Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

“However, among the many myths and legends I’ve heard about that place and those with ‘the look’, some of the more fanciful have it the other way round; they insist that it wasn’t so much inbreeding that caused the taint as miscegenation... the mixed breeding between the town’s old-time sea captains and the women of certain South Sea island tribes with which they often traded during their voyages. And what’s more, the same legends have it that it wasn’t only the native women with whom these degenerate old sea dogs associated, but... but I think it’s best to leave that be for now, for tittle-tattle of that nature can so easily descend into sheer fantasy.

“Very well, but whatever the origin or source of the town’s problems—the real source, that is—it’s still possible that it may at least have some connection with those old sea-traders and the things they brought back with them from their ventures. Certainly some of them married and brought home native women—which in this day and age mightn’t cause much of a stir, but in the mid-19th century was very much frowned upon—and in their turn these women must surely have brought some of their personal belongings and customs with them: a few native gewgaws, some items of clothing, their ‘cuisine’, of course... possibly even something of their, er, religions? Or perhaps ‘religion’ is too strong a word for what we should more properly accept as primitive native beliefs.

“In any case, that’s as far back as I was able to trace the blood taint—if such it is—but as for the ‘Innsmouth look’ itself, and the horrible way it manifested itself in the town’s inhabitants... well, I think the best way to describe that is as a disease; yes, and perhaps more than one disease at that.

“As to the form or forms this affliction takes,” (now Jamieson began to lie, or at least to step aside from the truth,) “well, if I didn’t know any better, I might say that there’s a fairly representative example or specimen, as it were, right here in our own backyard: that poor unfortunate youth who lives with the Fosters, Anne’s friend, young Geoff. Of course, I don’t know of any connection—and can’t see how there could possibly be one—but that youth would seem to have something much akin to the Innsmouth stigma, if not the selfsame affliction. Just take a look at his condition:

“The unwholesome scaliness of the skin, far worse than any mere ichthyosis; the strange, shambling gait; the eyes, larger than normal and increasingly difficult to close; the speech—where such exists at all—or the guttural gruntings that pass for speech; and those gross anomalies or distortions of facial arrangement giving rise to fishy or froggy looks... and all of these features present in young Geoff. Why, John Tremain tells me that the youth reminds him of nothing so much as a stranded fish! And if somehow there is something of the Innsmouth taint in him... well then, is it any wonder that such dreadful fantasies came into being in the first place? I think not...”

Pausing, the old man stared hard at Jilly. During his discourse she had turned very pale, sunk down into her chair, and gripped its arms with white-knuckled hands. And for the first time he noticed grey in her hair, at the temples. She had not, however, given way to those twitches and jerks normally associated with her nervous condition, and all of her attention was still rapt upon him.

Now Jamieson waited for Jilly’s reaction to what he’d told her so far, and in a little while she found her voice and said, “You mentioned certain gewgaws that the native women might have brought with them from those South Sea islands. Did you perhaps mean jewellery, and if so have you ever seen any of it? I mean, what kind of gewgaws, exactly? Can you describe them for me?”