Dear Professor G. Savage,
It does not befit my character to succumb to a shattering of formality, to lapse from that which is proper and into incredulous dances of fantasy. My occupation is - or perhaps was - that of a scientist, a figure of precision and study for whom phantasms and faeries should be isolated to the young, the impressionable and those with sparse sanity. I fear since the unfortunate case of Dr. Prendergast and the discovery of Io that these sensibilities had flown, as if some startled magpie, to leave only glimmering susceptibility to suggestion in it place.
During the fortnight of my leave I saw this escaping of reason for what it was: a subsidence of the foundations of that which I held true for so many years. First the amorphous unnaturalism of Io followed by the shattering of many known laws of physics and chemistry shewed by the cold lamp and the shadow of thorns respectively. That psychology should be so pliable as to be affected by the incense of St. Leonard's chapel and the life-long mystery of the postmaster's secret nurtured concern within me, mutating soon to fear. That I could be so susceptible to the bizarre that I might posit a purely philosophical theory to the sorry case of the Neverwhere is nought but an indication for how far these happenings have drawn me from rationalism.
Thankfully my leave permitted reprise from this pseudo-insanity, although not by the means I had predicted. Since the magpie had flown it duly returned to its nest, as oft they do, with shiny trinket in-talon. The clasped toy, a shilling of excellent reflection, was two-sided: heads projected an image of myself, to repair what need be done; the tails-side was altogether more sepulchral, a ghastly indicator of man's worst ambitions and evils, and a muddied apparition in the waters of Loch Llenli.
The Osprey and the Waters
Having fled from Avon to sate my declining resolve, I boarded the train from Avon East direct to the Highlands, arriving in a smoky Glastleburgh. From there I took a cab to the small hamlet of Sanslow near the residence of my sister Marian Stoke. I sought refuge in the only family I have remaining, since our father's passing two years prior, a familiar line to clasp whilst treading unfamiliar water. There she lives in a modest country cottage, somewhat unfitting in the surrounding having been commissioned and constructed by my family's fortune solely for her convenience. It contains all required amenities and was not an intolerable walk from Sanslow itself.
My sister is as kind and hospitable a soul as I could ever care to know, and despite my unexpected arrival she played hostel with immeasurable aplomb and care. I believed that I with splintered wits and Marian with dented heart from the loss of our father and her child in so close a span of time would be fitting company, one tired structure holding the other in equilibrium.
Marian lives with her husband, Brian G. Stoke, a fisher-man who works in the surrounding lochs for the Prendergast fisheries company. Indeed the fisheries owned by Isaac Prendergast - may I never escape that name? Brian is a kind-hearted man, not without intelligence although it remains largely un-exercised. He took well to my intrusion and offered the following day to act as guide for the fells and hills of the area. I accepted with gratitude, anticipating that a series of aimless treks through the greeneries and wilds of these regions may serve to fortify me and my vigour.
Over the following five days my time was occupied primarily by meanders and hikes through the peaks about Sanslow. I had brought with me a monocular in anticipation of observing the wildlife, as I had many times in my younger years. Many was the hour I laid atop some moist moss-ridden crag fixing my sights upon a gathering of deer or a drove of mountain hares. To observe the uninterrupted goings-about of a chough or the graceful swooping of a kingfisher on the hunt remains an innocent pleasure to me, a method of displacing ones-self from reality.
On the dawn of the sixth day my jaunts led to me to ascend to the summit of a hillock by the overtly grandiose name of Mount Tordalough. As I trudged through peat and heather on this autumnal day adorned of sodden land and skies, my spirits were in high number. A man in the village with similar intrigues to myself had informed Brian that he may have caught sight of an Osprey, a bird of prey commonly found in the area but which disappear by the end of summer. To see one at this time was relatively rare and I, myself, had never seen one outside of a glass cabinet and without innards exchanged for sawdust.
As a word of note, were it note for the attachment to this letter you may believe this tangent to be but an uninformative rambling. I maintain its importance, which will be evident in the following paragraphs.
