. He felt a sudden chill in the hot car, causing an involuntary shudder.

Don’t scare her away you DOLT!

Right, Jane was still waiting for a reply. Her beauty distracted him and brought him back to the conversation at hand. He tried to regain the happy place he had found before.

“Well, now that you mention it,” Jack began, glancing conspiratorially at the back of Shep’s head. If Jane thought this was a topic that required privacy, he’d be glad to perpetuate the idea. Nestling close, their cheeks almost touching, his mouth approached her ear and he paused. He felt a guilty rush of pleasure at enjoying the intimacy of this pose and the suspense that built as Jane waited for his reply. Even her smell was intoxicating when this close. “Well, there is the tradition that every male child has to bring a woman to the mansion, a woman whose blood will be used to satiate the dark spirits that give our family its evil powers… is that the kind of murder you mean?”

He leaned back, a triumphant smile on his face. In the many books he’d read about courting woman, they all stressed laughter as the surest way to win a girl’s heart. This was the perfect time to show Jane he had a cutting sense of humor and he was sure she’d appreciate his funny joke!

“Haha, I’m just kidding of course! You didn’t believe me, did you?”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

At first, Jane thought the bizarre expression on Jack's face was due to an oncoming bout of carsickness. Out of respect for her new blouse and freshly-pressed trousers, she leaned away from him ever so slightly, praying he would keep his stomach at least until they had reached their destination. Not that she would blame him of course; the cab was devilishly hot and the winding, bumpy road almost reminded her of the Coney Island roller coaster, and if she'd breakfasted on anything more than tea and toast the young woman probably would have gotten ill herself.

Then she realized that her companions face was turning red, not white, and it occurred to her that perhaps it was her close proximity that made him nervous. Poor chap she thought pityingly, trying to maintain a buffer of comfort between them while still staying close enough to hear his response to her question. He looked as spooked as an unbroken horse, and for a moment Jane thought a girl ought to kiss him just to rid him of his fears. She might have done it herself under better circumstances, but she'd be damned if she did anything but sit quietly while the grizzled old man was in the front seat.

Besides, whispering about a murder didn't exactly put one in an amorous mood. If anything, Jack seemed somehow even more bewildered at the word, and Jane could practically see the wheels turning in his head. But how could anyone have to think about whether a murder occurred? It sounded like something you either knew about for sure, or you didn't. If there was any hesitation, Jane theorized, it wasn't about the veracity of the facts, but how to best present them in the most appropriate fashion. Her brown eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and for the second time that day she found herself wondering if perhaps Moody's shy, awkward persona wasn't just a facade after all.

If it was, what could she do? She was hours from home, in a strange place where she knew no one but Jack. If her mother knew she would have had a fit, but Jane calmed herself by saying that whatever the situation was, it couldn't be worst than the time she'd snuck out of the house to go riding at sunset near Dead Squaw creek, and her horse had thrown her and bolted. That had been a long, frightening night indeed, but she'd managed to come through it all right with nothing more than a sprained ankle and a bad temper, but then of course she'd had her grandfather's old Colt with her at the time.

The young woman sighed a little, wishing not for the first time she'd thought to bring a gun East with her, and cursing her priggish mother for insisting that proper young ladies in search of wealthy husbands did not carry firearms with them in their handbags.

It was probably a good thing she wasn't armed though, because after Jack told his story Jane just might have shot him. Scowling, she gave him a little shove on the the shoulder. "Don't be an idiot, Moody," she scoffed. "I thought you were better than all those other idiot Greek Row pranksters and their stupid jokes. Really, how childish can you be?" Rolling her eyes, the young woman moved to the other side of the bench seat and turned her gaze out the window. The landscape was turning rather rugged as it rose upward, and it should have given her a comforting reminder of home. But there was something ancient in this countryside, countryside that had seen entire families live and die before the first white man ever laid eyes on the Platte River. Despite the warmth of the day, something about it sent a shiver down her spine.

Then she saw the house, and the shiver somehow intensified. Even under the shining afternoon sun, there seemed to be an odd shadowy cast about wrought iron fence surrounding the property and the ominous "W" set above the open gate that for some reason made her think of Dante:

Abandon all hope ye who enter here

But the gate was nothing compared to the house. Eyes wide and tasteless jokes forgotten, Jane looked back towards Jack in awe. "Is this the place then?" she asked, looking up at the grandiose mansion at the end of the drive.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

Jane’s reaction wasn’t quite the belly shaking laughter and tears of mirth Jack had been hoping for.

The little shove she gave him felt like a blow to his gut and his face flushed red now with shame instead of ardor. Fortunately, she didn’t notice as she quickly slid away and turned to study the boring pastoral landscape, clearly hinting that anything, even an empty sheep pasture, was more interesting than poor Jack and his mistimed humor. His mouth opened, an apology forming, but he swallowed his words as he realized he didn’t know what to say to change her mood.

Darn it! What did I do wrong?

The farms and pastures outside of Dunwich gave way to rock strewn and forested hills, and Jack was forced to relive his latest miscue in an endless loop of internal self-flagellation. Perhaps he should have taken her question more seriously, but asking about murders and curses at his family’s country estate was a bit ridiculous. Only when the gates appeared did Jane re-engage, and Jack leaned towards her eagerly again to play tour guide.

“Yes, Whitney Mansion at last!” Jack’s enthusiasm was genuine as he saw the manor grounds for the first time in years.

Little had changed at first glance. The long driveway was fringed with graceful elms that had been planted decades earlier, with a thick belt of native woods lurking beyond. The mansion and its grounds were on the top of a low, flat rise that dominated the local terrain. Two promontory peaks, Cone and Briar Mountains, both several miles distant, framed the structure on either side as the truck approached.

“The property has over a thousand acres, and descends down in the valley behind it, which is used as pasture and farmland,” explained Jack as the house itself came into clear view. “That’s new, the garage in the front, that is. I think cars were stored in the stables in the back before.”

The mansion itself was a sprawling Gothic structure with a stone facade, the different shades of gray in the walls hinting at varying dates of construction. It was a creation of vanity and whimsy, with decorative castle like accents, such as high, vaulted towers at the corners, faux crenelated ridge lines designed to resembled parapets, and peaked turret roofs. Monstrous clusters of chimney stacks rose uniformly from the steeply pitched main roofline, giving the appearance of smokestacks on a massive stone ship. Imposing iron ribbed windows stretched from ground to roof in certain parts of the house and hints of color appeared in patches from antique stained glass accents.

“The house was first built in 1745, then a simple wooden manor owned by the merchant James Whitney, but it’s been rebuilt and expanded a half dozen times over the last two centuries,” explained Jack. “All the stone was quarried locally on our land and the timber felled from our woods. It truly is a one-of-a-kind country mansion, the kind no one builds anymore.”

Jack had been a little worried that the house was going to appear creepy and worthy of Jane’s macabre questions. After all, his Aunt was a bit eccentric and he doubted they had many visitors besides family. He’d last visited over five years ago and the impression the Gothic flight of fancy mansion made on a teenage boy could be very different than how he might perceive the house today as a cosmopolitan college student.

Fortunately, in the bright sunshine of an unusually clear New England day, the house looked anything but sinister. The gravel circular driveway held a half dozen cars and trucks, with workers and uniformed help bustling around loading and unloading provisions and materials. Even the drab and perpetually damp appearing stone seemed to shine towards the whiter side of its shifting palette of gray.

“There is my Aunt Margaret!” exclaimed Jack as Shep pulled the truck to a jerky stop before the grand entryway.

A tall woman, with a touch of grey in her light brown hair, stood at the center of the milling workers and servants, directing them with sharp words and precise gestures. They jumped at her commands, hauling sacks of vegetables one way, carrying off broken furniture the other, or pushing wheelbarrows of feed towards the back of the house.

“Jack, my dear boy, come give your Aunt a proper hug!” Margaret exclaimed, extending her index finger to shush a worker who had begun to ask her a question. She was a stately woman with classic features, only the touches of gray in her hair hinted she was older than her smooth face suggested. “Welcome home!”

Jack always found it strange to meet his Aunt, as she was his mother’s twin and their resemblance still remained uncanny. Despite living in the country most of the year, she traveled often to Boston or New York to shop and get styled. She had an eminently fashionable hair cut and dress that would fit right in at a cocktail party in Jack’s hometown of Boston, but looked jarringly out of place in this bucolic setting. Jack dutifully hugged her, which turned into an awkward lingering embrace as she clung to him far more tightly and for far longer than he expected, all with Jane waiting steps away to be introduced.

“And who is the adorable young woman?” asked Margaret, sizing up Jane with a sly smile. “Jack, you didn’t tell me your college friend was going to be a girl! Is she your girl-friend?”

Jack stammered out a denial, red faced with embarrassment. His Aunt’s direct question horrified him so much that he completely forgot to introduce Jane, and continued instead to protest to his skeptical Aunt that his attractive travel companion was just an Archaeology studies classmate.

“Tut, tut,” said Margaret, waving him quiet as she took Jane’s hand in her own and leaned in for a refined cheek kiss. “Charmed, my dear, and welcome to my house. Here, take my arm and I’ll show you in. The servants will get your luggage.”

“Madame!” interrupted the worker she had shushed upon their arrival. He was a tall and well built middle-aged man, wearing denim pants and a well-worn cotton work shirt. Every inch of skin exposed was deeply tanned, suggesting he spent his days outdoors. Dark haired and dark eyed, he had a surly expression on his square jawed face, clearly annoyed at being asked to wait. “The sheep. There were three more missing this morning again. What should we—”

“George,” replied Margaret crossly. “You run the grounds, go put up some more fences or set poison traps. Buy a sheep dog. Can’t you see I’m busy with my guests?” Then for Jane and Jack’s benefit, she added, “Some bold coyotes have been killing some sheep this summer. George is all hot and bothered and I just wonder why he cares when we have hundreds more!”

George pitched his voice low, but Jack caught him muttering that his Aunt was living in a dreamland as they walked away.

“Now, Jane, dear,” continued Margaret as they stepped into the grand entryway, which was an over the top room of white marble and ornate dark woodwork. A flanking set of semi-circular stairs climbed up to a second balcony and, high above, the vaulted ceiling sparkled with rainbow colors from the stained glass that accented the upper windows. “I was expecting a male friend, so I put you and Jack in rooms next to each other. There is a connecting door, which you can lock, or perhaps not depending on your mood—”

“Aunt Margaret!”

“There, there. I’m just teasing, Jack,” chuckled Margaret. To Jane, she whispered, “You don’t need to worry about decorum with me, my Dear, I’m not going to tell your parents or the press what you do in my house, especially if with my nephew. We finally can vote now, after all, so we can damn well do what we please with men also, in my opinion!"

