Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part Ninety Four
The book turned out to be just as coded and full of infuriating tidbits of the writers real life as the book written by Felecia’s great, great grandmother. Great uncle Phineas was the second son of Tiasa and Albert, behind son Jeremiah and ahead of daughters Abigail and Fionna. He made easy and often mention within the book of his time spent watching the building of Rotary house on its hill from the place where he and his mother were sequestered near the fishing village. He never spoke of his parents by name in the book, calling his mother the word for mother in her tongue a few times, and only calling his father “the great man” in an obvious tone of disdain.
Most of the book, hand written and printed using a stamp press, really was about the local coastal waters. Descriptions of the local shoals and prevailing currents. The information would have been useful to most seafarers around the island but it was obviously written with canoes and skiffs in mind. The villagers, those few who had boats all used Yankee fishers, the family boats were all large merchant vessels before they were all sold off or lost at sea.
“Why did Phineas row around in a canoe for so long?”
Felecia chose to blurt the question out while she tended to the significant garden of herbs and flowering plants that she chose to grow close to the well. Jacqueline had only come up to fill a pot with well water and chose to shrug at the question until Felecia closed the distance.
“Why did he call his father the great man? Why did he make mention of him and Tiasa languishing in a fishing hut while his father built the big house up on the hill?”
Felecia considered those questions and came back with a few of her own, “Why am I here, living with you for over a year now and still getting handed obtuse riddles about our family history? If you have answers, if you know, why not just tell me?”
Jacqueline smiled the worst sort of knowing smirk and Felecia felt a small prickle of hatred run up her spine from the crack of her ass to her neck. The words launched out of her and she refused to regret them. “You’re so old, so fucking old and you’ve had these books all this time and you don’t even know, do you? You’re just handing them to me and hoping I’ll come up with answers. Well, I don’t have any, our family and this island are conjoined in our miserable brokenness. We are equally decrepit and worthless, that’s all that binds us. The dim glory of yesteryear and nothing more!”
Jacqueline stood still and waited calmly while Felecia produced her rage and howled it out in barely coherent stages until she ran dry and began to cough from the effort.
“I know it all, girl, to my everlasting disgrace and dishonor, I know it all. I didn’t have to learn it from old books, I was made to know it with every angry look, every curved pair of lips, every open-handed slap or icy sting of the strap. You think having to suss it all out is your punishment? I’m doing you a favor this way, I’m handing it to you slow, the only way you’ll ever be able to soak up all the horror.”
Felecia nearly spat it out, she had been holding it all in for over a year by then. “Horror? You mean the abomination of incest? You mean your incessant mentions of your brother Abraham and your lover Abe? You all but spelled that out for me. I don’t care a fig for your indiscretion, why am I tasked to read out the slow, awful plot of one angry family member against another because of your sin? Just tell me what I need to know!”