Free The Sea of Ash by Scott Thomas

you, I'd just settle in someplace and let
it come to you. Facing it will be less maddening than anticipating it."
    This is all so surreal. A very bad
dream in the middle of a beautiful September day. I sit here in the sunny
garden and begin to laugh. Sometimes laughter is an expression of terror.

 
     
     
    10. THE HOUSE OF 12 WHISPERS
     
    Albert Pond hadn't felt quite
right since his visit to the Banchini machine. His chest ached where he had
received the blow from an unseen force, and he experienced vivid dreams of
Victorian London, episodes that felt more like memories than dreams.
    He had driven his Nash to a
peculiar old house high in piney Maine. It was the place that Arcangelo
Banchini had told him about -- The House of 12 Whispers.
    The owner at that time was Abigail
Winters, a reclusive old woman, relative of the man who had built the big brick
Federal in Searsport, Maine.
    Pond described the home: "The
height and grandeur of the structure were emphasized by four tall chimneys
which marked the corners of a hipped roof."
    Captain Thomas Winters first
occupied the building in the spring of 1798. He was as eccentric as he was
wealthy, and given to obscure interests which included mummification. Winters
possessed some degree of architectural ability and designed a unique room on
the first floor of his dwelling.
    "Miss Winters had consented
to my visit, though I never did set eye upon her. She remained elsewhere in the
house for the duration of my time there," Pond said.
    The doctor was met by a grave and
silvered male servant who escorted him to the strange chamber at the center of
the first floor. The door was fitted with heavy locks, which the butler worked,
one after the other, to allow the guest entry.
    Pond addressed the older man.
"I was told that I need not bother to ask any particular
questions..."
    "That's correct, sir. He'll
tell you what you need to know," the butler said, swinging the door open.
    The chamber is described in Pond's
journal: "The room was circular and domed, an impressive example of
brickwork that made me think of an oversized beehive oven. The floor, but for a
raised brick path that led to the central feature, was entirely covered in all
manner of seashells.
    "A platform sat in the middle
of the shells and on this stood an elongated upright dome of glass. A figure
sat in a wing chair within the dome, facing me, its hands resting on its
thighs. It was Captain Winters, dressed darkly and neatly, as a gentleman of
his day would have dressed. He had been dead for many years, yet he was well
preserved -- the result of some sort of mummification process.
    "The skin on the face and
hands was dark and leathery, with a slight sheen. It held tightly to the bones,
making the corpus all the more ghastly. Wispy grey hair still clung to the
head; combed back, it hung down to the top of his shirt collar."
      Pond walked carefully along the brick
path and stopped just short of the dome. Glass, and a matter of feet, stood
between him and the cadaver. Its eyes were squinted shut and the mouth was
wrapped around the small end of a copper funnel. The wide trumpet-mouth was
pressed up against the glass.
    The whole thing took only moments.
Pond pressed his ear to the cool exterior of the dome, and a voice like
rustling paper breathed from the funnel. Twelve words only. Each visitor
received only twelve words.
    "The sixth ocean lives -- go to
The Garden of Guns -- save Earth"

 
     
     
    11. GOOSEFLESH AND COAL SMOKE
     
    Pond spent the night in Searsport,
his rented room blurred by the haze of many cigarettes. His mind was too busy
to tolerate sleep, so he paced and smoked late into the night.
    He remembered how back in his home
office the resinous baby had gotten onto Professor Wakefield's face and shaped
an animated mask. The crude features had shown some resemblance to Simon
Brinklow, and it had repeated "six oceans" over and over.
    "Six oceans," Pond muttered
to himself. There were only five oceans on the