Two Past

Crickbyrn was a small town even though it had grown quite a bit in recent years.

The next morning, after they both covered their ears with wigs, Shin took Lizbeth to one of the historical centers of the small town—where the strange vehicle caught people's attention. Many gathered to see it, but they were able to evade any complicated questions by making themselves known as a couple who were simply enjoying a vacation after years of working for the military.

The wig, which had slightly curly hair, didn't suit Shin at all. Combined with the way his face looked and his height, it made the townspeople stare at him with surprise —and a bit of fear. That was common; people always looked at him with suspicion whenever he entered a new place. Lizbeth, on the other hand, also drew attention, but for a different reason: she actually looked great in her wig and the clothes that made her appear much more mature. They had breakfast at one of the local restaurants to get a better sense of the town, and that's how they came across information about the historic center.

There was not much information in the historical center about what they were looking for, and so they went to the city library. She needed answers and most likely she would find something there, at least that's what they had been told at the historical center.

At the library, Lizbeth browsed the shelves with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, but Shin told her to wait and calm down. She indicated to him only that she needed the records of people from the first half of the 19th century. He didn't ask why, he figured.

The librarian who helped them was one of the most knowledgeable about the city's past and it didn't take them long to find what they were looking for, while Lizbeth stood expectantly in the reading room illuminated by a warm sun that bathed the tables through the large windows.

Shin came to one of the long tables in the library, where she was sitting, carrying three books. One was the history and a register of the town personalities that had been written in the early twentieth century. Another was the register of persons from 1810 to 1850, and then the second volume from 1850 to 1890. He passed the books to Lizbeth and she began to search.

It didn't take long.

Edgar, Eddie.

Virginia, Sissy.

Despite being in a fog, her mind filled in the blanks in the search.

Her trembling fingers ran through the names in the records until, suddenly, there they were. In a neat handwriting that had begun to fade: Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Eliza Poe. Arrived in Wales in 1832, where they lived until their deaths, in 1857 and 1859 respectively. Moved to Baltimore in 1862.

Lizbeth read and was confused. Baltimore? She had a memory of standing in front of two graves. That couldn't be possible. There was something wrong. There was no mention of any descendants either.

Then she went to the other voluminous tome, which told the history of Crickbyrn's notables. It didn't take her long to find the references by looking in the appendix first. Meanwhile Shin was looking through the books she had already seen. She hadn't pointed anything out to him, but he had still been studying her expressions as she read and knew she had found something.

"Hmm?!" Shin raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"Huh... no, nothing. Are you okay?" She nodded. "I'm going to check something. I'll be right back."

"Okay."

He stood up from the chair and called out to the librarian and seemed to be asking him something, as she read the book in her hands.

The words seemed to glow on the page, as if time had preserved them just for her.

[Edgar Allan Poe. Born January 19, 1809. An American from Boston, who studied in England and Scotland for some years. He returned to his home country, only to return to the United Kingdom in 1831.

Married Virginia Eliza Clemm. American, born in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 15, 1814. In 1832, the couple settled in Crickbyrn, where he became a renowned astronomer and she taught piano lessons. The couple was well known in the area for Mr. Poe's eccentricity. He postulated theories related to the field of space physics and astronomy. Mrs. Poe was much more beloved in the locality for her fondness for children, and for her voice which was much in demand for recitation and singing.

Likewise, several of the children she taught became talented musicians years later, among them composer John Dunn Davies and pianist Thomas Williams Jr. whom she taught for a short time, but both of whom always remembered her fondly, as appears in their memoirs and quotes from other biographers.

Mr. and Mrs. Poe were first cousins, both being descendants of David Poe Sr. of Irish origin, and who had a notable performance during the Wars of Independence of the United States Kingdom].

Lizbeth felt the air leave her lungs. Everything fit in that part. It all made sense. And there were even some details she hadn't expected. And yet, the records didn't mention children. It was only a couple of paragraphs long, but there they were, in a tiny vintage photo, filling half a page and then jumping to the Presbyterian owners of the city's first multi-purpose warehouse.

Wow, her parents had been cousins. She hadn't expected that, but she didn't mind at all. It was quite normal for the times, albeit among the wealthy classes. Her parents must have been well off if they had been able to afford certain luxuries she recalled from her memories.

Beyond that, she was happy.

It was as she remembered them from her memories, a little blurry, and she felt her eyes water. There was no mention of how they had died, or where, but it must have been in the city. But, assuming what she had seen in the previous volumes, their graves must have been at some point in the city cemetery, before they were taken to Baltimore. An enigma to be solved. But she had found them.

That which she was not supposed to remember. Was it possible that all feys were like her? Human at some point? Transformed into feys somewhere, and then returned?

It was as they said in legends of different cultures about the fey world, after all. Humans who entered fairy circles or were abducted and reappeared. If she had come to Londonderry, then there was a chance that, from there, she too had disappeared in the last century. Thoughts swirled in her mind. If she had disappeared, at least she had done so after her parents had died.

Lizbeth sifted through the scraps of memories. She had a vague recollection of what she had learned at home. Her father and mother teaching her, but they were too fuzzy. She looked like a teenager at one point and then she looked older. How old was she really? The doctors on the island had told her she was in her early twenties. 21? 23 maybe? A little more or a little less.

The pages before her told the story of two people, part of whose existences had been erased in more than one way. There was no trace of offspring, not a single mention of her name. There was no Elizabeth Poe. No Lizzy. No Friday. As if she had never existed. The truth was there, within her grasp and, at the same time, out of her reach.

