Jon, plagued by dreams of the war, has a disturbing telephone call with Lily King while Elizabeth with Celia's unwitting help, attempts a theft from the Society of Esoterica.
Note: The idea to link Crom and a certain Greek god came in part from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Isle-of-the-Blessed-Ireland-and-the-Fetters-of-Cronos
Additional sounds:
Jazz Loop by Niko Sardar (Creative Commons 4.0) https://freesound.org/people/NikoSardas/sounds/456797/
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
Jon, plagued by dreams of the war, has a disturbing telephone call with Lily King while Elizabeth with Celia's unwitting help, attempts a theft from the Society of Esoterica.
Note: The idea to link Crom and a certain Greek god came in part from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Isle-of-the-Blessed-Ireland-and-the-Fetters-of-Cronos
Additional sounds:
Jazz Loop by Niko Sardar (Creative Commons 4.0) https://freesound.org/people/NikoSardas/sounds/456797/
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
THIS HOUSE WILL DEVOUR YOU Season One
A Podcast concerning love, madness, mystery, murder and dead gods in 1920's Ireland and England
THWDY Episode 1.09
'I Have Made A Sacrifice Of Myself'
Kilphaun Hall
Tuesday 2nd December 1925
Dearest Elizabeth,
When the telegram boy finally appeared with a message to let me know you are safe and well, I admit I breathed a sign of relief. A tension I was not even aware of left me. The maid had already posted by then the letter I wrote last night on my return from Dublin, but if you have written me since last week, I have not yet received it and will be on the lookout for the post today. Perversely I am relieved you missed your sailing, and I look forward to reading the story behind that, as things only get worse here.
I dreamed last night of the war for the first time in a long while. It was September 1916 again, outside the village of Morval in France. I was a captain in the 4th Army and we had had hard fighting since the Somme Offensive began in July. I will leave it to history to judge that great battle, the million dead and injured, a generation sacrificed on the alter of men’s ambitions. While I would never admit it to anyone else, I think the so-called war poets have the right of it. The exhaustion, the mud, the noise, the blood; the daily tally of men seen at dawn and not at dusk.
There was no real sound at first in the dream, just a dull muffled roaring that grew louder and louder while also rising and falling in time with the pulsing light as we advanced under cover of the night and a walking artillery barrage in front of us.The black landscape my men and I crossed was lit by a hellish flaring red and orange glow. We were in the valley below Morval, advancing up the slope, the earth and air mixed in a single broiling elemental state of dirt, bullets, shrapnel and noise. The destroyed terrain we crossed, churned mud and splintered trees, shuddered like it was a great organism we were scarring, pitting, cutting beyond recognition.
A machine gun opened up on us from the ruins of a farmhouse which also throbbed in tune to the light. Most of my squad were cut down instantly, their blood black in the red light. I was strangely calm and detached. My sergeant took the gun out with a well-thrown grenade and as the remains of my squad secured the position, I went to check the building. I opened the door that half hung on its hinges and peered into the dark maw of the farmhouse. It was pitch black within. Then something pale moved in the darkness. I was frozen to the spot unable to move. A thin old man dressed in white rags, tall despite his lopsided hunch, stepped out and stopped inches from me. His face was set calm but his demeanour was of restrained madness. Pebbles were churning out of his eyes in an endless stream. A sudden twisting, searing pain in my stomach made me look down. He clutched a bayonet in his right hand and its blade was hilt-deep inside me. I had seen enough similar wounds to know this was a fatal cut and a slow agonising death.
I awoke with a gasp, clutching my stomach.
My memory of what actually happened was that at the last second, I stepped back out of the way of the screaming, blood-covered soldier who charged out at me, barely avoiding his bayonet. I had my revolver to hand and shot him point blank in the head. But ever since I woke up, I find myself thinking that that was the dream and that in fact I died in France and am dead now, but dreaming I am alive still.
What’s worse, I think I am the sanest of the lot here.
The historian Alex is busy preparing for the dig. He is almost like his old self during the day except that he is always distracted as if listening for something only he can hear. Word quickly spread no matter how quiet he tried to keep it, but the locals are surprisingly divided on the planned despoliation of the mound. For the moment the faction that believes at least someone is doing something about the missing seems to have the upper hand. Alex was surprisingly devious in how he let people infer his intentions, and is not being hindered in his hiring of men and matériel, though that might yet change. Why anyone would think the missing are underground in that damned mound I do not know. Except, I wonder it myself now too.