"Please Aunt Margaret, what are you telling her! Jane, I'm sorry—"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

In Jane's opinion, Jack was much too enthusiastic about arriving at a house that would have fit in nicely in both a low-budget horror picture or a forged painting in the lobby of a garish hotel in Atlantic City, depending on the time of day. Oh, she supposed it was lovely enough back in the colonial days, though she suspected the more Gothic elements might have been added on in the last hundred years by some ardent reader of Udolpho. As someone who preferred the neatly arranged brownstones and Victorians of the western cities the young scholar decided she didn't care for the aesthetics of the Whitney Mansion, but as an archaeologist, one who hoped to make her living studying and understanding the ancient and the lost, it reassured her that the trip had been worthwhile after all.

"When's the last time you were here?" she asked, her previous quarrel with Jack forgotten as her brown eyes fixed curiously on him. There was a new animation in his expression that she had never noticed before, and watching the way he moved reminded the young woman of a clockwork toy suddenly being wound and springing to life. Jane tried to recall if Jack had mentioned ever living at the mansion or only visiting, and she guiltily wished she had listened to him a little more closely on their drive up that morning. He certainly stepped out of the truck with all the confidence of the heir to the estate, but next to the woman who was waiting for them Jack looked something like an undergrown cub pounding towards a regal lioness.

Aunt Margaret looked like the sort of woman you ought to curtsy to, and Jane found herself wishing with a slight blush that she'd worn a skirt for the occasion. With her clothes still packed away in her valise though, she'd have to make do with brushing the dirt off her trousers and holding one gloved hand out for a shake.

“And who is the adorable young woman?” asked Margaret, sizing up Jane with a sly smile. “Jack, you didn’t tell me your college friend was going to be a girl! Is she your girl-friend?”

"No ma'am, just friends and classmates," Jane assured quickly as she kissed her hostess on the cheek with the well-practiced manners of the rich, her placid expression concealing all but the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth. What in the world had Jack told this woman? Sure, Jane wouldn't have immediately dismissed the young man as a potential beau, considering the quiet demeanor and apparent devotion to his studies she had previously observed, but if the was going to be this presumptuous she would waste no time in disparaging him of those particular ideas. In private, of course.

Keeping her eyes fixed on her hostess and barely listening to Jack's stammering excuses, the young woman introduced herself properly with a smile. "My name's Jane, ma'am. Jane Houghton. And I cannot begin to thank you enough for your generous invitation for a visit. I've been hassling Dr. Morgan for months about being allowed to even watch one of MU's excavations, but he has such a silly rule about not allowing undergraduates to participate, though I've heard he does make exceptions if the undergraduate has the ability to grow a beard," she added with a wink, running a finger down her own smooth cheek. "Anyway, I'm excited to learn more about your lovely estate. And home, of course."

The inside of the house was about as tastefully decorated as the outside, but Jane only continued to smile and nod as her hostess pointed out the different features. The stained glass windows were pretty she would admit, but her admiration was cut short by the servant's interruption which served to annoy Margaret to the point where Jane thought the woman would dislocate her elbow, she was squeezing it so hard.

"Oh, forgive me, Jane dear," Jack's aunt apologized when she realized from her guest's grimace that she'd allowed her emotions to simmer a bit too violently beneath her queenly mask. Releasing her grip on the young woman's arm, she went on to explain about the coyotes, which only raised another strange expression on Jane's face.

"I didn't realize you had coyotes up in this part of the country," she remarked as their hostess led them to their rooms. Jane tried to recall if she had ever seen or heard one back in Arkham, but perhaps they could only be found in the countryside?

The coyotes were quickly forgotten though when Margaret showed them the door that connected their rooms and made a joke that would have been considered almost blasphemous even in the looser society of Denver. Jane chuckled nervously, not so much offended by the hostess as she was concerned it might lead to some very serious misunderstandings with her colleague.

Moving immediately to the connecting door, she not only locked it but moved a chair in front, grinning back towards Margaret. "No offense to either you or your nephew ma'am, but where I come from girls don't dare mess around with boys before marriage. It might be fun, but everyone's daddy has a shotgun and a lot of them would prefer to see a man buried than their daughter married to a cad, you know? Even my papa has agents in New York and Boston, and they'd be more than happy to give him an excuse to drag me back home. You understand, of course?"

Margaret did, albeit with a sigh. "Ah well, perhaps when the old guard all dies off we'll finally be able to throw of that last yoke of tyranny," she sighed, stepping aside so a pair of liveried house servants could bring in the bags. "Well, why don't the two of you freshen up then come downstairs for a bit of refreshment? Jane dear, I make the very best lemonade. It's a secret family recipe," she added with a twinkle in her eye that made Jane wonder if Margaret thought as little of Prohibition as she did of decorum.

Once the hostess had departed, Jane turned back towards Jack with a slightly raised eyebrow. "Well, your aunt is certainly a character," she remarked, her voice equal parts amusement and admiration. "Quick to make assumptions too, I see." She stepped back into her room, noting the bizarre oceanic theme of the art and furnishings for a moment before looking beyond to a small attached private bath. Suddenly the idea of a shower felt heavenly, and poking her head out back into the hall, she laid one hand on the doorknob, which she noticed later was shaped like a sucker-covered curl of a tentacle.

"I'm going to clean up a bit and change my clothes," she explained, the gap in the door narrowing. "I'll knock on your door when I'm ready to go down?" Despite whatever notions Jack might have had about her, Jane didn't quite trust herself not to get lost in the massive house, and would have preferred to have some kind of guide with her when she ventured forth again.

Praying her friend would wait for her, she shut the door and made sure to lock it behind her, just in case. In the bathroom, she turned on the elegant brass shower head that poured into a deep bathtub the looked vaguely like a clam, and she noticed that the taps on the tub and skin both seemed to be twined in octopus tentacles, similar to the door handle of the room. "Good Housekeeping would have a field day with this decor," Jane muttered to herself as she stripped out of her clothes. Reaching up, she began to pull out the various pins holding up her shoulder-length mane of chestnut hair, letting it cascade down with a little shake of the head. Fully naked now, she stepped into the shower, reveling in the feel of the hot water washing away the afternoon's dirt and leaving her skin pink and rosy.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"Well, your aunt is certainly a character… .Quick to make assumptions too, I see.”

Jack nodded despondently in response to Jane’s comment. Character was an understatement. While they were twins, his own mother was slightly less overbearing and at least seemed to know when to keep her thoughts in her head. Margaret, however, seemed to have no filter and you never knew what often crazy idea might pop into head and then come directly out her mouth.

“It’s like having two mothers, but Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde versions of each other,” replied Jack. “They are twins, you know. My mother grew up in the mansion as well.”

Jack’s room was decorated in an Indian theme, with geometric patterned woven rugs and blankets draped on the furniture and floor, and arrows, bows, tomahawks, and romantic paintings of noble savages on the walls. He’d stayed in it before, and didn’t bother to look around while unpacking his clothes.

He was completely exhausted now that he could finally take a break from the mental ordeal of trying to impress Jane for an entire day. It was hard enough to talk to a girl for fifteen minutes, let alone impress them for a day, so a contented yawn slipped out of his mouth as he pulled out the last parchment wrapped item in his suitcase, a gift for Jane.

He was too tired for a shower right now, but instead splashed some fresh water on his dusty face in the sink. The shower could clearly be heard running in Jane’s bathroom right next door, and his heart skipped a beat at the thought of her completely naked just a wall away. The rhythmic splashing of water, barely audible, created an unsolicited image in his mind of her scrubbing herself thoroughly.

Get a grip, Jack!

The connecting door drew his eyes as he flopped onto the bed. She was so close, yet still so unimaginably far away. The thought of their near kiss popped into his head as his eyes drooped, except now he hadn’t pulled back. Instead, their lips had not only touched, but Jane’s mouth had opened hungrily to meet his own. Slippery, like an eel, her tongue quested into his mouth, entwining with his own in a sensual dance. The smell of lemon and light perfume filled his nose, and the citrus taste of soda pop flooded his mouth again as they kissed deeper and deeper.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face.

---

Something watched, lurking out of Jane’s perception at first.

Her eyes were closed as the water matted her long, brown locks into flat waves that ribboned down her lithe back. The single stained glass window cast a strange, prismatic light into the room, and her nude skin glistened wetly, like the iridescent scales of some exotic underwater creature. She was gorgeous, nubile and unblemished, a perfect specimen for whatever it was that observed her to now examine in intimate detail.

It took a little push to have her nod off while standing, not much at all really, as she was already basking cozily in the warmth of the shower and tired from a long day of driving.

It had seconds before she would wake and moved quickly.

The shower water flowed down her slender, naked body, following its sensual contours, pouring from her peaks, and gathering in her valleys. Her modest breasts heaved as she took a sleepy, deep breath, flinging a scattering of heavy drops into the air. A stream of water funneled down into the small of her back before coursing off her heart shaped rear like a waterfall.

The water flowing on her body thickened, the natural streams consolidating into rivers that now seemed to follow their own courses across her body, ignoring gravity and her curves. The rivers thickened to round tendrils, and out of tendrils they merged to become translucent tentacles. Spreading from the nozzle of the shower like an explosion of writhing snakes, the wet tentacles covered her head and face completely, and then quested down body. It moved in jerks and pulses, suckers splashing as they attached and released against her skin.

The first peaks the watery tentacles sought were her breasts, suckers attaching with a noisy squelch to each nipple as tentacles curled around her soft mounds and squeezed. The liquid horror slid and splashed down her body, rippling over her taut stomach and delving between her thighs. Two tentacles curled up, parting her most intimate lips and slithering into her cleft, one attaching a greedy sucker to the hidden nub at the top of her folds, the other slipping inside her sex with liquid ease. Down her back another tentacle slid, following the crack of her ass as it quested for and found her pucker, then quickly eeled inside. Even her mouth was assaulted, a watery appendage on her face parting her lips and pushing deep into her throat.

Now the monster coursed into her, pushing deep into her body from her three most intimate holes. The writhing mass that hung over almost her entire frame squeezed and sucked with hungry abandon, cruelly plunging her nipples as it attacked her with rhythmic splashing and squelching sounds. And deeper it probed as well, the tentacles pushing to her core.

Jane awoke, gasping for air as water poured out of her mouth.

With a loud splash it was gone, a couple inches of extra water in the tub the only clue it had even existed.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Back home, Jane's family always complained about the amount of water she could use in a week, and although there was one shower installed in the house in town (in her parents' private bathroom, of course) she had been absolutely forbidden from stepping one foot inside it after she managed to use up all the hot water three days in a row. The boarding house where she lived back in Arkham only had a bathtub in it, with residents allowed only twenty minutes for cleansing and relaxation, so it seemed only right that the young scholar take advantage of the current luxury while she had a chance. She hadn't intended to wash her hair, but the little cakes of French soap smelled so sweet and heady, and the water cascading over her scalp felt so nice she couldn't help but massage it a little, breathing in the steam and feeling all tension in her body washing away with the dirt.

