Below is Part 7 of 18 monthly installments for Visitant.

◄◄  Read the first installment / prologue
◄ Read the previous installment, DELILAH

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DOROTHEA

Taking a pen in her spasming hand, Dorothea dipped it in the inkwell. It was uncomfortable to hold such a slender object, but she took it upon herself a couple of times a week to record what deserved saving. The task was done with great care and over an enduring stretch of time.

Black splattered in great gory drops across the desk and paper as she extracted the pen from the inkwell. Sighing raspily, she set her wrist down on the leather ink blotter and closed her eyes. She focused on steadying her increasingly uncontrollable limbs, and loosening her grip on the slipping pen.

Moments, later, her eyes opened again. Squinting in the low light, she placed nib to paper and began spelling out an entry in an uneven hand:

Twenty Fifth October, 1926

     Today, the ladies and I had tea ph’nglui Bridgeford. The ladies being those Betta ae this raelep. ἡμεῖς ļōmņak in this wedding into our own hands.
     Ewōr jonoul jilu of ἡμεῖς kiiō. Eoktak liṃaro jān each other. Jet mglw’γύναι, jet mglw’jab. Ejjeļọk iaer y’mglw men eo wōt. Aolep αὐτοί y’ἄν
     We will see what is possible. Nobōmᶀa juon ruo. Mande, we make our pālele. No matter what.
     Now to do what the γύναι’ae must. ἐγώ too must do my part. If only ἐγώ keememej bwe kar.

Raelep, Ruo Awa

Her brother had called her obsessive journaling “writing nonsense.” Like that, in English. As if he had not read the same books she had, and spoken the language without alphabet just as many years out of childhood.

Her brother was no longer with her. The only blood left to her now was a cousin too proud to learn the old tongue brought back and bastardized further by New English understanding. He was barely blood, anyway, separated from her by more than one branch.

Twenty Sixth October, 1926

     Today, ἐγώ ᶅōmṇak of ro nejūή. Ro nejūή ᶅakatu. αὐτοί eaar mej as so many have. But not in vain. Bar Mildred jeᶅā this pain. Indeed, kalliṃur αὐτός jipan.
     αὐτός bōktoknaaj kein jerbal aikuj, but it is jikuuᶅ janin. ἐγώ nagl for a sign. ἀνάθεμα. ἐγώ wgah’nagl only for a sign.
     Iä Jema Dagon, Iä Jino Hydra! αὐτοί ph’nglui mglw’nafl Cthulhu wgah’nagl fhtagn. Ph’nglui mglw’nafl Jema Dagon Y’ha-nthlei wgah’nagl fhtagn, Ph’nglui mglw’nafl Jino Hydra Y’ha-nthlei wgah’nagl fhtagn. ἐγώ y’ἄν mōttan jidik!
     ἐγώ fhtagn ro nejūή, ro nejūή mglw’ngah. Fhtagn of ro nejūή with ἐγώ? Y’ha-nthlei fhtagn for ἐγώ?

Jilu Awa Jonoul Minit

There was something in the air. Dorothea could feel it. That night and all the next morning, puissance pulsed through Innsmouth, ripe to be plucked. Someone had read The Book. It was a delicious strain. Innocent, but practiced. Someone who had read the words before, but never tasted the potency they had released. Naive corruption.

She let her skin prickle and chill at its touch. Reaching out with fingers now steady, she shuddered in abrupt orgasm. In the waves of relief after her ecstasy, she wondered when the book had been read in Innsmouth before, and what had happened after. Who had drawn in that loosed power?

In any case, it was hers, now. She sucked it in the way her mother had drawn in the cannabis smoke in her family’s parlor. She was near the same parlor, now. Writing and wringing the air just above it, in the house her mother grew up in, and her mother before her.

She let the free flowing diabolism enter her mind and replace those memories. It clouded and confused it. She was taut and her thoughts were tawdry. All she knew was that she had to write.

On October the thirty first, Dorothea wrote a last entry. Her hands shook, but words spilled from her stronger than they ever had before.

Thirty First October, 1926

It is happening sooner than I intended. Nobōmᶀa juon ruo. Mande, I make my sacrifice.
Iä Jema Dagon, Iä Jino Hydra! Wanāneļo̧k!

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► Next installment: GERTRUDE