[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories September 1927.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Here is a totally different story that we can
highly recommend to you. We could wax rhapsodical
in our praise, as the story is one of the finest
pieces of literature it has been our good fortune to
read. The theme is original, and yet fantastic
enough to make it rise head and shoulders above
many contemporary scientifiction stories. You will
not regret having read this marvellous tale.
West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deepwoods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where thetrees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle withoutever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes thereare farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages broodingeternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; butthese are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingledsides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.
The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there.French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poleshave come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seenor heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. Theplace is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams atnight. It must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old AmmiPierce has never told them of anything he recalls from the strangedays. Ammi, whose head has been a little queer for years, is the onlyone who still remains, or who ever talks of the strange days; and hedares to do this because his house is so near the open fields and thetravelled roads around Arkham.
There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ranstraight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use itand a new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of theold one can still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness,and some of them will doubtless linger even when half the hollows areflooded for the new reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down andthe blasted heath will slumber far below blue waters whose surface willmirror the sky and ripple in the sun. And the secrets of the strangedays will be one with the deep's secrets; one with the hidden lore ofold ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth.
When I went into the hills and vales to survey for the new reservoirthey told me the place was evil. They told me this in Arkham, andbecause that is a very old town full of witch legends I thought theevil must be something which grandmas had whispered to childrenthrough centuries. The name "blasted heath" seemed to me very oddand theatrical, and I wondered how it had come into the folklore ofa Puritan people. Then I saw that dark westward tangle of glens andslopes for myself, and ceased to wonder at anything besides its ownelder mystery. It was morning when I saw it, but shadow lurked alwaysthere. The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big forany healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dimalleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss andmattings of infinite years of decay.
In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there werelittle hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing,sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimneyor fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wildthings rustled in the under