The smoke banked like fog, and the opening of the door filled the room with blown swirls of ectoplasm.

F Scott Fitzgerald, The Rich Boy

Chapter One

The last time…?

Alden Oakes turned away from the window, staring coolly at the cub reporter who had paused with his pencil raised above the pad. Oakes had avoided his questions deftly so far, employing a defensive combination of small talk and awkward silences.

I thought we might start there, the reporter said, prodding. He had a deadline.

Alden nodded and resumed pacing inside the hotel suite. Strange weather we’re having. First a dense fog, then blowing mists like gigantic gauzy veils. Now here comes the rain. I didn’t need to open this contraption all the way here from the train station this morning. He tapped the window with the umbrella he was using like a cane. The reporter had noticed the famous painter suffered from a slight limp. The air is strangely mild for midsummer. Don’t you agree?

It beats the heat, the reporter said. He wasn’t interested in talking about the weather, but whatever got his subject to relax and open up to him was worth a try.

Alden gazed out at the gloom as if he were trying to decipher shapes in the clouds.

How does it feel being back at the hotel again? the younger man asked, poking again softly, wondering if this afternoon was going to end up being a big waste of time. Usually, there were two ways to handle it. Either you pushed the subject harder and risked losing them, or you went all quiet and let the pressure of no one talking do the trick. He hadn’t made up his mind which way to go yet.

The doorman tipped his cap like we were old acquaintances, Alden said.

Rain hissed and slithered down the glass.

The reporter decided. He had spent hours trying to pry stories out of tight-lipped people in places far less pleasant than the luxurious Silver Gate Hotel. He could afford to kill a little time here in the comfort of a pricey room. So he dropped his pencil on his notepad and pushed back from the hotel room desk, letting out a gentle sigh. Though compact, the desk setup was more comfortable than his cluttered cubby at the Arkham Advertiser, where he was forced to share space with a sports reporter, a habitual snacker who left coffee rings and doughnut crumbs on everything. If the artist wanted to play coy, he’d wait him out, saying nothing. He gazed past the painter at the dim, graying view of downtown Arkham.

Alden pushed off from the window and smiled. He sat stiff-backed on the loveseat, his hands resting on the crook of the umbrella gripped between his knees. Leaning over, he switched on a lamp, casting light into the room which was growing noticeably darker despite the noon hour. Ready?

Yes, Mr Oakes, whenever you want to get started. Victory! He snatched his pencil.

Resigned, Alden sank into the pale green velvet sofa cushions, closing his eyes. The last time I saw the Silver Gate Hotel it was burning. I was burning too, or my jacket was, before an Arkham fireman tackled me to the ground, rolling me in the grass to smother the little fires climbing my back. I escaped with my life, as they say.

You’re a lucky man, the reporter said. Now that the ball was rolling, he just had to keep it going. He might get a decent story out of this yet. After all, the tragic and suspicious fire at the Silver Gate had been the biggest news story in Arkham last year. But Alden Oakes was considered only a minor part of it, a local celebrity footnote. A celebrity painter, no less.

I’m sure some people might consider me lucky, Alden looked at him slyly.

The young man frowned, confused. Would he have rather had his bacon fried?

Alden went on.

This suite we’re sitting in, the one I’ve booked for this homecoming of mine, survived the catastrophe intact. It suffered serious smoke damage. The whole place did. But you’d never guess that judging from the building’s current appearance. The bricks scrubbed clean, fresh from the rain, the lobby’s glossy marble floor shining like a giant chessboard, and those vases full of maroon heirloom roses and white calla lilies. Such a transformation! Yes, they worked a real miracle bringing this hotel back into operation in a little over a year.

The reporter began scribbling notes. The grand reopening gala is scheduled for tomorrow. Are you surprised the hotel owners invited you?

Why? Because of the rumors? My confinement? Alden’s voice rose. Nothing was ever substantiated. Innuendos and idle speculation. The press planted theories to sell more papers. People like you. He checked his anger, pushing it back under the surface. Others influenced them, of course. The doctors said I needed rest. I suffered from physical and mental exhaustion. No, I don’t feel guilty about what happened to the hotel. But I’ll admit it was a surprise to receive the invitation. Who are the owners, by the way? Do you know?

The reporter shook his head. It’s a damned secret. The management company runs day-to-day business. But the legal paperwork is vague, a pyramid of companies, mostly European. Taxes are paid by an anonymous land trust. That’s all I could dig up–

Don’t bother digging. You won’t find anything. Alden waved. It’s not important.

But they wanted you here.

My presence was demanded. Alden sat forward. I just finished a gallery showing in New York. I have no real home any more, not in America. I was debating returning to France, or spending a few months in South America painting frogs and orchids along the Amazon. I’d gone as far as hiring a paddleboat with a small crew to ferry me into the jungle.

Yet here you are, the young man said, shaking his head, incredulous. A trip into the Amazon jungle! Now there was a place where stories were ripe for the picking. They must be hanging from the trees like banana bunches. A journalist could write a big, fat book about it. Why would you skip a trip like that, if you don’t mind me asking? I’d jump at the chance.

Adventure doesn’t require an exotic locale. Only the proper spirit is needed…

What the heck did that mean? Well, the young reporter wasn’t here to argue about foreign travel plans. Keep talking, Mr Oakes, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, he said.

Not to worry. What’s your name again?

Andy. Andy Van Nortwick.

"Well, Andy, let me ask you a question. How old do you think I am?"

Glad that the artist’s mood had improved, Andy screwed one eye shut and appraised his subject. Oakes was slender, his pale coloring bordering on consumptive, except for a penny-sized, raised scar dotting his left cheek. He wore a pencil mustache. His hair receded in a sandy blond wave curling back from a high aristocratic forehead. And he dressed strictly top drawer, a tailored London suit. But his eyes gave it away. They looked watery and old, crowded by lines of worry, sleepless nights, and regret. I’ve never worked at the carnival or anything, but I’ll guess you’re right about fifty. That’s a nice round number. Fifty it is.

I’m twenty-nine. My birthday was two weeks ago.

