The Black Magic MEGAPACK® by August Derleth & Robert Bloch

Author:August Derleth & Robert Bloch [Derleth, August]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: fantasy, horror, supernatural, magic, dark fantasy
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

MYSTERIOUS MAISIE, by Wirt Gerrare

Originally published in 1895.

DEAR MR. VESEY—

It is very good of you to interest yourself in my behalf in our quest for “Mysterious Maisie”—so we have named the kind creature—and I lose no time in giving you not only all the facts concerning her visits, but many details of my sister’s strange experiences. For the best of reasons I cannot add to the particulars now given; you have the whole story, and nothing extraneous to it, save such slight embellishments as my sister herself has written in her letters and journal, and some explanatory comments by myself to references which would be unintelligible to a stranger.

I will preface the story by stating that my sister Laura was seventeen when our father died; in our straitened circumstances, and with mother’s health failing, it was needful that she should at once earn her living. She was not fitted for teaching, and had she been so, I think my experiences as assistant mistress of a High School were well enough known to her to act as an efficient repellant from embarking upon a like career. She was accomplished, fond of literature, painted a little, played well, and was of such a kindly disposition that she seemed eminently fitted for the post of companion to an elderly or invalid lady, and we were glad to accept a situation of this kind for her. True it was obtained through an agency, but the references were quite satisfactory, and such enquiries as we could make brought replies which reassured us, and we were confident that Laura would quickly gain the affection of all with whom she came in contact. My sister at that time was very pretty; she had a really beautiful face, but she was petite, very slight, very fragile; a delicately nurtured child, but full of verve, and not wanting in courage. She was not unduly timorous, nor was she over imaginative, and so truthful in all she said, and honest in all she did, that I accept as actual fact every statement she has made, exaggerated though those accounts may appear, and extraordinary as they undoubtedly are. But to the story. My sister wrote in her journal, under the date of October 22nd, 1889, the following.

* * * *

“Arrived safely at Willesden Junction at 4.33; after waiting nearly half-an-hour, took the train to ———, reaching that station in less than twenty minutes; took a ‘four-wheeler’ to Miss Mure’s. The streets had a very dingy appearance, is a dowdy suburb. Soon we turned down a winding lane, very badly fenced, not many houses in it, they were all old and were built on one side of the road; plenty of trees, nearly all of them bare of leaves. The car stopped in a wider road just out of the lane; the house looks old and badly kept from the outside; it stands back about twelve yards from the road. The garden in front is very badly kept—I have not yet seen

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