Deep Waters - Womenfolk...

I waited until I couldn’t hear any more gunfire. At that point I sat up and fumbled for the door, slamming it shut. My foot bumped against something in the footwell, so I instinctively picked it up hoping it was another gun: it turned out to be a full bottle of Jack Daniels. I unscrewed the lid and took a long pull. That accomplished, I noticed that I was covered with little flecks of light that sparkled in the ambience.

‘What’s all this sparkly crap?’ I said.

Prudence glared at me from the rear-vision mirror. ‘There was this great party at Studio 54 where they covered the floor in about three inches of glitter. I haven’t been able to get rid of it. You wanna tell me what that shit was all about?’

I winced and lounged back in the seat. ‘Those were some customers of Winston’s’ I said; ‘that should be enough to tell you why they’re so cranky.’

‘He screwed them over?’

I nodded. ‘And they’re probably the reason why the Drowners are affecting the town.’ I filled her in about our dealings with the Latinos earlier that evening.

She slammed her hand on the steering wheel. ‘Gods-dammit! That smirking little fry is gonna cop the back of my hand!’

I grinned and took another slug of the bottle, imagining that interaction.

‘And don’t think you’re getting off lightly either,’ she went on glaring at me from the mirror, ‘you’re big enough and ugly enough to know better than to let Winston off of a short lead! What were you thinking, Benson?’

‘Hey!’ I grumbled, ‘I was all set on getting wasted with Rodney – I didn’t ask to get dragged out to Hicksville.’

Prudence slammed on the brakes and I mashed my nose and the bottle neck into the head-rest of the seat in front of me. I shook my head and listened to her footsteps crunching gravel around to the door to my right. It swung open and she launched herself in to sit next to me.

‘Hand over the Jack,’ she said waving her crimson-clawed hand. I did so and she took a long swig.

‘Those guys ain’t gonna take an insult lying down,’ she said, coming up for air; ‘in fact they’ll be wanting to exact some kinda vengeance…’

‘I told Winston he should’nt oughta have…’

‘…And you say that Boone kid worked some kinda mojo on them?’ Obviously, I was just going to be a kind of fact-checker for Prudence while she got everything straight in her head, so I just nodded and reached for the bottle.

‘Yep,’ I said, ‘he “undimensioned” them.’

She handed over the hooch. ‘Which means that anything else “undimensioned” out there - like a Drowner, for instance – would be able to see them and follow them here. Dagon’s water-wings Benson! You guys led them to Innsmouth!’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I waved my hand to get her to lower the volume, ‘I’ve been slowly working that out as I’ve been going along. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be able to do something about it before Abner finds out.’

‘“Do something?”’ she gaped at me. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’

‘Not nearly,’ I said kicking open the door nearest to me. ‘It’s Winston’s mess, but I had a hand in it; so I’m gonna put it right. Wanna help me?’ I gave her a questioning look; she thought about it for a minute, which I took as a realistic assessment of my capabilities.

‘Okay,’ she said at last, opening the door next to her, ‘but only because it’s you. We’re here; let’s go.’

The Eliot place was brooding in the darkness in its austere majesty. It was all towers and cupolas and widow-walks, not unlike someplace the Addams family would choose to settle. From inside, we could hear the weird ululations that normally signalled a gathering of the distaff aspect of the Innsmouth community. I let Prudence take the lead – this was definitely her territory, not mine.

We walked up the steps to the rickety front porch and hopped the missing or broken planks until we were at the front door. Prudence rapped sharply on one of the unbroken panes that decorated it. A blurred pale shape appeared on the other side of the glass and coalesced into a staring blue eye. It withdrew and the door creaked malodorously open.

Innsmouth women are a pretty traditional lot, even moreso than the men. After marrying, they all seem to adopt severe black as a uniform, with a preference for headscarves and sensible shoes of the same colour. The only relief to this inky pallette are their aprons which range across the entire spectrum of the tropical fish-tank. The woman who had admitted us was typical in this regard: four feet tall at most, pop-eyed and lacking in the chin department, head to foot in black with the exception of an apron adorned with a colourful pizza image and emblazoned with the words “That’s Amore!”. She darted a brief dismissive look in my direction then stepped back to run a slow gaze over Prudence from stiletto heels to afro ‘do. Her expression remained impassive but I could tell by the way her Adam’s apple bounced that she was experiencing a wave of deep disapproval.

