HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror - Weird Tales

18 H .P . L O V E C R A F T ’S M A G A Z IN E O F H O R R O R
My soft-soled shoes made no sound on the grass as I edged
around the corner and along the wall, looking for a different
point of entry. There was a back door, as I had expected,
latched shut from the inside. Worse, the door was cased in iron,
and a slightest manipulation would surely reverberate through
the building.
In the pale moonlight, I let my fingers run along the edges
of the door, looking for a gap. The door was quite well fitted, and
I procured a short knife with thin blade from my pocket, and
forced it between the door and the wall that surrounded it, trying
to feel the latch inside. The scraping of metal against metal
tore the still air. I jerked my hand away, and fell into a crouch by
the wall. I waited for a long while, but nobody appeared.
I explored the perimeter of the manor again, in hopes of
finding a ground level window or another door. None were
forthcoming, and I returned to the back entrance guarded by
iron. I wondered if the cherrystone could be of use, and took it
out of my pocket. It glowed softly, and I touched it to the door.
Nothing happened.
“Come on,” I whispered to it. “Do you want to be found
and destroyed?”
The stone did not answer.
I felt foolish, carrying on a conversation with an inanimate
object, but persisted. I sat down, my back against the cold wall,
cradling the stone’s tiny light in my open palms. “See,” I told it,
“it’s like this. I could just give you up, take my money, and go
home. But it’s bigger than me or her or even you…“
My voice caught in my throat as my own words reached
me. There was no doubt that the Areti would kill me—break
my fingers, cut off my hand, perhaps rip my nostrils open, just
like they did to the dead boy. But I also realized that it would
be better to die now and have a place to go than eke out another
few years and succumb to the black nothingness to which
people from other places went. We lived with the deaders for
so long that we saw them as a nuisance; we didn’t realize how
lucky we were to have them—to become them. And this stone
made it all possible. I closed my hand around it, protecting it,
protecting all of us.
The stone grew warmer in my hand, and soon it burned it.
It shone brighter too, and narrow white beams of light
squeezed between my fingers—my fist looked like a star. When
I touched it to the door, the metal sang, barely audible, and the
door swung open. I entered the dark dusty hallway, my way illuminated
by the cherrystone.
I followed it to the dark recesses of the sleeping manor, to
the kitchen. There, a massive brick stove towered against the
far wall. The light beams cut through the stone as if it was butter,
forming a long, narrow tunnel behind the stove, just spacious
enough to let my hand through.
I released the cherrystone, and let it roll into its new hiding
place. As it cooled and darkened, what was left of its power
sealed the passage, returning it to the normal appearance of the
brickwork of the stove and stone of the walls.
As quietly as I entered, I left. I crossed the river as the sun
was rising above the rooftops. I listened to the crowing of
roosters and to the first banging of shutters, inhaled the sweet
aroma of baking bread, basked in the first sunrays alighting on
my shoulders. I was heading back to my favorite restaurant,
where I intended to drink until the Areti thugs found me.
I thought about what would be my last trip to the deaders’
town—how I would shamble along, until I arrived to Jas’
house. I would have to tell him right away that I was his brother,
before I forget and lose the tentative connection between
us, and ask him to remind me. Then I would settle next to the
ice chest, and we would talk, in loopy, halting sentences. And
we would remind each other every day, so that we don’t forget,
keeping the memory of our shared blood alive. n
Ekaterina Sedia is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Secret
History of Moscow and The Alchemy of Stone, the latter of which
she describes as “a tale of automated anarchy and clockwork lust.” She is
also the editor of the urban-fantasy anthology Paper Cities. A native of
Moscow, Sedia now lives in New Jersey.
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