Dreamlands Read Online Free PDF

to
hold it to me but could not, and biting my cheek against the tears, so as not
to appear weak in front of my uncle.
    I
remembered also that the fire which had slain my parents was at our house in
Boston.  My uncle and I had been over a hundred miles away, in Arkham.
    * * *
    I
don’t know how many days later, I came across a well-dressed man circumnavigating
the drawing room.  At each open door he paused as if restrained from passing through
by some invisible barrier, squinting into the room beyond as if making an
inventory.  From the close relationship he maintained with his tailor, I
guessed him to be a lawyer.
    “You’re
a lawyer,” I said.
    “My
name is Duncan Simmons, Esquire,” he replied, “and you must be Isaac Sloan.  I
don’t believe we’ve met, but I was your uncle’s solicitor.  I have been
appointed to represent his estate.”
    “Please
have a seat.”  We acquainted ourselves with two leather club chairs, I thinking
that sitting in this room might make a pleasant alternative to the study.
    “Mr.
Sloan, as you’re no doubt aware your uncle, Eamon Sloan,” he specified, unnecessarily
I thought, “was in dire straits financially.  Really quite dire.  The Sloan estate
is carrying many outstanding debts, the details of which I’ve no doubt you will
find troubling.  First, I must ask:  since your uncle requested your presence
at his side not long before the night of his passing, did he mention any
valuables?  Jewelry perhaps, deeds to property, or cash?”
    “If
only he had,” I said.  I had intended it in jest, or partly in jest at any
rate, but Mr. Simmons kept his lips fixed in a straight and humourless slash. 
He was that breed of man.
    “That
is unfortunate, Mr. Sloan, and places me –both of us– in an embarrassing
position.”
    I
nodded vaguely.
    “The
estate is far in arrears, Mr. Sloan.  Debt,” he said at the end, to preclude
any misunderstanding.
    “Debt,”
I said, nodding some more.  “Well.”  I had hoped that playing the fool would
discourage him from speaking his troubling details.  Mr. Simmons Esquire was,
sadly, not so easily discouraged.
    * * *
    The
next day I dismissed Mrs. Caddock, and although I declined to provide a written
reference, invited her to send prospective employers to stop by to hear my
opinion in person.  That one bright point past, I roamed the empty house like a
spectre, on occasion venturing into town to the pawnshop, where I exchanged candlesticks and linens for cash while waiting on future visits from Mr.
Simmons.
    Weeks
passed and my mood grew blacker as the news was delivered one bitter dram at a
time:  there was a significant lien against the house, a delinquent account of
over a thousand dollars at St. Mary’s, and an unpaid invoice for a leased automobile,
current whereabouts unknown.  If I lingered in Arkham much longer, not only
would I be forcibly removed from the premises, I might end up in court dodging the
family’s debts.
    One
morning, couched in the fantastic soporific of Uncle’s favourite chair, I was
leafing through his atlas and discovered the page for Spain, marked with an
envelope.  Unable to locate Circo anywhere in the country, I tossed the book
aside, annoyed.  Perhaps his weird islands and scraps with pirates and moon
worshipers were, as Mrs. Caddock stated, so much fantasy.
    Then,
I read the empty envelope.  The postmark was two years old, the return address 77
Wharf Street, Kingsport, Massachusetts, and the sender one G. Longbottom.

Kingsport
    The
town of Kingsport is dominated by its towering central hill, upon the slopes of
which Colonial era houses perch cheek-and-jowl.  The bald head of this
prominence is crowned by the Congregational Church, which venerable entity
glowers disapprovingly down on the port and her inhabitants, where the Puritan values
of her founders have by this century been all but abandoned.
    Simply
to look upon this protuberance was to feel weak in the knees, and it was