Crimson Shore

49

Constance moved cautiously through the labyrinth of tunnels. While dirty, stinking, and encrusted with niter, she could tell that these passageways had not been abandoned. Quite the opposite: they had been kept up with fresh mortar and braced with wooden beams at various weak points. Some of the bracing was so recent that the wood was still oozing pine sap. While the entrance had been carefully left looking derelict and deserted, these underground tunnels themselves were clearly well-used.

What were they for? And who were the people using them? She had ideas about that.

In attempting to follow the sound of the crying child, she had managed to lose it in the winding passageways. The tunnels, and the movement of air through them, did deceiving things to sound, magnifying it in one place and canceling it in another. As her light flashed over the walls, she saw — sometimes scratched into the niter, other times written in chalk or paint — symbols not unlike the Tybane Inscriptions: witchcraft symbols she recognized from the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, but of an even more complex and sophisticated nature. What before had been merely suspicion now hardened into conviction: these tunnels, she realized, must be in use by a cult, not Wiccans but real witches — black witches.

She paused, considering the cruel irony. The rumors and legends, dismissed by almost everyone, had a basis in truth: witches had indeed fled from Salem during the trials, established a colony in the marshes, and then moved here, to Oldham, when the marsh colony proved unsafe. The entrance to these tunnels lay underneath the pseudo-church — what better way to cover up their Sunday rituals from prying eyes?

The residents of Oldham, she knew, had moved to Dill Town seventy-five years before, and many had migrated from there into Exmouth proper — where they undoubtedly remained even now, living apparently normal lives, but retreating here for their dark rituals. Constance wondered which of the numerous townsfolk she had met since arriving here were secretly part of this coven.

Now she paused to examine her own emotions. She was aware of feeling, rather than fear, a kind of curiosity. These dark tunnels, which in the average person would elicit great anxiety, were not that different from some of the passages that ran beneath the old mansion on Riverside Drive — save for the vile stench and the unsettling symbols that covered the walls.

She listened intently. She could hear the crying again now, the faint echoes strangely distorted by the underground twists and turns. She moved slowly in their direction. The sounds slowly grew clearer, and now she could hear a second voice: hoarse, ragged, but somehow motherly.

The tunnel made a sharp turn and passed beneath a low arch — and then Constance found herself in a long corridor, broad and high-ceilinged, with a ceremonial feeling to it. The walls had been plastered and were excised with demonic symbols, every square inch carved in precise, maniacal detail with symbols the likes of which she had never seen, even in the Daemonum or the numerous other occult books into which she had delved. An even fouler smell hung in the air here, of filth and feces and suppurating flesh. Along the walls stood small stone reservoirs, brimming with oil, each with a floating wick. Clearly this was used for some kind of processional. But a processional to where? The corridor ended in a stone wall.

She heard a girl’s cry, much louder and closer. She turned toward it, startled. The sound had come from behind her, past a low archway leading from the long corridor. She slowly approached the archway and shone her light down the passage beyond. It was short and ended in a stone cell, barred with rusty iron and locked with a shiny brass padlock. Inside the cell huddled what at first glance looked like two heaps of filthy rags, topped by brushy, tangled hair. As she stepped closer, staring in horrified fascination, Constance realized she was looking at human beings — an old woman and a girl. Mother and daughter? The way they were huddled together in the chilly cell made it appear so. They stared at her, suddenly hushed, their hands raised against her light, smudged eyes wide with fear. Their faces were so dirty, Constance could not make out the features or even discern what color their skin was.

She lowered her light and approached. “Who are you?”

No answer; two silent stares.

She seized the padlock and gave it a shake. “Where is the key?”

This question, instead of receiving an answer, triggered an unintelligible wailing and sobbing from the girl, who stretched a hand out through the bars. Constance stepped forward to grasp it, the filth causing her to hesitate for just a moment. With a cry the girl seized the proffered hand and grasped it with tremendous strength, as if it were her only lifeline, and began babbling. It was not a language Constance understood, and after a moment she realized that, in fact, it wasn’t a language at all — just an outpouring of quasi-human vocalizations.

The older woman remained eerily silent and passive, her face expressionless.

“I can’t free you until you let go of my hand,” Constance said.

As she pulled away, the girl kept up a frantic wailing. Exploring with the flashlight, Constance looked everywhere for a key — walls, ceiling, floor — nothing. Apparently, the jailers kept the key with them.

Constance turned back to the cell, where the girl was still mumbling and weeping.

“Stop that noise,” she said. “I’m going to get help.”

More moaning. But the mother seemed to understand, and she placed a restraining hand on the girl, who fell silent.

“Who are you?” Constance asked the mother. She spoke slowly, enunciating the words. “Why are you here?”

A voice spoke from the darkness behind her. “I can answer that question.”