Requiem in White

It must be said, with some degree of temerity, the occult and I are intimate.

So, yes, I am known in the Halls of Shegorab. I am versed in the labyrinthine passages that descend the Mad Stairs beneath our very feet. My meditations on the cryptic and obscure, my dissertations to those unafraid to dabble in the darker ways—these are all matters of record, albeit a record viewed by singular few. Some would call me charlatan. My calling is Truth; let what will come of it rise to the surface of its own accord.

So it is, with some small hope that my documented success delving The Mysteries brings with it the air of plausibility, that I bring this tale to you…

Pardon, but a small aside—you must understand how little I enjoy the yuletide holiday festivities. The cacophony of those revelling in the birth of a Younger God does little more than sour my stomach. Most that share this globe will never know how bright are the ruminations of the Eldritch Dreamers, those that slept while the Christ suckled.

But, apologies, I digress.

To whit, I returned to my apartment on the evening in question in a moribund state of mind, one accelerated to near fever pitch by the raised voices of inebriated carolers wandering my row. The temptation to curse them in good measure was not enough to draw me from my seat as my mind still grappled with the ill humor of my earlier engagement.

From time to time, my services are called upon by the local authorities to provide insight in matters beyond the flaccid scope of their pedestrian imaginings. Such was this occurrence—the disappearance of a young boy by methods unknown. Normally with such requests, it is my intellect required, not my occult leanings; the local constabulary is precious little encumbered with solid powers of reason. In this instance, it was otherwise.

By some method unknown, past locked windows and bolted doors the youngest male child of the town scions, the Rottenheims, had disappeared. Worse still, many family members were present in the house for a winter gathering and none shed a helpful light on the mystery. All had been questioned and, naturally, all swore no knowledge—though most did complain of a lingering odor of decay and headaches that kept them in their chambers, awaiting the return of the wait staff after the weekend. I was in agreement with the lieutenant detective in this (an oddity indeed) that one of the family must know more, and set to question them myself.

My reputation as a master of the seance was widely spread and known to the Rottenheims. Access was no issue—which led me to my questioning of young Mina. A waif, of such paper thin skin that the effluence of the silver moon might shine through her, Mina at the age of nine offered little but the blank stare of one who has seen dreams. This ephemeral quality—it called to my inner places, and immediately I set to asking about her brother Aberton.

Young Mina’s words were, at first, simple enough.

“He opened it.”

Smiling, I attempted the sort of warm demeanor that others display easily. “What did he open, Mina?”

The mirrors of her eyes grew large, the silver-blue looking past my own to the well of the Unspeakable Things, paying little attention to my feigned fondness. “Abe opened it, and he should never have.”

Curious althemoreso, I pressed on. “Do you mean a gift?”

Mina nodded, the depth of darkness still lighting her silver-blue eyes. “Yes. Because we knew not to. The man said.”

The earnestness of the child’s delivery set aside my notion to suspect her of fabrication. Truth from an innocent is a paradigm to be reckoned with—precious. My instinct said the matter required further explanation. “This man—who was he?”

At that, the child’s mouth snapped shut, and she shook her head, after the manner of the tortured who will not give a secret, even unto death. I knew my time of gleaning was drawing to an end, but my experience with the Others told me that certain rules apply within the pathways to Truth.

“Mina. You mustn't speak more of this, is that correct?” Her nod to the affirmative was all the confirmation required. “But—if you say nothing, only nod, we may continue—there’s no harm, hmm?” Suspicious eyes narrowed, but the path was set. “Good. Did the man tell Abe the rules as well?”

Downcast eyes followed this but a small nod as well.

“I see.” I tapped the table. “And did The Man know Abe had broken the rules?”

At this, the young lady’s eyes snapped open, her chair skittered away from our shared table and she fled for the door, her crystal-bell voice trailing behind her.

“He sees all!”

The echo of her statement stunned the deepest part of my long jaded core. In my work, not the mundane duties of investigation I’m called to on odd occasions, but the core of the darkest part of my duties. I have learned the resonance of Truth, and the power of belief in such. Mina may not have known the extent of her fears, but she fully well believed them. The innocence of her delivery convinced me that I must research further.

Which brings us full circle. My library is my refuge, a sanctum sanctori for the wealth of knowledges, both hard-fought for and illicit, that aid me in my understanding of the bitterest of the black things. To this retreat, I came to ponder the case as I knew it. Given as I was to my own thoughts, my rug, a Persian carpet with a large repository of patience, has come to understand I trod it out of love...and while pacing, my thoughts speak out loud.

“Abe...gone from a sealed house...with no trace of entry or foul play...Each family member either incapicitated by the miasma of the offending odor, or asleep in such a way that their dreams were shadows with no light to offer this conundrum….” I turned, having reached the end of the library, and continued my well-worn path. “and Mina—a girl with no pretense or reason to offer such...a sole witness, or at the very least and intuit to the missing brother...and then The Man . . . "

Here I must say how often, and how easy it becomes for the mortal, the epically normal example of humanity, to categorize the things from the depths, the titans of the beyond, as innocence or fairy tale. Even the earlier holiday, with All Hallows Eve festivities, as dark and morbid as some may find them, there is a veneer of acceptability over a yawning abyss of unfathomable madness. This is the power of the human—to live a life free of the certain knowledge that we are but dust in the clockwork of the Elders.

I am not graced with this dubious freedom.

Crossing to the Necronomicon , I spun the pages fiercely, searching for an answer that my just conscience already had told me. “Shebarg? No—no blood. Korath, the Destroyer? Nonsense—not for the mere taking of a child . . .” But then the grimoire, as it often will, fell open to the page I required. I had my answer, grim as it was.

Please allow me the luxury of expediency. Time draws short and I fear that little else can be done regardless of the depth of my intent. For you see, even now, the dainty feet of young Mina approach from the lower rooms. And the house has fallen into the slumber of the Dreamer as I suspected it must. And, as that sleep deepens, the dreams of the Dark Ones hold tight the household, The Man comes. Even as I tell you this—listen! Something travels the bricks in the great room, with wretched rasping on the stones as it finds its way down a chimney that a moment before roared with the heat of oaken fire, now gone cold as the cosmos.

Do you hear? Do you hear the silver ring of the bells? The knell of a saturnine death come in the guise of good cheer? I have no wish to—my limbs tremble as I push open the door to the scene, illuminated by candles and draped in shadows . . .

Little Mina stands at the far end of the room, a shift of such delicacy on her small frame that the winter moon lances through it, her body a slim shadow beneath. Such fae beauty would beg to be immortal in paint or stone, studio secreto.

But—we are not alone. My eyes have seen the deepest lights of winter midnight come. The tangential horror of the Elder Ones has failed to raise my orbs—but they cannot stop from rising to meet the twinkle of his. Light from beyond the mausoleum of the sky inhabits my chilled heart. His fetid rotund belly, dressed in the scarlet of blood taken from bone shakes under a beard white as grave cloth.

And then The Man speaks.

Forever shall I remember his voice, tainted with the spell of jolly mirth lain over the solstice of death

“Oh, what naughty children you have been.”