Taking one of the soaps, she began to absentmindedly rub it in small circles around her breasts and belly, her mind more focused on the pleasant sensation of the water rather than really trying to scrub at her skin. Did all the grand houses back east have fixtures like this, she wondered? Jane supposed in this part of the country, water wasn't nearly as precious a commodity, what with the entire ocean nearby. Opening her eyes a moment, the young woman stared at the soap cake in her hand, realizing it was in the shape of a bumpy little starfish, an image that made her giggle a little as she rubbed it lower down her body. As far as she could tell, the mansion wasn't anywhere near the sea, so it seemed so bizarre to her that not only the bathroom, but her bedroom as well should have such a nautical feel to it.

No, not even nautical. That would imply there was some kind of ship imagery in either of the rooms, but there weren't. Just all sort of paintings and sculptures of fish, and whales, and crustaceans, and other strange creatures she had only seen in pictures during her few required biology credits. And the blueness of it all...it really made her feel like she was underwater for a moment. Why, it almost felt like she was having trouble breathing, feeling the salty liquid filling her mouth and nose with a burning sensation that made her feel lightheaded.

It reminded her of last summer, when she and her friend Lucinda Cadwallader had gone out to the latter's family home on Martha's Vineyard. That had been Jane's first time ever swimming in the ocean, and naturally it had ended with her almost drowning. Thankfully Lucinda's older brother Billy had been near by and been able to drag her onto the sand, forcing his breath into her lungs and practically bringing her back to life.

Ah Billy Jane thought wistfully, feeling her face grow warm as she remembered the feeling of his mouth on hers. She might not have gone all the way with Lucinda's handsome brother, but boy did she let him get close. Even now, she could have sworn she felt his hands on her breasts, squeezing and teasing her until she let out what he'd thought was the cutest little squeak of pleasure (and did she hear such a squeak now, or was that just steam getting trapped in the pipes?). He'd lifted up her skirt too, while everyone else was watching the Fourth of July fireworks, his thumb rubbing at that hidden knot of pleasure until she was shaking in his lap.

The soap dropped to the floor, but could barely be heard over the moan escaping Jane's lips. She thought she was touching herself at the memory of Billy, an act that, if she were in her right mind, would be utterly shameful considering she was a guest in a stranger's house. But she hardly seemed to notice the bad etiquette at all, and she certainly didn't realize she was now bent almost double, gripping the edge of the tub with her firm pink buttocks in the air and swaying slightly.

Dimly, she did become aware of something prodding at that smaller opening, one Billy had never dared touch. Was it really just water? The pressure seemed so much harder than what she'd felt previously. And the water seemed to be coming up now as well, one particularly powerful jet blasting at full force into her sex, making her wriggle and squirm. A thousand times Jane should have slipped, probably cracking her head on the edge of the tub and thus ending a career based primarily on her mental faculties. But she never did, and it occurred to her something was holding her relatively steady, holding her by the breasts of all things.

Alarm was beginning to rise in her belly, but before she could cry out another jet of water filled her mouth, making her swallow but never ceasing in its flow. Jane was becoming lightheaded with the lack of air, although this only seemed to add to the pleasurable sensations in her lower half. Indeed, the pleasure was rising so fast now it was threatening to overtake the panic, bringing her so close to the edge now--

Water burst out of her mouth and onto the bathroom floor, leaving Jane coughing and gasping for air. She was draped over the side of the tub, her legs collapsed inside while her hair hung like wet seaweed over her face. The water had shut off somehow, and immediately the young woman looked around for any sign of another person who might have turned the handle, but there was no one. She was utterly alone.

I told you spending too much time in that damn shower will be the death of you! she could practically hear her mother scolding. Perhaps the water had been a little too hot, if it had made her faint like that. But boy, what a dream! As Jane climbed out of the tub and wrapped a fluffy white towel around herself, she couldn't help but glance in the mirror and notice how red her cheeks were. Not only that, but the light makeup she wore had melted off her face, leaving ugly black streaks down her cheeks and the soft pink lipstick smudged all around.

"Well, you ain't gonna win no beauty pageants looking like that, Calamity Jane," she sighed to herself, wrapping a second towel around her hair and stepping back into the main bedroom to dress.

With her hair and cosmetics a mess, it was almost a full hour before she knocked on the door of Jack's bedroom. She'd changed into a fluttery, pale pink summer dress and arranged her hair as neatly as she could while it was still wet, and while she still probably wouldn't win any pageants in her current state, there was a fresh color in her complexion that lingered from her experience in the shower.

"Moody? You in there?" she called gently, opening the door just the smallest crack before peering in.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“I love you, Jack,” whispered Jane as she nuzzled her face into the crook of Jack’s neck. The kisses began again, soft little smooches on his jawline and then down his throat. He could never get her to stop once she started. “Mhmm. I think we have time for one more…”

She was insatiable, not that Jack minded. Her hot lips teased down his bare chest, kissing and nibbling lower until she was leaving a wet trail around his lower stomach. That felt awfully nice. Her fingers seized the waistband of his trousers and she gave him a mischievous look.

“Hmm… now that I’m down here…”

Was she implying that she wanted to do… THAT?! Jack’s heart raced at the dirty idea and he felt his cock, already half-hard, spring up like an iron rod, creating a large tent in his pants next to her adorable face.

She giggled at his reaction and pretended to knock on his throbbing rod.

“Moody? You in there?”

“YES! Yes, of course I am!” shouted Jack back eagerly.

Only when he heard the room's creaky door swing open did he realize some things were amiss. First, his eyes were closed when they’d been open and watching naughty Jane a second before. That was odd. Then, when he blinked them open, suspiciously heavy as if he'd been asleep, he turned and saw a fully dressed Jane standing at his doorway and staring at him with a much less amorous expression on her face than she had seconds earlier.

It had just been a dream!

“Oh my Gosh!” shouted Jack, bolting upright and suddenly wide awake. Had she seen the large tent in his pants that unfortunately matched his dream image? He grabbed a pillow and placed it over his lap hurriedly, hoping she had missed it. “S-sorry! I was sleeping… I didn’t know you were here!”

Jack had entered that acute stage of embarrassment where it would be worse if Jane left and he were to stew alone in his shame, and he felt the best way to gloss over the situation was to try to act like nothing awkward had just happened.

“Wait! Don’t go!” he shouted, eyes frantically searching his room. Her gift! Standing up with the pillow pressed over his waist still, he shuffled forward to the dresser. Why wouldn’t his cock soften? “I have something for you! I mean a gift. Here, just a second.” He grabbed the wrapped present, clearly a book, and held it out towards Jane. “I thought you’d enjoy this, it was hard to find a copy still available.”

It was a first edition of an early treatise on the Pocumtuc Indians, a tribe native to the region and thought to have built some odd stone structures scatted in the area. Jack knew the mysterious tribe was of special interest to Jane, and the primary catalyst for her visit to the Whitney Mansion. Long out of print, even Miskatonic University’s library had no copy, Jack had needed to write a rare books dealer in Boston to procure one.

Jack felt sufficiently relaxed now to toss the pillow casually aside, trying his best to act nonchalant as he gestured for her to unwrap the present. It wasn’t a very long book, less than a hundred pages, and written fifty years earlier when archaeological and anthropological science was a bit less advanced. Jack had read it already and found it full of speculative theories that wouldn’t pass muster in today’s academia, but also full of great primary source observations on Pocumtuc structures that had since been destroyed. Of all the Eastern tribes, the Pocumtuc seemed to be unique in building large stone structures, probably because there were a lot of boulders to use in the rocky hills of the region. Still, the author’s theories that they were built using advanced stonework technology reminiscent of the ancient Egyptians seemed to be pure balderdash.

“Our dig site has some stonework in it, I hear, and I think this book has the best artist’s plates of some of the Pocumtuc artifacts that I’ve ever seen.”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Virgin she might have been, but Jane did have brothers and had read enough books to know what that curious silhouette near Jack's hips was. Blushing bright red, she was about to slam the door shut and pretend she'd never seen a thing when suddenly he moved, mostly awake now. There was an odd note in his voice that told her he was fully aware of his current condition, and the young woman immediately pretended to be fascinated by an ornate carving of a wild mustang in mid-gallop.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," she apologized quickly, face burning even darker when she realized the carving was anatomically correct and very well endowed. Who in the world decorated this place? Jane wondered as her eyes scanned the room for anything a little less carnal. "I didn't mean to take so long in the shower. I was wondering if maybe you'd gone downstairs already. I didn't see anything, I swear."

But if she hadn't seen anything, why in the world did she feel the need to say so? Perhaps it was best she just went downstairs on her own. Jane sincerely doubted she could stumble into anything more embarrassing than this particular conversation. "I'll just ah, meet you by the stairs? When you're ready?" Of course, that would imply Jack would need to do something about his current predicament, and suddenly the urge to flee grew even stronger.

“Wait! Don’t go!” he shouted, eyes frantically searching his room.

What on God's green Earth? Jane suddenly felt her stomach drop. He wasn't...he couldn't! Not good old Jack Moody who never said boo to a goose. “I have something for you! I mean a gift. Here, just a second.”

"Look, Moody. I'm flattered, I guess, but I'm just not that kind of gi--oh." Thankfully the package he shoved into her hands was indeed a literal package, wrapped in delicate tissue paper and string. If there was one thing in the world that could have soothed Jane's embarrassed sentiments, it was the surprise and curiosity at the feeling of the book in her hands. She tore through the wrapping as best as she could, then let out a gasp as she read the title and author.

"Gallagher's History? Jack, is this real?" Jane's long, neatly manicured fingers gingerly turned the pages, stiff and slightly yellow with age but as legible as it must have been on the day it was printed. "The condition is amazing! Where did you ever find such a thing?" All awkwardness at their prior exchange was gone, and once she was sure the volume was reach she couldn't help but give him a little one-armed hug, her gaze still fixated on the pages. Moody really was a good sort after all, if he'd gone through the trouble of getting the book for her. Why, all the other boys at the university could barely remember what her degree was, let alone the specifics of her studies. Of course, A History of the Pocumtuc Indians must have cost him a pretty penny, but then again it seemed just as likely it might have been laying around the house.

Either way, at this proximity she should have been able to see any dubious motives behind those coke-bottle frames of his, and as far as Jane could tell there was none. If he did ask her for something in return, she supposed she could always give it back. Or give it up a naughty little voice in the back of her mind teased, making her frown a brief moment before looking through the pages again.

Jack was right, there were plenty of gorgeous plates in the book: illustrations of the people themselves, their homes, their costumes, even a map of excavated settlements scattered throughout New England. But there was something strange about that particular page. While all the others were completely free of underlines, margin notes, and even dog ears, someone had drawn a startlingly realistic sketch of an octopus of all things. It was so detailed, she could almost see its bulbous head pulsing on the page, its yellow eyes rolling maliciously, its tentacles curling and uncurling, waving hypnotically before her own helpless gaze.

For a moment, Jane could have sworn she was naked, feeling the rows of suckers fastening on her skin and pulling in that impossibly painful, pleasurable manner.

