The room contained but a single window which mercifully allowed a beam of moonlight to illuminate the gloom of the witching hour. Occasionally it flickered like a dying candle as swarms of insects or birds obscured the source like an obscene puppet show. She did not care so much about the shadows as she did that grisly, ceaseless cacophony of organic noise.

The whippoorwills had reappeared two, maybe three days ago?

They had not gathered on the farm in any great number since the death of her father. Many a night she stared at the patch of moonlight on the bedroom floor and wondered which she despised more, the whippoorwills who harassed her nightly with their inharmonious death knells or her father who had gotten her into this situation to begin with but had the luxury of passing peacefully, naturally. The old man had died in his bed with his family around him if the sorry group could even be called that, and the village doctor who they knew could barely stand to look at them.

But poor Lavinia, it just was not enough for her to serve as the vessel that brought those, those- THOSE THINGS, those blasphemous, unworldly creations into being. The very thought of that beast that was somehow her own progeny made her instinctively tighten her grip around the cold, metal handle. She had concealed the kitchen knife beneath her apron so that Wilbur wouldn’t see it as she hobbled into her bedroom to retire for the night. She could not look back to see if he had seen her smuggling the illicit item, as he seemed practically able to read her mind.

Lavinia drew a long breath, willing her frayed nerves to survive at least somewhat intact. The situation was only temporary after all. It would be her or Wilbur. Not if, but when. Clearly, her fall from grace must have been far indeed to now see her own death as a more agreeable scenario than her life. A better compromise, if you will, since she could not recall the last time that life seemed worth living. Whenever the haze of youthfully optimistic delusion had lifted, it had to have been before That Night. Before Those Things came.

It had taken a long time for Lavinia to remember what had happened, and even now the brief flashes of memories did not feel like her own. When she recalled them, it was hard to believe that it had happened to her and not someone else, that she was not just watching a macabre picture show from the back row of the theatre. It had happened, however, and despite Lavinia’s willful effort to distance herself from the horror of it, the nightmares and visions returned anew every day to remind her that it had been her. She hated more than anything that she had walked into it willingly because it then became rather difficult to identify a scapegoat.

“Yog-Sothoth,”

The name had sent chills down her spine.

“The Lurker at the Threshold,”

Old Whateley’s voice had echoed o’er hillside as the storm clouds gathered overhead. Lavinia clearly recalled walking into the center of the circle of stones, thinking her father half crazy for believing the prophetic nonsense of the god-forsaken book he read from. She had agreed to participate all the same, though Lavinia in hindsight she could not fathom why. Her father’s ramblings must have affected her more than she had come to believe.

“Hear me! King of Infinite Space! Planetmover! The Foundation of Fastness! Ruler of Earthquakes! The Vanquisher of Terror! The Creator of Panic! Destroyer!”

The wind howled, raising a cloud of dust from the dead soil. The birds were shrieking then too. They had started then, and in her head, they had never stopped.

“Yog-Sothoth knows the Gate!

Yog-Sothoth is the Gate!”

The blinding light had formed from nothing, no discernible source. Lavinia tried to shield her eyes but her father had seized her by the wrist and pulled her hands away. The colors had surrounded them completely, they were so bright that she could barely see her father though a moment before he had stood next to her. The stones and vast hill country were likewise totally obscured. Lavinia tried to run, but time seemed to slow down and every step felt like she was trying to walk along the sea bed. She was caught in the current, a leaf being carried away by a violent wave with the shore far behind. It was already too late.

“Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the Gate,”

Old Whateley’s voice was now a muffled cry. As Lavinia still reeled from the bright light which threatened to overwhelm her senses, the presence reached her.

Even now, years later, Lavinia could hardly find the words to describe what she had felt. It was more force than living being. Its magnetic pull had drawn her mind in like a moth to flame and she left her corporeal form behind. She reached out to it in kind, its calm stillness becoming an odd comfort as all of time seemed to dance around them. She could not see all of its thoughts as it must have seen hers, but as they intertwined she felt the contemplative, observant gaze of the mind’s eye.

There was no breath entering her lungs or heart beating within her chest. There was only vast empty space, light and dark, hot and cold, moving and still, every color imaginable and more. Lavinia wondered if she had not already died in the process. It would have been alright if she had, if she had been able to stay in this peaceful contentment beyond time.