At the summit I lay with an uninterrupted panorama of the area, my glass-enhanced eye on vigil at the shores of Loch Llenli. As a hunter of fish I knew the best of fortunes to sight the Osprey was on the banks or waters of the loch, or its neighbouring loch Godli. Having spied a number of songbirds and a glimpse of an otter receding into the grass, over an hour my hopes began to subside. I pulled my face from the telescope, eyelid audibly peeling away from the eye-piece, readying myself for relocation. In doing so, turning my head to the sky, I saw swooping directly overhead the Osprey, plummeting toward the lake. Immediately I dropped back to my position, now indented in the fauna, fixing my bare vision on it as best I could. Once out of plain sight I directed the monocular to where it left off, to see it sweep onto the lake, cause a great spray of water and emerge clutching a fish in muddied talons. I had anticipated its swiftness of hunt yet the precision required to perform such a singularly continuous trail from over the hillock, diving into the loch and emerging with prize in-claw astonished me.
Yet my astonishment was mistaken if it awaited rest. The point at which the bird had claimed its prey had generated much excitement, the surface erupting with much splashing and water-borne noise. The fishery boats had not long pushed off and were some way from the watery ruckus, a disturbance which lasted much longer than I would have expected from the interruption of a bird of prey. Indeed when it did calm many minutes later I was most surprised to spy through my lens a reddening of the rippling water, as if some subsurface battle had been waged and lost. Curious I remained in place for a while after intent on scanning the loch's surface for similar signs of subaquatic tyranny, having almost entirely lost mind of the bird.
Over the course of the next few hours I noticed no fewer than five more of these bizarre geysers, some with the bloodied plumage of the first, others with little but algae-foam and disturbance to indicate its presence. I know little of the temperament of the inhabitants of domesticated aquaculture farms but this unusual happening remained with me until evening when, by the candle-light of the dining table, I was able to enquire to Brian. I asked at first which species were being cultivated in the loch, which yielded nought too surprising - the standard fare of rainbow trout and carp, although they had recently begun the introduction of salmon to the adjoining loch Godli. I mentioned the watery commotions to him, which elicited intrigue from both in audience. These occurrences had not gone unnoticed but had, for some time, remained unexplained. It was apparently not uncommon for these fits to occur in the shoals, but such frequency had been hitherto unheard of, particularly with the subsequent reddening - while this may not seem like standard dining conversation, myself as a biologist and the couple before me as a fishery family, were each immune to the more grotesque instances of nature.
Brian also informed me of queer deformations in the fish being caught over the two or three weeks previous, approximately at the time these disturbances began to escalate. He suggested that, as a biologist, I may perhaps be able to cast some elucidation upon the mystery, perhaps not some disease causing unrest in the populus. Careful not to surrender details of my current employ, I heartily agreed with the notion. So engrossed in conversation of the macabre and aquatic, we left our supper cold to retire for the evening, I permuting scenarios through my mind. After an hour of lying in wake I ceased the search, reminding my waning resolve that I was here to rehabilitate my self-administered credulity, not feed it.
After a dreamless sleep the knocker-upper signalled dawn, and before long I had boarded a craft of the fisheries in search of disruption and mutilation. Duly as the fish were harvest at least one in every twenty emerged with deformities. However queer my act of observation may have seemed to the practical stout-folk of Sanslow, a great deal of unsettling information we gleaned from my time on the vessel. Endeavouring to inform Brian that evening, so as not to alarm the workers to the disconcerting news, I bade them fare-well at the shore and walked the circumference, net filled with victim-fish in tow.
Choosing to avoid unnecessary pomp and panic I suggested to Brian that by dusk we take to the loch and investigate in waxing moonlight. Perhaps the lack of surface activity may have enticed whatever stalk the murk beneath, as by now I was sure the mutilation could not be caused by in-fighting but rather by some unwelcome intruder. By sweet misfortune this decision needn't have been made since, not half-way to the boat-house, we encountered more of a gruesome sight than I wish ever to encounter hence. It was not the form or appearance of our discovery which elicited such revulsion within me, but the purpose and deliberation behind it. Fortunately my companion did not infer what I saw behind the initial disgust, and so we maintained enough resolve to carry the burden to the house, much to the surprise of the malcontent in my sister.
The Study: The Pseudo-Siren
What lay on the dining table before us was a beast of great proportions, great horror and even greater stench. What gave it its scale and horror lie in its aforementioned purpose, it's ghastly reason for existing. The source of its aroma was obvious.
I shall describe it's physical appearance approaching from the ground in as specific a detail as I may. The first three feet four inches of the beast was that of a large aquatic female mammal, narwhal-like in origin. Given the size of a narhwal compared to that of the object of study I would say that either this piece were harvested from the very end of such a creature or was taken from a juvenile. I prefer the latter - in evidence rather than in taste - since the colourings are darker than one would expect from an adult, even excluding the discoloured patches, the result of some sort of industrial processing. Both the bulk and the sweeping tail have colourings of the most unnatural variety, containing violets, lilacs and magentas alongside cooler aquamarines and blues, akin to the shimmering surface of oil. Far from inducing fascination these refractive illusions conjured more concepts of hideousness and imperfection.