The reporter’s face reddened. I’m sorry, Mr Oakes. I didn’t mean any insult to you.

Alden brought out a gold cigarette case and a banjo pocket lighter. He offered a smoke to the reporter. Then he lit both their cigarettes.

That’s what adventures do to a person, Andy.

Alden winked and settled back on the sofa. He exhaled a plume of smoke into the suite. Andy felt embarrassed. The Arkham Advertiser reporter kept his eyes glued to his notepad. He’d been writing for the newspaper for less than a year. Before that he had been delivering them on his bicycle. He was eager to be writing any story more momentous than Mrs O’Reilly’s dog gone missing after chasing the milkman off her porch. He silently cursed himself for being so raw. A real dope. He wasn’t like the cynical veteran ink slingers, with their grimy fingers stuck in every political pie. They wrote stories as favors or payback. He had no secret agenda. No one was pulling his strings. Not yet anyway. He only wanted to tell the truth. When he looked up again, Alden’s expression had softened toward him.

It wasn’t easy walking in this place after what happened to me here the last time, the painter said. My heart was thumping when I checked in at the front desk and got my key. They’ve got the elevator operator dressed up like a phony palace guard. So strange. I almost pitied the poor old guy sitting there on his stool.

I saw him too, Andy said, smiling. I’ll bet it gets boring sitting in that box all day, riding up and down.

Agreed, Alden said. Is it me or do the hotel staff seem terribly cheerful to you? I wonder how many of them worked here before the fire. I arrived early to avoid the rush. Most of the invitation-only gala guests aren’t getting in until this evening or tonight. As the elevator car rose, I fiddled with my room key, caressing the brass fob. It’s shaped like the Silver Gate façade but in miniature. Here, take a look. Alden slipped his room key from his pocket, tossing it to Andy.

It’s heavy, Andy said, before giving it back.

The fire stopped on twelve. The firehoses never reached this far. Alden tapped the number on the key. "1481. My room for tonight. I entered and hooked the chain behind me. Only smoke invaded 1481 the night of the inferno. Plenty of it. Sniff about I did, once I locked myself inside. Like a basset hound following a scent trail I got down on all fours, but detected nothing more than laundered bed linens and a whiff of lemon oil wood polish. The new carpet feels different, spongier than I recall. They’ve repainted. The replacement color is horribly bland, less rich and creamy than the original. Your average person wouldn’t notice the difference. But I do. Demolition might have been a better option. Start over from scratch. I suppose it all came down to cost. They’ve chosen to try and cover things up, but the residue is still here, lingering beneath the surface. Hints and echoes. Before you knocked on my door, I smelled smoke in the bathroom. I was sure I smelled it. Fleeting, but distinct, not the scent of cigarettes but acrid, choking fumes… I investigated but failed to discover any lasting trace of it, only a bleachy residue rising from the bathtub. Funny."

The reporter couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

You don’t smell anything now, do you, Andy?

Not a thing, Mr Oakes.

Maybe it’s playing tricks on me, Alden said. The hotel, I mean. Or, maybe, something else…. The painter seemed lost for a moment, unfocused; his head tilted as if listening for a muffled, distant sound. But then he returned. The furniture appears solid, elegant yet standard: a bed, dresser, and nightstand. The cozy sofa and chairs, that neat little desk where you’re sitting writing out my story. My version of the events as they transpired… what happened to me…

"What did happen to you? It was more than a bad fire, wasn’t it?" Andy’s eyes sparked.

You’ll make a good reporter someday, Andy. You have the nose for it, as they say. I wonder if you’ll believe me if I tell you everything I saw, everything I know is true.

Give me a try. Andy tapped the ash off his cigarette and licked his dry lips.

I’ve got a bottle of gin in my bag, Alden said. He stood up quickly and moved to the closet. Taking down a red crocodile suitcase and setting it on the luggage rack, he pulled a small key from a necklace he wore under his shirt and unlocked the catches. From the case he unpacked a bottle of bootleg gin, a shaker, and a pair of glasses. He left the case open. Hand me that ice bucket, would you? Thirsty?

Andy found a full ice bucket sweating on the nightstand. He brought it to the painter.

I don’t drink on the job, he said. My boss wouldn’t like me breaking the law.

Admirable, Alden said. But the martini is for me. Ginger ales for you are in the desk drawer. Alden tossed him a bottle opener. When both men had their cold drinks, they settled back in their seats. Alden raised his martini for a toast. What shall we drink to?

Truth?

Alden shook his head. "Too much responsibility. How about, my side of things?"

To your side of things, Andy said. He sipped his ginger ale.

Alden took a long swallow of gin. That’s all I can tell you, really. All any of us ever can tell, in the end. Nina would agree. She’d like you.

Who’s Nina? Andy asked.

She’s my best friend, Alden said. I’ll get to her eventually. She’s a big part of what this puzzling business is all about. A writer, too, my Nina, ‘Alden, if you and I don’t tell people what’s going on, who will?’ she’d say.

She sounds like somebody I’d like to meet.

Alden smiled wistfully. Nina isn’t here to help us right now. Words are her strength, mine being colors… pencils and brushes, paints, canvas. She would’ve been much better suited to be your source. But you’ve got me instead. Let me know if you get hungry. We’ll order up room service. Oysters Rockefeller and shrimp cocktails. Put it on the hotel tab.

Swell. I’ve never eaten like a rich man before.

Alden set his martini down to light another cigarette. He clicked the lighter dramatically and said, My curious reporter friend, I’ll do everything in my power to set things out right. The dreadful truth of the events as they really occurred, even the unbelievably scandalous details and most gruesome, loathsome facts. But you must know that it all started for me well before that frightful night at the Silver Gate Hotel.

Andy’s pencil moved mechanically across the blank page, filling in the lines.

So, Alden began his tale.

Chapter Two

The summer before… well, around two years ago now, I was watching a hot sun set into a cold glittery sea when I heard someone calling my name across the beach at Cannes.

Oakesy!