It was not to be.

Lavinia felt a firm resolution in its thoughts. It had completed its work. She pleaded with the force in her thoughts, begging to stay but it did not answer her. Its mind began to pull back from hers, and Lavinia felt what she could only describe as a falling sensation. It was returning her to her body. Still, she cried out into the void as she fell through the barrier.

Lavinia’s eyes flew open and gasped desperately for breath. Her father was shaking her by the shoulder.

“Lavinia! You’re alive! Look, it worked!” Old Whateley pointed to the swelling within her abdomen which Lavinia barely had the presence of mind to process. She wanted to shriek in pain, but she could do no more than whimper. Her skin burned as if she had walked through fire, the stinging grew with each throb of her frantic heartbeat.

“Can’t you speak girl? Tell me, what did you see?” Old Whateley shook her by the shoulders again, igniting a fresh pain throughout her whole body. Lavinia remained catatonic, her blank eyes staring upward at the night sky. Her father laughed maniacally as he looked again in disbelief at her swollen stomach. He had to carry his daughter down from the hillside and into the shelter of the rickety farmhouse. He laid her down beside the fireplace and covered her with a ragged blanket. Lavinia could barely move her lungs to breathe or her eyelids to blink. Though her skin burned savagely, the air around her was deathly cold.

“Papa?” Lavinia, at last, managed to whisper between shuddering breaths.

“Yes, what is it, girl?” Old Whateley started as his daughter raise a feeble hand and clutched at his sleeve.

“It hurts…help me…blood.” Lavinia’s began to water and her vision blurred. The fringe of her dress had turned red. Her body seized violently as the first contraction hit. Old Whateley jumped to his feet and rushed to get more blankets before returning to her side. If Lavinia’s pain had been bad before, it was nigh unbearable now. She shrieked through the whole process though she could still hard move otherwise.

Through half-closed eyes, she saw Wilbur’s delivery and her father wrapping him in a blanket and cleaning him. She could have sworn that her child looked much too big for a newborn baby, but she had not seen her son’s other deformities until later. As Old Whateley placed a blanket-wrapped Wilbur beside her, the contractions began again.

There was another.

As Wilbur’s brother entered the world, Old Whateley’s was dumbfounded, apparently having gone pale in a mixture of awe and shock.

“What…what’s wrong with it?” Lavinia’s gasped, unable to see the newborn from her position.

“It’s incredible.” Old Whateley whispered as he wrapped the second child in a blanket as well.

“Show me. Show me now.” Lavinia demanded as her father continued to marvel at the unseen child.

“Isn’t your boy beautiful?” Her father had laughed ecstatically as he raised the bundle for her to see. As soon as Lavinia saw the writhing mass he held in his arms, still covered in her own blood, she fainted.

Lavinia shuddered in disgust at the memory. Indeed, her father had left her alone with Wilbur, and that other thing that despite years of effort she could not think of as anything more than a repulsive, deformed animal. She could hear the thing moving in the attic. It had gotten very big, bigger than the cattle she fed him to stave off his monstrous appetite.

However, Lavinia admitted, the thing upstairs was fairly benign as long as he was fed and kept warm and sheltered. For now, at least, it was easy to prevent his tantrums though that would change soon as he would eventually outgrow the house they lived in.

Yes, she could handle the creature well enough. The real problem was Wilbur. The boy had grown into a man far faster than he should have, by ten he had already attained the appearance of an adult and yet he continued to grow. He should have still been a boy, easy to control, easy to keep in the dark, but he had never depended on her for anything. Lavinia was certain that she was a disposable resource to him, and every day his loathing for his own mother seemed to intensify.

Lavinia fiddled absently with the knife in her hand. It was a shame. She had been proud of him once, maybe even loved him. They had sat by the fire together reading his grandfather’s books when he was just three. His unnatural strength and intelligence had amazed her then instead of inspiring her present paranoia and mortal dread. As Lavinia sat on the edge of her bed, as of yet unable to sleep, she heard the low creak of the floorboards outside her bedroom door.

As the doorknob turned, Lavinia looked from the knife to her wrist and back to the knife again, listening to the song of the whippoorwills outside.

It really was a shame.