‘Hey Prissy,’ Prudence chirped, ‘Abner sent me over to see what’s going on.’

‘Come in Prudence,’ a dark and sinuous voice rolled out from the gloom within, ‘we should have something to report soon.’

‘Hey, Mama,’ Prudence said slipping past Prissy and I crept in behind her, trying to blend in with the hallway wallpaper. Prissy ogled me for a moment, her throat bobbing, but decided I was harmless and hobbled off back to the gathering inside.

Prudence was talking to her mother Jezebel. Like the rest of the Gilman clan, Jezebel Gilman was not one to adhere to conformity. She was tall with long, straight black hair. She wore the regulation black skirt and shoes, but with a dark green sweater over the top. She was leaning heavily on her cane and smoking a cigarette. In the baleful ambience of the Eliot mansion, her pale green eyes glowed.

‘Prudence,’ she was saying, ‘couldn’t you have at least tried to dress appropriately?’

Prudence pouted. ‘I came as soon as Abner called,’ she replied, ‘I was on my way to a great party, too.’

‘I’m not sure that I like you living down there in that sinful city,’ said Jezebel, ‘it seems to be giving you bad ideas.’

‘Mama, I’m there because Abner and the Order want me there. You know that.’

‘I’m sure there must be someone else who could do their dirty-work for them,’ Jezebel complained, ‘and let my baby-girl come home.’

‘That’s quite likely Mama, but no-one can do it like I can. Now, can we get to work here?’

‘Who’ve you brought with you?’ Jezebel beamed her glowing green gaze at me.

‘You remember Benson, don’t you Mama?’

‘Hmm.’ Jezebel gave me the once-over, much as Prissy had given Prudence. ‘Benson Waite. I hear you’ve been mistreating Doreen Hepplethwaite…’

I blinked. ‘“M-mistreating”?’ I stammered. “No. We just had a disagreement, is all.’

Jezebel narrowed her gaze at me and took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Well that’s not the way I hear it,’ she said with a ring of finality, ashing her smoke on the hallway carpet. She took Prudence by the arm, ‘come along – we have work to do.’

Hunch-shouldered and muttering, fists in my pockets, I shuffled after them.

When I mentioned earlier that Abner had said “word had come from the ether”, I should have been more specific. It was not to imply that auguries had descended from some nebulous outer void; rather, he was talking about the substance, used in earlier times as an anaesthetic, and its effects upon Stan Eliot’s daughter, Constance. Constance was an “exotic”, a member of the Innsmouth community kept hidden from the wider world due to their special natures. How it happened that someone discovered the unusual effects of ether upon Constance, I don’t know, but the results have been a useful community resource ever since.

Entering the parlour in the wake of Jezebel and Prudence, I met the collective gaze of the female aspect of that community: a phalanx of black, floating upon which was a sea of wall-eyed faces above a cacophonous riot of coloured aprons. There was a hushed and outraged murmur rising to the ceiling at which Prudence rolled her eyes and signalled me to take a seat next to her on a rickety chaise.

In the centre of the room an old enamel hip bath stood in the middle of the circular parlour rug. In a circle around this five women sat on dining-table chairs dragged in from the room next door; each of them held a pen or pencil and something upon which to write. The rest of the women stood around the walls of the room, or sat on the parlour chairs, while Prissy and another woman circulated among them with steaming teapots, re-filling cups.

In the bath lay Constance Eliot. She looked young and unwell, but this was mostly a function of her being fish-belly pale. She was wearing a swimming costume from the previous century, including the frilly cap which hid her short-cropped dark hair. From each of the sleeves of this costume protruded three long coiling tentacles, which writhed and slopped in the water, occasionally crawling up the sides of the bath as if independently exploring their surroundings. Although not visible, I knew that, from the waist downwards, Constance was simply a mass of similar appendages, all the same bluish-white hue mottled a light dove-grey, and constantly roaming of their own accord. They don’t come more exotic than Constance Eliot, and her presence was considered a blessing upon the community.

