Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

“Talk?” she said—and then the cloud lifted from her brow. “Ah, talk! Now I remember! It was something you were telling me one time, but we were somehow interrupted. I think it was Anne. Yes, she came on the scene just as you were going to talk about... about... wasn’t it that coastal town in America, the place that George came from, that you were telling me about?”

“Innsmouth?” said the old man. “Yes, I believe I recall the occasion. But I also recall how nervous you were. And Jilly, in my opinion—from what I’ve observed of you, er, in my capacity as a doctor or ex-doctor— it seems to me that odd or peculiar subjects have a very unsettling effect on you. Are you sure you want to hear about Innsmouth?”

“While it’s true that certain subjects have a bad affect on me,” she began slowly, “at the same time I’m fascinated by anything concerning my husband’s history or his people. Especially the latter, his genealogy.” She speeded up a little. “After all what do we really know of genetics—those traits we carry down the generations with us—traits passed on by our forebears? And I think to myself, perhaps I’ve been avoiding George’s past for far too long. Things have happened here, James...” She clutched his arm. “Weird alterations, alienations, and I need to be sure they can’t ever happen again, not to me or mine!” She was going full tilt now. “Or if they do happen, that I’ll know what to do—what to do about—do about...”

But there Jilly stopped dead, with her mouth still open, as if she suddenly realised that she’d said too much, too quickly, and even too desperately.

And after a long moment’s silence the old man quietly said, “Maybe I’d better ask you again, my dear: are you sure you want me to tell you about Innsmouth?”

She took a deep breath, deliberately stilled the twitching of her slender hands on the arms of her chair, and said “Yes, I really would like to know all about that place and its people.”

“And after I’ve gone, leaving you on your own here tonight? What of your dreams, Jilly? For I feel I must warn you: you may well be courting nightmares.”

“I want to know,” she answered at once. “As for nightmares: you’re right, I can do without them. But still I have to know.”

“Anne has told me there are some books that belonged to her father.” Jamieson tried to reason with her. “Perhaps the answer you’re seeking can be found in their pages?”

“George’s books?” She shuddered. “Those ugly books! He used to bury himself in them. But when they were heaping the seaweed and burning it last summer, I asked Anne to throw them into the flames!” She offered a nervous, perhaps apologetic shrug. “What odds? I couldn’t have read them anyway, for they weren’t in English; they weren’t in any easily recognisable language. But the worst thing was the way they felt. Why, just touching them made me feel queasy!”

The old man narrowed his eyes, nodded and said, “And do you really expect me to talk about Innsmouth, when the very thought of a few mouldy old books makes you look ill? And you asked the girl to burn them, without even knowing their value or what was in them? You know, it’s probably a very good thing I came along when I did, Jilly. For it’s fairly obvious that you’re obsessed about something, and obsessions can all too easily turn to psychoses. Wherefore—”

“—You’re done with me,” she finished it for him, and fell back in her chair. “I’m ill with worry—or with my own, well, ‘obsession’ if you like—and you’re not going to help me with it.”

The old man took her hand, squeezed it, and shook his head. “Oh, Jilly!” he said. “You’ve got me all wrong. Psychology may be one of our more recently accepted medical sciences, but I’m not so ancient that I predate it in its entirety! Yes, I know a thing or two about the human psyche; more than enough to assure you that there’s not much wrong with yours.”

She looked bewildered, and so Jamieson continued, “You see, my dear, you’re finally opening up, deliberately exposing yourself to whatever your problem is, taking your first major step toward getting rid of it. So of course I’m going to help you.”

She sighed her relief, then checked herself and said, “But, if that involves telling me about Innsmouth—?”

“Then so be it,” said the old man. “But I would ask you not to interrupt me once I start, for I’m very easily side-tracked.” And after Jilly nodded her eager assent, he began...

* * *

“During my time at my practice in Innsmouth, I saw some strange sad cases. Many locals are inbred, to such an extent that their blood is tainted. I would very much like to be able to put that some other way, but no other way says it so succinctly. And the ‘Innsmouth look’—a name given to the very weird, almost alien appearance of some of the town’s inhabitants—is the principal symptom of that taint.