Sunkissed Innsmouth
Party Twenty Six
Felecia didn’t dare speak anymore, not then, not after Phillip’s continuous wall of reasons and excuses. They were on their way to the nearside of the beach where the village ended, on their way to where all the commotion was coming from. She changed tactics, wanting to flesh out any chance of an option to do what was clearly the right thing.
“We’ll continue to find out who did this, either way, right? I mean, we’ll figure it out and make them pay for what they did, right?”
Phillip didn’t stop or give Felecia any looks, grim or otherwise. “Just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. What we observe here may be worth far more than anything we hear or say when it comes to knowing who killed those people, but no, I don’t imagine we will. Whoever killed those people is already long gone with their provisions and not coming back to the village.”
Felecia stopped for a moment and considered the situation, and Phillip. What sort of man had she allied herself with? She owed him sure, and so much, but this was worse than just handing over the bulk of their hunt to keep the peace with Nana. This was outright ignoring right and wrong for the sake of placating a village mob and ignoring the pursuit of truth or justice afterwards. Phillip wasn’t wise or strong, or well, he certainly wasn’t as wise or as strong as Felecia assumed that he was back when he offered her a place to stay and a way to continue living, meager as that life had been.
Phillip stopped soon after and spoke without turning around. “The back field fences east of the barn need to get checked and the goats need feeding. Go back and get some sleep so you can see to it in the morning.”
Felecia stayed in place and watched Phillip as he picked his way through the wet muck and the patches of hardpacked snow. She stood there until he was out of sight before she decided she had spent enough time evaluating what needed to be done.
By the time Felecia reached the beach front shanties that belonged to the fishermen and the huts that served as storage for their canoes and dinghies the mayhem was well underway. Phillip was trying to single out two men to ask his questions to while the mob circled him and pointed angrily at the small boat shack where they had the killer cornered. Phillip was trying to get actual first-hand accounts and he was coming up blank while losing patience with the blowhards demanding that he do something.
Felecia noticed a woman, a man next to her was pressing a rag against her arm but she was trying to push him away, assuring him that she was fine. Felecia slipped into the edge of the crowd and reached the woman. She was nearly as fish faced as old Phillip but also calmly in a broad cheeked way.
“Are you okay?” Felecia was careful to keep out of the way and speak quietly. The woman and the man fussing over her were the only people to notice Felecia so far. The woman shrugged and looked at Felecia hard. “Oh, you’re that Conway girl.”
Felecia tried to smooth and soothe, she nodded but also shrugged her shoulder and let her bow fall off her shoulder and into her hand. “I used to be, but no more. I came with Phillip to see what happened tonight. Can you tell me what happened to you?”
The woman was disarmed and started recounting that she woke up with Mullens’ boy sobbing and tugging on her arm while she laid in bed next to her husband. She said the boy seemed scared, terrified even, he was mumbling nonsense but he was wearing blood-soaked clothes and he was pulling on her arm trying to get her to come outside.
The lout fussing at her arm butted in, “That dumb animal tried to kill my Gertie! That groundskeeper needs to do his job and kill the son of a bitch!”
Felecia motioned to the woman who seemed calm and more settled than the gibbering man busily pressing a rag against her arm. “Pardon me, but she just said he was begging her, he was scared…”
The lout, red eyed and smelling of wood alcohol pushed at Felecia and shouted. “I know what happened! I was there! You weren’t so stay out of it!”
Another man, standing nearby, came in and grabbed Felecia by the arm. “Oh look. The old witches’ brat wants to tell us how to live. Fuck that. We should ransom her back to the big house so we can all live out the winter!”