Page 9 of Clutching Cthulhu’s Pearls (Time for Monsters)

The ground smacks me like an errant child. My final knot wasn’t tight enough, so the lowest bedsheet let go before my toes could make purchase in the grass. I tumbled six feet. It could have been worse. My knee twisted at a strange angle as I fell, and now makes a crackling noise when I move too quickly. As long as I can put weight on it, I’ve got to walk. Running on uneven, flooded ground risks a second injury…twisted knee or not.

But time is of the essence. I must make it to Lovecraft’s neighboring estate before Leopold brings more scientists and discovers I’m gone. With grunts and curses, I wobble to standing and take my first steps across the estate. Leopold’s laboratory is on the opposite side of the house, so even if he takes his one look out the window a month, my escape will be out of his view.

Would Leopold keep Phin alive in hopes that we could produce multiple clutches of eggs, or did Phin sabotage that plan when he fought Leopold when we made love?

I don’t care if Leopold’s clinical gaze was over Phin’s shoulder. We made love—not that I have any experience to compare. Phin made sure I wasn’t in pain every inch of his oviposition. He loved me with everything he had, despite my being tied to a hard metal table. The way he caressed my face gave me more warmth than snuggling in front of my bedroom fireplace. His tentacles rubbed each egg as it nestled in my womb like any loving, human father’s hands do.

My boots sink in mud rising to the knees, which slows my hasty escape to a slog. Drizzle mats my hair to my head and suctions my clothes to my body like a linen suit of armor and helmet. Open your mouth! I choke on spittle as the muggy air fills my nose. My greedy lungs gulp oxygen from the supersaturated fog. I pinwheel my arms as if I can swim through the soupy backyard. When I reach my garden, I slide between rows of strawberries. I cry out when my knees hit the straw fortifying their bed.

“Who goes there? Show yourself! Have the courage to face the groundkeeper instead of sneaking through the fog like the devil’s servant!”

The voice carries from the opposite side of the garden by Mr. Breyers’s cottage! That’s it! I’ll go to Mr. Breyers’s cottage. He can go to Lovecraft’s place on horseback while I nurse my knees at his fire. Being a God-fearing man, he can’t approve of Leopold’s experiments. I’ve never seen him feed a created hybrid or help inside the lab. Does he even know what’s going on inside the house?

He does. Phin yelled at Leopold not to bring in Mr. Breyers. Maybe Phin doesn’t understand Mr. Breyers because he doesn’t know religion, or maybe Mr. Breyers takes his disapproval out on Phin…Either way, Mr. Breyers should still help me, he doesn’t know I willingly allowed Phin to implant his eggs. If I can convince Mr. Breyers to take me to Lovecraft—

The sloshing to my left must be him. He’s not graceful. He’s a man of the soil, much like Phin. Why didn’t I settle down with a simple man in the first place? If I hadn’t been dazzled by my father’s erudite friends, I wouldn’t have agreed to the match with Leopold. Would my father have allowed me to marry a farmer who shared our love of plants instead of a scientist who shared our love of the lab? Ironic that such a man will save me today, and another will raise my children.

“It’s Harriett! Mr. Breyers, it’s Harriett Guett,” I yell into the misty void. His hunched shadow is outlined by the fog to my left, and my heart soars. I’m not alone! There’s a man to help me stop Leopold. My account could be dismissed as a hysterical woman’s pleas to leave her husband, but with Mr. Breyers corroborating my story, Lovecraft or the police will have no choice but to investigate.

“Over here! Mr. Breyers, is that you? It’s me, Harriett! I’m on the other side of the garden and seem to have fallen—”

“Oh, you Jezebel, I know just how low you’ve fallen. I heard your every sinful moan, wail, and plea for more. Every ear in your house listened as that thing defiled you, and we heard your screams. Not once did you ask Dr. Guett for mercy or to honor your marriage vows, did you?”

The shadow that promised hope of rescue now looms over me like the broad head of a hammer to crush them. He’s covered in blood from his stained shirt to the hair tinted pink as the rain rinses it down his face. Is all that from Phin or Leopold? His jaw is set to a sneer, offset by some swelling to the right side. His opponent fought back. Leopold can’t fight, so he must wear Phin’s blood. Tears drip from my chin as despair settles into my bones.

“You were there?” Feeding him lies would be best for my survival, but the words won’t pass my lips. I can’t betray Phin—not with his love in my heart and his eggs in my womb. Every word and moan was to encourage him. Whether Leopold sucked sour grapes or not, I didn’t care. That moment in the lab was a beautiful transfer of love and intimacy between man and woman.

“I didn’t need to watch your humiliation to know you fell into disrepute. It was a matter of time. How could you be a woman of God when I never see you with a Bible or at church on Sunday? Your soul was low-hanging fruit for the devil’s minions—”

“If you hate Leopold’s experiments, why do you work for him?”

