Eye of Thoth Chapter 4 Black Oaks

The Wolcott's Country Home

         

The Eye of Thoth

Chapter Four

Black Oaks.

         

Abby wrists were bound together in the front of her. The shadowy circle of naked people around her were chanting in some twisted guttural language Her eyes were drawn to the moon. Darkness had appeared on it's edge, slowly eating its way across its face. Light was fading on the desert around her. The priest stood twenty feet away beside the altar and a man gripped each of her upper arms. She squirmed and fought, her feet carving erratic groves in the sand from her lunging movements.

The light was almost gone. Something appeared in the dark just beyond the altar. It seemed darkness incarnate. She did not want to look at the squirming thing. It moved restlessly squirming as it became fully dark. It reached out with two indistinct limbs. In the darkness she could see in the starlight one long tentacle and more horrifying the other moved like an elephant's trunk but at its tip there was a gibbering mouth full of jagged teeth.

She screamed and twisted fighting wildly but they had dragged her within the reach of the priest with his bloody stone knife.

"No," she screamed over and over as the tentacle wrapped around her lifting her and placing her on the alter.

"Abby," came an urgent woman's voice and she felt hands on her from beyond the darkness, warm hands squeezing and shaking her harder and harder..

"Abby," this time louder and she was being lifted by the shoulders and there were arms around her pulling her against a warm body struggling to hold her still. "Abby wake up. Please look at me."

She opened her eyes and there was Liz holding her tightly, kissing her forehead.

Her English reserve was gone, tears were running down her cheeks.

Jerome came running in wearing his pajamas without his prosthesis for his lower arm. Ho came in immediately behind him. Her uncle's anxious face relaxed when he saw the two women hugging fiercely.

""It was from the eye again wasn't it?" he asked laying his hand on her upper back.

She nodded squinting, trying to stop the shaking and her tears.

"I was the sacrifice this time," she panted unable to make her voice steady.

"I think we need a person I know who can help you best," he said, his voice sounding calm.

"She's in Arkham," he continued quietly, "so we'll go to Black Oaks tomorrow."



Black Oaks was an old Georgian mansion in the forested land fifty miles west of Worcester, Massachusetts built by Abraham Woolcott, the founder of the family in America.

Son of an immigrant Nantucket fisherman named John Woolcott. At 14 Abraham signed on to a whaler. In the following ten years working at the trade he rose to the rank of First Mate. His share of the profits rose with his rank and he spent almost nothing when ashore not being one for much for strong drink unlike most of his fellows. He had quickly decided on his goal and spent the twenty years saving for his plan.

He bought his first ship, the Rebekah, in 1740 from his shares in the profits from his voyages at increasing rates as he rose .He had become a very successful whaling captain for another ten years, still saving most of his profits.

He had used that wealth to purchase a few merchant ships and fitted them for trading with the Caribbean for sugar and rum and with the southern colonies for tobacco and indigo all of which he sold to England. He then bought things made there. His Woolcott Trading Company had quickly grown into a lucrative shipping fleet..

He purchased a 100 acre tract of land west of Worchester, a few miles from the small city of Arkham. He then built the mansion which he called Black Oaks after the forest in which was situated.

Abby's first visit there she had been 10. Her parents had brought her along that time because they were meeting with her Aunt Florence and Uncle Samuel to talk family business and their daughter Phoebe came with them.

Abby and Phoebe were the same age and became co-conspirators in adventures of exploring things to which they believed their mothers would object.

They had come to love their trips to the old Georgian mansion when they were children. The family only used the south side so consequently the furniture of the rooms on the north side were all covered by drop cloths looking delightfully mysterious to them.

The house had a huge entry hall, two stories tall, complete with a stairway on each side. The hall even had a suits of armor flanking the door to the dining room directly across from entrance. There were paintings flanking the doors leading to other ground floor rooms. Of the six were four of square rigged brigs under sail and the others flanking the door to the dining room were portraits of Abraham with his wig in the formal clothes of the era and his wife Rebekah a plump red haired woman in her thirties wearing flowing white gown with gold embroidery. Her expression caught young Abby's attention, her lips looked to her like a woman smiling inside.

Abby and Phoebe had been in trouble four times or so each time they had been there for making a mess of the drop clothes. It took years for them to be able to keep Freya Ludwell, the housekeeper, from pouncing on them.

Once they could not resist playing the piano in the closed music room. That time Abby had claimed they both took piano lessons at home that they had wanted to practice. It would have worked better if they had ever practiced at home without being told to play by their mothers.

It was the library that they both loved it was filled with books going back to an eighteenth century bible printed with the oversized type illustrated by a few hand engravings. It had probably been hand printed, as Benjamin Franklin had done.

When they were fifteen they had managed to get lost in the surrounding forest as it became dark.

While they moved slowly in the direction they believed was toward the house they became steadily more frightened. Alone in the dark they heard the scariest sound possible, wolf howls in the distance. They moved away from the sound. Eventually Phoebe could not stand it and began shouting, then Abby. After what felt like a long, long time their fathers found them. It had actually been within ten minutes when they came carrying oil lamps and calling their names.

Unfortunately that was the same summer as the piano incident. There were a lot of tears from their mothers while they both ranted for fifteen minutes. They had to remain in the house unless an adult was with them.

Within two years the visits were stopped. The meetings were in Abby's family townhouse in New York.



She had not been there since then. But the idea delighted her, despite the reason. It held only good childhood memories for her. She and Phoebe's adventures had been the highlights of their lives for years.

Phoebe's parents lived in Boston and she went to Wellesley and Abby had gone to Vassar. They had grown apart then but still wrote regularly.

Jerome, Abby, Liz and Ho each had a portmanteau, a leather bag for their clothes and grooming things.

Norman Ludwell and Ho had carried them to their rooms upstairs.

Mrs. Ludwell had prepared a late dinner of vegetable soup, cold cuts and fresh bead.

The four of them in the large dining room at a the big table They seemed out of place taking up one end of the dining table at a table for 12. The meal was subdued, feeling that something important was pending.

The group had gone into the sitting room to read for a while with the electric lights that Abby's father had added with the electric wiring installed in the whole house.

Ho had dissapeared for more than an hour. When he returned he was carrying a china cup of tea for Abbey as Freya brought tea for the others.

"Please drink all of this, Miss Abbigail." he said quietly with his formal bow, "It is a traditional drink for dreamless sleep."

She took the cup and gave Ho a sollemn nod. It hand an odd spicy flavor and the definite taste that spoke of brandy.

Wthin an hour she was growing slowly sleepier. The previous night's dream had left her unable to get back to sleep and she had been drowsy all that day and grew steadily stronger. When she said her good nights Liz had gone with her to her room.

Liz helped her change into her nightgown and pulled up her blankets.

Within two minutes she sank into a long dreamless sleep as Ho had said.