Now, my proper name is Wilfred Alden Oakes. But my father will always be the only Wilfred Oakes, renowned industrialist and philanthropist, et cetera. Everyone else calls me Alden. Except for one person. So I knew, before I saw him stepping through the long shadows stretched out on the sand, that it was Preston Fairmont walking toward me with a martini glass gripped in one hand and the other waving as if he were trying to hail a cab.

Oakesy! Over here! I can’t believe it’s you. What are you doing in France?

I was sitting in a wicker chair beside a small slatted wood table at a beach café, resting my legs after a day of climbing the winding cobbled lanes of the old quarter, Le Suquet, in search of untapped inspiration. Preston grasped the chair across from me and pulled it free from the beach. A bag containing my brushes and paints popped out of the seat but did not spill. Preston removed it from sight. Jubilant and tan, he sat down, beaming.

What are you drinking?

A rose cocktail, I said.

Splendid.

Preston caught the eye of the waitress. He had a manner about him that service people always noticed. He exuded money. The waitress slid another coaster onto my table.

"Voulez-vous quelque chose à boire?"

I’ll have one of these, Preston said, pointing to my drink.

The waitress nodded, smiling, but Preston was already looking away from her at the deep blue waves, the people lounging on the sand, and lastly, as she departed our company, at me. Despite my surprise at seeing him, I was instantly reacquainted with his aloof charm.

How are you, Preston? I said.

Glorious, I’ve spent the day… I don’t know… walking? I never tire of this place.

Staying long? I tried to sound neutral. It had been a while since we last talked, and the gap was not entirely by accident. Preston and I shared a lot of mutual background and friends. I preferred the illusion that I was unique in the world. He made that more difficult.

He shook his head. I leave tomorrow. Sailing in the morning. That’s why it’s so perfect that I’ve seen you just now. I’ve been trying to reach you. You are desperately elusive, Oakesy.

I’ve been here all summer, I said, squinting, shading my eyes.

At the beach? It’s no wonder you haven’t had an exhibition in ages.

His comment casually found a way to bruise my pride.

Preston’s cocktail arrived.

I ordered another and requested the check, hoping to measure our encounter to the most enjoyable length. Painting isn’t all getting and spending. Learning the craft takes time. I’ve grown this year, but finding my own style has been more difficult than I first anti–

Artists throw the best parties, Preston interrupted. I’ll bet you’ve been to a few.

Preston Fairmont was no amateur about throwing parties. At college he became a Miskatonic University legend. He’d started out at the University of Chicago, but his lack of seriousness as a student caused his parents to want him closer to home. So, reluctantly, he transferred to MU after a year. When we roomed together as classmates, he was still in his hosting infancy and busy establishing himself, keenly assessing maneuvers in the social terrain. During the Great War we talked about dropping out to join the navy because we liked their uniforms. The girls did too, or so we had surmised. There was something romantic yet viscerally tangible about the sea. It’s the same reason I’ve always enjoyed painting in seaside locations. Well, neither of us volunteered to fight, and the war ended the autumn following our graduation. By then Preston was a connoisseur of the party scene and a host of epic renown. I dabbled on the periphery of such events, more comfortable spending my time slapping paint on canvasses in a studio or lugging an easel around outdoors.

Why were you trying to contact me? I asked.

I’m embarrassed to say.

Impossible, I said. Preston had an innate confidence bred into him. I’ve never known you to feel that emotion.

You’ll see when I tell you why.

Go on.

I’m getting married. Preston smiled sheepishly.

Congratulations! That’s nothing to be flustered about. Cheers!

I genuinely felt happy for the old boy, but the joyous surge was quickly throttled.

To Minnie Devane, Preston added.

The empty glass squirted out of my fingers, tumbling off the table into the sand. Luckily its replacement was due any second. So here was the sticking point. Minnie Devane had been my on-again, off-again college girlfriend, my fiancée and ex-fiancée, my inspiration, the first woman I ever thought I loved. Now, I could write a book about Minnie, but if I did, I’d have to burn it before I was arrested for violating the Comstock Laws. Not that Minnie herself was obscene. See, she was like a piece of broken mirror. Small and shiny, and if you weren’t careful she’d leave you bleeding. She reflected back places in yourself that were better left unexamined. I fell for Minnie because she had a smart, sassy way of talking and a wild, fast, shimmery way of whipping herself around a room so that everybody felt charged up. She was all heat and energy.

Sometimes that energy exploded. And people got hurt.

You and Minnie? It seemed so impossible, and then, even worse, so obvious.

I picked up the glass and dusted it off.

Ain’t it grand? Preston said. His forehead beaded with sweat. Dark patches stained his shirtfront. He kept folding and unfolding his arms. His hands were like a pair of birds he was trying to keep from flying away. I noticed his color draining off, like a man about to faint. Was he that nervous about telling me? I hadn’t thought my opinion mattered to Preston.

When’s the big day?

Oh, not until next summer. I’ve got… We have a year to plan, he said.

The shock of the news still reverberated, of course. I nearly felt concussed. But I was having a hard time coming up with a good reason to object or even to feel bad. I liked Preston. And I liked Minnie. Why shouldn’t I be happy for them?

I don’t know if you’re looking for it, Preston, but you have my blessing, I said.

The more I thought about them as a couple, the more I saw how they fit better than Minnie and I ever did. I was too solitary to match their robustly sociable personalities.

Preston and Minnie. Linking them up like that would take time to get used to.

Oakesy, that’s real swell of you. I’m relieved. He didn’t look relieved. He was scratching his shoes back and forth under the table, peeking occasionally to witness the progress of his dig. He looked worse than when he dropped the big wedding bomb on me. Was there something else? You’re a champ. We hoped you wouldn’t be too sore.

I’m glad you found each other. Honestly, I think I really frustrated Minnie. The lonely artist, I guess, living inside his own head. In an imaginary world. ‘But it’s always raining in your world,’ she’d say. ‘That’s the trouble.’ Maybe I was just too peculiar for her.

That’s what she told me.

Did she now?

Frankly, Preston and Minnie were the kind of people who typically did as they pleased. If they were inconvenienced, they might try to patch things up to see that things would go smoother for them. But they were hardly the type to lie awake at night wondering about the impact their actions had on bystanders. I felt sort of honored in a weird way.

