Are you ready for another perilous dip into the realm of early cosmic horror? It's all the fun of cosmic dread without the dreadful heteronormative exclusion: Part 2 of "The Yellow Sign" by American author Robert W. Chambers.

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Writing/Editing & Narration by Maika

Music by The Parlour Trick

Audio Engineering by Meredith Yayanos

Cover Art Illustration by Daniel Kern

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Gather round and welcome.

This is Liminal Flares, Bedtime Stories From Beyond and in-between,

readings of eldritch literature drawn from the public domain and amended to be gender-inclusive.

My name is Maika, and I am your queer, trans, nonbinary narrator.

And today we are reading part two of The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers.

Last week we met our narrator, Mr. Scott,

an artist working in his New York City studio with an art model named Tessie Reardon,

both of whom were experiencing distress:

An inexplicably ruined painting for Mr. Scott and a recurring nightmare for Tessie,

both somehow connected to an unsettling individual working as a guard at the church next door to Scott's studio.

And now, let's continue with our tale...

The next morning, Thomas, the bellhop, brought me the Herald and a bit of news.

The church next door had been sold.

I thanked heaven for it.

Not that, being a Catholic, I had any repugnance for the congregation next door,

but because my nerves were shattered by a blatant exhorter

whose every word echoed through the aisle of the church as if it had been my own rooms,

and who insisted on their Rs with a nasal persistence which revolted my every instinct.

Then, too, there was a fiend in human shape,

an organist who reeled off some of the grand old hymns with an interpretation of their own.

And I longed for the blood of a creature who could play the doxology with an amendment of minor chords

which one hears only in a quartet of very young undergraduates.

I believe the minister was a good person.

But when they bellowed

"And the Lord said unto Moses, the Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.

My wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sword!"

I wondered how many centuries of purgatory it would take to atone for such a sin.

"Who bought the property?" I asked Thomas.

"Nobody that I knows, sir.

They do say the gent wot owns this here Hamilton Flats was lookin at it.

They might be buildin' more studios."

I walked to the window.

The young person with the unhealthy face stood by the churchyard gate,

and at the mere sight of them, the same overwhelming repugnance took possession of me.

"By the way, Thomas," I said, "who is that citizen down there?"

Thomas sniffed.

"That there worm, sir? He's guard of the church, sir.

They make me tired a-sittin out all night on them steps an lookin at you, insultin' like.

I'd a punched their head, sir. Beg pardon, sir."

"Go on, Thomas."

"One night comin' home with Harry, the other bellhop, I sees them a-sittin there on them steps.

We had Molly and Jen with us, sir, the two girls on the tray service,

An' they looks so insultin' at us that I up and says, 'what you lookin' at, slug?'

Beg pardon, sir, but that's how I sez, sir.

'Come out and I'll punch that puddin' head.'

Then I opens the gate and goes in, but they don't say nothin', only looks insultin' like.

Then I hits 'em one, but ugh! Their head was so cold and mushy, it'd sicken you to touch 'em."

"What did they do then?" I asked curiously.

"Them? Nothin'."

"And you, Thomas?"

The young fellow flushed with embarrassment and smiled uneasily.

"Mr Scott, sir, I ain't no coward an' I can't make it out at all why I run.

I was in the 5th Lancers, sir, bugler at Tel-el-Kebir, an' was shot by the wells."

"You don't mean to say you ran away?"

"Yes, sir, I - I run."

"Why?"

"That's just what I want to know, sir.

I grabbed Molly an' run, an' the rest was as frightened as I."

"But what were they frightened at?"

Thomas refused to answer for a while,

but now my curiosity was aroused about the repulsive young person below and I pressed him.

Three years sojurn in America had not only modified Thomas's Cockney dialect,

but had given him the American's fear of ridicule.

"You won't believe me, Mr Scott, sir."

"Yes, I will."

"You will laugh at me, sir."

"Nonsense!"

He hesitated.