But at night, well, our historian is wandering the house and grounds. I believe he is searching for something. When challenged in the morning, he claims to have no recollection of his nocturnal exertions. He or at least someone also continues to damage the new plantings in the garden.
George is not himself as I wrote last night, and I found him this morning in the north wing on his knees in the dust, using a workman’s chisel to deface a triskelion carved in a floor joist. He was muttering to himself and would not be dissuaded. In the end I just left him to it. If you have been able to do any research into the house, I think you need also to see if there any record of what strangeness the builder believed in and therefore what he thought he was trying to protect against.
Then, to cap it all, I had the most extraordinary telephone call this morning that makes me fear this creeping madness is spreading beyond Kilphaun Hall.
Mrs Moore had called for me to say I had a call and my heart had leaped at the thought it might be you. Instead it was a very agitated Lily King. The line was poor and I was surprised the operator had managed to make the connection at all ( the man from Dublin has not yet appeared to repair the line). I think we must have had crossed lines with several other parties as sometimes I could hear other voices talking as if from very far away.
Lily refused to discuss what had occurred between George and herself yesterday that had upset her so. She was nevertheless adamant that George had not been himself these last few days and that it had all started when we had come to dinner at Clonlaw House.
I asked her if she thought George needed medical help and she actually laughed rather bitterly at me.
“Jon,” she said, her voice tinny and far away seeming, “I fear there is no doctor in the world that can help us.”
Yesterday, after she had left George, she had returned home and confronted her uncle. He had denied anything to do with his condition. Like father, like son, is what he apparently said. To Lily’s mind, he seemed quite pleased at the rift between them. She said she had been spitting blood, but had waited until he was called away on some estate business and then had slipped into his study. The curtains were half drawn and the room was dim. His desk was strewn with papers relating to the estate accounts so no luck there. Her eyes fell on an armchair and side table by the window. An empty whiskey tumbler as well as a couple of books were on the table. She hurried over, dreading being caught at any moment by her uncle in his inner sanctum. Both books were very old. One she thought might be in Irish, based on the script, but as she couldn’t read that language she put it aside in favour of the other. This one was loosely bound and appeared to be a conflation of several texts. More importantly, it was in archaic Greek, which she could read, her school having been very particular on instilling the classics into its young charges.
Several passages were bookmarked and she focussed on those, grateful that she had paid attention in her classes. The first section was rather confusing, not helped by her trying to speed read in a rusty language. The author seemed to be describing the cult of a harvest god in Ireland that he had heard tales of from travellers. He described the altar of the god as being surrounded by twelve standing stones and how within the circle, the worshipers would make human sacrifices to ensure a good harvest.
The next section seemed to be written by a different author and in a different time. It was a lament for the destruction of the cult of the harvest god Crom Cruach by local christian chieftains, egged on by St Patrick. The surviving druids had smuggled out the altar stone and various relics according to the writer, and had established themselves briefly elsewhere in Ireland before disappearing entirely from the records.
The final marked section was actually in English but quite old fashioned in style. It included a detailed line drawing of a dagger - a bone handle and a long triangular blade, just as described by George. The picture was labelled Druidic Ritual Knife, Cult of Crom Dubh. The author was very despondent, openly describing how he had first merely marked his victims with it, expecting Crom to appear to devour them and then when nothing happened, he sacrificed both bulls and humans with it but to no avail. He had concluded that Crom lay sleeping after his defeat by St Patrick and he must begin to research how to wake the ‘Bloodthirsty One’, as the writer called him.
Lily said she put the book down more confused than ever. She knew her uncle was especially keen on old Irish folklore but this matter-of-fact talk of pagan human sacrifice unnerved her. She had been brought up a good Christian after all.
It was then she noticed the table had a small drawer in it. She pulled it open to find something long and thin wrapped in old leather, or at least she hoped it was leather, her imagination beginning to get the better of her. She carefully rolled out the bundle and there within was the self-same dagger described by George and the book. It was an evil looking thing, she said, and the urge to pick it up was incredibly strong as if it was reaching into her mind. And that’s when her uncle entered the room.