As we watched, Verity Eliot – Stan’s frizzy-haired wife – emerged from one of the inner rooms, walking carefully and carrying a large fruit jar filled to the brim with a pellucid liquid. The sharp, caustic tang of it shot through the room and at once Constance’s lolling head reared up and she began to make incoherent mewling sounds. The five seated women straightened up and began to prepare themselves: one of them, wearing thick-lensed glasses, placed the tips of her fingers against her temples and began muttering; another began rubbing an old, stone Dagon fetish; the rest uncapped pens or smoothed down pages. Verity crouched down carefully next to the hip bath.

‘Yes dear,’ she said, ‘Momma’s here with your magic drink.’

Gently fighting off a wave of grasping tentacles, she tipped Constance’s head back and carefully poured the jar’s contents down her throat, slowly so as to give her time to swallow. When she had finished, she stood and carefully wiped Constance’s face with the edge of her “Kiss the Cook!” apron. Everyone in the room craned forward expectantly.

At first nothing much seemed to happen, although Constance began to slump down lower and lower in the bath. I began to get alarmed that she might start drowning while all of us watched on. I looked nervously at Prudence, but she was busy fixing her lipstick using a mirror compact. When I looked back, Constance’s head was almost completely underwater and still, no-one seemed to be bothered. Around me, muttered conversations and the clinking of teacups continued. I started to rise up from my seat to go to her aid…

Suddenly, the water splashed violently and Constance rocketed upwards out of the bath. Suspended in the air, water running freely off her, she began making burbling sounds as her head lolled about and her limbs shivered and writhed in complex knots around her. To my even greater surprise, no-one else in the room flinched. The gathered witnesses all just put down their drinks and turned to pay attention, as if an invited speaker had just stepped up to the lectern and signalled their intention with a polite cough.

‘Oh good,’ said Prudence next to me snapping her compact shut, ‘that didn’t take long at all.’

The five seated women began scribbling as fast as they could, while Jezebel walked around them and examined their work, occasionally leaning-in to make corrections or clarifications.

‘The salmon are going to be running early this year,’ said the woman with the Dagon fetish, in a distant, dreamy voice. At this, several women cheered and huddled together in excited discussion, resuming their teacups once more.

‘Storms in October,’ said the woman seated across from her, tapping her fountain-pen on her notebook, ‘that’s hardly a surprise Constance. Come on, you can do better than that!’ There were several nods of agreement around the parlour, and Verity craned upwards to whisper encouragement to her daughter.

Jezebel leaned in sharply to look at what the bespectacled woman had written and there was a terse exchange.

‘I don’t know what it means,’ said the woman shrugging, ‘but it came in clear as a bell!’

Jezebel snatched the notepad out of the medium’s hand and held it up. ‘“She wasn’t thinking when she said she thought your dream of becoming a private detective was silly; it just caught her off-guard. She didn’t think you were being serious,”’ she read aloud. She looked carefully around the room: ‘does that mean anything to anyone?’

Unfortunately, it meant an awful lot to me, but I didn’t feel like owning up to it in the midst of all this gathered company. I slumped down on the chaise and tried to make myself invisible.

‘Nobody?’ queried Jezebel as heads shook all around her, ‘alright it must be just random noise. Let’s continue…’

And so it went on, Constance twitching, lightly shrieking and burbling while floating in the air, the five mediums receiving and interpreting the babble, and the scraps of information thrown to the gathered community to be chewed over and discussed. The teapots went round and around.

One of the mediums tentatively raised her hand.

‘Yes, Tabitha?’ Jezebel commanded.

‘Umm, it’s maybe nothing…’ Tabitha responded.

‘Out with it: let us all be the judge of that.’

Tabitha read out her scrawl: ‘“You can tell by the way I usually work, I’m a wanted man, no tiny fork.” No, I think it’s just more noise…’

‘Give it here,’ ordered Jezebel, ‘Beatrice, you and Mabel see if you can make anything of this.’

On the chaise, I was trying not to snigger and wondering how many more of my friends were about to get exposed by Constance’s mojo.

