Mother of Crows Read online

  JUSTIN ROBINSON | DAVID A. RODRIGUEZ

  Copyright ©2015 by David A. Rodriguez

  All rights reserved. Published by Th3rd World Studios, Inc. Publishers since 2007.

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  Robinson, Justin and Rodriguez, David A.

  Daughters of Arkham/ Justin Robinson and David A. Rodriguez. – 1st ed.

  p. cm. – (The Daughters of Arkham series; bk. 1)

  ISBN: 978-0-9895744-0-2

  [1. Demonology–Fiction. 2. Supernatural–Fiction. 3. Horror stories.]

  I. Title. II. Series: Robinson, Justin and Rodriguez., David A.; Daughters of Arkham ; bk. 1.

  May 2015

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Kindle Edition II

  Then there rang out a scream from a wholly different throat-such a scream as roused half the sleepers of Arkham and haunted their dreams ever afterward-such a scream as could come from no being born of earth, or wholly of earth.

  -H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

  1

  The Night of the Carnival

  Summer was dying its usual fiery death but it wasn’t going without a fight. The leaves turned, shifting from the shimmering green of July and August into the blazing oranges and yellows of September. Temperatures climbed back into the nineties, and humid air closed all of that heat in through the night while a final bloom of mosquitoes hunted for blood. Summer resented its inevitable murder at the hands of autumn, and it was doing its best to give Arkham a reason to remember it.

  Philip Scanlon and his two eldest sons weeded, then raked and flattened the field at the edge of the Scanlon property. They worked in soaked shirts and wide hats. Abby saw them moving around in the distance as wobbly white shapes reflected in the silvery surface of a heat mirage. She knew what clearing that particular field meant. Everyone did. The Scanlons rented it out whenever the town needed to host an event. But what was coming to Arkham? It was too early for anything Halloween-or pumpkin-related, and with school starting in only a few days, it was a strange time for a concert.

  The following day, the first of the trucks coughed its way into town. It wasn’t quite a semi, but it was too big to be called anything else-a big white rig with a cross picked out in lights on the grille. It hauled a trailer with a smiling clown face and there were big, looping red letters on the side that advertised a CARNIVAL of GAMES and RIDES. It pulled in on the edge of the field. Another truck joined it, then another and another. They arrived singularly or in twos and threes. Pretty soon, there were ten of them, side by side, the backs opened up while brawny men with faded tattoos unloaded. What they brought out was barely recognizable as anything, mostly sections of metal poles and girders. Then, the men got to work, ant-like, assembling everything into tents and rides.

  Abigail Thorndike watched them work over the course of the day, and then the next. Summer decided to have mercy on the workers, or maybe it could no longer hold onto its rage. By the time the carnival was ready to open, the air had grown brittle. People around town began to wear jackets. A few even put on scarves. The speed at which the air went from stifling to stinging made it feel like summer was gone, never to return. From then on, it would be fall forever. Yet on the night of the carnival, it was not quite summer and not quite fall, but some nameless season between the two of them, one that trilled with anticipation and ached with loss.

  Abby was surprised at just how excited she was about the arrival of the carnival. It wasn’t just that the summer had been long and slow with unavoidable change at the end. She needed at least one evening where she could remain in the remarkable space where she was no longer a child and not quite a woman. She looked forward to the Ferris wheel, to the UFO ride, to eating something deep-fried and horrifying, and though she would never admit it to any breathing soul… She liked the looks of the kiddie train whose tracks had been laid in a looping figure-eight over a good half of the Scanlon field. If she’d still been babysitting, she would’ve had an excuse to take one of her young charges on it (for them, of course) but that part of her life was over, too. Her mother said she was too old for it. There’d be no time for that kind of thing with all the homework on the horizon.

  Arkham Academy had loomed over her for fourteen years. Abby could look out her bedroom window and almost see it, if it weren’t blocked by a thicket of maple trees and the school’s own apple orchard. From town, she could see the Academy at the top of its short hill. It was a lean, reddish-brown Georgian building that stretched off in both directions to disappear behind a screen of trees on either end. She had toured the campus with her mother only once a few months ago. Before that, her fertile imagination had described a much stranger place than she had found. She had known she would be going there as soon as she was old enough to comprehend the concept of a future, but it had been a far-off future that grew blurrier the closer she drew to it. Now that future was tomorrow at eight in the morning.

  Arkham Academy hadn’t been out of her thoughts for more than a few moments at a time all throughout the long, stillness of summer. She wasn’t the only one thinking about it, either, but she kept quiet when her friends worried about the upcoming school year. It was difficult to express her anxiety about attending a school that had a statue of one of her ancestors in the quad: Serenity Thorndike, the first of the powerful Thorndike women, a woman so remarkable she hadn’t let the 18th century stop her from co-founding a school. The main building was actually named after her. Abby’s last name would broadcast her identity to the entire student body. In a school for the wealthy and the powerful, your name was all-important. Telling Sindy and Nate that she worried she’d be too conspicuous had seemed a bit insensitive, especially since they hadn’t been sure that Nate would even be able to go.