I hold out my hand for a lift to my feet. His cold, beady eyes stare at it as if I’m offering him a one-way train ticket to hell. After a few awkward moments, I yank my right boot from the mud with both hands and stand on my own. Once the pull of gravity has a straight target, my feet begin their descent of an inch a minute. Maybe I am sinking into hell…

“I keep my family’s land in tip-top shape until I can buy it back from him. My grandfather settled his homestead here first! Damn taxes drove him to sell, and Dr. Guett snapped up the feast like a vulture. Why does he need farmland when he’s not a farmer? I asked my Pa and Grandpappy. They didn’t know but worked honestly to protect their land from his neglect.”

“Then you will help me!” I tug his elbow towards our home. “If we bring down Leopold’s laboratory, I’ll disappear, and you can have the estate.”

“Uh huh, I find witches who disappear tend to reappear when they run out of money—” Instead of ripping his arm from my grasp, he pivots to stand behind me. He grabs my other arm, lifting me from the mud.

“I didn’t mean disappear as in poof , I’m smoke. I meant I’ll leave Kentucky and never come back. You have no right to call me a witch.” Instead of setting me onto my feet, he marches with my legs dangling between us. He doesn’t head toward the house or his cottage. He isn’t going to carry me all the way to Lovecraft’s estate, is he? I know I’m slow and ill-coordinated, but I’m also quite heavy for an aged man.

“Why else would you take a demon into your body?” His voice strains to release the words as he trudges through the deepening muck.

“Demon? Leopold is the demon, and our marriage was never consummated.” I squirm to see if he will let me down without my asking, to no avail.

“Always like a woman,” he sneers through grunts. “You open your legs in exchange for security, and once your husband bores you, you claim the marriage wasn’t consummated. I know all the tricks of a woman.”

“Let me down! It’s not a trick,” I say as I twist harder in hopes of elbowing him in the face. He’s much stronger than he looks. Fueled by his fury, his spindly arms overpower me easily. “Have you seen Leopold? He’s too old for martial relations. He’s incapable of love outside of his work—”

“So, you decided to become his work? Manipulate him into loving you when your black magic failed? Did you pray before you sacrificed your body and soul to the devil’s work? Well, you will pray now—all the witches pray when they see death’s approach. Who will you pray to?”

“No! No! No!” He’s a madman. Why didn’t I see his madness before? Is this why I instinctively kept him at arm’s length despite my hunger for companionship? While he’s too homely for romantic stirrings, I never put much effort into growing a friendship, either. Did my intuition keep me safe? I kick my legs, but they glide between his knobby knees. If only one kick would connect! “What will you do to me?”

What will he do to my eggs?

“Nothing more than you deserve,” he says as he throws me into the shallow end of the swamp.

Freezing water attacks like needles while stones batter my muscles. First my rump, then my head bounces off the bottom. Pain from the back of my skull pierces between my eyes. It’s like my brain seeks a place to hide from injury. I scrape my nails on anything that passes my hands to anchor myself, but the slippery frons glide through my fingers. My boots press into the mud but sink into the bottomless murk. I thrash with the desperate need to raise my face above the water’s surface.

“Scream, yes, scream, Little Jezebel,” he yells in my face as his left hand bats my arms away from him. His right-hand fingers wrap around my throat. They burn against the frigid water. I claw him as he presses his thumb gently against my windpipe. “Your open-mouthed screams swallow water. You will die faster than I can strangle you. Drown, and you can escape the pain of my righteous justice. You’ll receive your final judgment at St. Peter’s lectern and your punishment in hell!”

Despite his religious tirade, he strangles my ability to scream with his diabolical thumbs. My legs kick as high as I can lift them, knees bending to pummel his back. I fight the lack of air, the dizziness from my head injury, and the sweet surrender to the abyss. I can’t stop clawing my way to fresh air. My babies need a mother. What will happen to them if I die?

Cold water rushes into my mouth and up my nose, hosting a deluge of confusion.

I’m just so sleepy. Is this death or another dose of Leopold’s drugs? Where am I?

I snort to blow the water from my nose, but more rushes in…

Why am I so cold? Did my fire go out? Where is my duvet?

My arms stop spinning. I stop kicking my feet to conserve energy. My limbs drop like leaden, limp noodles. I can’t sleep for some reason, but my fuzzy thoughts can’t remember why. What is that insistent pushing on my throat? A man’s silhouette blocks the beautiful hues of the rising sun. Who is he? Why does he frown at me? I can’t lift my hand to slap him away…

But another blur takes him from my sight.

A large orange blob appears on the water’s surface. Are they underwater, or am I? Why would they wear such a loud color while outdoors? Scaly claws grab my arms and haul me from the water with a roar in my ears. I’m lifted nose-to-nose by a lizard-like creature with Leopold’s brown eyes but with long feminine eyelashes. No, she doesn’t have a nose—just two nostrils that close between exhales.

