February, 1928 - Arkham, Massachusetts
It was seldom that Henry Armitage (A.M. Miskatonic, Ph.D. Princeton, Litt.D. Johns Hopkins) received requests for the loan of books int he Restricted Section, and on the rare occasion that they were given any sort of serious consideration, it was because such requests had come from this or that representative of some other institution of higher learning. Had the request come from the Widener LIbrary at Harvard, the University of Buenos Ayres, or even the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Armitage might have considered permitting the loan of Miskatonic's copy of the Necronomicon to take place- but it had not. The letter he had received begging to be permitted the loan of the book had arrived from a part of Massachusetts that Armitage knew all too well, having visited the region of Dunwich a bare three years before. As the university was not in the habit of dispensing its rarest volumes to private collectors, particularly not collectors of such habits and tendencies as the Whateley clan had proven to be, he ordered his assistant to send back a letter of refusal, and thought no more of the matter for some time.
Indeed, the prospect would have sunk from his mind entirely had Armitage not come upon a scene of confrontation at the door to the Restricted Section. The shabby, dirty, bearded visitor was that Wilbur Whateley whom Armitage had sought out after hearing tales of the lad's bizarre and uncouth development. His passage was blocked by a man he nearly dwarfed. Wilbur had been but six and three-quarters feet tall in 1925, but had clearly spent the interval growing, outstripping Dr. Stantz's height by nearly two feet. Dr. Armitage shuddered at the sight as much as at the thought of those brutish, coarse-skinned hands pawing over the rare volumes behind the door, for Wilbur's face was twisted in a sneer that robbed him of all but the last trace of human seeming. As for Stantz, Armitage had never seen the man so resolute, not even twenty years ago in his vigil over Nathaniel Peaslee.
The tableau hung frozen before him, and Armitage knew himself unseen by either party. It occurred to him that he ought to speak, but before he could do so, Stantz spoke.
"Don't make me set the dog on you, Mr. Whateley." He lifted his chin a little, an almost inevitable gesture in the face of the goatish Wilbur's giant-like stature. "The book goes nowhere. Not out of the library with you, not to one of the desks in the library with you- not anywhere. Bad enough you have the Dee with you-"
"I'll take good keer of it," Wilbur said, his voice strangely resonant. "It wan't me that put this Dee copy in the shape it is."
"Mr. Whateley, I honestly do not care. The condition of the book has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation, the contents do. You don't get to touch the Necronomicon. You don't get to look at the Necronomicon. Take your copy and go back to Dunwich with it, right now, if you know what's good for you."
The bent, goatish giant before Armitage seemed for a moment like the spawn of another planet or dimension; like something only partly of mankind, and he felt a wave of fright wash over him despite the wretched man's glare being directed at someone else entirely. "It 'ud be a mortal sin to let a red-tape rule hold me up," said Wilbur, his eyes narrowing, growing dangerous. "Ye don't know what yer fooling with."
"On the contrary, Mr. Whateley, I know all too well what's in those pages, and as long as I'm alive you don't get to get at it. You're dealing with a librarian, sir, and we are the secret masters of the universe. We control the information. Don't piss us off."
The moment that followed was long, silent, and terrible, but at last Wilbur turned and left, muttering about how maybe Harvard wouldn't be so fussy. Stantz watched him go before putting his face in his hands and sagging back against the locked door, and Armitage made a note to himself that one of these days, he was going to need to talk to his assistant- at great length.
Indeed, the prospect would have sunk from his mind entirely had Armitage not come upon a scene of confrontation at the door to the Restricted Section. The shabby, dirty, bearded visitor was that Wilbur Whateley whom Armitage had sought out after hearing tales of the lad's bizarre and uncouth development. His passage was blocked by a man he nearly dwarfed. Wilbur had been but six and three-quarters feet tall in 1925, but had clearly spent the interval growing, outstripping Dr. Stantz's height by nearly two feet. Dr. Armitage shuddered at the sight as much as at the thought of those brutish, coarse-skinned hands pawing over the rare volumes behind the door, for Wilbur's face was twisted in a sneer that robbed him of all but the last trace of human seeming. As for Stantz, Armitage had never seen the man so resolute, not even twenty years ago in his vigil over Nathaniel Peaslee.
The tableau hung frozen before him, and Armitage knew himself unseen by either party. It occurred to him that he ought to speak, but before he could do so, Stantz spoke.
"Don't make me set the dog on you, Mr. Whateley." He lifted his chin a little, an almost inevitable gesture in the face of the goatish Wilbur's giant-like stature. "The book goes nowhere. Not out of the library with you, not to one of the desks in the library with you- not anywhere. Bad enough you have the Dee with you-"
"I'll take good keer of it," Wilbur said, his voice strangely resonant. "It wan't me that put this Dee copy in the shape it is."
"Mr. Whateley, I honestly do not care. The condition of the book has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation, the contents do. You don't get to touch the Necronomicon. You don't get to look at the Necronomicon. Take your copy and go back to Dunwich with it, right now, if you know what's good for you."
The bent, goatish giant before Armitage seemed for a moment like the spawn of another planet or dimension; like something only partly of mankind, and he felt a wave of fright wash over him despite the wretched man's glare being directed at someone else entirely. "It 'ud be a mortal sin to let a red-tape rule hold me up," said Wilbur, his eyes narrowing, growing dangerous. "Ye don't know what yer fooling with."
"On the contrary, Mr. Whateley, I know all too well what's in those pages, and as long as I'm alive you don't get to get at it. You're dealing with a librarian, sir, and we are the secret masters of the universe. We control the information. Don't piss us off."
The moment that followed was long, silent, and terrible, but at last Wilbur turned and left, muttering about how maybe Harvard wouldn't be so fussy. Stantz watched him go before putting his face in his hands and sagging back against the locked door, and Armitage made a note to himself that one of these days, he was going to need to talk to his assistant- at great length.