“Christ,” I said, “What did you do then?”
Lily said, “Immediately I was scared and embarrassed but then I was just very angry. I realised that my uncle of all people appeared to believe the tosh I’d just read and he’d made sure to trick my George into nicking himself with this blade. It didn’t matter to me that it was nonsense, I was just infuriated that my uncle thought he could dispose of my lover by sacrificing him to some dark god. He’s probably given George blood poisoning from that nasty old dagger; that’ll be why he was so odd the last few days.
“Well we’d a bit of a stand up row actually and at some point I realised I was holding the dagger and waving it around. I really don’t remember picking it up. My uncle’s eyes were following the point of the dagger more than he was listening to me and then I did something really stupid, though it seemed very gallant at the time. I also now wonder how much of it was my decision and how much the knife’s influence.
“I said to him, ‘Well if you think you’ve cursed my George with this damned knife, then I’ll curse myself too and you’ll just have to cure both of us.’ At that I stabbed the palm of my hand with the blade. Not too deep just enough to hurt and draw blood.”
Lily was silent so long then that I thought her connection had dropped.
“It was only when I saw the look of utter horror on his face that I realised he completely believed that I had just marked myself for sacrifice to his god. And maybe I have, for now when I sleep, and in my waking moments, in every shadow I see a strange crooked figure waiting for me, the glint of a blade in its hand.”
Elizabeth, I twist and I turn trying to decide what I believe. I have not mentioned that deadly crooked old man to anyone but you! In the dark of night and with everyone acting so crazily, it is easy to see the hand of sleeping dead gods in every uncanny thing. In daylight, even the weak winter daylight, I am sure there is some rational explanation. I just increasingly cannot see what it is.
Before we finished the telephone call, Lily went so quiet I thought her gone and then she whispered, “Can you hear him, Jon? He calls and he calls but my uncle won’t let me leave this place. I can hear him but I cannot go to him. Soon, soon though, he will be free.”
I felt for a moment as if I was falling into my nightmares again.
“Who?” I asked, “Who will be free?”
All she said was, “Tell George I have made a sacrifice of myself for him.”My blood ran cold at the despairing tone of her voice
While I dither, she has become a believer of sorts. So there you have it. We are all going mad here. Mrs Moore has her own bush telegraph and tells me that Clonlaw apparently packed an overnight bag and a car straight to the train station immediately after the altercation with his niece. What he is up to I do not know.
Best you stay away, though I wish you were near.
Yours with love,
Jon
_______________________________________________
'I May Have Stolen Something Important'
------------------------------------------------------
Bloomsbury, London W.C.
3rd December, 1925,
Dear Jon,
Please take good care of the enclosed. I hope my blue velvet scarf has been adequate wrapping for it and it has not been damaged in transit. It looks as though it might be rather fragile. It is essential that you wear it for protection from the god Crom – or Kronos, as I now believe the former is merely a renewed representation of the latter.
I am sorry you had to make a fruitless journey to Dublin for me but at least it got you away from the sinister environment of Kilphaun Hall for a day or so. You will be relieved to hear I did make my escape from the Society the following morning. Bursting with the desire for nature’s call, I banged loudly on my locked door for what seemed like ages, until I could hear a clanging and banging of buckets and brooms and my door was unlocked by a chambermaid, who seemed as surprised as I was to find me there. So relieved was I to see another member of my own sex, I could have wept. Instead I said, “Can you get me out of here?”
“Miss”, she said, “I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but this place gives me the creeps. I’d hate to be in here of a night. The side door is along the corridor that way. The door’s open – I’ve just come in that way with the cleaning stuff”.
I was unwashed, dishevelled and still badly needing to spend a penny; however these discomforts were diminished by the sweet scent of freedom in the open air. I didn’t care what Rookfield and Roland were going to think when they found me gone. The blackguards for leaving me locked up! I caught a taxi and made haste back to Celia’s where I was relieved to find her at home. She too had been worried about me, having received your telegram with news of my absence.
Once I had recuperated and freshened up, Celia was keen to hear all the details, and of course was hell-bent on returning straightaway to the Society to kick up a stink about my treatment. But I demurred, not feeling sufficiently robust in spirit to face that again, and instead have been sitting quietly, re-reading your letters, Jon, and trying to work out what it is that has made Kilphaun so haunted and whether Father did indeed have anything to do with it.
