The Dunwich Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

enough is. ‘Twas my mother’s... Yew’d do it service ta wear it.”
    Sary was awestruck; never in her life had she seen much less worn such a beautiful garment.
    “And it en’t yours jess to wear, mind ya. It’s fer ye to have.”
    Calculating his words took time. This she could not believe. “Wilbur, I could never take this fine dress as a gift.”
    “‘Tis yours naow.” He smiled crookedly but veritably, then placed the shimmering gown across her arms. “Why dun’t ye put it on while’s I go fetch our supper aout the smoker?” and with that, he thunked out of the shed and closed the door.
    A corner of Sary’s eye effused a single tear. No doubt existed. This was the nicest day she’d ever been blessed enough to live.
     

Five
     
     
    At the finish of a meal she might refer to as sumptuous (had the word existed in her vocabulary), Wilbur had tended to her remaining ear with some manner of poultice saturated with a mucilaginous medicine that he’d owned, “‘Tis’ll take the pain right off, and heal them bitemarks up. My grandsire tell me he get this from his grandsire, so’s ye can bet it’s old. Old-time medicine’s better’n new.”
    The pain, indeed, dissipated immediately. “It’s workin’, all right—thanks!” Sary said.
    Wilbur applied some tape to hold the poultice in place, and promised, “Ye’ll be fine in a jiffy. If ye’re wonderin’, this be nothin’ scarcely more than some mashed up tar root.”
    “That’s all?” Sary questioned.
    “Wal, plus mixed in is a bit’a this and a dab’a that,” and he pointed to a glass cabinet full of small old-style medicine bottles. “Locust juice, snake heart, blue iris petals. It wucks, it does. Jess ye wait.”
    Sary wasn’t sure but she thought she glimpsed a few bottles of preserved toads, salamanders, and bats as well.
    With Wilbur’s first aid complete, the two of them engaged in further discourse, then, more full-bellied than she’d been in distant memory, Sary yawned. The day still shined brightly beyond the small, high windows, yet Wilbur needed no further clue to sense that she was whelmed by fatigue. He pointed to a mattressed cot beside the high desk. This was obviously where Wilbur slept, for the crude but precisely constructed low table at the cot’s end demonstrated the extra length needed for his abnormally long legs. “You’re bushed, Sary, I’se kin tell, so jess ye go on’n have yerself a nap while I run some errands.”
    The idea of a nap, after the luxuriant shower and then huge helpings of exquisitely seasoned smoked meats, sounded lovely to her, but— “Aw, no, that’d be rude after all yew done fer me. I’ll help ya with your errands.”
    Wilbur’s head shook in a manner that was not dominating at all but insistent just the same. “Git ye some rest. I wun’t lollygag so’s ta leave ye alone too long.”
    Sary yawned again, bringing one fist to her puff-lipped mouth, then stretching her arms in the extravagant black dress. “Wal, okay. Thanks. I am tired all’s a suddent.”
    Pleased, Wilbur took his leave of the shed. Even behind the heavy wood door, his enormous booted feet could be heard thudding the ground. But just as Sary would venture to the long, appended cot, her fatigue was instantly superimposed by an irresistible inquisitiveness. Her feet took her timidly about the structure’s cramped interior. She glimpsed some sheets of handwriting in a binder on the desk, and though Sary did have some reading skills, thanks to her mother’s diligence, she could make nothing of the unintelligible scribblings. They were more than simply words she’d never seen, but instead unlike words at all.
    Rows of hoary books filled a handmade shelf, and atop a table of heavy oak, amid some scatterings of papers, sat a thick, iron-hinged tome that looked ancient. If there’d been a title on the cover, age and considerable wear had removed all vestige. Although Sary knew she shouldn’t—the book was not