But no, that had all been a dream. Shaking her head with a little shiver, the scholar immediately shut the book and hugged it against her chest. "Thank you, Jack. This is really wonderful. Not just the book, but bringing me up here as well. You're a swell guy, you know that? All the other girls back in Arkham--"

Before she could tell her companion what all the other girls back in Arkham thought of him (and how wrong they were), a new voice began to echo through the hallway. At least, Jane thought it was a single voice. But it had a strange harmonic quality to it, and only the slightest delay made her realize that it was actually the sound of two people. Two women, to be specific. Two young women.

"Ooooooh Jackie-boo! Where oh where oh where are you?" the voices sang, making Jane wince a little at the sound as she looked back in Jack's direction.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“I didn't see anything, I swear.”

Those words would haunt Jack's nightmares. He clung to the hope that his gift had sufficiently distracted Jane so she might just forget the awkward beginning to their latest conversation. He was a bit worried when she reached out to hug him as his cock started to momentarily reverse its shrinking with her body so close to his, but his overall anxiety was high enough that his arousal was fortunately on the wane no matter what she did.

Jane did seem thrilled with the gift, and Jack felt some of his confidence returning as she flipped through the pages with unbridled joy. She seemed to grow more excited with every illustration, until, near the end, she abruptly paused on a map showing known archaeological dig sites and seemed to freeze, and then shiver despite the hot day. Why that page bothered her Jack couldn’t tell, it appeared as normal as the rest, but Jane shut the book and seemed to gather her wits about her before thanking him. Any praise coming from Jane was high praise, and Jack was basking in her words until he heard them calling for him.

Those girlish voices, eerily similar, could only be his cousins, and his smile faded into a wary grin as they entered the room. He steeled himself for whatever indignities he might have to suffer.

“There you are Jackie!”
“And… oh, Hello! You have a friend in your room.”
“I hope we aren’t disturbing anything, not that Jack would be improper, would you?”
“Not our Jackie-Boo! I’m Olivia, and this—”
“—is Penny.”

His cousins were identical twins, and despite reputedly being headed for college together in the Fall, they clearly hadn’t given up their childish affection for dressing identically and finishing each other’s sentences. They had distinct personalities when apart, with Olivia being the louder and more obnoxious of the two, and Penny being a bit quieter, but potentially more mischievous. Or was it the other way around? Jack was never quite sure. But when they were together they seemed to fuse into one split-brained woman that existed to relentlessly tease Jack, or so it felt to him at times.

This evening they wore matching white sequined flapper dresses, cut scandalously short above the knee and likely the rage in New York City clubs, pearl necklaces, and identical bobbed hairdos that made Jack do a double take. While Jack usually saw them once or twice a year, almost always in Boston, he hadn’t seen the twins since last summer and they looked much more sophisticated and older than he remembered, although the heavy makeup they had applied for dinner tonight also didn’t help. Always attractive, they now looked like aspiring Broadway starlets, coiffed, manicured, and with the slim flapper bodies that Jack saw idealized in magazines. They'd even grown a bit, although it could be their high heels, and they stood a couple inches short of his six feet in height. He couldn’t help but find the resemblance with their mother, and his own of course, to be striking, especially when looking into their piercing light blue eyes.

“Jane, allow me to introduce…,” Jack drawled, his sentence punctuated with an exasperated sigh, “...my cousins. This is Jane, a colleague of mine at Miskatonic University. I’ve invited her up to have a look at the dig that—”

“That boring, droll Professor's obsession?” interrupted Olivia. She had a look of horror on her face as if he'd suggested inviting Jane to examine a trash dump. “There are much more fun things to do at the mansion than look at dirt and Indian arrow heads!”

“Jackie-boo, why would you bore her to death with that nonsense?” added Penny, shaking her head at him sadly. “All that man talks about is Indian this, stone temple that. Why, he doesn’t even know who Eddie Cantor is!”

“Well, I’m sure when you get to college and choose a major, you two might finally understand that this ‘boring’ stuff is actually interesting to Jane and I. Right Jane?” answered Jack. He rolled his eyes for Jane’s benefit, emphasizing that the two of them were in the grown up club unlike his cousins. “But that’s another thing you’ll learn when you two finally grow up! And please, call me Jack now. The whole Jackie-boo and Jackie thing is a little childish, don’t you think?”

“Grow up?” Olivia snorted. “I think Jackie-boo might have to remember how he got his nickname!”

Jack gave a nervous glance at Jane and motioned urgently with his head towards the door.

“Look, Jane and I have got to go—”

“Should we get him a dress and some makeup?” said Penny, stepping in front of him to block his attempt at leaving the room. “Our sister Jackie-boo is back? Look, it’s like he put on rouge already, his cheeks are turning so red!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. And Jane, we were very young, just one-time, and it was a joke they—”

“Well, ‘Jack’, unfortunately Mother asked us to tell you that she needs to speak with you urgently. So hop along or find a dress if you want to stay with us girls and hide from her. We’ll show Jane around and meet you in the dining parlor in a bit.”

“I… well, Jane hasn’t seen—”

“She’s had all day with you, and we know she could use a break. We’ll give her the tour. Shoo! Off with you!”

Now alone, the twins gave Jane a matching pair of friendly smiles. There was an eerie coordination of their facial expressions as they studied her, as if they had some unspoken form of communication that let them sync their gestures and motions, down to even the swiveling of their heads. Combined with their powdered skin, dark red lipstick, and deep blue eyeshadow that made their faces uncannily similar, it gave the impression that an unseen puppeteer was controlling a pair of identical dolls in tandem. Only their eyes disrupted the illusion, too bright and sharp to belong to anything but a pair of very curious girls.

“So happy to have you here! Now that Jack’s gone you can tell us anything and—”
“—we’ll gladly rescue you from him if you ever need it!”
"We'll make sure you have fun."
“But first, we're sure you have questions.”
“All guests do.”
“What do you want to know about the mansion?”
“Jack is clueless, if you haven’t noticed.”
“It’s endearing, but he wouldn’t notice an elephant in the room if it sat on him.”
“And we must know all about YOU as well.”
"Come, let's talk as we walk."

Striding to either side of Jane, they hooked elbows with her and escorted her out into the hallway, giggling lightly as they might with a dear old friend.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

One thing that could be said for the girls of Miskatonic U was that all of them, for the most part, cared more about their studies than they did about fashion. Sure, a few girls had bobbed their hair, and most of them (Jane included) had at least one formal gown that only came to the knees, but when it came to the day-to-day everyone was happy to wear cardigans, modest skirts, and just a touch of makeup to cover blemishes. But every now and then someone would bring their sister, or their best chum, or their girlfriend for a visit, and that girl always seemed to come from New York or Boston or some other glitzy metropolis, and she liked nothing better than to flaunt her money and her loose morals before the "wet blanket future schoolmarms" of MU.

Although Jane could appreciate the aesthetic tastes of girls like that, their affected manners and overly-squeaky voices always tended to grate on her after about five minutes, and when there were two of them that time cut in half. So she was quite proud of herself that she managed to keep a false smile plastered on her face as she shook hands with Penny and Olivia, her eyes silently pleading with Jack to send them away.

"It's nice to meet you," she replied through slightly gritted teeth. "I didn't even know Jack had cousins." Not that she could blame him in the least for not bragging about these two. If they had a three digit IQ between the two of them it would be a miracle, and while their dresses were pretty enough they seemed a bit much for a Sunday afternoon, unless there was some speakeasy nearby Jane had missed on the way up from Arkham. She also didn't appreciate the way they were denigrating her and Jack's chosen profession, and it was with more than a little dignity in her voice that she explained she herself had dreams of being an archaeologist.

But they seemed even less interested in her indignence than her studies, and much preferred to circle their cousin like a pair of hyenas, tossing out verbal barbs like free bubblegum. Jane was ready to intervene on her colleague's behalf, but the look in his eyes told her she'd unmanned him enough times today, and perhaps it would just be best to escape the situation entirely. At his suggestion they leave the room, her fingers just brushed his bicep, ready to seize on and follow him out, but then Olivia (or was it Penny?) immediately stepped between them, breaking the brief contact while her sister came up behind their female guest.

"Oh, thank you. I'm sure the house is lovely, but I'd really like to take a look at the excavations while we still have the daylight, and I'm sure--"

But Jane's protests had all the fortitude of a cornstalk in front of a stampede, and the twins immediately set about bombarding her with questions from both sides as they made their way down the hall. It made her dizzy to keep looking from one to the other, and eventually she fixed her gaze straight ahead of her, forcing another smile and the occasional glance at each girl for the sake of politeness. She couldn't shake the feeling though that Penny and Olivia reminded her somewhat of prison guards as they walked on either side of her, each holding one of her arms good-naturedly as they pointed out this feature or that as they passed it.

"I guess when it comes to the house...I'm curious about how long you all have lived here. Did the two of you grow up here? You both seem so cosmopolitan for such an out-of-the-way place," the student remarked, hoping the twins would take the comment as compliment. "Did Jack grow up here as well? You all seem rather, uh, close." Well, hadn't her siblings teased each other like that when they were kids? She could certainly remember her older brother Tom thinking of annoying things to rhyme with "Jane," while she and her older sister Annie tormented little Susan by purposely excluding her from everything they could. Of course, Bobby, baby of the family that he was, unleashed holy terror on all of them, but at the end of the day it was all in good fun, and even now she looked forward to the big reunions that took place every Christmas.

Somehow the way Penny and Olivia picked on Jack seemed to have something more malicious beneath it though, and Jane didn't like the silent looks that exchanged in those two pairs of sea-blue eyes when she mentioned her friend's name. "He's really a good fellow, Jack," she continued, straightening her posture somewhat. "Not a mean bone in his body, and he's one of the cleverest boys in the department. I'll bet you a hundred bucks he does something really great some day, so you should be nicer to him. Just a friendly bit of advice, you know, from an older woman." At least, Jane assumed she was older than the twins. From their manners they definitely seemed younger, but with their overly-painted faces and impractical heels it was hard to guess their ages for sure.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“We were born here.”
“And grew up in the mansion, but as is family tradition, we’ve been in boarding school since we were ten. Rosemary Hall, have you heard of it? Right across from Choate.”
“So we aren’t country bumpkins!”
“Mother takes us to Boston and New York several times a year.”
“Never Arkham though, she says it’s full of nosy creeps and Whitneys aren’t welcome there.”

The twins were effusive, to say the least. Happy to joint talk with Jane, they trapped her in the middle of a verbal ping pong battle, but one where it seemed the same person was playing both sides. Gripping Jane tightly as they walked, they led her down the hall and turned precisely together at an otherwise ordinary piece of wall paneling. It wasn’t exactly a secret door, as the latch was quite visible when you looked, but it was clandestine enough to serve the same function. Olivia opened the panel and revealed a set of stone spiral stairs headed down into darkness.

“Servants’ passages. The house is full of them.”
“It’s a bit dark and narrow, watch your balance.”
“We’ll go in front of and behind you for this.”
“I hope you aren’t afraid of the dark!”