"Well, sir, it's Gawd's truth that when I hit them, they grabbed me wrists, sir,

and when I twisted their soft, mushy fist, one of their fingers come off in me hand."

The utter loathing and horror of Thomas' face must have been reflected in my own,

for he added, "It's awful. An' now when I see them, I just go away. They make me ill."

When Thomas had gone, I went to the window.

The person stood beside the church railing with both hands on the gate.

But I hastily retreated to my easel again, sickened and horrified,

for I saw that the middle finger of their right hand was missing.

At nine o'clock, Tessie appeared and vanished behind the screen with a merry "Good morning, Mr Scott."

When she had reappeared and taken her pose upon the model-stand,

I started a new canvas, much to her delight.

She remained silent as long as I was on the drawing.

But as soon as the scrape of the charcoal ceased and I took up my fixative, she began to chatter.

"Oh, I had such a lovely time last night. We went to Tony Pastor's."

"Who are we?" I demanded.

"Oh, Maggie, you know Mr. Whyte's Model and Pinkie McCormick—

we call them Pinkie because they've got that beautiful red hair you artists like so much —And Lizzie Burke."

I sent a shower of spray from the fixative over the canvas and said, "Well, go on."

"We saw Kelly and Baby Barnes, the skirt-dancer —and all the rest. I made a mash."

"Then you have gone back on me, Tessie?"

She laughed and shook her head.

"He's Lizzie Burke's brother, Ed. He's a perfect gen'l'man."

I felt constrained to give her some parental advice concerning mashing,

which she took with a bright smile.

"Oh, I can take care of a strange mash," she said, examining her chewing gum.

"But Ed is different. Lizzie is my best friend."

Then she related how Ed had come back from the stocking mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to find her and Lizzie grown up,

and what an accomplished young man he was,

and how he thought nothing of squandering half-a-dollar for ice-cream and oysters

to celebrate his entry as clerk into the woolen department of Macy's.

Before she finished, I began to paint, and she resumed the pose, smiling and chattering like a sparrow.

By noon I had the study fairly well rubbed in, and Tessie came to look at it.

"That's better," she said.

I thought so too, and ate my lunch with a satisfied feeling that all was going well.

Tessie spread her lunch on a drawing table opposite me,

and we drank our claret from the same bottle and lighted our cigarettes from the same match.

I was very much attached to Tessie.

I had watched her shoot up into a slender but exquisitely formed woman from a frail, awkward child.

She had posed for me during the last three years,

and among all my models she was my favorite.

It would have troubled me very much indeed had she become "tough" or "fly," as the phrase goes.

But I never noticed any deterioration of her manner and felt at heart that she was all right.

She and I never discussed morals at all, and I had no intention of doing so,

partly because I had none myself and partly because I knew she would do what she liked in spite of me.

Still, I did hope she would steer clear of complications, because I wished her well,

and then also I had a selfish desire to retain the best model I had.

I knew that mashing, as she termed it, had no significance with girls like Tessie,

and that such things in America did not resemble in the least of the same things in Paris.

Yet, having lived with my eyes open, I also knew that somebody would take Tessie away someday,

in one manner or another,

and though I professed to myself that marriage was nonsense,

I sincerely hoped that in this case there would be a priest at the end of the vista.

I am a Catholic.

When I listen to high mass, when I sign myself,

I feel that everything, including myself, is more cheerful,

and when I confess, it does me good.

A person who lives as much alone as I do, must confess to somebody.

Then again, Sylvia was Catholic, and it was reason enough for me.

But I was speaking of Tessie, which is very different.

Tessie was also Catholic and much more devout than I, so taking it all in all,

I had little fear for my pretty model until she should fall in love.

But then I knew that fate alone would decide her future for her,

and I prayed inwardly that fate would keep her away from people like me

and throw into her path nothing but Ed Burkes and Jimmy McCormicks, bless her sweet face.

Tessie sat blowing rings of smoke up to the ceiling and tinkling the ice in her tumbler.