I’ve clearly had some preconceptions about Lily, as I had not expected her to be a classical scholar. It will be wasted on George that’s for sure. But while reading your letter, something suddenly struck me. The triskelion I had been admiring in the glass case at the Society, with the mysterious name Kpovos – of course, I realised, it was written in classical Greek, in which the ”p” is an “R”, rho, and the “V” is “N”. Nu. Followed in the alphabet by omicron and then pi. Kronos! Old Father Time himself. The triskelion, an eternal cycle.
It occurred to me that this was an amulet, that it could have protective powers, and that you will badly need it where you are, and that I should make post haste to retrieve it. I didn’t think it worth bothering Celia with this detail, though I sensed that her desire for satisfaction would be a useful diversion at the Society, so in the morning I let her know that I had recovered my strength and was prepared to go back with her as she suggested, to demand justice be done.
Well, I am becoming quite familiar with the tramp through the streets from Bloomsbury to Fitzrovia and it was odd how completely absent the Hunger Marchers were so soon after their disruptive parade. Have they gone to Parliament? As we approached the Society I could feel my nerves twinge, but Celia assured me she would deal with it, so I trusted to her confidence and willpower.
It was similar to my first visit, the old retainer answering the door without any obvious sign of welcome, but Celia was having no standing on the doorstep and shouldered her way past him, saying, “I demand to see whoever’s in charge here”, so I followed fast on her heels.
Mr Forsyth came blustering out of his hidey-hole saying, “What’s all the fuss?” I realise Celia needed me there to justify our entrance, but by now my main purpose was to get hold of the amulet, and seeing that the door to the main lounge was ajar, I excused myself hastily and slipped in. I could hear Celia’s remonstrations gaining volume and hoped she would make mincemeat of Forsyth.
I hardly gave myself time to think! The room could easily have been occupied but fortunately it was not so. In the daylight it seemed shabby and far less atmospheric than the previous night when the drawn curtains, shadows and candlelight had cast their spell. I sidled across to the cabinet by the window, and saw again the odd triskelion, its turns more angular and jointed than the curved ones we associate with Celtic legend. I felt it was perhaps very old – the angles being the work of some prehistoric carver perhaps, with only Stone Age tools at his – or her – disposal. The Greek alphabet came clear to me and I read what I had not seen before in the label – the name - Kronos.
But how to get it? Fortunately the latch did not seem too secure. In my handbag I found a stiff coloured card – Madame Gregoriou’s calling card, no less – and I used it to slide between the frame and the door and lift the latch. Such a cat burglar! I have more skills than I give myself credit for. Anyway, without more ado, the triskelion amulet was out of the cabinet and into my pocket. I was about to rejoin Celia and Forsyth when suddenly voices approached and were entering the room! I slipped to the side of the cabinet and pulled the bulk of the heavy curtain around me so that I could not be seen by anyone in the room.
The voices were both male. One I thought I recognised – Dr. Rookfield. The other I had not heard before, but it was upper class with a slight Irish twang, and a real creaky tone. It gave me the absolute shivers.
“Where the hell is Forsyth with that catalogue?” said this voice, “ I don’t have time to search the whole collection myself. I’ve a train and a boat to catch.”
The voice I thought was Rookfield said in a rather amused tone, “He seems to be engaged in battle with an agitated member of the public, and a lovely young woman at that. And losing, if I may say so. What is the rush? We weren’t expecting you back so soon at the Society.”
“None of your business, Hugh. I don’t want you poking around in my affairs again.”
“Well I do have an excellent memory for the collection but if you’d rather wait for Forsyth, I’ll be on my way, Charles. I do have a lunch date.”
“I am looking,” said this Charles – could it be Lord Clonlaw himself? – and sounding as if he was speaking through gritted teeth, “for a very specific amulet. Greek, part of Sir Finian Dashwood’s original collection. The one Frederick Sanderson was always so interested in.”
My Father! I am glad you mentioned the connection between the two men or otherwise I am sure I would have given myself away in shock. Even so, I did startle a bit and froze in terror at being found out.
“Ah yes,” said Rookfield – for it was he - as if oblivious to Clonlaw’s attitude. I shrank behind my curtain. Rookfield’s voice had come much closer. Had I been discovered? I dared not breathe!