“Breathe,” she growls. She speaks through jagged fangs and puffy lizard lips. “Collect air before you try words. Mr. Breyers held you under longer than he holds us. He wanted you gone, but you aren’t his. You are Phin’s starlight.”

“Phin,” I moan as the memories threaten to drown me again. Phin. Phin’s eggs. Escape. Drowning. “I must save Phin. I went to Mr. Breyers to save Phin.”

“Mistake,” replies the lizard lady. She holds me with four arms—two lizard claws and two human ones with brown fingers. With infinite tenderness, she lays me on the bank. Her snake body slithers from the water. I’m rolled to the side for her to prod my head. “Cut, not flattened.”

There’s one miracle.

I risk fainting to climb onto my elbows. Peering around my snake companion, I catch a glimpse of Mr. Breyer’s fate. A blue lizard man—twin to the female who tends to me—holds Mr. Breyer’s flailing arms. Is that a merman? Yes! A man’s torso slaps Mr. Breyers with the large, flat tail of a ten-foot grouper. He must be a merman. Two men’s upper halves with yellow birds’ wings—wider than our house—use their four thick bear legs to anchor Mr. Breyer’s legs.

My lizard caretaker presses my face to her ample bosom as Mr. Breyer’s cries fade into the night. Crickets chirp as the creatures remove his body with a chorus of splashing. A whoosh, and the two bird men fly over our heads empty-handed. I guess the blue lizard man and the merman will dispose of his final remains.

“What’s your name?”

“Ruth,” my orange lizard companion says shyly. Her lashes lower in the demure fashion of a lady even though I bet she’s never stepped foot into a tea parlor. “Nobody has ever asked my name before.”

“I’m Harriett, and nobody asks my name either. Any friend of Phin’s is a friend of mine, so would you mind introducing me to his siblings?”

“Siblings? I don’t know this word,” Ruth replies with a slow shake of her head. The crests on top remind me of a lady’s updo with coils instead of curls piled on top of her head—except Ruth’s coils move with her expressions.

“It’s a name for the ones who share a parent with you. Your eyes are the same shape and shade of brown as Leopold’s, so I assumed he was your…Papa. That’s what Phin calls him, so another assumption is that you two are siblings. Like Hansel and Gretel…if you read their fairytale.”

I bite my lip. It’s a gamble to assume Ruth read or listened to the books I found in the nursery.

“Oh yes, we were raised on fairytales…together in a nursery despite our different mothers. Those were the good times—hatchlings of different ages playing, a mother to teach us her human ways, and books to help us escape when the experiments were too hard…”

“I’m so sorry for what Leopold and Mr. Breyers did to you. I can only imagine what it was like growing up inside that room—”

“The nursery was wonderful,” she snaps. “I can’t compare the nursery to your life in the big world, or I will wither away like autumn leaves. Phin used to say that. The big world that we found in books isn’t for us. The swamp is for us. Mr. Breyers made the mistake of trying to drown you in our swamp. His death was always on our minds. He beat us, but never in our swamp.”

“I didn’t know, or I would have asked him to stop,” I reply. “Please know I didn’t help Leopold or Mr. Breyers with your mistreatment—”

“Our cage brothers and sisters told us of your kindness and its limits. Whether or not we agree with Phin’s decision to claim you, we agree you aren’t evil like them. You didn’t deserve to die at the hands of Mr. Breyers.”

“Nobody does,” I whisper.

“Well, that can’t happen anymore, can it? We must face the ones who come next. You’re hurt. You can’t stand on that leg.”

“I twisted my knee climbing out of my window at the big house. When I kicked Mr. Breyers, I must have aggravated it—made it worse. Once I rest it, I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll splint it with reeds once I find the right stick. We patch each other’s wounds in the swamp because we are family.”

Her words bring my hand to my belly. She stares with wide eyes of interest, irises eaten by her pupils, at my protruding sack of eggs. I nod to affirm her suspicions. “They’re Phin’s eggs.”

“Phin’s last story, before he disappeared, was of a raft life with his starlight. We thought it was another one of his fairytales, but he must have been planning a future with you.”

“Yes,” I whisper before sobs cut off my words again. Her inquisitive eyes—so strikingly human—watch me recover my wits. “We want to build a raft life for our hatchlings. It is our dream.”

“You don’t believe your dream will come true. Dreams are nonsense, written in books for those who look like you. We’ve learned our place isn’t one where dreams come true, so why have them? Only Phin dared to write his own story…and look where it got him.”

“Maybe he hasn’t arrived at his dream yet,” I say as my plan pieces itself together like a wooden puzzle. “Maybe there’s still time. Will you help me?”