The Gods of HP Lovecraft by Martha Wells

Author:Martha Wells [French, Aaron J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JournalStone Publishing

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Danny Wormbone. Not a handle I expected a New Age huckster to still be going by almost twenty years later. But there he was in the search results advertising RUNES, MEDICINE CARDS, SPIRITUAL COUNSELING & RETREATS. In 1994 my father had probably found him in the Yellow Pages. Now he had a website that might very well be obsolete, and what had once been a “vision quest” was now a “spiritual retreat.” I wrote down the phone number. The Greyhound station on Main Street where I had rolled into town still had a few pay phones, but the nearest hotel with an Internet kiosk didn’t. Apparently they attracted the wrong crowd—people like me, who couldn’t keep up with a cellular bill.

I hoofed it back to the bus station and made the call before I could think too much about it and changed my mind. It rang three times before voicemail picked up. His recorded voice was familiar, if a little more worn down to gravel by years of smoke: “Your call is important to me.” That was all he said before the beep, but it was enough to know I had the right guy. I didn’t leave a message and was glad he hadn’t picked up. The business address I’d jotted on my notepad wasn’t located on the strip among the high-end psychics, but here in the old town. I decided to walk.

Would he recognize me when I stepped into his parlor? I didn’t think I looked much like I had at 13. Back then he’d said a bunch of stuff about my aura. Told me it was blue. I wondered if he’d see the same energy when I showed up 17 years later. It wasn’t likely.

I recognized the symbol painted on the plate glass before I could even read the name. A constellation in white: Ophiuchus, the snake handler, floating in the sky over a crossed feather and staff. The shop was at street level, between a podiatrist and a Mexican restaurant. It looked dark inside, but when I tried the door I found it unlocked and entered to the sound of wind chimes. Of course the first thing to hit me while my eyes adjusted to the cluttered murk was the diffused smell of burning sage.

The proprietor hadn’t overlooked the merchandising possibilities. Racks of tie-dyed tapestries printed with tribal motifs, spirit animals, and celestial designs obstructed my view of the shop. Parting a pair of them like curtains, I found my way into a larger area where dim sunlight from the street illuminated a glass countertop through which I glimpsed a variety of quartz crystals and amethyst geodes. Bookshelves flanked the counter, stocked with a sparse collection of New Age and astrological titles interspersed with painted woodcarvings and brass statues: a turquoise wolf, a masked dancing shaman, even a Buddha sitting in lotus position with an awning of hooded cobras over his head to shelter him from the rain. Behind the counter the wall was lined with charts. A medicine pipe hung from a nail by a loop of rawhide.

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