Jane was sandwiched between the two girls as the passage went pitch black when the door was closed behind her. Olivia, up ahead, held Jane’s hand behind her back while Penny guided her from behind with both her hands on Jane’s shoulders. Despite their efforts, the stairs were narrow and tricky, and they had to grab Jane when she inevitably lost her balance, the trio jostling and swaying together on the tight and curving stair treads while they picked their way down blindly.

“Hold on, we’re almost there…”
“Jack grew up in Boston, but he used to come by every summer when he was younger.”
“And we do love him, he’s just far too easy to tease.”
“Takes himself too seriously, but he is clever.”
“Too clever for his own good!”
“Ok, here is the exit… let me just unlatch it…”
“He’s really like a brother to us, the brother we wished we could have had.”

The exit door was opened, bright light forcing the girls to blink. The twins exchanged a glance between each other as Penny said the last bit about Jack. They’d emerged into another hall, this one full of oil paintings that were apparently family portraits.

“We don’t have brothers at the Whitney mansion. Look here, this first one is a portrait of our family.”

A much younger Margaret stood next to a bearded and dour looking man, two twin girls of toddler age held in the couple’s arms. The surname on the bottom labeled them the “Porter Family”.

“And this is Grandma Katherine, with our Mother and Aunt Nora, Jack’s Mom,” said Olivia, pulling Jane to the next portrait. Grandma Katherine looked strikingly similar to her daughters today, and by that measure, also similar to Olivia and Penny. Her husband looked rather serious as well, this time a bit portly with light blonde hair. Two twin toddlers stood at their legs, no doubt Margaret and Nora. The surname read the “Caldwell Family”.

“And here is Great Grandma Isabelle, with little twins Katherine and Laura. They were the Stone Family. And then Great Great Grandma Genevieve, with little twins Isabelle and Justine. The Cabots.” The names continued, until the last painting. “And of course, the founding family. John and Annabelle Whitney, with little twins Beatrice and Candice. They were the only Whitneys that ever lived in the Whitney Mansion, way back in 1740.”

"Notice anything funny?" asked Penny, her voice strangely flat. Olivia had a scowl on her face.

The paintings had gotten worse in artistic quality over the years, the early ones now also faded with age, but the row of paintings had an eerie similarity that a viewer could not miss. Each portrait showed a couple with two twin girls, but aside from the men who had a healthy diversity in height, size, hair color, and appearance, all the women looked oddly the same except for their clothing. Especially their eyes, which every painter had managed to try and capture, bright blue orbs that blazed piercingly from the canvases.

“As you can see, we don’t have boys here at the mansion. Ever. Just twin girls for me to look forward to," said Olivia, her voice bitter. Penny reached across Jane and gave her sister's shoulder a comforting squeeze, then murmured, "There, there. You can come and visit me as much as you want."

The corridor ended in a massive set of double doors. Made of stout oak planks held together with wide iron braces, the door ran up nearly fifteen feet to the stone arch of the doorway. A thick iron chain with a heavy padlock sealed the doors. The entrance looked more like an armored gate to a medieval keep than a room door.

Olivia glanced at the locked doors and shook her head in disgust, an annoyed expression on her face.

"How can she let him do that?!"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

"'Nosy creeps', huh?" Jane mused as the twins all but led her straight to a dead end. She might have argued against the designation in the case of the university students and professors, but she'd met enough rich townies to decide the girls weren't totally wrong. As for hating Whitneys though, she couldn't say one way or another, considering she'd never crossed paths with one. It was her understanding though that many of these old New England clans had bizarre rivalries even more bitter than the territory disputes out west, and she decided it would be best to avoid getting embroiled in one.

Besides, she was more intrigued by the hidden stairway of the house, and although she hesitated somewhat at the dimness of the passage, Penny and Olivia were not to be opposed. "Did this staircase serve any kind of special purpose?" she asked in between the twins' rapidfire commentary. How they managed to maneuver themselves and her down the uneven steps without losing balance was genuinely impressive, but then again if they had grown up here it made sense they would know the route by heart. Jane wasn't quite so lucky, and bumped into Penny (or was it Olivia?) more than once, the second time almost dropping her book in the process.

It wasn't until they'd emerged from the stairs into a long portrait gallery that Jane even realized she was still carrying the History with her, and while she would have liked nothing better than to slip away and pore through its pages in some quiet alcove, she also knew her mama would disown her if she ever showed such disrespect as not feigning complete interest in her hostesses' family. Gallagher would simply have to wait, probably for quite a while considering the sheer number of portraits in the room.

The first painting was actually quite lovely, and it occurred to Jane that the twins had certainly looked much better as fresh-faced children than overdressed teenagers. What was even more shocking though was the face of Margaret, which not only confirmed the student's conjecture that she was indeed the girls' mother, but made it clear the woman had hardly aged. With the beauty of the three females, the man seemed to look quite out of place, but something about his expression made Jane pause to take a closer look. "And that's your father?" she asked, wondering what in the world could have attracted a beauty like Margaret to such a grouchy-looking fellow. "Does he live here as well? Jack didn't mention him at all..."

But they had already moved on to the next portrait, evidently the prior generation. It was with some shock Jane realized Margaret wasn't just the sister of Jack's mother, but her twin as well, their faces every bit as identical as Olivia and Penny's were to one another. Other than the upturned nose possibly his ears, Jack didn't seem to bear much resemblance to his mother, and the scholar supposed his must have gotten his dark complexion and strong chin from his father. She would have been curious to see a portrait of him as well, but apparently the Moody family was not prominent enough to be represented in the Whitney Mansion.

"Your mother," Jane continued, pacing slowly past the paintings that were becoming more identical with each generation. "She must have been the older one of the twins? Is that why she inherited the house, instead of Jack's mother?" It was remarkable that even in the earliest generations of the family, the estate always appeared to be entailed on one of the twin daughters, rather than any male relatives. Of course, that wasn't even acknowledging the near impossible odds of having twin daughters six times in a row. Heredity did make twins more likely of course, but identical girls every time? The biology department back at MU would have a field day if they had any idea.

"It is unusual," the scholar said aloud, looking back towards whichever twin it was that had pointed out the trend. "But it could be worse. You've seen portraits of the Hapsburgs, haven't you? At least there doesn't appear to be any kind of physical defect present in anyone." It didn't seem appropriate to bring up the possiblity of mental ones at the moment, nor the implications of incest, no matter how royal. Instead she turned back to the subject of boys. "Surely there must have been other male cousins before Jack though? Does he have any male relatives on his father's side? Or do you?"

Moving back to the portrait of the Stone family, Jane fixed her gaze on the painted twins, having no idea which was which. "Katherine was your grandmother," she repeated slowly, as if reciting a lesson. "What became of Laura? Or their aunt, Justine? Surely there was a son somewhere in those lines?"

But no, the girls seemed adamant that this was how it was, and how it always would be. One of them in particular seemed extra bitter about the prospect of having twin girls of her own, and the expression on her face troubled Jane enough that she actually rested a hand on the girl's shoulder. "You know, you don't have to get married and have children if you don't want to. We have the vote now after all, and if you do well enough at school you should be able to find a career that makes you happy. It might require some hard work, but there's no need to rely on a man to take care of you if you're willing to take care of yourself."

Jane had hoped the reassurance would cheer the twin somewhat, but it seemed some new annoyance had appeared to irk her, though she couldn't begin to imagine what. Apparently a set of locked doors was the instigator, and the visitor looked from one sister to the other as she tried to understand what exactly the trouble was. "Is something wrong? What's in there, anyway?" she asked, approaching the door slowly and examining the heavy chain and padlock. Considering the decor she'd witnessed in the house so far it hardly managed to surprise her at this point, but it did pique her curiosity.

Not only the door, but also the mention of "him." Of course, that could have referred to anyone, but she was starting to wonder what had become of her friend. "Do you know where Jack's gone? You see, I meant to ask him about this book," Jane held up the Gallagher for reference, but it seemed a rather weak illustration in the face of the twins. "Uh, I think your mother said something about lemonade? You don't suppose I could get a glass of that, do you? I'm a bit thirsty..."

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“The stairs are just one of many servant’s shortcuts, as the house really just has two central staircases in the middle. There are all sorts of these little servant’s corridors riddled around, just to make it easier for the help to do their duties,” was Penny’s reply to Jane’s question on the staircase.

“Our father passed away when we were very little,” came Olivia’s subsequent reply. “A hunting accident. Very tragic, but we don’t even remember him unfortunately.”

“All the men here seem to have unfortunate accidents,” added Penny, earning a glare from Olivia in a rare break in the coordination of their facial expressions. “Don’t look at me that way, Olivia, it’s true! Grandfather died young, and Great Grandfather as well. They’re all buried in the family cemetery out back, and you can see on their gravestones they all died thirty or forty years before their wives.”

“That is just bad luck!” hissed back Olivia. “We don't know how they died! It could be coincidence!”

“Yes, family tradition and the family trust documents state that the oldest child of the family living here inherits,” answered Olivia, sounding glum. “And since there are only daughters born at the mansion, it’s always the oldest twin girl that is stuck with living in the mansion. The younger one gets to leave, have fun, and of course, have boys as well as girls. Like Jack, which is why we adore him, because we couldn’t have a brother here no matter how much we wanted.”

Olivia shook her head at Jane's questions.

“Jane, what you’ve said about doing what I want to do, I’ve heard a hundred times,” answered Olivia, setting her jaw. “But it’s not the way things work in our family. I… can’t go. The mansion… it won’t… it’s just how our family works.”

“The mansion won’t let you!” announced Penny, looking at Olivia defiantly as her twin tried to shush her. “It’s haunted, Jane. I know you probably think we are crazy, or just silly girls, but it’s true!”

“Penny!”

“Tell her why you can’t go then! It’s the dreams… they’ll never let you—”

“Enough! Penny we just met Jane and you’ll have her convinced we are insane if you keep prattling on like this!” Olivia exclaimed, grabbing her sister by both arms and shaking her to get her to stop talking. “No more. You know how our other friends react to this kind of blabber, or shall I say ex-friends?”

Olivia, eager to change the subject, was all too happy to focus on the massive doorway.

“This gorgeous door leads to the West Hall, our favorite room in the entire house,” answered Olivia, giving a flourish with her hands. “It was built to be a mini-cathedral, but we use it as a grand ballroom these days. You have to see it to believe it, a high vaulted ceiling, stone arches forty feet high, stained glass windows from floor to ceiling, and even a bandstand at the far end... it used to be the raised altar when the room was a Church. It is truly magnificent, particularly at sunset like right now, but that damned Professor—”

“He asked Mum to have the West Hall to store precious artifacts he’s found that are too valuable to go anywhere else. He’s paranoid about them, as if anyone wants bits of stone!” interjected Penny, but gave Jane a mollifying touch. “No offense Jane, as I know you like stone bits, but they are not exactly high on the list of criminal targets, are they? Especially in rural Dunwich! We got back from school two weeks ago and found the West Hall was completely padlocked off and only accessible by HIM! Mum doesn't even have a key to open this lock!”

