Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 165
Felecia kept her place by the door, though she was careful enough to shut it behind her incase voices began to raise. Phillip didn’t as much take a seat on the old rocking chair as his body fell down onto it with a plopping sound followed be a variety of creaky complaints from the chair.
Phillip didn’t speak, or even seem to breathe, there was no fire in the hearth, what embers there were from the overnight log were barely visible wisps of dull orange. Felecia wasn’t going to be the one to speak up. She didn’t want to feed Phillip any more information than what Taryn had already said.
Girl.
Nana, Jacqueline, and now Phillip. Everyone around Felecia, everyone who she once thought had cared for her or those she was closest or most bound to, they always used that word. That foul sounding curse word said in such a particular way. There could be no coincidence.
The silence continued and surpassed the point of absurdity.
“I have broken the wills of kings and prophets alike. I have followed in the wake of injured whales the length of whole oceans before they finally delivered themselves to me. Battled the leviathans of old and won. You are, by far, the most stubborn animal I have ever encountered in all my eons.”
Felecia had often wondered as she watched Jacqueline sleep next to her in the cave, just how devoted to the monster had the old witch really become. She had wondered then, thinking back on dearest Nana, just how much genuine scorn and disdain could a person have for their own progeny? She had never had to wonder about Phillip though, not until she heard him use that word.
Running away was meant to save Phillip, to save them all, even Nana, even the awful villagers, from her. Walking off into the wilderness had been meant to save them all from her, staying alone in the cave was meant to keep the monster out in the waves and its awful will away from everyone else, once and for all.
There seemed to be a thousand questions that all came to the surface at once as Felecia considered how best to respond. The voice was Phillip’s without a doubt but that hoarse, exhausted voice was too smooth, too erudite, too well read to come from Phillip’s mind.
Some of those questions were obvious, others merely self-serving. There were a lot of “why me” and “how long” and “why her” related questions, not to mention a hearty collection of petty demands, most of which regarded poor Phillip and leaving the old groundskeeper the hell alone, once and for all.
The monster out in the waves had done so much meddling, so much damage, it was vast and powerful and now the awful thing had proven beyond a doubt that it would continue to warp and destroy everyone Felecia had ever known and especially those who she regarded fondly.
In the end there were no questions that would bring an end to all the misery. No demands the monster out in the waves would fall too, no compromises to be made. Felecia knew what the awful creature wanted, what it had always wanted.
“I’ll go do it, tonight.”
Phillip didn’t speak any further, not an affirmative grunt or a mirthless “good.”
There was another absurdly long silence and then a soft, wheezy snoring that emanated from the figure in the rocking chair.
Felecia didn’t bother looking for Taryn, the youth wouldn’t have any words for her anyway, instead she walked back to her shack and contemplated the only choice that seemed available to her.