“So it’s this Crom business again is it, Charles? I’d heard rumours you were up to something in Ireland. What have you found I wonder? Is it that wretched place Dashwood built? Kilphaun House or something wasn’t it? He was dabbling with powers that were beyond his widest imaginings and it only brought him and his family tragedy. You know he was found wearing that amulet on his deathbed? He wrote in his journals of its supposed power, the linkage with the ancient Greek proto-god of the Titans, Kronos, with Ireland’s own Crom. Of course he also claimed to have saved the world from that same god. Mad as hatter of course, if that’s not disrespectful to one of our learned society’s founders.”
Clonlaw said suspiciously, “You seem remarkably well informed, Hugh. I remind you that I am not a man to be trifled with, and of the last man that tried.”
“Yes, poor Frederick,” said Rookfield in a suddenly serious voice, “That was a bad business all round. You don’t look so good yourself, Charles, if I may say so. Might be time for a rest. I hope that lovely young niece of yours is not tiring you out on the social round.”
Clonlaw practically hissed, “Where is the damn amulet?”
I shrank further behind my curtain. Rookfield’s voice had come closer again.
“Well here of course, in this case – oh.”
It was clear he had discovered the item in question missing from the glass cabinet.
Clonlaw realised the situation and exclaimed, “The devil it’s gone! Who might have taken it at such a critical time?”
There was quite a bit of shouting actually but Clonlaw eventually recovered his composure.
He said, “There’s good money in it if you can find me this amulet, Rookfield, but it must be in the next few days.”
Rookfield said, “Money! We’re gentlemen, Charles. Tell me why you need it so urgently and I can see if I can find it or indeed anything that might substitute for it.”
There was a long pause and I held my breath again, Then Clonlaw broke the silence and said in a voice that frightened me to the bone.
“My niece has done something very stupid and I had hoped the amulet would protect her from what is coming soon for her. Without it she is doomed and I shall have to make the best of a bad situation.”
Rookfield knew I had commented on the piece only a few nights before. I was terrified my name would be mentioned. Instead, there was a pause, interrupted by Clonlaw saying, “What in devil’s name is that caterwauling? “
Caterwauling was not really the politest term to describe Celia’s raised voice, I must say, but she was doing herself proud. “You charlatan!” I could hear her cry. “You absolute liar! My cousin, who is extremely delicate” – I bridled at this, I must say - “was kept in this building the other night under utmost duress and you are denying to me that this could be possible! Balderdash!”
“Well let’s rescue the fellow and you can be on your way while I find the means to save your niece. We wouldn’t want any harm to come to her, would we?” said Rookfield, and his voice was more distant, so I could only hope that he and Lord Clonlaw had left the room. I could not easily follow, as I did not wish them to know I had been privy to their conversation and might even have the amulet secreted about my person. I could imagine they would have no reticence in searching me intimately!
So from my vantage point behind the gathered curtain, I checked the window. It was a large sash and looked out onto the street half a flight below. After what I had endured, I could take a six foot drop. So I removed my shoes and, tucking them into my coat, eased the sash, and slipped to the pavement outside. A passer-by gave me an odd look, but hurried on with no backward glance. Thank heaven for people having their own business to attend to in this busy city!
Putting my shoes back on I scurried as fast as I could on my tingling feet round the block, and soon found myself at the Society’s main entrance. I had had enough of the place, so I marched in, grabbed Celia by the elbow and said, “Enough! If these fellows won’t listen to reason, it’s a matter for the police force. Come, cousin” – a nice touch, I thought, to preserve our anonymity by revealing no names.
I had to give Celia a good sharp yank on her arm to get her to withdraw, and I could see she was fully prepared to turn her spleen on me, so I shushed her and pulled her away from the building, saying, “It’s ok – I’ve got what I need”. More probably. Father’s death was sudden but natural but now I am beginning to wonder.
I am sending this package to you by express post direct from Holborn sorting office as it will assist you, and for myself, I am keen to get it off my hands. A disturbing thought struck me – Rookfield is no fool and must suspect my part in the disappearance and I am afraid he will come to find me. I do wish to have Father’s papers returned by him but I am aware that may now come at a price.
With love
Elizabeth