“In OUR house!”

The twins were fuming, but instantly grew courteous again upon hearing Jane’s requests.

“Yes, of course, we are expected in the main parlor for refreshments prior to dinner and that is where Jack is meeting Mum. There will be plenty of drinks for you!”
“We’ll take you there now, using a shortcut.”
“You want to show her THAT? Ok, it will be a creepy shortcut then…”

The shortcut involved passing through a nondescript door that revealed a large, oak walled converted study. The windowless room was very old, likely first decorated around the Civil War, and had a peculiar array of furnishings. The center of the space was dominated by a leather upholstered antique dentist's chair, or the closest approximation to that sort of device if it were made seventy years ago, positioned under a large spotlight style chandelier. In addition to reclining backwards and offering other articulations, the chair had thick leather restraint buckles installed at the wrists, ankles, head and midsection of the body of whoever sat inside it. Next to the chair was a more traditional doctor's operating table, again with leather cuffs on the four corners. The walls were a mix of dark wood shelving full of thick, leather-bound tomes, vials, jars, and rusting metal containers, and open walls on which hung all sorts of primitive medical equipment that appeared one step above a medieval torturer's toolkit, from saws and hammers, to scalpels, knives, hooks and even more sinister curios. Further medical decorations included jars of preserved organs, a complete skeleton hung on a hook, and assorted anatomical diagrams showing bisections of the human body. A collection of more modern electrical devices, still turn of the century at best, sat in one corner.

"This is our Great Grandfather's medical office, he was a surgeon in the Civil War."
"And Grandfather was a Doctor, as well, he treated a lot of the local population."
"It hasn't been used in a bit, but we find it soooooooo creepy... I mean look at this stuff!"
"No, let's show her THIS!"

Penny, ignoring Olivia's protests, dragged Jane to the group of slightly more modern devices in the corner. One wooden box, on a wheeled platform, was labeled "Medical Treatment Device for Hysteria in Women". Giggling, Penny opened the box and revealed two partitions inside. A wooden control panel was on the left, consisting of a power gauge, a lever, several inscrutable switches and a strip of lightbulbs. In the other partition, a large stacked coil of wire filled the space, but the wire was attached to something more peculiar that Penny lifted up for Jane's inspection. Held aloft, the attachment was revealed to be a cylindrical metal object with rounded edges and a slightly bulbous appearance, maybe eight inches in length, and vaguely resembling a thick baton.

Penny waved it in Jane's direction, barely able to stop laughing, as Olivia groaned.

"Guess what this was for!"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

If it weren't for the obvious emotion in the twins' expressions, Jane might have found it amusing that the pair could explain a series of deaths in the male line of the family as "coincidence" or "bad luck," while still insisting the house was haunted. Perhaps to their own minds, a woman being trapped in a house was a greater curse than a man having his life utterly extinguished. "What's good for the goose," she couldn't help but mutter under her breath, but the distraught look in Penny-Olivia's eyes made her swallow the rest of the sentiment.

Instead, the scholar glanced back towards the series of portraits. No, there was so sign of any kind of physical defect in the family, but a mental one was becoming painfully clear. The girls weren't too far gone, clinically speaking, but Jane had some friends in the psychology department back in Arkham that probably could have worked wonders on the pair. Perhaps if she could get them to trust her, they might be persuaded to come down for a visit someday; it would probably do them a world of good. They were so young and pretty, with full live ahead of both of them (including whichever one felt bound to the house), that it seemed wrong not to try and help them.

Oh well, at least they seemed elastic enough in their spirits. Olivia-Penny seemed all too eager to show off the ballroom, but in its current use Jane was all the more eager to get a look inside, and her frustration at finding the door locked almost matched that of her hostesses. "What a pity," she agreed, running one hand along the heavy chain. "I'd love to get a look inside. But I suppose that's why it's locked, after all; I imagine the professor doesn't want unauthorized noses like mine poking around." She had to force a giggle to match the tone of the twins, but her gaze kept falling wistfully back towards the door.

"Have you met the professor? What's he like?" the young woman asked, but the twins were already carrying on with the tour, half-dragging, half-jostling her into a grim-looking study. The dim light of the room alone was enough to make it unpleasant, however when her eyes adjusted Jane realized the shadows would have been preferable to the light. "My God...and you all just prefer to keep it like this?" It was a tactless sentiment, but a genuine one. Still, remembering her mother's etiquette lessons, Jane tried to turn the conversation around with more curiosity, even though the different implements and paraphernalia sent shivers down her spine.

"Do either of you intend to carry on the family profession? You know, the medical school at MU does accept women now, and the nursing program is first-rate," she commented, turning her attention towards the skeleton with her archaeologist's eye and trying to determine the age of the specimen. Curiously enough the bony fellow was the only thing in the room that gave Jane some sense of comfort and familiarity, and she was a little annoyed when she was dragged away all too quickly to view some sort of bizarre electric device.

However, after one glance at the lid of the box, and some remembered whispers at the back of her mind from her friend Sally Harcourt, currently the only female at the medical school. "You wouldn't believe what some of these blokes think about the female body!" Sally had said one night while Jane and the rest of their friends were drinking tea in the campus café. They'd all screamed with laughter at the idea of wandering wombs and unbalanced humors, and Sally had been particularly graphic about one old device she'd seen in an outdated medical text.

Now Jane was blushing furiously as she pushed that same device away from her. "O-oh! That's all a bunch of bullsh--bunkum," she stammered, quickly turning her gaze back towards the chaste figure of the skeleton. "Hysteria has been totally disproven by modern medicine, didn't you know that? And...things like that are nothing more than disgusting tools for freaks, if not downright dangerous." God, even now she cringed trying to imagine the feel of such a device inside her. "Besides, it's probably got faulty wires in it; it looks at least fifty years old. You should probably throw it away before it starts a fire or something."

Although her eyes were still fixed on Mr. Bones, she gradually began to move towards the door. "So which way is it to the parlor? I'd hate to keep your mother and Jack waiting. Not that this hasn't been a barrel of laughs, but...well, you know. I don't make it a habit of looking at pickled spleens before dinner and things like that." She shuddered again and tried not to look at the jars on the shelf.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“Get into the ballroom?” Olivia said after Jane’s question, she looked thoughtful. “What do you think Penny… is there a way? You know better.”

“There might be,” Penny replied, a mischievous grin on her face. “Wouldn’t hurt to try maybe… and you’ll meet the Professor soon enough. He is handsome, but he’s sooooo serious. Boringly so. Unless you like talking about Indians and cults. That’s all he cares about, it seems.”

“Not girls, apparently.” Olivia had a sour face. She gestured at their dresses, then added with a sigh, “This is all for naught, the latest escalation in our attempt to get him to even notice us.”

In the study, the girls looked at Jane as if she was crazy when she asked about medicine as a career. They giggled and shook their heads emphatically no.

“We are attending Wellesley in the Fall,” replied Olivia. “And will be on the swim team.”
“We are quite fast.”
“But medicine, no….” Olivia shuddered. “We hate blood. Couldn’t do it. I’m thinking about English as my Major, and…”
“I’m considering History. Ancient History.”
“Grandfather in addition to medicine loved History, you might say that is in the family. He’s got all these journals in here on his research into obscure cults or something, the Professor pores over them all the time.”

When they showed her the anti-hysteria device, Jane’s reaction prompted a chorus of giggles and blushing from the pair. They seemed to find her reaction hilarious and Penny packed it away carefully.

“Yes, well it seems like you are quite familiar,” Olivia said drily. “Rest assured, it does still function, and let’s just say that the restraints are probably put in place for a reason. The ‘paroxyms’ it creates can be quite violent, but perhaps that will be for another night. Penny would be the authority on it, trust me.”

“It’s worth a try,” added Penny, before grabbing Jane and pulling her towards the far wall. This time there was a true secret door, with a light sconce that twisted sideways to unlatch a hidden mechanism. With a push, a section of bookshelf swung back to reveal another darkened corridor. Again, Olivia led the way with Jane’s hands placed on her shoulders. Penny followed, holding onto Jane. It was a short, dark trip, with one warning called out by Olivia to avoid the “bottomless pit”, which could be felt by the girls’ feet as an opening on the left side of the path. Cool air rose from the hole and the distant sound of water sloshing could be heard. “There is some sort of spring under the mansion… and here we are!”

The trio erupted into a bright room just off the entryway, the parlor to the dining hall. Margaret was there, along with a rather pale looking Jack, the groundskeeper George, now in a dinner jacket that greatly improved his appearance, and several servants that hovered by a well furnished table of appetizers and refreshments.

“Ahhh, there you all are!” exclaimed Margaret, waving her hands at the girls. “I was just about to send a search party! Professor Mathis is evidently on his way, so thank heavens you aren’t tardy again, Olivia and Penny! Come have a drink and some food.”

The twins immediately descended on the assortment of cheeses, bread, and fruit with a ravenous appetite and Jack gave Jane a timid wave, slipping slowly away from his Aunt as if concerned that she might notice his departure and reel him back to her. Fortunately his Aunt was busy lecturing her daughters on everything from their appearance, choice of dress, and the amount of food they were heaping on their plates, much to the twins’ evident annoyance.

“Hello, Jane,” asked Jack as he slipped to her side. He produced a handkerchief and wiped some sweat off his brow. “I hope they didn’t convince you my entire family on this side is crazy, but frankly, I’m not going to argue against that opinion if you’ve formed it. Well, did you see any of the mansion at least? Isn’t it grand? We used to love exploring it as children!”

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane decided the greatest mystery of the day was how two silly creatures like the twins had gotten into an institution like Wellesley, especially if one of them intended to study Ancient History with such disdain for the artifacts that could be found in their very own home. She was even tempted to voice those sentiments aloud considering Penny's remark about being familiar with the oblong electrical device (and didn't the scholar's face turn a darker shade of red at that), but the two had resumed their rapid-fire speech over one another, barely leaving their guest room to get a word in edgewise before they whisked her off again.

"Another secret passage? Gosh, how many are there in this place?" Jane asked as another bookcase popped open. "And why does it lead to a doctor's office?" As the cool air of the corridor washed over her, it occurred to her that perhaps this was the most discreet way to remove those patients that couldn't be saved, and her hand tightened it's grip on Olivia's bony shoulder, while the other clutched her book even more tightly against her chest. At first, the scholar marveled that she still had it, and wondered when she had reached for the twin ahead of her, but considering the darkness of the hall she was grateful for the guidance. Still, she had to wonder how the girls managed to keep their footing in the gloom, and why the pair didn't bother bringing a flashlight on these little expeditions.

She was almost blinded when suddenly another door opened and she found herself staring face to face with Margaret and Jack, and she couldn't help but blush a little at the awkwardness of the situation. At least the older woman didn't seem too surprised at their rather unusual entrance (although she seemed far from pleased with her daughters), and good old Moody seemed as nervous--or was he just happy to see her?--as ever.