Minnie and I are hoping dearly that you’ll come to the wedding. It’s in Arkham.

The unexpected invite dizzied me. Certainly, I might get used to the idea of my old flame marrying a college buddy of mine, but did I want to be there to see it happening?

Preston glanced past me over my shoulder. The corner of his mouth twitched in an anxious half-smile. I turned to see what he was looking at. It was a woman in a floppy sun hat with a pink ribbon. Either because Preston had been staring, or because I turned abruptly, she concealed herself, lowering the hat’s wide brim to avoid our further attention.

He reached over the table and grabbed my wrist. His look was pleading. I felt sorry for him. Please say you’ll be there, he said. Why was he acting so desperate?

I’ll come to the wedding. I had time to adjust, and he wanted me there so badly.

His face stretched in an elastic, white grin. That’s terrific! They will be so happy!

"They? Who are they?" I asked, confused.

Preston paused, then shrugged. It’s just Minnie and me. No one else.

Now what about that woman sitting behind me? With the sun hat? I thumped his shoulder. I saw you smiling at her. Here I wagged my finger. Minnie will expect your complete attention and strictest devotion, if you haven’t discovered that already.

Preston swallowed dryly. Well, she’s the only one for me.

Good man! Come next summer, you shall worship the goddess Minnie! I joked.

Ha! His loud exclamation startled the beachgoers around us.

The waitress finally came with our drinks. After I signed the check, I pretended to drop my pen accidently so I could get a second, better look at the woman in the floppy hat. But she was gone.

While I was bending over, I happened to glance under the table. During our conversation, Preston had slipped off one of his white bucks and drawn something in the sand with his toe. A cup-like shape balanced on a triangle. Inside it were two ovals. Next to the cup, and less distinguishable, he’d scratched a three-pronged fork.

How truly bizarre, I thought.

As I tried to make sense of the upside-down symbols, Preston dragged his foot through the sand, obliterating them. Initially he’d come on so very Preston, but now I was noticing his unease. Perhaps this impending marriage really did shake his pillars. Minnie had that effect on some people.

When are you planning to head back to Arkham? Preston asked me as I sat up.

I have no formal plans. I’ll be in France for a short while. I was hoping to make a trip along the Spanish coast. My mother wants me home for Christmas. Why do you ask?

Minnie and I are throwing an engagement party. No date yet. Probably at my parents’ house in French Hill, or maybe at the Lodge. We’d like you there. We have a lot of new friends who’ll be attending the wedding. You need to meet them first. Fascinating crowd. Bohemian types, right up your alley. Arkham has a vibrant art scene these days, or so Minnie tells me.

That sounds intriguing, I said. Since when did bohemians flock to Arkham? What kind of arts do they practice?

Preston’s skin turned a clammy gray. No longer the tanned picture of good health, he gulped his drink and began sucking on the ice. I worried he was suddenly feeling unwell.

Are you all right, chum?

One too many escargots last night, I’m afraid, he said, wiping his damp forehead.

And a few too many bottles of bubbly to chase them?

Preston smiled. You know me, old friend.

I thought I did.

He asked me to consider a return to Arkham in the fall. He and Minnie needed to start planning for their wedding bash. And weren’t the fall trees beautifully colorful around our New England town? Couldn’t I find something worth painting closer to my birthplace?

In any case, get yourself home before all the leaves are gone, he said.

I’ll try my best.

My answer seemed less than satisfactory to him, but we shook hands (his felt like a cold thing washed up on the beach) and said au revoir.

Our waitress swung by, and I ordered an absinthe.

My nerves felt jangly, my inner wiring frayed. For no real reason, my senses felt as if they were set on high alert. It was as if I were living on only coffee and cigarettes.

The water flashed with intricate, metallic-seeming patterns. I noticed one sailing yacht anchored out in the bay, closer to the beach than any of the others. She wasn’t the biggest. Her slim white lines lay just above the water like a bobbing shard of ice.

Quickly, on an impulse, I grabbed a pencil and pad and began to sketch her.

Out onto her foredeck stepped a figure visible only in silhouette. Sexless, ageless, viewed at this distance and in the failing light, it might have been any person on the planet. I knew not what drew my eye to it. But I could not look away. The figure glided along the yacht’s length. It must have been a sailor carrying ropes, I told myself. Long tendrils looped from the central body and were cast off into the sea. The figure appeared to vibrate. Trick of perspective. The water’s reflection was at play with the abundant shadows. My mouth felt dry, tasted of salt. A ripple of nausea passed through me like a sound wave traveling from the middle of the bay. My hand trembled as I traced long, unbroken lines onto the paper, attempting to capture the oddity I saw.

The horizon divided into layers: dark blue, indigo, purple, violet, and smoked gray.

The Bay of Cannes became a sheet of glass.

Those ropes, if they were ropes, retracted. The figure elongated, growing taller by half. This sailor, or fisherman, this distortion of a human form also wore something on its head.

Huge spikes, in the fashion of a crown, a dark cluster of bayonet-like appendages.

That’s what they looked like, anyway.

Then the light changed, and soft black fuzz seemed to sprout from the air itself. The yacht became a normal sailing vessel at anchor among dozens of others.

I saw no one onboard.

Night had arrived. I looked around me as if I had been sleeping and wakened in my chair. The corrugated sea came alive once more with twinkling lights mirrored from the cafés and hotels ringing the shoreline. People were talking, sipping aperitifs or cups of coffee.

Normal.

Whatever peculiarity had passed briefly over the bay vanished.

I contemplated the spot where Preston had been talking to me less than an hour ago. He might have been a mirage, a conjuration, a product of my imagination animated in a dream. I picked up my bag from the sand, then stood to put away my sketchpad. I swayed, feeling lightheaded. Was it the liquor? The onset of a fever?

Too long in the sun, I concluded.

