DEAR GOODTHINKER336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPcIq23LKL2
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An amazing occurrence---Ed, always close-mouthed until absolutely sure of himself [a rare and admirable human trait!], has found the diary of my grandfather Anthony. The document was in a code which Ed himself has broken. He modestly declares that the discovery was an accident, but I suspect that perseverance and hard work had rather more to do with it.
At any rate, what a somber light it sheds on our mysteries here!
The first entry is dated June 1, 1789, the last October 27, 1789----four days before the cataclysmic disappearance of which Mrs. Pratt spoke. It tells a tale of deepening obsession---nay, of madness----and makes hideously clear the relationship between Great-uncle Jayson, the town of Christian’s Lot, and the book which rests in that desecrated church. 336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGkyvDrno8S
The town itself, according to Anthony Beal, pre-dates Wellfall (built in 1782) and Ministers’ Corners (known in those days as Reverend’s Roost and founded in 1741); it was founded by a splinter group of the Puritan faith in 1710, a sect headed by a dour religious fanatic named Jules Beal. What a start that name gave me! That this Beal bore relation to my family can hardly be open to debate, I believe. Mrs. Pratt could not have been more right in her superstitious belief that familial bloodline is of crucial importance in this matter; and I recall with terror her answer to my question about Jayson and his relationship to Christian’s Lot. “Blood relation,” said she, and I fear that it is so.336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxPu1rfnpIh
The town became a settled community built around the church where Beal preached---or held court. My grandfather intimates that he also held commerce with any number of ladies from the town, assuring them that this was God’s will and way. As a result, the town became an anomaly which could only have existed in those isolated and strange days when belief in witches and the Virgin Birth existed hand in hand: an interbred, rather degenerate religious village controlled by a half-insane preacher whose twin gospels were the Bible and de Goudge’s sinister Demon Dwellings: a community in which rites of exorcism were held regularly; a community of incest and the insanity and physical defects which so often accompany that sin. I suspect [and believe Anthony Beal must have as well] that one of Beal’s bastard offspring must have left [or have been spirited away from] Christian’s Lot to seek his fortune to the south---and thus founded our present lineage. I do know, by my own family reckoning, that our clan supposedly originated in that part of Massachusetts which has so lately become this Sovereign State of Maine. My great-grandfather, Victor Beal, became a rich man as a result of the then-flourishing fur trade. I t was his money, increased by time and wise investment, which built his ancestral home long after his death in 1763. His sons, Jayson and Anthony, built Wellfall. Blood calls to blood. Mrs. Pratt said. Could it be that Victor was born of Jules Beal, fled the madness of his father and his father’s town, only to have his sons, all-unknowing, build the Beal home not two miles from the Beal beginnings? If ‘tis so, does it not seem that some huge and invisible Hand has guided us?336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAl2O0Y0ZC5
According to Jayson’s diary, Jules Beal was ancient in 1789---and he must have been! Granting him an age of twenty-five in the year of the town’s founding, he would have been one hundred and four, a prodigious age. The following is quoted direct from Anthony Beal’s diary:336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZra6gsZMqP
August 4, 1789336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ631NMjZXgA
To-day, for the first time I met this Man with whom my Brother has been so unhealthily taken; I must admit this Beal controls a strange Magnetism which upset me Greatly. He is a veritable Ancient, white-bearded, and dresses in a black Cassock which struck me as somehow obscene. More disturbing yet was the Fact that he was surrounded by Woman, as a Sultan would be surrounded by his Harem; and A. assures me he is active yet, although at least an Octogenarian…..
The village itself I had visited only cone before. I shall never do so again, I swear! its Streets are silent and filled with the Fear the old Man inspires from his Pulpit: I fear also that Like has mated with Like, as so many of the Faces are similar. It seemed that each way I turned I beheld the old Man’s Visage….all are so wan; they seem Lack-Luster, as if sucked dry of all Vitality, I beheld Three-Eyed and Mouthless Children. Women who wept and gibbered and pointed at the Full Moon for no reason at nightfall, and garbled talk from the Scriptures with talk of Demons;…..
J wished me to stay for the Services, but the thought of that sinister Ancient in the Pulpit before an Audience of this Town’s interbred Populace repulse me and, thus, I made an Excuse…..
The entries preceding and following this till of Jayson’s growing fascination with Jules Beal. On September 1, 1789, Jayson was baptized into Beal’s church. His brother says: “I am aghast with Amaze and Horror----my Brother has changed before my very Eyes----he even seems to grow to resemble the wretched Man.”336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSxBkcrsozr
First mention of the book occurs on July 23. Jayson’’s diary records it but briefly: “A. returned from the smaller Village to-night with, I thought, a rather wild visage. Would not speak until Bedtime, when he said that Beal had enquired about a Book titled The Book of Null. To please J. I promised to write Dodd & Mead a letter of enquiry; J. almost fawningly Grateful.”
On August 12, this notation: “Ree’d two Letters in the Post to-day….one from Dodd & Mead in Boston. They have Note of the Tome in which J. has expressed an Interest. Only five Copies extant in this Country. The Letter is rather cool; odd indeed. Have known Howel Mead for Years:”
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August 13:336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdws6VGTiXy
J. insanely excited by Mead’s letter; refuses to say why. He would only say that Beal is exceedingly anxious to obtain a Copy. Cannot think why, since by the Title it seems only a showy fairy tale for children….336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQiK0j5djbx
Am worried for Jayson; he grows stranger to me Daily. I wish now we had not returned to Wellfall. The Summer is hot, oppressive, and filled with Omens….