Letting out an awkward chuckle, Jane brushed a stray cobweb from her skirt before clapping a good-natured hand on her colleague's shoulder. "I certainly could have used a warning about those two. They dragged me through so many tunnels I thought for sure we were going to end up somewhere on the other side of the Earth," she remarked, checking over her reflection in a mirror on the wall. Aside from a few wispy hairs that had escaped from her loose chignon she was mostly unscathed, although her complexion still hinted at the shock and breathlessness of the tour.

"They seem nice enough though," she continued, looking back at Moody. "Still not completely sure which is which, but they seem to act of a single mind, don't they? So I suppose it doesn't matter." Tucking the book under her arm, she helped herself to a small plate and selected a small bunch of grapes and a few dainty cubes of cheese before settling down in an armchair at his side. Without being asked, a servant placed a small flute of sparkling lemonade on a table within reach, and Jane looked back towards them gratefully (especially when she raised it to her lips and tasted a hint of gin beneath the sweetness).

Between the drink and the nibbles of nourishment the young woman seemed much more at ease, and once her plate was empty she set it aside and opened the book on her lap. "So, what did you and your aunt have to talk about?" she asked, beginning to turn through the pages again. Jane had intended to find the strange drawing of the octopus in order to get Jack's opinion on it, but no matter how many times she flipped through the leaves it seemed to elude her. While she truly was half-listening to Jack's explanation, it was clear from her frustrated expression that another matter was quickly beginning to occupy her mind.

"So strange..." she murmured, running her finger along a map that might have been the right page, but which was utterly devoid of even an underline, let alone an entire sketch.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“Oh, the secret corridors… I saw you emerge from that wall,” Jack said, wrinkling his forehead with a bit of concern. His eyes flicked to her hand on his shoulder as if to confirm she was really touching him, and he raised his own hand to give her a comforting, if rather wooden, squeeze on her shoulder in return. He hoped it didn't appear as awkward as it felt. “I hope they didn’t frighten you. They used to drag me through them as a child, never with an electric torch of course. It was as if they could see in the dark!” He gave a shudder. “Sometimes they’d try to lose me in them and see if I could find my way out. And they were always popping out into rooms from strange openings at unexpected times… when any decent person would expect some privacy!” He seemed to think of some memory and colored slightly. “That and their horrid pranks in the pool or the pond when we swam. Well, yes, they can be quite annoying. Anyway, you survived!”

Jack stiffened when she brought up the conversation with his Aunt, and he dithered for a second on whether to open up to Jane, but gave a shrug. Lowering his voice and glancing around to make sure Margaret wasn’t within earshot, he began.

“Just family stuff. My Grandmother is evidently very ill, she’s quite old you see, and Margaret thinks she’ll pass imminently. Yet, she’s allowing no guests to see her, and even the twins supposedly haven’t seen her in years. Margaret's let no one in to tend Nana except the horrid old house Headmistress, who must be eighty herself now and I’m not sure my mother even knows. It just doesn’t seem right, she’s my Grandmother as well and she’s locked up in the tower all alone!” There was more of course, which he didn’t feel like sharing with Jane right now, but fortunately, or unfortunately, his pretty classmate was half paying attention and more interested in the book he’d gifted her. “What’s strange?” Jack glanced at the map she was pointing at, where her finger had paused in the center of the outline of the cephalopodic image she had seen earlier, right where its eyes would be. ”Why, you are pointing to almost exactly where the mansion is, if I read that dot as Dunwich! How did you guess our location so well?”

There were no Pocumtuc dig sides marked on the spot upon which her finger rested, but the general outline of the map that hinted at a cephalopod was clear now to an observer who knew what to look for. A circle of sites, with Jane’s finger in the middle, formed the head, and then some sites trailed below, like tentacles dangling in straight lines.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said George, without a hint of apology in his voice. The swarthy, well built man flashed Jack and Jane a brief smile, but he seemed irritated. He introduced himself to Jane after giving a curt nod of recognition to Jack. “I’m George Walthers.”

“George is the Groundskeeper,” added Jack for Jane’s benefit. “He’s been with the family for, what, around fifteen years or so? Since I remember visiting at least.”

“Since the last one went crazy and quit,” George said, giving Jack a sharp glance. “Which will be my fate, it seem, as no one in this family, least of all HER, tells me anything. It's always, George, just show up at dinner at this time, or, George, we’re having guests tomorrow, or, George, the Professor needs five hundred pounds of rations at his camp, all with no warning mind you. I luckily overheard that you might be going to the Professor’s mad dig encampment tomorrow?”

George shifted, taking a swig of what appeared to be whiskey, neat, from a cocktail sized glass, and shook his head as if he thought the visit to the dig was a terrible idea.

“Well, if you are going, you need horses and I need to tell the lads to have them saddled in the morning at the barn. Jack, I’ll get your usual pony, but for you, Miss, I can arrange a very gentle mare. Have you ridden before? I could arrange a wagon instead if you prefer,” he shook his head again. “Some odd stuff has been happening on the estate recently, and I’d suggest not going down there, but if you want to, I’ll accompany you and bring my gun. Do you know how to shoot, by chance, Jack?”

He gave the boy a dubious glance.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

A conspiratorial smile crossed Jane's face as she leaned in closer to Jack's side. "You don't suppose they can see in the dark, like bats, do you?" she whispered, glancing over towards the twins' direction. It was a little catty and mean-spirited to say so, but the idea of the girls picking on their poor cousin all the time still irked her, and she was particularly concerned when he mentioned how they might pop out of a secret chamber at very inopportune time. "Once we get a chance to slip away, you'd better come up to my room and show me anything I need to barricade. The last thing I need is those two giving me a heart attack in the middle of the night."

That was probably an even more tasteless comment, considering Moody's news about his grandmother. "Oh Jack, I'm so sorry," she murmured, patting his hand. "Are you and your grandmother close?" If so, Jane could hardly imagine he would put up with her being locked away in a tower like Mr. Rochester's wife. But as a guest in the house, it wasn't really her business, and she decided it'd probably be best if she focused on the task that had brought her to the mansion in the first place.

Jack seemed just as willing to discuss the book as well, although his remark on her skill was a little unwarranted. Smiling, Jane moved her finger and leaned closer to get a better look at the page. "I'll be honest: I had no idea. I suppose my finger just happened to fall there," she explained with a chuckle before her gaze turned serious. "I wonder...the Pocumtuc would have had regular trade routes between their settlements. There must be something about this place that would draw them to treat it as a nexus. Did you ever find artifacts here when you were a kid?"

“Sorry to interrupt,” a new voice interjected before Jack could answer. “I’m George Walthers.”

"Jane Houghton," the young woman replied, reaching out to shake the newcomer's hand.

“George is the Groundskeeper,” Jack explained, resulting in an understanding nod from his colleague. “He’s been with the family for, what, around fifteen years or so? Since I remember visiting at least.”

The pair spun off in their own little thread of reminiscence, and Jane was beginning to leaf through the pages of the book again when suddenly the mention of the mysterious "Professor" piqued her interest again, making her jerk her head upright.

"Oh please, yes!" she interjected, closing the book sharply on her lap. "We've only got a week off from classes, and I just know we won't get another opportunity like this until graduate school." Jane did not seem to doubt for a moment about her own admission to the program, let alone Jack's academic intentions. "If we can't take part in the dig itself, we at least want to get a good look at the goings-on, don't we Jack?" Her brown eyes rested heavily on his, beseeching him to echo her excitement.

If anything could have made the prospect of visiting the excavation better, it was the idea of riding horses to get there. "Oh, trust me, mister," Jane added with a twinkle in her eye. "I grew up on horses. My grandaddy has more than a hundred. I'm better on a bronco than a bicycle, if you catch my meaning. In fact, I bet I could give this eastern fella a run for his money, if he didn't have the advantage of knowing the landscape." She jabbed a playful elbow into Jack's side as a servant took away her empty plate. "I'm not half bad with a rifle either, although I know it's not ladylike to admit to such things. Still, we've got lots of rattlesnakes out where I come from--coyotes and bears too--and if you've got a piece you can lend me I promise I'll keep Moody here safe."

Perhaps it was the gin-spiked lemonade that had loosened her tongue and given a more pleasant sheen to the room, but the uneasiness Jane had felt during the course of the afternoon was quickly giving way to the sparkling prospects of tomorrow. Of course before then, there was still dinner, evening, and a long night ahead of them.

"Will the Professor or any of his people be joining us for supper?" she asked, looking from Moody to Mr. Walthers, unsure which was the better authority. "I've heard so many bits and pieces about him since we got here, I'm just dying to see the man himself. What's he like?" Her gaze finally fixed on the groundskeeper, assuming he would have more first-hand knowledge than the prodigal nephew.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

"Bats? Well... Batty definitely!" groused Jack. His cousins were getting odder every year it seemed. He had hoped boarding school would make them more 'normal' as growing up in the mansion could explain some of their behavior, but they'd apparently just become much more cosmopolitan in their eccentricity. Jane's next comment, about him entering her room, had him sputtering and flustered. "Yes, I'd love to come up to your room! I mean, to help barricade and everything. I know all the secret ways in, I think... Not that I'd use them!"

He wasn't shaken emotionally about his grandmother, more annoyed it seemed as he shrugged off Jane's condolences.

"My grandmother and I aren't close, I mean I only see her once or twice a year when she used to travel," answered Jack. He shook his head and gave a sour frown. "It just doesn't make sense. Aunt Margaret says that her affliction, whatever it is, is so horrible that Nana doesn't want any guests, including her own family. And whatever condition she has started a couple of years ago. I just wish she'd told my mother, but she seems to think my mother won't want to come visit before Nana passes. I need to figure out what is going on."

But his reaction when Jane questioned him about artifacts was a bit strange. Her innocent question caused Jack's eyes go wide after a thinking a bit, and for a moment the young man adopted a thousand yard stare, as if Jane wasn't next to him and he was looking at something outside the walls of the house, with his jaws slack. Already pale, his skin seemed to turn even lighter and for a brief second, his eyelids fluttered and his slender frame swayed. Mumbled words came from his mouth, almost inaudible. "There was... a boy... a boy who dug..." With a violent shake of his head, he refocused on Jane, but clearly had no idea what had just been asked of him.

George's interruption ended the strange episode. The stocky groundskeeper seemed delighted at Jane's revelation and a true smile appeared on his face.

"A woman who loves to ride, and shoots?" George answered, giving Jack a playful nudge. "You have better taste in your acquaintances than I expected, Jack-O. She is much better than that chap you brought up a couple years ago, the one with the trunk of books that kept bumping into walls and falling down the stairs--"

"He'd broken his glasses!"

