When he returned last year he purchased Cabershaw Tower. You’ll remember the outcry, at first, when the villagers did not believe an outsider should be in charge of any part of the abbey. The tower has been vacant for some hundred years, and we were content for it to remain as such. Cecil Cabershaw had argued for the sale, argued that he needed the money for Maple’s medicines, and that he didn’t give a tick about heritage or the past, not when his sister needed help in the present. Still…still… it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t settled until the town meeting where Marken reminded us of the boy he had been. That he was indeed a child of Leighton. That he was little Markie. Returned.
Extensive renovations began on the abbey’s tower. Marken had the audacity to hire outside workers. A scandal, there, owing to how there are good men in Leighton who need a hammer to swing and fresh bread on their plates.
As like any village policeman, it is my duty to make sure each and everything is proper, not just the laws but the morals. I surprised Marken and his men one day by touring the restorations. They were superficial in the upper tower, where Marken was making his rooms, but the renovations were more extensive in the lower basements. And the wet of the lake was coming through the walls, so much so that I wished I’d brought my rubber boots. I was past my ankles at some points, sploshing about. The waters were chilly. The abbey tower is well above the lake and I would not have thought the basements could be so damp, but I suppose earth draws water like a napkin on a table. Water goes where it wishes, if you give it a path.
Marken was not on the premises. Not for the first hour.
The workers were an ill sort. Dark men. Not dark skinned, I mean, but dark eyed. And they kept their gaze away from me and did not speak. You’ll remember they never came into the village. Not for the dances or the taverns. Not to flirt with our women or play darts with our champions. Marken bought all the supplies himself. There were meats and cheeses, but no liquors, which we all thought a bit odd. A man needs his drink, of course. When I began my surprise inspection, one of Marken’s men tried his best to bar me from the door but I had my badge and I’ve never been a man too easily put off my course. I took my tour.
The interior walls, down below, were strange. Perhaps it was just the water playing havoc with all the angles. I thought as much, any way, at the time, though it did not explain how the walls and the ceiling met at such sharp angles that I could not poke my fingers along the edges. It was ancient architecture, of course. Likely settled poorly over the centuries. The abbey is one of those places that is built upon one thing that is built upon an earlier dwelling that is built upon an earlier structure and so on. It likely goes all the way back to some distant bonfire, my father was fond of saying.
I was well beneath the old abbey and there were carvings on the wall. Intricate scratchings. Marken later told me the abbey had often held prisoners (political prisoners, I assumed) and they’d scratched their words on the walls, using spoons and such. Much of it was vulgar. And there were also crude drawings clearly spat out from diseased minds. Drawings of men with no heads. Men with no legs, pulling themselves along the ground in the manner of a caterpillar. Women being bothered by fantastical creatures. The water was so blasted cold, around me. I had to throw away my shoes, in the end. Damn good shoes, too.
I’d never been in the tower, before. Not below, I mean. As children, I suppose it was a Leighton tradition to shiver ourselves through the gaps in the blocked outer doors, explore the upper tower, imagine ourselves as adventurers with princesses to be won and dragons to be gutted, but none of us ever thought to tear away the boards that kept the basement sealed. I can remember, myself, being dared to do it, to venture below. I remember willing my hands to tear away the first of the boards, but the wood was cold and quite moist and I lost my nerve. We all did. This too, was a Leighton tradition. We all knew the tower, but none of us knew the basements. It was strange to be down in them. Like sealing away part of my childhood… gaining a man’s knowledge of somewhere else that had been only lurking, waiting below.
I discovered a small room with what appeared to be a stone altar. I suppose it could have been a bed. I’ve seen enough books to know ancient people made their beds of stone. They’d have been piled high with cushions, of course. The stone altar (I still couldn’t help but think of it as such, and of course now I know so much of the truth) was carved of all one piece. Rough on its surface, like pumice. Small bits of it broke off when I touched the damn thing. I watched the bits settle in the water. The ripples disappearing. Then I turned, hearing a sloshing behind me, and it seemed every one of the damned workers was in the doorway, staring at me. I asked them about the room but they said nothing. The room’s ceiling had a vault design, but curved and twisted, as if had at one point been a proper dome but some divine hand had reached down and twisted it into the shape of carnival ice cream on a cone. It was unsettling. Water was dripping down from above. I could hear it up above, trickling and rippling along the odd curves before it fell to the waters around me.
There were many more carvings on the walls of this room. Better ones, I might add. Whatever prisoner had been kept in this room, he or she was a more talented artist. Likely as insane, I might add. The carved figures were just as fantastical. Men with multiple arms. Fish with legs. There were several images of what I assume was the sun, with radiant energy spread out all around it. Words were carved into the walls of this room as well. Not a word of it in English, though, this time. Latin, I presumed. Or a barbaric tongue. I speak and read nothing but the King’s own, if you take my meaning. Captain Levetts fancies himself a scholar, though, and I took a rubbing of some of the words so that he could make of it what he would. I used the back of a summons and a stub of pencil and put it on the wall right above the strange stone altar. I still have the rubbing. “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn ~ Lw’nafh ch’Henpin.” Seems to be utter nonsense, though it ends with Henpin, an obvious reference to our lake, so I thought the captain might like it for local lore.
Right as I was taking the rubbing, Marken returned. I’d known he’d gone off to the Leighton general store, seeing about pickaxes and wheelbarrows, and I’d timed my visit while he was out. It’s always best to poke around a bit oneself.
“Why are you here?” he demanded. He was holding a pickaxe. I didn’t like it. My feet were wet and the workmen’s constant presence had given me a tension in my neck.
“Poking around,” I told him. “Seeing about the tower.” Marken’s hands were twisting on the handle of his pickaxe. He was a good seven or eight feet distant, and of course the water meant he wouldn’t be dashing closer any too quickly, but I’ve seen a man hit with a pickaxe before, in the days before the mines flooded, and the thought of it put my hand on the handle of my Webley. Only in a casual manner, mind you. Still… a message.
Marken saw where my hand had gone and, I think, for the first time truly noted the pickaxe in his hands. He immediately handed it over to one of the workmen, but the fellow’s hands were wet and he dropped it into the water, then fished around for a bit, trying to find it, not having much luck. It was comical enough to break the mood, and Marken and I were soon up on dry land having tea on the lawn in front of the abbey, as my shoes and pants were no longer fit for any indoor conversations.