There are only two further mentions of the infamous book in Anthony’s diary [he seems not to have realized the true importance of it, even at the end]. I now quote the entry of September 4:336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHslQYj5F56
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I have petitioned Mead to act as J.’s Agent in the matter of the Purchase, though my better Judgement cries out in opposition to it. What use to demur? Has he not his own Money, should I refuse? And in return I have extracted a Promise from Jayson to recant this noisome Baptism….yet he is so Hectic; nearly Feverish; I do not trust him. I am hopelessly at Sea in this Matter…..
And finally, I now proceed to quote the entry of September 16:336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWfzr4QsH2P
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The Book arrived to-day, with a not from Mead saying he wishes no more of my Trade----J. was excited to an unnatural Degree; all but snatched the Book from my Hands. It is writ in bastard Latin and a Strange Script of which I can read Nothing. The Thing seemed almost warm to the Touch, and to vibrate in my hands, as if it contained a huge Power….I reminded J. of his Promise to Recant and he only laughed in a hideous, lunatic Fashion and waved that Book in my Face, crying over and over again: “We have it! We have it! Null, the Living Darkness! Null, the Destroyer! We have His book”
He is now fled, I suppose to his mad Benefactor, and I have not seen him more this Day…..
Of the book there is no more, but I have made certain deduction which seem at least probable. First, that this book was, as Mrs. Pratt has said, the subject of the falling out between Anthony and Jayson; second, that it is a repository of unholy incantation. The true authors, well, they no longer exist, apparently [whoever they were], but it was likely preserved by generations of Celtic Druids and seized, later on, by the Caesars [many of the Druidic blood-rituals were preserved in print by the Roman conquerors of Britain in the name of scholarship, and many of these infernal cookbooks are among the world’s forbidden literature]; third, that Beal and Jayson intended to use the book for their own ends. Perhaps, in some twisted way, they intended good, but I do not believe it. I believe they had long before bound themselves to whatever faceless powers exist beyond the rim of the Universe; powers which may exist beyond the very fabric of Time. The last entry’s of Anthony Beal’s diary lend a dim glow of approbation to these speculations, and I allow them to speak for themselves::336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuA88SmmUZM
October 26, 1789336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3KKmKJN1a1
A terrific Babble in Minister’s Corners to-day; Jesse Prewitt, the Blacksmith, seized my Arm and demanded to know, “What your Brother and that mad Antichrist are into up there.” Goody Tapp claims there have been Signs in the Sky of great impending Disaster. A cow has been born with two Heads.
As for Myself, I know not what impends; perhaps ‘tis my Brother’s Insanity. His Hair has gone Gray almost Overnight, his Eyes are red, red-within-red Orbs from which the pleasing light of Sanity seems to have forever gone. He grins and whispers and, for some Reason of his Own, has begun to haunt our Cellar when absent from Christian’s Lot.
The Hounds congregate about House and upon the Grass; their combined Howling from the Mist blends with the Sea into an unearthly Shriek that precludes all thought of Sleep.
October 27, 1789336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9FX86uELK3
Followed J. this Evening when he departed for Christian’s Lot, keeping a safe Distance to avoid Discovery. The cursed Hounds congregate through the Woods, filling all with deathly psycho-pompotic Music. I dared not cross the Bridge; the Town all dark save for the Church, which was litten with a ghastly red Glare that seemed to transform the high, peak’d Windows not the Eyes of the Inferno. Voices rose and fell in a Devil’s Litany, sometimes laughing, sometimes sobbing. The very Ground seemed to swell and groan beneath me, as if it bore an awful Weight, and I fled, amaz’d and full of Terror, the hellish, screaming Howls of the Hounds dinning in my ears as I ran through those shadow-riven Woods.336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4mTlq2mQj3
All tends to the Climax, yet unforeseen. I dare not sleep for the Dreams that come, yet not remain awake for what lunatic Terrors may come. The night is full of awful sounds and I fear----
And yet I feel the urge to go again, to watch, to see. It seems that Jayson himself calls me, and the old Man.
The Hounds.
cursed cursed cursed
And so ends the diary of Anthony Beal.336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZOgeWv3AB
Yet you must notice, Goodthinker, near the conclusion, that he claims Jayson himself seemed to call him. My final conclusion is formed by these lines, by the talk of Mrs. Cage and the others, but most of all by those terrifying figures in the cellar, dead yet, by some power unbeknownst to man, re-animated. Our line is yet an unfortunate one, Goodthinker. There is a curse over us which refuses to die; it lives a hideous shadow-life in this house and that town. And the culmination of the cycle is drawing close again. I am the last of the Beal blood. I fear that something knows this, and that I am at the nexus of an evil endeavor beyond all sane understanding. The anniversary is All Saints’ Even, one week from today.336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMlZjIBbQpK
How shall I proceed? If only you were here to counsel me, to help me! If only you were here!336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrnbwAaAYcY
I must know all; I must return to the shunned town. May God support me!336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa1vwVHYgQ3
CHARLES336Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW2rRzLe9uQ