Where the aquatic mammalian part ends, a circumference of crude metallic stitchings mark the threshold of the land-borne mammal. From the waist-up - should such a point be definable - the form took largely that of a human, the cut-off point a contrasting reminder of its distinct unnaturalness. The torso, at least externally, remained thoroughly human, although the scarring, which had become infected in the contaminated waters of the loch, was prominent and revolting serving as the indicator for internal tampering. Little fat remained in the area, the skeleton stretching the skin as if wishing escape from its abnormal prison.
The arms were the least affected regions of what remained human, from which I can ascertain that whomever this poor soul had been before he heralded from the orient. The arms possessed the diameter of a walking cane, reflecting the ruin seen in the torso. What were once hands had been through a transformation most foul which, even the conception of which, eludes me. Seemingly the nails had been either replaced with or forcibly morphed into claw-like appendages, still keratin-based and akin to that of the sun bear of south-east Asia. These protrude from what were once fingers, curling with so significant a girth there lies little room for movement between. The outgrowths from which they emerge have been adjoined by a thin covering of skin, not of the same origin as the hand, to form a leathery webbing. To this end the arms now possessed what were, in effect, finned talons, a construction I have not encountered in my many years as biologist, but may have fallen victim to in the occasional night-mare.
The final ghastly part of this pseudo-siren of the loch was the head, the face of which had been mutilated beyond recognition and to no practical purpose. No sign of nose nor ear remained, the eyes having fallen prey to some bizarre alchemical reaction, their colourings were malformed and their surface hardened. The mouth and neck had been spliced and reconfigured to accommodate what appear to be gills from unknown origin. From my external studies little remains of the ordinary breathing and eating apparatus, although a more in-depth autopsy would provide far more detailed analysis than my frenzied candle-light studies. More specific details are attached to this letter, as per previous employ.
The whole construction of the siren was that of horrid deliberation by an unqualified hand, by no means unskilled yet with no care for finesse. The determination and skill required to take such a monstrosity from imagination to reality and conclude with life remaining is beyond my horror, let alone my comprehension. This was the origin of my initial unease, not the clear disgust induced by the sight of the beast, but the notion that this was formed by human hand. I oft recourse to hope that our species is one of the fairer on this earth, but all too often I am disproven. What acts this man had performed in life to deserve such a fate I need not consider, yet masochistic is my mind as it does little but ponder on the matter.
The body of this creature, already devoid of life upon discovery, I have sent with this letter for further study by persons of your choosing, under deliberate cover and by the following night. I suggest Dr Klendtheim, a brilliant biologist and former medical professional, he also has a keen interest in marine biology.
I shall be returning to your employ soon, should you wish me welcome. My sister, initially greatly concerned for my well-being upon arrival, ensures me that I have improved greatly not only by my stay here but also by the discovery and study of the siren: Marian maintains that throughout my examination of the beast, whilst Brian retired and Marian remained to assist, my vigour did nought but increase and enthusiasm returned to my previously sullied form. I account this not to the nature of the beast but to the shift in mentality in the study.
It has been far too long since my time was affected upon some purely scientific analysis: observing, measuring, noting and surmising founded exclusively on the previously stock-piled knowledge of the sciences. For some time since my work had adjusted direction I had dealt in uncertainties and imagination, examining from more a philosophical and, dare I say, near-fictional vigil. So disillusioned had I become from the unnatural effects of my study that I had abandoned any attempt to view them from a scientific standpoint. I believe I am now returned to my analytic self, and wish to continue to examine the bizarre and ethereal with aim to describe them with the rational and earthen.
Since our discovery the waters of Loch Llenli have return to calm and disfigurements in the livestock have decreased. I understand that those higher up in the Prendergast company have become aware of this incident, instigating investigations of their own, although I doubt they will know either of my involvement or discovery. Of course Marian will tell nothing and I trust Brian to keep the affair untold as far as I trust his character, which - besides luring my sister from the city and family home - is as steadfast and polished as I may know.
It trust this finds you well. I have more to tell in person that I dare not put in writing.
Yours,
Dr. Nicholas P. Henderson.
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