Amrita

  That is not dead which can eternal lie,

  And with strange aeons even death may die.

  Amrita stomped through the narrow living room and threw herself into the corner of their sagging couch right next to Dad’s workbench. Anit Rajani followed more quietly and sat on his stool at the bench, automatically picking up his whittling knife and the block of wood he was working on. This one looked like it would be a bird or something. Whenever she wanted to talk to Dad, this was the spot, and the soft grind and flick of wood chips was comforting.

  He gave her a sidelong glance and dug the short blade into the wood. “That bad, huh? Is that boy bothering you?”

  “What? No, he’s cool.”

  “Seems nice. A little nerdy. He took your mom’s jokes without getting mad, so he must be all right.”

  “I need to know about my grandma,” she said. “Your mother.”

  His hands paused, but he kept his focus on his work. “I don’t like to talk about her, kiddo.”

  “I know, and whatever, that’s fine, but I met a lady that went to her church today.”

  He looked up sharply and put his knife down with a click. He never did that. “Who?”

  “Ms. Gilman. The librarian.”

  He scrubbed at his mustache and heavy chin stubble. “Dammit.”

  “Was grandma crazy?”

  He sighed heavily and picked the knife back up. “I don’t know. Yeah. I wish you hadn’t talked to that woman.”

  “It wasn’t like she gave me a choice. Yanked me down into the basement and started going on about some psycho evolved religion.”

  He put his carving down and stared at the ceiling. “Shit. My mom and I fought about that all the time. Got worse after you were born.”

  She licked her lips and thought through what she wanted to say. She knew she had to be careful; her dad had moved them from one town to the next a dozen times over the last five years for almost no reason at all, and if she said she’d seen a black tentacle thing knock down a building, he’d think she was doing drugs and start the whole family packing. Amrita was sick of moving, and she’d just finally found a friend. “She talked like her whole church is into some doomsday thing.”

  “It’s not even a church like you think of churches. There aren’t any real Christians left in this town, Riri. They all got scared off a long time ago.”

  “And your mom was a part of this?”

  “A big part. Her parents came from India when she was little, and both she and her own mom were super into this, I don’t know, this thing. It wasn’t even Indian; they said it was older than that. Dad loved her like crazy, so he went along with it, but me… I couldn’t. I was the only Indian kid in this town back then, and I just wanted to be as normal as possible. Even changed my name to Andy for a while, but that was stupid.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Why did you name me after her if she was so nuts about this stuff?”

  He sighed and scratched at the surface of his workbench with his knife, a sure sign that he was upset. “She was my mom, kiddo. I hated hearing about her Old Gods, and I hated it when she’d drag me out to Miskatonic Pond for her stupid rituals as a kid, but I still wanted to get along with her. She was all about her line of mothers stretching back to forever, and then she never had a girl of her own, so when you were born, I thought… I thought maybe it’d help. Calm her down.”

  “Did it?”

  “God no, it got worse, her talking about the deeps speaking and the world being remade, that you were the one to make it happen. She, um…” He sighed, eyes locked on the groove he’d cut into the workbench. “She actually tried to kidnap you when you were two.”

  “What? Like for real kidnap me?” Amrita couldn’t believe she’d never heard about this.

  “Yeah, for real. So that was it; we had to get away. Your mom would have left me if we hadn’t, and she’d have been right. The woman’s been dead twelve years now; I thought the place would cool off once she wasn’t egging on her little church friends, but I guess not. This hasn’t happened before, has it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s been okay so far, right? This last six months hasn’t been bad here, has it?”

  She shrugged. He tried so hard; he didn’t need to hear her stupid high school problems. “Sure, Dad.”

  “I’m gonna go talk to that librarian.”

  “I… don’t think you need to do that.” She wondered whether anyone in town would actually admit what happened to Ms. Gilman and the others. Had anybody who had seen the thing survived? All the Olmstead people were so nuts, would they even say anything if they did, or would they just blame it all on a gas leak? Was that monster thing wandering around town, or did it hide back in its hole once they were gone?

  “Seriously, kiddo, if any of them bug you or start to follow you around, we can just go. It’s not like my job is so hot here I couldn’t leave.”

  “Do you believe any of it, Dad?”

  “No.” He was immediate and firm.

  “You never saw anything weird?”

  “I’ve seen lots of weird things, Riri, but for all my mom’s stupid rituals and creepy statues, I never saw any Old Ones. Except for nightmares. Had plenty of those.”

  Creepy statues. She thought of the shattered basement altar and the headless figurine. “Did you know the Ambroses when you still lived here?”

  He tugged at his mustache, thinking. “Uhh… yeah. Not well or anything, but I saw them around. Why?”

  “Did they go to your mom’s church?”

  “Yeah, they did. I saw them talking with her there once. I think they started going right around the time we left. How come?”

  “Nothing. I think the librarian lady mentioned them, maybe.”

  “I heard they moved. Guess they were the smart ones.”

  Amrita picked at her fingernails. She thought of Ms. Gilman’s glasses reflecting the green light under the library, and her mind floated the words Cthulhu fhtagn to the surface, making her guts lurch and her hands clench. She couldn’t tell if it was fear or desire.

  “What if you’re wrong?” she whispered. “What if it’s real?”

  He reached over and gently pried her hands open, holding them between his. “If any of that shit’s real, this is no world we want to live in. But it’s not. I promise.”

  She bit the inside of her lip, on the verge of telling him everything. He wouldn’t believe it, but the words were boiling inside her anyway. “Dad—”

  “AMRITA! ANIT!!” her mother screamed. “Get out here! Help!” She sounded scared.

  Her father was out the door in a flash, and Amrita was right on his heels. Her mother was loud, but she was never scared. Everyone was crowded around the tables, and the children were yelling and babbling. Dad parted the crowd with that firm, careful grip of his and then stopped dead, looking at Amrita. She saw what they were all looking at and her insides lurched.

  Oliver lay convulsing on the ground at his feet, pale as death, eyes rolled back in his head, his chin and shirtfront covered in black slime. He wasn’t breathing.