Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part Fifty Four
The reek of mold and ancient dust, the creaking of uneven floorboards. The old ruined house was enough of a barrier from sound sleep. The unsettling sounds of the ocean waves lapping against crushed shells and smooth pebbles was even worse. The ocean made the sound of disquieting whispers that way. Felecia wondered if the ocean always made that sound, she had never tried to sleep in the village down by the waves, and the water there was far calmer than here besides.
The cursed, unintelligible whispering worked at Felecia’s nerves and made sleep a nearly impossible goal. Exhaustion and hunger, powerful forces that they were became stubborn subjects to that awful noise.
The chicken that had been following Felecia since she chose to investigate the old house still seemed a companion that refused to take a hint. The dumb animal settled and came to nest at the edge of the blanket Phillip had provided as part of the provisions granted Felecia for her indefinite solitude. The bird bawked quietly when Felecia stirred and then again as she found herself absently stroking the dumb thing from the top of its head down to its back and then again. The motion of her fingers running along the animals feathers soothed them both. For a few moments there seemed a genuine chance for sleep and peace, until the small light out at the edge of the western tree line of the clearing showed itself.
Felecia found herself absently thumbing along the chicken’s head, neck and back with increasing regularity as that distant candle light showed and began to grow brighter. The ocean waves worked their way through the crushed shells and smooth pebbles, it continued to whisper and those whispers began to take on a dark tone. Soon it seemed as if the whole place, the clearing, the flower field, the murky looking animals in the crude corral, even the very sagging walls of the old crate home began to whisper in hushed, subhuman contempt.
The distant light soon showed itself as a stooped figure holding a mirrored lantern. The lantern light was aimed at the old house but plenty of light spilled over to show a withered hand with long white nails. A hooded face leered out from behind the focus of the light, the scales were white as snow but obvious as they surrounded a wrinkled face with a prominent nose and motely patches of white and silver whiskers.
The ancient figure leaned heavily on a gnarled stick and plodded slowly through the clearing over to the corral, the lantern light aimed at the deformed and malnourished goats, ignoring the old house and Felecia still hidden within.
The ancient form grew closer until Felecia could clearly make out the edges of old, fine clothing long ago turned to earthen colors and spoiled by decades of soil. The woman was older than Nana. Felecia didn’t know that women could ever look older than dear, sainted Nana, but this one surely did.