I walked back to my hotel in a daze. Falling on my bed, I didn’t even bother to undress but slept straight though until morning. I woke instantly at daybreak. The room smelled stuffy, but I felt revived, energized. I might’ve looked like hell, but, boy oh boy, was I humming. After my breakfast I told the hotel manager I wished to settle the bill. The idea came to me that I must leave Cannes at once. I had no obligations but to myself, so I followed this unexplained urge, curiously compelled to see where it might lead me. I bought a map of Spain and arranged to rent a car. I gave myself through the month of August to prepare for my return to Arkham. If someone had suggested to me, when I went down to the beachfront for a drink by the sea, that I was going be altering my plans and heading circuitously back to the USA early, well, I just might have believed them. But if they had told me that the reason would be a wedding invitation from Preston and Minnie, I would have laughed in their face.

Clearly, I might have said no and stayed in France. Sometimes I’ve wondered what my life would have been like if I had. Would I be where I am today? And the rumors that inevitably follow me, what would it be like to live without hearing them? The horrible deaths, everything we saw at the Silver Gate event that night, everything that emerged in the unwholesome chaos…

But such thinking is beyond pointless.

I said, Yes.

And nothing that followed will ever be changed.

Chapter Three

I drove along the coast, saying goodbye to France mile by mile. I had little in the way of luggage, and art supplies took up most of the space in my sleek yellow Renault. I drove dangerously. I never was a particularly good driver and have no sense of direction.

Somewhere between Toulon and Marseilles my map flew out the window and the mountain winds kited it into a ravine. How could I get lost? I kept the ocean to my left and drove on, snaking my way through the stony massifs until it got dark. I looked for a place to get a hot meal and a soft bed for the night. There were no villages to be seen. My eyes burned with fatigue. I considered pulling over to catch forty winks, but the back roads were far too narrow. I didn’t want to wake up pasted to the grille of a speeding delivery truck.

To occupy myself I entertained thoughts of Arkham.

Why had I left? What had I missed? How would the city look when I got back?

I was born in Arkham. My family was rich and socially prominent, although my parents were getting older and Wilfred, my father, had turned over much of his company’s management to his younger associates. He made most of his money in metallurgy and chemicals. I never understood the specifics of what his Northside factories produced, nor did I care to learn more. Father’s life appeared unbearably dull to me. He ranked the arts somewhere below sports and marginally above children’s games. I knew the war had been good for the company, good for my family, as horrible as that sounds. My mother, Pearl, had her charity work. She wasn’t overly concerned with helping actual people. Her causes leaned more toward public places like parks and museums. I don’t fault her too much. I am certain my passion for painting was born out of wandering bored one evening into an exhibition hall during a fundraising dinner. The paintings leapt out at me! Such colors! I really saw them for the first time, and I trembled. It was like a religious epiphany without any religion. Or, I suppose, my god was art. In that instant I decided the direction of my life. I must do this, I thought with a zealot’s clarity. I will make beautiful things. I wanted my work to hang in museums. I wanted people, like my mother and her friends, to organize fundraisers to hang pictures I would someday paint and, in return, I’d help people escape their dreary, tedious lives. Conveniently, I’d discovered a way out of the suffocating future that lay ahead of me.

Visions of Arkham flooded my brain for the remainder of my drive, and before I knew it, the world turned blue, then golden, and finally, an almost blindingly sunny white.

I was not seeking out any singular or heightened experiences in Spain. I wanted simply to relax. I settled in a rooming house at the center of a fishing village like many others that exist along the coast. I visited churches and strolled the steep, winding streets, lost in a maze of picturesque dwellings. Like much of the Mediterranean, the buildings I passed were whitewashed with red tiled roofs and tall windows shuttered against the sun’s rays during the hottest hours of the day. Cats of every stripe and color napped in the shadows and eyed me with lazy indifference. I moved more slowly and felt myself adjusting to my old roommate’s unexpected announcement of what was certain to be Arkham’s social event of the year. I warmed to the idea of seeing Minnie and Preston together, and attending their fabulous parties. It would be good to go home again.

Although I was obviously a foreigner the villagers did not stare at me, but neither did they ignore my presence. When engaged they were uncommonly polite. I ate my meals in restaurants, devouring bread, olives, and plates of various small, oily fish, guzzling bowls of gazpacho, often imbibing a glass of Andalusian sherry before slouching off to a soft bed. My condition became one of blissful isolation. Language was like a cage I carried with me everywhere I went. I spoke no Spanish. No one I met spoke English. But I discovered that a mix of French and pantomime was all I needed to get my meaning across.

I completed more paintings there than I had in three months at Cannes.

While they were good, they lacked something almost palpable, as if the real subject had wandered away just before I started to paint. Haunted by absences. I put them away.

Preston was accurate when he alluded to my lack of artistic progress. It was true. I hadn’t had an exhibition in ages. I had reached a point of stagnancy, a sluggish creative limbo where my talent and I sat together like a stale married couple who lacked the energy to argue. The truth about my artistic gift is that if I had been born a little better or a little worse, then my life might have been easier. I was never going to be one of those artists who sit in tattered overcoats selling their paintings at weekends on the street in the South Shore of Kingsport. I had no hustle, no salesmanship. I was born rich, so there was always money. Slumming seemed false. My skills revealed a mastery of technique. What I lacked, and what I desired, was originality. I was a copier, an imitator of the painters who came before me with superior vision. I felt like a fraud. I had concluded that the malady I suffered from was an absence of inspiring subjects to paint. Determined, I left Arkham bound for Europe. Once there, I was drowning in history, museums, and galleries, cloyingly surrounded by other artists doing the same thing I was. What new contribution might Alden Oakes possibly make? Where was my vision? It was a self-pitying view, I know, and like all self-pity it quickly grew tiresome.

Even to me.

So I brooded.

I painted realistic representations of fields, forests, and seashores. Though technically excellent, my work was hollow. I hated each of them, piling the canvases in the corner of a shed I rented from a peasant farmer, only to find later that it had a leaky roof and the paintings I stored there were ruined. There seemed no rush to produce more. I avoided the company of other artists and found myself forsaking the smoky coffeehouses and noisy, cheap cafés. Preston was right about the parties, but I didn’t go any more. Still, I held out one last hope of discovering an ideal subject that would unlock my inner potential. The world would have to pay attention. Finally, they would see that I had something unique and powerfully beautiful to contribute to the world.

