Haggopian and Other Stories

“The first I knew of the link between George and myself,” she began, breaking in on my thoughts, “as apart from the obvious link that exists between all twins, was when we were twelve years old. Your grandparents had taken us, along with your mother, down to the beach at Seaton Carew. It was July and marvellously hot. Well, to cut a long story short, your mother got into trouble in the water.

“She was quite a long way out and the only one anything like close to her was George—who couldn’t swim! He’d waded out up to his neck, but he didn’t dare go any deeper. Now, you can wade a long way out at Seaton. The bottom shelves off very slowly. George was at least fifty yards out when we heard him yelling that Sis was in trouble…

“At first I panicked and started to run out through the shallow water, shouting to George that he should swim to Sis, which of course he couldn’t—but he did! Or at least, I did! Somehow, I’d swapped places with him, do you see? Not physically but mentally. I’d left him behind me in the shallow water, in my body, and I was swimming for all I was worth for Sis in his! I got her back to the shallows with very little trouble—she was only a few inches out of her depth—and then, as soon as the danger was past, I found my consciousness floating back into my own body.

“Well, everyone made a big fuss of George; he was the hero of the day, you see? How had he done it?—they all wanted to know; and all he was able to say was that he’d just seemed to stand there watching himself save Sis. And of course he had stood there watching it all—through my eyes!

“I didn’t try to explain it; no one would have believed or listened to me anyway, and I didn’t really understand it myself—but George was always a bit wary of me from then on. He said nothing, mind you, but I think that even as early as that first time he had an idea…”

Suddenly she looked at me closely, frowning. “You’re not finding all this a bit too hard to swallow, Love?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Not really. I remember reading somewhere of a similar thing between twins—a sort of Corsican Brothers situation.”

“Oh, but I’ve heard of many such!” she quickly answered. “I don’t suppose you’ve read Joachim Feery on the Necronomicon?”

“No,” I answered. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, Feery was the illegitimate grandson of Baron Kant, the German ‘witch-hunter’. He died quite mysteriously in 1934 while still a comparatively young man. He wrote a number of occult limited editions—mostly published at his own expense—the vast majority of which religious and other authorities bought up and destroyed as fast as they appeared. Unquestionably—though it has never been discovered where he saw or read them—Feery’s source books were very rare and sinister volumes; among them the Cthaat Aquadingen, the Necronomicon, von Junzt’s Unspeakable Cults, Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis and others of that sort. Often Feery’s knowledge in respect of such books has seemed almost beyond belief. His quotes, while apparently genuine and authoritative, often differ substantially when compared with the works from which they were supposedly culled. Regarding such discrepancies, Feery claimed that most of his occult knowledge came to him ‘in dreams’!” She paused, then asked: “Am I boring you?”

“Not a bit of it,” I answered. “I’m fascinated.”

“Well, anyhow,” she continued, “as I’ve said, Feery must somewhere have seen one of the very rare copies of Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon, in one translation or another, for he published a slim volume of notes concerning that book’s contents. I don’t own a copy myself but I’ve read one belonging to a friend of mine, an old member of my group. Alhazred, while being reckoned by many to have been a madman, was without doubt the world’s foremost authority on black magic and the horrors of alien dimensions, and he was vastly interested in every facet of freakish phenomena, physical and metaphysical.”

She stood up, went to her bookshelf and opened a large modern volume of Aubrey Beardsley’s fascinating drawings, taking out a number of loose white sheets bearing lines of her own neat handwriting.

“I’ve copied some of Feery’s quotes, supposedly from Alhazred. Listen to this one:

“’Tis a veritable & attestable Fact, that between certain related Persons there exists a Bond more powerful than the strongest Ties of Flesh & Family, whereby one such Person may be aware of all the Trials & Pleasures of the other, yea, even to experiencing the Pains or Passions of one far distant; & further, there are those whose Skills in such Matters are aided by forbidden Knowledge or Intercourse through dark Magic with Spirits & Beings of outside Spheres. Of the latter: I have sought them out, both Men & Women, & upon Examination have in all Cases discovered them to be Users of