"Do you know that I also had a dream last night?" I observed.

"Not about that church guard," she laughed.

"Exactly. A dream similar to yours, only much worse."

It was foolish and thoughtless of me to say this, but you know how little tact the average painter has.

'I must have fallen asleep about ten o'clock," I continued,

"and after a while I dreamt that I awoke. So plainly did I hear the midnight bells,

the wind in the tree-branches, and the whistle of steamers from the bay,

that even now I can scarcely believe I was not awake.

I seemed to be lying in a box which had a glass cover.

Dimly I saw the street lamps as I passed.

For I must tell you, Tessie,

the box in which I reclined appeared to lie in a cushioned wagon which jolted me over a stony pavement.

After a while I became impatient and tried to move, but the box was too narrow.

My hands were crossed on my breast, so I could not raise them to help myself.

I listened and then tried to call.

My voice was gone.

I could hear the trample of the horses attached to the wagon and even the breathing of the driver.

Then another sound broke upon my ears like the raising of a window sash.

I managed to turn my head a little and found I could look, not only through the glass cover of my box,

but also through the glass panes in the side of the covered vehicle.

I saw houses, empty and silent, with neither light nor life about any of them excepting one.

In that house a window was open on the first floor, and a figure all in white stood looking down into the street.

It was you."

Tessie had turned her face away from me and leaned on the table with her elbow.

"I could see your face," I resumed, "and it seemed to me to be very sorrowful.

Then we passed on and turned into a narrow black lane.

Presently the horses stopped.

I waited and waited, closing my eyes with fear and impatience,

but all was silent as the grave.

After what seemed to me hours, I began to feel uncomfortable.

A sense that somebody was close to me made me unclose my eyes.

Then I saw the white face of the hearse-driver looking at me through the coffin-lid—"

A sob from Tessie interrupted me. She was trembling like a leaf.

I saw I had made an ass of myself and attempted to repair the damage.

"Why, Tess," I said.

"I only told you this to show you what influence your story might have on another person's dreams.

You don't suppose I really lay in a coffin, do you? What are you trembling for?

Don't you see that your dream and my unreasonable dislike for that inoffensive guard of the church

simply set my brain working as soon as I fell asleep?"

She laid her head between her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself.

But I was about to break my record.

I went over and put my arm about her.

"Tessie, dear, forgive me," I said. "I had no business to frighten you with such nonsense.

You are too sensible a girl, too good a Catholic to believe in dreams."

Her hand tightened on mine and her head fell back upon my shoulder,

but she still trembled and I petted her and comforted her.

"Come, Tess, open your eyes and smile."

Her eyes opened with a slow, languid movement and met mine,

but their expression was so queer that I hastened to reassure her again.

"It's all humbug, Tessie; you surely are not afraid that any harm will come to you because of that?"

"No," she said, but her scarlet lips quivered.

"Then what's the matter? Are you afraid?"

"Yes. Not for myself."

"For me, then?" I demanded gaily.

"For you," she murmured in a voice almost inaudible.

"I—I care for you."

At first I started to laugh, but when I understood her, a shock passed through me,

and I sat like one turned to stone.

This was the crowning bit of idiocy I had committed.

During the moment which elapsed between her reply and my answer

I thought of a thousand responses to that innocent confession.

I could pass it by with a laugh, I could misunderstand her and assure her as to my health,

I could simply point out that it was impossible che could love me.

But my reply was quicker than my thoughts,

and I might think and think now, when it was too late,

for I had kissed her on the mouth.

This concludes part two of The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers.

Thank you for listening to Liminal Flares.

Our music is by The Parlor Trick.

Audio Engineering by Meredith Yayanos.

I hope you've enjoyed our time together in this twilit space.

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And please share us with others who might enjoy

our haunted and haunting gender-inclusive story time.

Next week, we return to continue reading Robert W. Chambers' tale of

Yhe Yellow Sign, part three of four.

I do hope you'll join me.

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