  The carnival’s lights and games were like a thousand fireflies in the deepening blue of the evening. As she walked toward the entrance, Abby felt herself surrendering to the carnival’s illusion. The Ferris wheel was already spinning, flickering with a spiral of red, blue, green, and yellow. Canned screams and sharp hisses echoed from the funhouse. Kids shrieked from the midway, blasting targets with BB guns while ping-pong balls bounced and clacked among fishbowls. The whole area simmered with the rich scent of decadent food, as if the entire town had been battered, deep-fried, and dusted with sugar. Though Abby wasn’t certain this particular carnival had ever come to town, she’d seen several when she was younger. They were alike enough to evoke those old days, when she’d been one of the kids laughing and playing on the midway.

  It hadn’t been difficult to convince her friends to come with her. Abby had expected Sindy to roll her eyes and huff, but she’d been surprisingly amenable. It was possible she
was as bored as everyone else in town, but Abby thought that maybe Sindy Endicott wasn’t quite as ready to give up her childhood as she liked everyone to think.

  Boys had started looking at Sindy in the sixth grade. She was gorgeous, a black-haired, blue-eyed vision; the kind of person Abby thought would have songs and poems written about them. Sindy thought so, too, and she had scandalized the school by being the first girl in class to wear makeup. Since then, she’d lost interest in doing anything fun. She seemed to only want to sit around and talk, nearly always about boys. That was fine every now and again, but there were limits. It wasn’t as though Sindy needed to spend so much brainpower on it. She would soon have her pick of the entire male student body at Arkham (and statistically speaking, a reasonable chunk of the girls, as well).

  Abby knew Nate wouldn’t need any convincing at all. He was already halfway to her house within five minutes of her text message. Nate Baxter was the same age as Abby and Sindy, but he looked a couple years younger. It wasn’t his size (though he was shorter than Sindy and, considering his family, was unlikely to grow much taller). It was his glasses and the perpetually earnest and open expression on his face. He had spent most of the summer outdoors working for his father’s landscaping business, and his skin was constantly peeling even though it had been burnt a deep nut-brown. The shapeless fishing hat he used to protect himself from the sun had given him an unfortunate tan line that cut laterally across his forehead. It made him look like an Easter egg that had only been dipped partway. Nate had been quivering in anticipation of the carnival since the first truck wheezed its way to Philip Scanlon’s field. All he could talk about was which rides, games, and snacks he planned to blow his summer cash on.

  Abby didn’t tell him, but she planned to pay for as many of Nate’s treats as she could. He worked hard for his money, so Abby felt his savings had more value than her nostrings-attached allowance. He should hold onto what he had earned.

  Though Abby and Sindy were both wealthy enough to pay their tuition in-full at Arkham Academy-the Endicott name could be found on a plaque near the “geography and travel” section of the school library and many other places in town besides-Nate had gotten a full ride. It was the only way his family could afford the school. He’d brought his acceptance letter to Harwich Hall, Abby’s home, and proudly unfolded it to show her his name under the school crest. Abby had never doubted Nate would make it, not with his intelligence and work ethic, but she was thrilled all the same. She’d hugged him, and he had been so stunned that by the time he managed to hug her back, she was already pulling away. After showing her, he went outside and spent the next hour mowing the lawn by the east wing of Harwich Hall, pausing only to mop his head with that filthy rag that always poked from his pocket.

  Abby headed toward the midway with Sindy on her right and Nate on her left. They were a motley group. Sindy wasn’t dressed for the carnival. She wore a black minidress, a matching jacket that sparkled with silver at her throat and wrists, and precarious-looking wedges. If Abby had been wearing those shoes, both her ankles would already be broken. Beside Sindy, Nate looked like a walking pile of laundry. He wore rumpled blue jeans and one of his usual tacky shirts from the sale rack at the Target in Keene: a tee with the words NO MORE MR. NICE GUY emblazoned above a scowling cartoon duck. All of Nate’s clothes were at least one size too big. His folks bought everything in the hopes that he would grow into it, and get an extra year of wear, too. People teased him about it, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. Abby’s outfit was far more reasonable: a skirt and tights, a blouse, and a sweater. Her flats were comfy enough to walk miles, and her purse was light, with only her wallet, a few Aleve, and a small brush.

  Nate moved with stuttering steps. Abby knew he was fighting the urge to go running ahead. He wouldn’t leave his friends behind, even if Sindy would prefer he did. When Abby told her they were going with Nate, she got the expected eye-roll and huff.

  “What?” Abby had asked her.

  “Nate Baxter? He’s such a… child.”

  “He’s the same age we are.” Fourteen. In fact, Nate would be the first of their friends to turn fifteen early the following year. Sindy would be the last, in April.

  “He doesn’t act like it. He still acts like he did when we were kids.”