Such were my daydreams.

One day I decided to leave the village and venture south to Barcelona.

Did I ever get to Barcelona?

I don’t think so. I know that sounds peculiar, but I’ve mentioned my horrible sense of direction. I might have reached the lesser known outskirts of the city, or gotten myself sidetracked into an oddly secluded neighborhood. I saw no La Rambla, no Gothic Quarter, or Basilica de La Sagrada Familia, in fact no famous landmarks at all. It occurred to me that I might have mistakenly paid a visit to a completely different town. The architecture had an overcrowded ramshackle quality, not at all what I anticipated seeing. I had gone to the place where I expected Barcelona to be. But no signpost told me definitively whether I ever arrived there. The streets through which I drove had the industrial character of a metropolis. One bizarre thing was this: whichever road I took, I always sensed I was driving downhill. Even when I attempted to backtrack, the Renault pitched downward as if I were trapped in a funnel.

I saw lots of soldiers.

They marched past me in groups, or they lingered in pairs. I never spotted one out walking alone. Their uniforms were tannish yellow, and they wore soft peaked patrol caps with maroon armbands. I couldn’t tell how the civilians felt about them, but they made me nervous with their blank expressions and casually thuggish attitude. I looked for a friendly, clean-looking hotel. Everywhere I stopped I was told, No vacancies. When I asked for recommendations, the clerks indicated there were no rooms to be had in the city.

I parked in front of a bank, thinking I might go inside to exchange some francs and ask the teller to recommend a hotel. I’d enquire offhandedly if this branch was indeed in Barcelona proper. I never had a chance; when I tried the doors, I found them locked.

I cupped my hands to the window.

Deserted, lights out. Nobody home.

It was a weekday. I was sure about that when I left the fishing village.

I lit a smoke and took a stroll. Noting the particularities of the street, I made sure I’d be able to find my car when I returned. Three roads met, forming six corners. A star-shaped island with a dry fountain occupied the center of the intersection.

I went up for a closer look.

Under a layer of foul green water, coins filled the fountain. Curious, I rolled up my sleeve, dipped my arm into the basin, and scooped up a handful of coins. A film of yellow slime covered the coins, which were unpleasantly warm, like little fingertips grazing my palm. I scraped away a bit of scum with my thumbnail. I’d never seen such strange currency. If these were pesetas, they must have been very old indeed. The coins lacked any numbers whatsoever. The symbols found there were worn smooth and difficult to recognize, but they depicted mythological beasts unfamiliar to me. I dropped them back into the filthy water. Perhaps it was a local custom to make wishes and toss these peculiar old coins. This fountain had a statue in it at some point; now it was missing. Only the empty pedestal remained. Gazing outward from the font, I surveyed my directional choices.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…

I picked one of the six streets and started walking.

No shops were open for business. I saw few people. When I passed them, they looked away. With regularity along the avenue there appeared large, dangerous, open holes in the pavement; the air wafting out of these pits smelled of sewage. Puzzled and alarmed, I wondered why they were not covered, reminding myself to use caution on my return journey.

Multiple stairways leading underground offered another clue that I had reached a city center of some size. I assumed they connected to an electrified subway. I knew of no catacombs in this region. But the station entrances bore no names that I could find. The only things differentiating one stairway from another were primitive-looking symbols carved into wooden panels above their subterranean thresholds. Upon closer inspection these hackings seemed to be graffiti, the handiwork of an artistic hooligan with a pocketknife. They reminded me of an exhibit of ancient druidic runes I’d seen once at the Miskatonic Museum.

Locked iron gates were drawn across the stairways.

If they were used for transport they, like the banks, were closed.

The deeper into the neighborhood I explored, the more I noticed the buildings around me falling into obvious stages of disrepair, their architecture looking less structurally sound. Fissures creeping along the buildings’ foundations and cracks in their facades had me speculating that the city had experienced a recent earthquake.

The entire scene spoke of disintegration. This could not be Barcelona!

I had arrived during the early evening, and now, a couple of hours later, the sun plunged in the west. Light cut through the alleyways like gold bayonets. I turned at an intersection, always checking behind me to remember a key detail or two. For example, up there was a headless manikin dressed in a red cardigan, leaning forward against a dusty second floor window. Here, glass blocks frame the etched word Farmacia over a doorway. Farther on, rows of brown boots are standing to attention on a rack inside a cobbler’s dimly humble shop. I planned to follow this trail of breadcrumbs back through the urban forest.

Crimson streaked the bruised sky whose unraveling bandages were merely clouds.

I heard voices, many voices, talking excitedly.

So I followed their sound.

Crack!

A gunshot?

I froze.

Then a volley of loud explosions. A scream. People laughing.

A woman in a black and white ruffled dress ran diagonally across the street ahead of me. She glanced over her shoulder, smiling, I thought at me, but then a young man with curly black hair and a guitar on his back emerged, chasing after her.

I tailed them to a plaza.

Here were the dwellers of the neighborhood. Long tables and kitchen chairs ringed the plaza and branched down the intersecting streets. In the center of the plaza towered a pyramid of old furniture, wood scraps, and even an old, peeling door. Families sat around the tables drinking wine and eating. Children ran everywhere. A man touched a fat cigar to a fuse in his fist and tossed the firework high in the air near the pyramid.

Crack!

The children screamed, laughing, and ran away.

It was a summer festival. I had heard about them from associates in France. It was common to see midsummer bonfires around the solstice throughout Europe, dating back to medieval times or, perhaps, earlier. Many had their roots in ancient pagan rituals. Harmless, good-natured fun said to be effective in repelling evil spirits. Who but the bitterest killjoy could argue against burning pyres and drinking through the night with friends until dawn?

