“It’s probably best for your knee,” I said with some reluctance. “What’s it like?”
He made no move to sit. “Like … someone who loves me calling my name, someone I didn’t expect to see at all. You want to go to them. And my damned leg hurts. Excuse me, miss.” This to Audrey, who didn’t look offended. I swiped a break in the blood sigil holding the diagram together. He slumped and turned his head, as if seeking the person who had called, then surrendered to the chair.
I redrew the diagram, this time with Charlie’s blood to line the sigil for my own folk. He tried the chant, halting at first but steadier as he went on.
I felt the words immediately, but it was a moment before their pull became as Charlie had described: the wondrous certainty that someone was looking for me, and that I very much wanted to find them. The words promised love, promised reunion—and more than that. I felt my identity, my sense of self, fundamental to the structure of the world: as real and whole and vital as a star. I realized that I stood in the little triangle I’d drawn for myself moments before, and wanted only to stay there, immersed in what I still dimly knew for a comforting illusion.
Charlie finished the chant, but the effect remained. “Miss Marsh—are you well?”
“Mmm. Yes. I ought…”
The door opened, and I felt a faint embarrassment as Trumbull looked us over. “Ah. I thought I felt something like that when I came in.”
Audrey leapt to her feet. “I’m sorry, Professor! We were just—”
“Practicing an elementary summons, yes, I know what it looks like. Reverend Orne’s version, I believe, from On the Calling of Kinds.” She knelt to examine the diagram. “Planning to contact your family, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Caleb, his voice rough with irritation.
My knees buckled as she wiped away the sigil. I managed to catch myself before stumbling against anyone, and blinked away the fog of the ritual. I swallowed against the feeling of unreasoning loss.
“A perfectly effective method,” she continued, “but the side effects can be irksome to those who wish only to have a conversation. A strong mind can resist, of course, but this version is more polite.” She sketched a slight change in the arc of chalk. “With the angle adjusted, it calls but does not flatter. Orne was always over-nervous of first impressions.”
“Thank you.” I knelt to examine the changes more closely, and to cover my still shaky balance. “We haven’t spoken with our elders in some time, and certainly don’t wish to offend them.”
“Yes. You ought to practice your own resistance, however; it’s not good to be susceptible to the blandishments of so common a spell.” She stood, brushing chalk dust from her skirt. “I would speak to them as well.”
It took me a moment to follow. “Good. We need a ride to Innsmouth.”
“Tomorrow? Classes begin on Monday, and I expect Sunday to be extremely tedious.”
I traced the revised lines of the diagram. “I wanted longer to practice”—and perhaps to prepare myself—“but we do have it working. Tomorrow, yes. Thank you.”
*
Charlie and I walked Audrey to the bus stop. Caleb begged off, and by the time the other two had their coats on he and Dawson were engaged in some sort of verbal sparring, or perhaps a grammar lesson, in mixed R’lyehn and Russian. I glanced back at them, considering.
The winter clouds colored pink behind the trees. The air was still pleasantly brisk by my standards, and Charlie and Audrey walked with their chins up rather than tucked into scarves. We went slowly for Charlie’s sake, in silence that I didn’t yet feel ready to fill.
A group of young men marched past, wearing papier-maché masks with distorted animal faces: snarling cats and long-nosed dog-things and a toothy crocodile painted in garish blue and gold. They sang something loud and boisterous, in which I made out “days of olden kings” and “draughts of strength” and “Miskatonic will go on.” They blew kisses to Audrey, who laughed and curtseyed.
“It’s Museum Night,” she explained after they passed. “First Friday before classes start, the university museum stays open till midnight, and the boys who stuck around for break dress up and do sort of a scavenger hunt to find specific stuff in the collection.”
I stopped in the middle of the walk. After a moment, I said, “There’s something I ought to look at in the museum. But maybe another time would be better.”
Audrey shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. They put cookies out, and you’re less likely than most days to get funny looks or questions about how long your kid’s been at Miskatonic, because people bring dates. Leroy took me last semester, but I think he’s doing something else tonight.”
The museum was more self-consciously a temple than the church itself, though strangely sterile. The classical columns and marble floors had never been intended for worship—only to let visitors imagine that they trod someone else’s sacred space, long since given over for their edification. Portraits lined the entry hall: men who’d played some role in the college’s history, or purchased this memory with a substantial donation. Well-lit cases in the center showed off artifacts gathered on university-sponsored expeditions. As promised, incongruous plates of cookies lay on a folding table.
The boys we’d seen earlier clustered around the food, masks pushed back, and argued over a sheet of paper. Another set, this one including a pair of girls, came in from some more distant part of the building and went directly to one of the display cases, where they pushed and laughed as they read the labels. Whatever they were looking for, they clearly found it, for they exclaimed happily in a ragged chorus and ran out through another archway.
Audrey grabbed a handful of cookies and offered us each one. I took it, though I wasn’t feeling hungry, and nibbled a mouthful of oats and sweet raisins.
“You know this place,” I told her. “Do you know where they keep local artifacts?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid the place doesn’t have quite that much organization. It’s all set up with objects they thought would be interesting together. If you tell me what you’re looking for, though, I might have seen it.”
I hesitated. I’d never seen the thing, only heard about it. “It’s a gold necklace. Large, probably carved with bas-reliefs. It was all they had of ours that they had before the raid.”
She looked me over, perhaps trying to imagine what sort of jewelry would go with my appearance. “That sounds familiar. Let’s see if I know what I’m talking about.”