Suddenly Constance stiffened and her head snapped up, staring eyes open and seeing nothing. A pale tongue emerged to lick her lips and she nodded, growling all the while.

‘‘Es,’ she said, ‘‘Essss…’

‘Yes what, dear?’ said Verity at her side.

All of the mediums suddenly jerked into motion some of them screaming. Pens and pencils ground away at tearing paper. Around them Jezebel and the other ladies leapt into action with shoulder rubs and cool compresses, urging them on to action while Constance’s tentacles whipped through the air above them. The woman with the Dagon fetish began to go into spasms and Jezebel rallied her troops.

‘Rebekah’s done, ladies; take her away to lie down.’

At this point, there finally seemed to be something I could help with, so I stood and picked Rebekah up in one smooth movement. Turning to the women backing away from me in surprise, I said: ‘Tell me where you want her, ladies.’

Cowering back from me, they looked to Jezebel for a sign. She gave a terse nod and flicked a finger by way of telling them to carry on. As I followed the women from the room, several of Constance’s tentacles lighted on my face and dragged off as I moved to the hallway. She gave a gurgling laugh as they did so.

The women took me upstairs to a small bedroom on the next storey. Rebekah came out of her fit as I laid her on the bed and she stared upwards blearily at me.

‘It’s you,’ she said weakly ‘you’ll be there when it’s done.’ She fumbled on the bed as the other ladies tried to cover her with a quilt.

‘Take this,’ she said pressing something hard and cold into my hands, ‘you’ll need it for sure.’

I looked down and saw that she’d given me the stone Dagon fetish. It was about the size of a pine-cone and made of greenish-black smooth stone. Its blank eyes and pointed teeth gleamed in the low light. I was drawn back from my examination by one of the ladies, her apron an explosion of red and white hibiscus flowers and lobsters.

‘Git out,’ she ordered, ‘no menfolk needed here.’ I didn’t need to be told twice.

I wandered back downstairs and noted that there seemed to be a degree of excitement coming from the parlour. As I walked in, Tabitha was reading from her notebook:

‘Three men-’

‘Four men,’ one of the other mediums cut in, consulting her notes. Tabitha rolled her eyes.

‘Three or four men,’ she went on, ‘threaten us in the name of the Black One-’

‘He Who Comes In Darkness…’ several other women chanted tonelessly.

‘…and they carry his gateway with them, shining in the darkness.’

One of the other mediums stood up lifting her notepad.

‘Ta Will et Ummer – I’m not really sure of the pronunciation – Constance seems certain that a minion of this being walks cloaked amongst us and is causing us harm.’

Jezebel breathed out a cloud of smoke. ‘Is that French?’ she asked. The medium shrugged.

‘Let’s get that to Abner as soon as possible’

‘What of the black faceless demons?’ queried Tabitha.

‘Um, I'm pretty sure Barney Marsh and I took care of them,’ I interjected.

Jezebel narrowed her eyes at me and stubbed out her smoke on the rim of Constance’s hip bath. Constance was back in the water, seemingly passed out amid the excitement and bustle around her.

‘Alright ladies,’ Jezebel turned to her troops, ‘finish writing up your thoughts and give them to Prudence. She needs to get this information to the Temple quickly.’

There was a rustling of paper as Prudence gathered the transcribed pages into her arms.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘we’ll be off then.’

The women all gave in to a communal sigh of relief and self-congratulation as we left, but I could feel Jezebel’s eyes on my back all the way out to the front porch.

‘Well, that was interesting…’ I shook my shoulders, shuddering, and hopped across the rickety boards after Prudence, who was jingling her car keys.

‘Be impressed,’ she replied, ‘you menfolk don’t often get to be involved in that.’

We were stopped in our tracks by an approaching cry.

‘Benson? Is that you?’

Boothe ran in out of the darkness and stopped, panting, his hands on his knees.

‘What’s happening Boothe?’ I hurried over to him.

‘Trouble. In town,’ he gasped. ‘The Latinos…’

I shot a glance at Prudence.

‘You go,’ she said, throwing her pages into the back seat of the Caprice with a puff of glitter, ‘I’ll get this stuff to the Temple.’

I nodded and Boothe and I raced into the dark…

*****

To Be Continued...