I must’ve stumbled upon a local custom, I thought. Before I could question it further, the young woman in the black and white ruffled dress offered me a glass of sangria, which I accepted, as her beau whisked her away to listen to him play his guitar in the shadow of the pyramid. I noticed the soldiers mingling with the civilians. It seemed they came from these families. The resemblances between them were undeniable. So any worries I had about civil unrest died there, as I sipped my sangria and smoked, wishing I’d brought a sketchpad and my pencils. Someone offered me a chair. As I sat down, I discovered my glass being refilled. Such hospitality! Waiting for night to fall and the festivities to begin… that is when I first heard mention of the name Juan Hugo Balthazarr. Oh, I didn’t hear it strung together like that, but in whispers, an insectile buzz that infected the crowd. Balthazarr, Balthazarr, Balthazzzaaarrr….

Could they be speaking of the most shocking living painter in the world?

No, I told myself. It must be a common name in these parts.

Yet I wondered…

Juan Hugo Balthazarr was a Spaniard, born in Barcelona. He was rumored to live there still, inside the walled, crumbling ruins of a Gothic monastery. As I looked around, I convinced myself some of these people at the tables might be his relatives. But no, it couldn’t be.

Could it?

Balthazarr was acknowledged, most notably and boisterously by himself, as a genius destined to save the twentieth century from irrelevant art. Renowned as a relentless experimenter, he drew, painted, and sculpted with incredible energy and stamina, often said to spend days, or even weeks, without sleep in order to complete one of his outrageously fantastical visions. Critics either hailed his works as revolutionary or vehemently despised them, but all agreed his creations were as breathtaking as they were indescribable. Yes, there was something of Goya in them, and of those medieval painters who conjured torturous scenes in Hell. But Balthazarr’s influences remained hard to pin down. Gustave Doré’s woodcuts and engravings. The Dadaists and Cubism, of course. Currently, he was a major force in the Surrealist movement. But he was always his own artist. Incomparable, prolific, and a young man, barely older than I was. How I envied him! If only I could harness the talent I felt I had within me, if only I might push it into the world with such confidence, style, and gusto.

People were turning their chairs to stare down one of the streets.

I looked too.

I had seen only one photo of Balthazarr who, despite his growing worldwide fame, disliked having his picture taken. He was tall and well-known for his athletic physique and long forked beard. I glanced over the heads of the festivalgoers but saw no one resembling Balthazarr. What a shame! If there was one artist in the world whom I admired, it was him.

They said he painted portraits of his darkest dreams. He possessed a perfect memory of everything that ever happened to him, both awake and asleep. Some claimed he was a seer.

Others derided him as the Devil incarnate.

I met a man in Paris, an English muralist, who swore Balthazarr kept him hypnotized for three whole days. Eventually he woke from his trance standing naked on the ledge outside a Moroccan hotel room window with a scorpion in one hand and a bag of semiprecious gemstones in the other. He dropped the scorpion and traded the gems for money to buy a ticket back to London. When I asked him if he held a grudge against the painter he laughed, saying it was the best weekend he couldn’t remember in his life. Then he told me that Balthazarr still followed him.

How do mean ‘follow’? I said.

Oh, I see him, usually in reflections. Mirrors or windows, the surface of a pond. Never straight on, mind you. Always behind me, he lingers. That beard, and those eyes! When I turn, he’s gone. I don’t think he’s menacing me. He’s keeping me company. I only wish he’d stay.

I thought of no reply at the time.

The muralist seemed a bit mad. He had taut, unhealthy yellowed skin, and I noticed he wore two different shoes. One brown, the other black. His fingernails were overgrown and stained from nibbling red pistachios which he kept in every pocket of his jacket and trousers. I heard later that he’d been found drowned in the Seine. But I don’t know if that was true. He might’ve gone home to England. He was quite a character. The kind you might believe anything about if someone told you. Anyway, he insisted that Balthazarr was a mesmerist and he could, if he chose to do so, bring a roomful of people under his power without them knowing it. Part of me loved every wild detail, and didn’t care if they really happened or not.

The sound of drums echoed from one of the narrower streets, growing louder. People rose from their chairs and formed a circle in the plaza around the pyramid of items to be burned in the bonfire. I went with them. The noise was deafening as the drummers entered the plaza. They wore rustic costumes. Though simple, they were effectively frightening, a combination of hooded robes and masks made from human hair, dyed red yarn, and grotesquely painted smears of silver, copper, and gold on rough, blackened wood. It was surprisingly easy to believe that instead of people, the drummers were subterranean goblins. The sort of creatures that might’ve lived down wherever those iron-gated stairways led! They must’ve worn stuffed gloves to make their fingers appear so crookedly misshapen.

The crowd cheered and clapped.

Round and round the drummers circled the pyramid.

Finally, a tall figure in a silvery robe emerged holding a torch.

Balthazarr! Balthazarr! Balthazarr! the crowd chanted.

Caught up in the spirit of things, I joined them. A group rushed in from the rear, blocking my view. Feeling annoyed, I shouldered my way through the throng. Excuse me. I’d like to see, I said, in English and to no effect. They refused to step aside. I pushed harder, not caring.

I want to see Balthazarr! Let me see!

Finally, I broke through to the front.

There was no way of telling who the tall figure really was, because over its head it wore the most startling full-head mask, fashioned like a black sunburst. Each of the daggerlike rays sparkled silver, as if dipped in stardust. The face was round-cheeked and grim, its mouth and eyes thin slits through which the wearer could observe without their identity being revealed. My pulse quickened. Deep interest and anxiety mixed in my blood.

The mask must have weighed an absolute ton. Yet the wearer bore it naturally without a sign of physical strain or restriction.

The robe, I realized, was composed of small mirrors, each no bigger than a playing card, and shards of broken glass secured with wire twists sewn onto a background of dark material. They flashed as the tall figure turned, bending at the waist and touching its torch to the base of the pyramid. The wood pile had to have been soaked in gasoline. That was the only logical explanation for the roar and explosion of flames that climbed higher than any of the buildings in the little street plaza. The tall figure tossed its torch into the conflagration.

The heat caused me to back up and shield my face.

But the other revelers drew nearer.

I don’t know how they stood so close.

I felt my skin tighten as it does after a bad sunburn. The drummers marched and banged their instruments louder than before. The crowd swayed and began a chant in a tongue I did not recognize, but it certainly wasn’t Spanish.