  Abby knew she wasn’t a kid, but she also was not an adult. Words like ‘tween’ and ‘teen’ were accurate, sure, but they didn’t feel right. She was something in the middle, something unnameable but universal. Everyone had experienced that sense of not being anything. Abby smirked because she knew Sindy never considered this in-between state. Sindy dealt in absolutes. To her, the minute she had stopped being a child, she’d instantly become an adult and the rest of the world was too slow or stupid not to recognize it.

  “Come on,” Abby scolded, and that was enough to make Sindy relent. As much as Sindy wanted to grow up, she was never mean.

  Nate stepped onto the midway and paused, sucking in a great lungful of air.

  “Have you got the scent?” Abby asked, unable to stifle a giggle.

  Nate raised an eyebrow. In a passable Scottish brogue, he said, “The cotton candy is close now, darling.”

  Sindy shook her head, looking for someone to rescue her. The entire town was at the carnival. She would’ve been welcome in nearly any circle, but the curse of “cool” bound her: she had to wait for someone to invite her over. Cool kids were a lot like vampires that way, Abby reflected.

  “Ferris wheel?” she said.

  “Sure!” Nate said.

  Sindy just shrugged, though Abby caught a dim spark of interest in her friend’s eye.

  They lined up. The ride operator was a rangy man with sunburnt skin and a few blotchy tattoos. When it was their turn, he gave them each a hand up into their car. Nate went first, then Sindy. Abby noticed the guy’s gaze lingering on Sindy’s rear. She reflexively moved her purse so it blocked her own butt from the guy’s eyes when she climbed up.

  “What?” Sindy said as their car lifted up for the next set of people to be loaded onto the ride. Abby realized that her face was locked in a scowl.

  “That gross guy down there was totally checking you out.”

  “So the dress is working. Good to know.”

  “Ew, Sindy, God. That guy is old, and probably like a convict or something.”

  “Hey, that’s classist,” Nate said. “Just because he’s a carny, he’s not automatically a convict.”

  “Nate’s right, Abby. You shouldn’t be such a snob. Not every carny is a criminal.” Abby’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t decide what was more shocking-Sindy saying Nate was right about something or an Endicott calling anyone else a snob with a straight face. Before she could decide, Sindy peered over the edge of the car. “But yeah, that guy? Total felon.”

  Nate and Sindy burst out laughing together and the tension faded. Abby shook her head but joined in after a second, pleased to hear the rare sound of her two best friends’ laughter intermingled.

  The Ferris wheel raised by degrees until it was entirely full, then it started to spin. They were swept down and backwards, then all the way up over the horizon. The town spilled out in front of them. Lights downtown glimmered in the early evening light, all the way to the oily black of the Atlantic. Abby could pick out Arkham’s most important landmarks. Close by, near the town center, was the Baxter home somewhere in a maze of single-story dwellings. Farther back, she could see the Endicott mansion nestled between two hills. Arkham Academy lay just beyond and a winding path through a dense wood eventually opened to the grandeur of Harwich Hall. It was the second-largest home in town, smaller only than Coffin Manor.

  Coffin Manor was newer than Harwich Hall. It had been built in a Georgian style to match Arkham’s colonial pretension and the sight of it made her think of Bryce Coffin. He’d left Mather Primary for Arkham Academy the previous year. Abby saw him around town from time to time, but never spoke to him. Using Sindy’s binary logic, Abby was a kid, and Bryce was
an adult. Bryce was the one area where Abby thought Sindy might be onto something.

  Thinking of him made her stomach flip in places the Ferris wheel couldn’t touch, so she looked away, concentrating on the town. The Ferris wheel was now at its highest point, save for the clock tower topping City Hall, and the town had shrunk. Abby had the distinct impression that once her feet touched the ground again, Arkham would never regain the size it once had. Instead, it would continue to diminish until she left for college, when it would vanish into the beautiful noise of the world at large.

  The wheel swept out and down.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Abby said.

  “Definitely,” Nate said.

  Sindy snorted. “It’s the same nowhere town it always is. We’re just far enough away that we can’t see the dirt. Trust me though, it’ll be waiting for us.”

  “Why do you have to be so negative?” Nate asked.

  “Why do you have to repeat everything she says? You’re like a parrot,” Sindy shot back.

  “Can’t you guys even make it through one ride? I was having a nice time.”

  “Sorry,” they said in unison. There was a slight pause, then Nate said, “Jinx.”

  “Seriously?” Sindy said to him.

  “Yes. And since you broke the laws of the jinx, I will require an additional payment of one funnel cake.”

  “I won’t be a part of your depraved spiral into fried-sugar addiction,” Sindy said, fanning herself.

  Nate laughed. Again, the tension evaporated. When they got off, Sindy bought Nate a Coke and a funnel cake after all, and he made sure that the girls got as much as they wanted. As they left the concession stand, they nearly ran into a couple.

  Abby knew them-everyone knew them. Corinne Blackwell and Drew Marks had ruled Arkham Academy for as long as they’d attended the school, and before that, they’d ruled Mather Primary School. Corinne had been Abby’s babysitter as a kid. When she laid eyes on Abby, her face lit up. “Is that my little Abigail Thorndike?”