"Well, he'd broken more than that by the time the ambulance came," answered George, chuckling. "Anyway, Miss Houghton, I've got a much more spirited mare, a little more than a filly really, that you might get a kick out of riding if you like an active mount. And, if you can handle a big shotgun, I've got a nice 12 gauge for you that will be enough to make sure nothing bothers us on the ride, although don't shoot it from the saddle as none of our horses are trained for hunting. I could dig up a 20, but that'll just sting a bear... or whatever it is that's out there. Not to scare you, but some... thing, or some... one.... has been killing sheep on our land, and they pasture by the Professor's dig. I haven't seen it, but I've seen some peculiar marks on the ground and I've never seen a hoof, paw, or claw like 'em in my time...."

"Doctor Mathis!" Margaret's cry of excitement caused heads to turn. It was a veritable race between her and her daughters to be first to reach the man who strolled into the parlor with a casual wave. George's smile faded into a glower as he eyed the three women that circled the handsome Professor. Mathis was tall, with light brown hair styled impeccably, and he wore a very Professorial charcoal suit, accented with a brilliant striped blue tie and starched white shirt. He had an easy smile, confident and laughing as the women surrounded him, delighting them with quips that had all three giggling girlishly.

"You MUST meet my Nephew, Jack," said Margaret, hooking Mathis' arm and dragging him towards Jane and Jack as the twins trailed with annoyed looks on their faces. "Jack Moody, meet Dr. James Mathis of Yale. And this is Jack's... well, his school friend... Jane Houghton. They both are studying Archaeology at Miskatonic University. Jack is the one I told you about that wants to look at your dig, with Jane, tomorrow."

The Professor's smile faltered when Margaret said Miskatonic University, and while he recovered to greet the two students cheerfully, he gave a sharp glance at Margaret.

"Miskatonic?" Mathis asked Margaret, his voice pitching low. A hint of annoyance entered his tone and he tried to whisper to Margaret, but his words carried. "You didn't say he was studying there... you promised me that I'd have exclusive control of the excavation. We had an agreement." He turned to Jack and Jane, a suspicious look on his face. "Miskatonic, I see. Did Dr. Morgan send you? Or was it Freeborn from anthropology? Apologies, but they're always trying to steal my finds. Who have you told about this at Miskatonic?"

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Jane beamed at George's kind words, then glanced curiously over towards Jack. "I didn't know you ever brought anyone else up here, Moody. Was it one of the fellows from school?" She'd never even heard of Jack spending time with other boys outside of class, and the rumor among the girls was that he really didn't have friends at all. Of course it was more than possible that his circle of acquaintance was primarily outside of campus, in fact that was most likely the case. Jane was on good terms with most of the other boys in the archaeology department (well, mostly good terms; there were a few she'd had to turn down for dates that probably didn't think too kindly on her), and she'd made no secret of her trip up to Dunwich for spring break. Certainly if any of them had been to the Whitney mansion before, they would have told her, wouldn't they?

Rather than worry too much about the gossip back at school, it was quickly becoming clear that there were more pressing concerns at hand. As her smile faded, Jane nodded soberly at George's warning about firing from horseback. "Yessir, I'd appreciate that. And I promise, no firing from horseback. I was never much good at it anyway--although my big brother once got an elk from the back of his favorite mustang--but I certainly don't want to spend the rest of the week laid up because your mare threw me." She paused a moment, wondering what kind of a beast it was currently haunting the mansion.

"If it is a bear," the student said slowly. "I'd think most of the danger would be at night. We can hardly look over the camp in the dark, so by day I imagine everything should still be okay. Unless it's rabid of course, or sick with something else. But you say no one's seen a thing?" That seemed strangest of all. It was easy for a beast as hulking as a bear to disappear into the vast mountains of the west, but out here the land was so well-known, Jane would have thought it would have been impossible to escape notice. "Out of curiosity, where did you see those marks, Mr. Walthers? I'd love to get a look at them if they haven't been disturbed."

Before he could answer, Jane's attention was quickly snatched by the arrival of the much-lauded Dr. Mathis. Eyes widening, Jane immediately rose to her feet to get a better look at him, and was shocked to see the man couldn't have been more than ten or twelve years her senior. "I was expecting an old bearded fellow, like Morgan," she whispered to Jack, suddenly feeling her cheeks flush as the professor's sharp eyes landed on hers. Not only was he young, but he was more handsome than any professor or student at MU, and whatever softer feelings that might have been sprouting towards poor Moody earlier were quickly nipped in the bud in comparison.

Unfortunately, Mathis' expression had immediately hardened at the mention of Miskatonic. Raising her hands as though she'd been caught trying to make off with the silver, Jane took a cautious step backward. "No one sent us," she explained, her pride wishing her voice was a little more indignant while her common sense praised her for her light, apologetic tone. "I didn't even know what university was handling the excavation. Jack just invited me up because...well..."

Her eyes couldn't help but shift across her colleague's face as she tried to crush the speculations in her mind. "Because he thought I'd be interested in it. There aren't many girls in the archaeology program at MU, you know, and undergrads are never allowed to take part in field work. It's going to be hard enough for me to find a graduate school that accepts women, so at least getting to witness a dig will give me a leg up on the competition." Feeling a bit more confident in her words, Jane straightened up and dropped her shoulders. "I'll admit I told some friends I was coming up here to look at an excavation. I didn't say specifically where or what kind, considering I didn't really know the details. I didn't tell the professors anything though, and I can promise you that I won't. I'm even willing to sign whatever kind of paperwork you'd like."

She paused a moment, then smiled again. "I'll admit though, I'd love to get a chance to help with the excavations any way I can, and I'm willing to keep mum until graduation if I can reach out to you for a letter of recommendation when the time comes. I can't speak for my friend though. Moody?" she asked, stepping aside and giving Jack a chance to add to her persuasion.

 

[Darkest Nightmare]

“Oh, that was Finch, my Freshman year roommate,” answered Jack to Jane’s question. He had only brought a handful of friends, mostly from highschool, to the mansion, but now that he thought about it, those visitors rarely seemed to have a good time. Being thrown from horses, falling down stairs, near drownings in the pond, and horrible nightmares seemed to be the recurring theme. Finch’s trip had been a particular disaster, traumatizing in fact, and had ended whatever friendship Jack had tried to form with the reclusive scholar. Of course, this visit with Jane was going to be different… he just knew it! "He studies Maths? I doubt you’ve seen him much as he’s mostly holed up in the library. And it was merely a sprained ankle. He didn’t enjoy his time here as he couldn’t see anything after he crushed his glasses. Even worse he kept thinking people were around him, so he’d be trying to converse with lamps and dressers, or claiming he was being followed all the time.”

Jack was a bit stunned at Professor James Mathis’ arrival. He’d expected the man to be dull, boring and unattractive based on his cousins’ descriptions. Now, as the twins preened before him, trying to outdo their mother to capture the Professor’s attention, Jack realized they must have been merely annoyed that they weren’t interesting to the Professor, who likely preferred rocks and artifacts to the young women.

Mathis’ aggressive questioning caught Jack off guard, and he was momentarily speechless. He’d assumed his Aunt had shared what college he attended, but also wondered why Miskatonic University set the man off so much! The archaeology department was well respected, he knew, but the staff did seem to be a bit eccentric, in his opinion, and their research veered towards ancient cults and non-mainstream cultures. Surely this dig wasn’t something that Morgan would care about? Jack couldn’t recall Morgan ever mentioning much about Indian archaeology, which tended to be more recent and lacking in significant preserved artifacts.

Jane thankfully took the lead in replying to the Professor, while Jack gathered his thoughts. She seemed quite enthusiastic about winning the man's trust, and even appeared to be doing a bit of a campaigning for her graduate school candidacy by the end, asking for a letter of recommendation before she’d even proven her scholarly capabilities! Jack was a bit taken aback, but quickly jumped in on his own.

“Yes, Dr. Mathis, I can also assure you that we’ve mentioned this excavation to no one in an official capacity at Miskatonic University! It’s purely an academic interest of mine, or rather ours, and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see ourselves. Rest assured that we can be quite discrete. I’ve also been exploring opportunities for graduate study, and have a number of honors that I can share—”

“Is that Gallagher’s book?” interrupted Mathis to ask Jane. He’d lost interest in Jack’s words as soon as he heard Jack reiterate that they hadn’t told anyone at their college. He unhooked his arm from Margaret’s and reached out. “May I?” As he took the book and confirmed the author by studying its cover, a smile of amazement appeared on his face. “What a stroke of luck! I’ve been searching for another copy after mine was stolen several years ago. These are incredibly hard to come by! I can tell you are a real scholar if you’ve located a copy of this.”

Mathis flipped through the book, chuckling out loud and shaking his head in delight, hardly able to contain his excitement. He paused, his finger pressed on a page that Jack could tell was the same map that Jane had shown him earlier of Pocumtuc artifact sites.

“Well, it appears that it’s all settled then… I knew Jack wouldn’t tell anyone…” Margaret said, eying Mathis curiously as she wondered how to resurrect the conversation. The twins rolled their eyes, mouthing “bor-ing” at Jack and Jane, before slipping back towards the gin spiked lemonade bowl.

"Actually, the book was a gift—" began Jack.

“By golly, you’ve noticed it too, then?” Mathis exclaimed, turning to stare at Jane intensely. He hadn't even heard Jack speak, it seemed. Mathis showed the map to her and gave her an admiring look. “I came to the same conclusion years ago, which is what started my correspondence with Margaret last year.”

“Yes, well, I’m always keen to help the field of science!” Margaret interjected, upon hearing her name. “Of course, once I’d met you in person, it was very clear that I had to help you in any way I could! Such a delightful dinner we had in New York City that evening. The idea of you working on a dig for months in a tent was dreadful, so I had to host James here at the mansion, you see…”

“Forever indebted, Margaret, my Patroness,” answered Mathis, flashing her a brilliant smile that made the older woman blush. To Jane, he explained, suddenly animated. “This excavation could be the culmination of years of research and would be a staggering revelation about the state of pre-Columbian society in the Americas. Earth shattering, to say the least, and pun intended you’ll see. You have to understand that’s why I’m a bit… nervous… about other researchers snooping around before I’ve finished and published my report. The stonework I’ve discovered is of a kind and using a level of technology never seen before in this continent, and the artifacts, well they indicate an active trade network that reached down the Miskatonic to Kingsport. Look at this…”

Mathis fished around in the leather bag he had slung over a shoulder and produced a small, probably eight inch long, rectangular chunk of stone. On it was carved a petroglyph, the round shape and squiggly lines hinted at a cephalopod, perhaps an octopus of some sort? Jack craned his neck to peek over Jane’s shoulder as Mathis handed the stone artifact to her to inspect.

“These petroglyphs are common at the site, and indisputable evidence of trading down to the ocean,” Mathis said, staring at Jane with a bit of wonder in his eyes. “You can hold on to that, go ahead, keep it. I’ll trade you for this book for a night! After dinner, I’d love to show you some of drafts I’ve written on my thesis, and clearly, I think we can find a role for you in this dig that will more than earn you a recommendation to any program in the country! A young scholar of your talents can open any door she desires, regardless of gender!”

The thud of Jack’s unconscious body hitting the floor made everyone turn, for the boy had fainted out of the blue!