VII. Ghost of Recitation

As Prim rested for a moment in contemplation after reading his observations from his eldritch Chi-town notebook, the malevolence of Tallow's estate reminded him of a similar startling experience decades earlier. He took one of his travel notebooks from the shelf and continued his studies . . . on completion of the song and arcane, lyrical recitation, an unexpected peal of thunder marked the exact October hour and then a brief tumultuous rain that afterwards left a viscid, odorous pool of new moon darkness in which candlelight reflected then the reaching out of webbed hands and scaly arms. It had been recorded in Bradford's "History at Plymouth Plantation," that at this very site at Mount-Wollaston, in 1628, the captain's contemporary Morton became known as the Lord of Misrule renaming the place Merriemounte after setting up a May pole, where the earliest of our sundry bacchanalian rimes and verses were composed. Later, this infamous locale was renamed, yet again, on Indecott's restoration of rule of order, Mounte-Dagon; where here too now had appeared, the ghost of the ritualistic Canaan fish-god.