Arthur Wren
Antiquarian bookseller
- Age
- 61
- From
- New England
- Lives
- Wren & Daughter, Antiquarian Books
- Now
- In Arkham
Before Arkham's business
Keeps his father's shop on Market Street and the back room nobody is shown. Lost his daughter Alice to the influenza in 1918.
Courtly, secretive, exact. Knows far more than he says and says it in far more words than necessary.
Afraid of
Dying before he understands · That Alice is somewhere she can be reached
Believes
The old books are true in ways their authors did not intend.
From the journal
The scribe was not mad; he was merely recording what he had the misfortune to witness. There came to us footsteps, too loud. To be untroubled by these curiosities is merely to confess that one has not yet read the margins.
There was, I observed, rain running down the windows. Throughout, one heard pipes knocking. It corresponds in every syllable with the marginalia in the 1684 octavo.
Found the entry in the bound volumes of the Gazette. The name has been inked over, but holding it to the lamp reveals all. Found Ridge Farm in the deeds at the county registry in Salem, 1744. Somebody had tried to erase it and not quite managed. They laughed on Wednesday.
A footnote in the county histories—only two lines, yet it confirms the entire sequence. A note in a margin, dated 1861, mentions Ridge Farm and nothing else, underlined twice. A ledger, a bill, a grocery list—and in between the lines, the business at Ridge Farm. There could be an ordinary reason. I have looked for one.
What follows I write at the request of no one, and for no reader but myself. My eye fell upon a door open that had been left shut. The glass was falling fast. A storm, and the animals knew first. It is done, or as done as such things are.
I reached Ridge Farm at 7.00 p.m. There was about the place a smell of manure. A storm is coming; the animals feel the pressure change. The others are satisfied with the explanation.