"Ebuma chtenff! Gnaiih goka gotha gof’nn! Fm’latgh grah’n ftaghu grah’n!"

Over and over they repeated… I dare not call them words, but these gross utterances.

"Balthazarr! Hafh’drn!" someone cried out.

The tall mirrored figure lifted its arms.

I do not know if I am particularly sensitive to heat. Never had I noticed any delicacy in my skin or nerves. Yet, in this plaza, at this moment, I became terrified that I might begin to burn. That my flesh might melt, sliding off my bones. It sounds ridiculous, but the pain transfixed me. My spine felt as though it were hardening, the fluid inside converting to steam. My marrow bubbled. My panicked brain kicked like a lobster dropped into a pot of boiling water.

Did I hear my bones snapping? Or was it the sound of firecrackers?

Firecrackers, it must be. I watched a belt of them writhe on the plaza floor. A second team of performers entered the circle around the flaming pyramid. This group was nimbler than the drummers. They frolicked and skipped, running up to the crowd and touching them. Why did it make my stomach lurch to see this? The nimble goblins brandished spinning sparklers held aloft on long pikes. As they approached me, I saw the ends of the pikes were three-pronged forks like the one Preston scratched with his toe in the sand under the table. White-sparking wheels spun on the tips of the prongs. I could not move or look away.

A goblin pushed a wheeled cart to the tall figure who stooped, picking something up.

Two puppets?

They had to be puppets, or large floppy dolls. The first was dressed as an adult man and the other as a woman. What unwholesome effigies!

The curly-haired guitar player strummed his guitar. The young woman with the ruffled black and white dress danced, not in any traditional way, but as if she were possessed.

The tall figure raised the puppets. A man’s deep voice spoke through the mask.

"Ebuma chtenff! Gnaiih goka gotha gof’nn! Fm’latgh grah’n ftaghu grah’n!"

The crowd squeezed closer to the flames. Someone shoved me ahead. I tried to protest, but my throat was paralyzed. The guitar player thrashed the strings. The dancer flung herself to the ground, and then it was like an invisible hand jerked her body up again.

On the edge of the flaming pyre, I saw a painting propped in the flames.

The crowd pushed me in farther. The temperature was unbearable.

It was a painting of a city…

I strained to see the painting better. But flames licked over it. The canvas burned.

The tall figure, whose mirrors repeated images of the inferno, lifted the man puppet and the woman puppet… was one of them wailing? He muttered in that awful tongue-defying language. The intense heat must have made those puppets wiggle and worm.

"Lw’nafh. Lw’nafh. Yuyu-Va’bdaa!"

He spit the final words from his mouth and cast the puppets onto the pyre. His heavy mask slipped. Under it, I thought I saw the end of a long, forked beard.

He put the mask back in place.

"Yuyu-Va’bdaa! Yuyu-Va’bdaa!" the crowd shouted.

Facing them now, his resonant voice boomed out like an almighty drum.

"YUYU-VA’BDAA!"

They pushed me closer. I breathed in the harsh smoke from the pyre.

Then all was blackness.

Chapter Four

The child’s poking woke me at noon. I opened one eye and immediately shut it. The sun, aiming like a sniper through the steeple belfry of a church, blinded me. I shaded my eyes and tried again. The boy smiled, approaching cautiously with a half-burnt stick he had used to prod me from my slumber in a kitchen chair. He was dressed as the male puppet had been during the festival.

I sat up and felt the contents of my skull sloshing like a pail of curdled milk. I was hot, my sweaty shirt peeling from my skin. In my lap rested a sweet-smelling pitcher of macerated fruit, which proved to be the remains of the night’s sangria. I set it on the ground and used my shoe to push it away. A fly escaped the pitcher, buzzing past my cheek. My wicked head ached. I had drunk too much, and what lay in my stomach threatened to reappear.

The boy jabbed me in the knee with his stick.

Behind him came the sound of giggling. From under the tablecloth, a little girl of approximately the same age rushed out and stood beside the boy. Her dress matched the female puppet.

"Buenos días," I said.

"Buenas tardes," the girl corrected me.

I nodded. My tongue twitched like a dying lizard. I had exhausted my Spanish vocabulary for the day. Remaining as motionless as possible, trying to move only my eyes, I surveyed the wreckage of the plaza. Like me, there were other sleepers lying across chairs and under the tables. The cigar man who had lit the fireworks snored like an old tomcat in the doorway of a butcher’s.

The pyre had burned to ash. Smoke flavored the air. I attempted to stand and saw the error of my judgment. Daggers cored my eyes. I fell back into the chair, nearly tipping over. The children found this entertaining. Elbows resting on my knees, I held my broken head and tried to piece together the tattered scraps of my memories concerning the festival. The families eating and drinking. Drummers. Goblins twirling sparklers. Pyre burning. The puppets. The tall masked figure with the forked beard. The portrait of a city in flames–

Poke, poke.

The boy was holding a glass of water out to me. His chin quivered. His eyes were a beautifully clear, sugary brown.

"Agua, señor?"

Parched, I took the glass with both hands and drank. After swallowing greedily, the smell of sulfur hit my nose, and then came the revolting taste of mold and an oily residue. I spat the water in my mouth back out onto the plaza. Coughing, gagging, I stared into the glass. Green and tan globules floated in the warm liquid. It looked like the water from the coin fountain.

The boy and the little girl laughed and ran across the plaza, screaming happily.

I wiped my mouth with my shirt cuff.

Slowly, I approached the ashes.

No amount of sangria would’ve triggered a hallucination of the grand appalling ceremony I had witnessed. Or so I presumed. I kicked through smoldering embers. Under the scrim of dust, I perceived the outermost markings of a diagram drawn in chalk. I knelt beside the cinders. Whatever this design was, the bonfire pyramid had been built upon it.

Two large charred footprints were scorched into the plaza stones.

The tall figure with the full-head mask and the forked beard had left them.

I rubbed my grizzled jaw.

What exactly had I seen last night? Under oath, what could I