A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4s. re awhile, Mr. Partington. We've an idea we'd like you to settle here with us. If that price don’t suit you, name your own. We'll meet it.’ “By that time it don’t take a master- mind to tell this is a pretty well-scared village. An’ from what I know before an’ what I’ve heard since I don’t blame ’em. I say to Eph: ‘Them papuers? You got an idea where they’re going to? Who’s tak- ing them?’ “He looks around before he answers, then he whispers: ‘De Keradel.’ “T says: ‘What for?’ An’ he whispers: ‘For his rockery.’ “Earlier I might have laughed at that. But somehow now I don’t feel like it. So I tell him I’m interested, but I got to go back to New York tomorrow an’ [’ll think it over an’ why don’t they get the police ‘to look into things. He says the village constable’s as scared as any, an’ there ain’t no evidence to get out a search war- rant, an’ he’s talked to a couple of country officers but they think he’s crazy. So the next morning I check out, saying I'll be back in a day or two. There’s quite a little delegation to see me off an’ urges me to come back. “I’m mighty curious to see that place be- hind the wall, an’ especially what Eph calls the rockery. So I run down to Providence where I’ve got a friend with a hydroplane an’ we fix it to ride over the de Keradel place that night. We go along the coast. It’s a moonlight night, an’ we raise it about ten o’clock. I get out the glasses as we come close. We're flying about five hundred feet up. It’s clear, but there’s a fog rising about this point as we get closer. A quick fog too, that looks as if it’s trying to beat us to it. “There’s a big boat lying off the point, too, in a sort of deep cove. They flash searchlights up at us, whether trying to blind us or to find out who we are I don’t know. I give my friend the office and we duck the lights. I’ve got my glasses up an’ I see something that sort of makes me feel creepy—like old Eph’s wailing. I don’t just know why. But it’s a lot of big stones all doing ring-around-a-rosy around a big- ger gray heap of stones in the middle. The fog’s swirling all around like snakes, an’ there’s lights flickering here an’ there . . . gray sort of lights... rotten...” A. MERRITT’S FANTASY McCann stopped and lifted a drink with — a none too steady hand: “Rotten sort of lights is right. Like they're decaying. ~ An’ there appears to be something big an’ black squatting on that big gray heap... without no shape to it... shadowy. An’ it quivers an’ wavers ...an’ the standing — stones are like they’re reaching up to pull — us down to this squatting thing . . .” He set the glass down with a hand even less steady. “Then we’re over an’ zoom- ing away. I look back an’ the fog’s cov- — ered everything.” He said to Lowell “I’m telling you, Dec, that never at no time with the Mandilip hag did I feel as slimy as when we flew | over that place. The Mandilip hag had a line into Hell all right. But this was — Hell itseli—I’m telling you!’ CHAPTER 13 Summons from Dahut TOOK Bill over in the corner out of — earshot, and asked: “Just how much does McCann know?” Bill answered: “All that we know ~ about, Dick. He knows de Keradel’s con- — nection with the doll-maker. And that — would be enough for him, if he knew noth- — ing else.” ‘Anything about my experiences with — the Demoiselle ?” 3 “Certainly not,’’ said Bill, stiffly. “Both — Lowell and myself thought too much of — the confidential element entered into | them.” | “That,” I said, keeping solemn with an effort, “was true delicacy. But have you | spoken to any one except me about the — shadowy visitation your imagination drew upon you?” e Bill exclaimed: “Imagination hell! But no—I haven't.” “g “Not even to Helen?” ee. “No.” - 3 “Fine,” I said. “Now I know where] _ stand.”” I went back to the table and 1 apologized again to McCann. I said to ~ Lowell: ae “You remember de Keradel spoke to — us of a certain experiment he contem- — plated? Its purpose the evocation of some god or demon worshipped long ago? Well, from McCann’s story I would say that his experiment must be rather far advanced.