Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

It was a sunny August afternoon, but strong salt wind blew off the sea. Violet had tied back her hair to keep it out of her face. Dick looked up at Ware Cleeve: it was thickly wooded, roots poking out of the cliff-face like the fingers of buried men. The tower of Orris Priory rose above the treetops like a periscope.

Clues led to Orris Priory. Dick suspected smugglers. Or spies.

Granny Ball, who kept the pasty-stall near the Cobb, had warned the detectives to stay away from the shingle under the Cleeve. It was a haunt of “sea-ghosts”. The angry souls of shipwrecked sailors, half-fish folk from sunken cities and other monsters of the deep (Ernest liked this bit) were given to creeping onto the beach, clawing away at the stone, crumbling it piece by piece. One day, the Cleeve would collapse.

Violet wanted to know why the sea-ghosts would do such a thing. The landslide would only make another cliff, further inland. Granny winked and said, “Never you mind, lass” in a highly unsatisfactory manner.

Before her craze for terrible lizards, Violet had been passionate about myths and legends (it was why she liked Uncle Davey’s pictures). She said myths were expressions of common truth, dressed up to make a point. The shingle beach was dangerous, because rocks fell on it. People in the long ago must have been hit on the head and killed, so the sea-ghost story was invented to keep children away from danger. It was like a BEWARE THE DOG sign (Ernest didn’t like this bit), but out of date—as if you had an old, non-fierce hound but put up a BEWARE OF DANGEROUS DOG sign.

Being on the shingle wasn’t really dangerous. The cliffs wouldn’t fall and the sea-ghosts wouldn’t come.

Dick liked Violet’s reasoning, but saw better.

“No, Vile, it’s been kept up, this story. Granny and other folk round here tell the tale to keep us away because someone doesn’t want us seeing what they’re about.”

“Smugglers,” said Ernest.

Dick nodded. “Or spies. Not enough clues to be certain. But, mark my word, there’s wrong-doing afoot on the shingle. And it’s our job to root it out.”

It was too blowy to go out in Violet’s little boat, the SS Pterodactyl, so they had come on foot.

And found the ammonite.

Since the fossil wasn’t about to hop to life and attack, Ernest lost interest and wandered off, down by the water. He was looking for monster tracks, the tentacle-trails of a giant squid most likely.

“This might be the largest ammonite ever found here,” said Violet. “If it’s a new species, I get to name it.”

Dick wondered how to get the fossil to Violet’s house. It would be a tricky endeavour.

“You, children, what are you about?”

Men had appeared on the beach without Dick noticing. If they had come from either direction along the shore, he should have seen them.

“You shouldn’t be here. Come away from that evil thing, at once, now.”

The speaker was an old man with white hair, pince-nez on a black ribbon, an expression like someone who’s just bit into a cooking apple by mistake, and a white collar like a clergyman’s. He wore an old-fashioned coat with a thick, raised collar, cut away from tight britches and heavy boots.

Dick recognized the Reverend Mr. Sellwood, of Orris Priory.

With him were two bare-armed fellows in leather jerkins and corduroy trousers. Whereas Sellwood carried a stick, they toted sledge-hammers, like the ones convicts use on Dartmoor.

“Foul excrescence of the Devil,” said Sellwood, pointing his stick at Violet’s ammonite. “Brother Fose, Brother Fessel, do the Lord’s work.”

Fose and Fessel raised their hammers.

Violet leaned over, as if protecting a pet lamb from slaughter-men.

“Out of the way, foolish girl.”

“It’s mine,” she said.

“It’s nobody’s, and no good to anybody. It must be smashed. God would wish it…”

“But this find is important. To science.”

Sellwood looked as if that bite of cooker was in his throat, making his eyes water.

“Science! Bah, stuff and nonsense! Devil’s charm, my girl, that’s what this is!”

“It was alive, millions of millions of years ago.”

“The Earth is less than six thousand years old, child, as you would know if you read your scriptures.”

Violet, angry, stood up to argue. “But that’s not true. There’s proof. This is…”

Fose and Fessel took their opportunity, and brought the hammers down. The fossil split. Sharp chips flew. Violet—appalled, hands in tiny fists, mouth open—didn’t notice her shin bleeding.

“You can’t…”

“These so-called proofs, stone bones and long-dead dragons,” said Sellwood, “are the Devil’s trickeries.”

The Brethren smashed the ammonite to shards and powder.

“This was put here to fool weak minds,” lectured the Reverend. “It is the Church Militant’s sacred work to destroy such obscenities, lest more be tempted to blasphemy. This is not science, this is sacrilege.”

“It was mine,” Violet said quietly.

“I have saved you from error. You should thank me.”

Ernest came over to see what the noise was about. Sellwood bestowed a smile on the lad that afforded a glimpse of terrifying teeth.