Her fingers closed around the paper gently, as if she feared that by touching it too hard, that story would vanish. It didn't matter that the world had forgotten her. It didn't matter that official records denied her existence. She knew. And, for the first time in a long time, she let out a barely audible whisper, "Mom... Dad…"

She wiped her tear-filled eyes and thought a little. There must be more records, if that historical book had been written in the early twentieth century. Although it was also possible that the writer had done some research with the oldest people in the area. None of whom would be alive anymore.

What about the writer? Would it be wise for her to go and ask him for information or if he remembered anything else?

She wondered, when Shin returned. He had three other books with him. Two with bookmarks and the third was a rather old book.

Shin passed her the two books with bookmarks and set the third one aside. They were two volumes of astronomy and astrophysics from the Miskatonic Press.

"Look at them," Shin indicated, pointing to the bookmarks and sat down on the opposite side. He then leaned his elbows and head on the table, as he watched her read.

Lizbeth became even more confused and opened her eyes. "What is this?" she asked and looked at Shin and then read silently.

Edgar Allan Poe.

The name was in that book too.

It wasn't a biography or anything like that. It was a couple of pages in one book and about ten in the other, but they were about science.

Shin looked at her. He had read that name before, several times.

He didn't say anything else. Even if she hadn't told him, he realized the day before that there were people important to her there. But he hadn't asked her anything. The rest he had deduced from the names she had looked up.

"He was one of the first to propose the theory of the inflationary universe. Even before Einstein." Shin explained. "He made many other predictions in a book he published by Massachusetts Press called Eureka, although at the time it didn't attract much attention. Today, many of these things are part of the field of physics. Like, for example, Olbers' Paradox. Or the theory that in collapsed supermassive objects not even light could escape—although already a century earlier two other scientists have also proposed it."

Lizbeth looked at him with a furrowed brow. "I didn't understand the last part."

"Which one?"

"Since you said... Eureka."

Lizbeth knew Shin was quite given to science, but he tended to forget that sometimes the person in front of him could not the same. She knew quite a bit and had studied when she had the time all those years ago, but there were things she still didn't deal with. In the case of astronomy, it wasn't really her forte. While she knew the constellations inside out and other important things, like using them for nighttime orientation, she was almost completely ignorant of some of the more cutting edge theories. Although that was obviously not her fault. A battlefield had not been the right environment for study when she needed to wield a weapon.

Shin spent some time explaining the science behind the article, but it was basically a summary of a work by Edgar Allan Poe. At the time no one had paid much attention to it, it was true. It also mentioned that ordinary people at that time, almost always the only interest they had in the science of the stars was divination—whether a star was in this or that house and whether it was conducive to giving horns to this or that neighbor.

The other book was also about astrophysics and Lizbeth didn't quite understand what it was about, and Shin tried to explain it to her. According to some of the more anecdotal parts in that second book, it alluded to the fact that, one of the reasons why Professor Poe's theories must not have attracted much attention, was that for the average public many of those things were boring. While for scholars and academics they somehow disliked his method of writing—which had an almost poetic prose.

It was even mentioned that some detractors had said that he should have devoted himself to literature and poetry, rather than to the field of astronomy. To which Professor Poe had only replied that he would surely have died without a penny in his pocket.

Lizbeth was smiling as she read that. Shin stood on the other side of the table studying her expressions, while the morning sun bathed her face. She had spent an hour reading and re-reading when she finally looked up. Her eyes fell on the book Shin had put aside.

"And that one? What's it about."

Shin moved it toward her and she took it. It was a slightly dusty volume with a gray cover and brown spine with pages that had begun to yellow.

Its name: Hypnerotomachia Poliphilli.

"It's lucky they had one here. They made so few of those."

"'Hypnero-what?" Lizbeth asked, examining it. And she opened the pages carefully.

"The title is made-up words, neologisms. That's the 1904 facsimile version, the first one published in London, a copy of the 1499 original. Unfortunately here they don't have the English Experience from 1592, version that was made almost a century after the original was published—although certain parts were removed from it, such as dedications and so on." Then he pointed to the book Lizbeth had. "That version is better, because it is complete, but it is not in English."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Lizbeth flipped through the first few pages. It had some sort of dedication at the beginning, but she couldn't read too much. It was a book that was not in English. It was hard to read at first. It was in Latin, Italian and other language she did not grasp.

She looked at Shin without understanding exactly. Did that book have anything to do with what she was looking for?

Shin leaned forward and began to speak slowly. "I told you I'd heard the name Poe named somewhere else."

"Aye."

"Well, aside from the college thing, I knew the name from something else." Lizbeth nodded. "It turns out that during the last century there was some sort of global secret society, called the Fog Society."

"'Fog society'? I've heard that name before."

"Yeah, right. During some missions in certain papers the name and links came up, but you weren't involved. The Ahnenerbe sent spies to various parts of the world looking for data, but neither they, nor we, have been able to find much. The papers of the organization are nowhere to be found. Only a few veiled mentions."

"I don't understand."

"The Fog Society did just what the Armitage Foundation does in the United States or Paranormal Research Society does here. They were the first to take paranormal matters seriously and investigate all kinds of strange cases. Not just cases of feys appearing, creatures, monsters, but cases where it seemed that somehow the laws of physics stopped working in a conventional way."

"Is this linked...?" asked Lizbeth, looking at the books she had read earlier.

Shin nodded. "Professor Poe and his wife were part of such a society. As were adventurers, academics, alchemists, magicians in the last century. Even feys, there are rumors. One of its most famous members were the adventurer Jules Verne, the writer Alexander Dumas, but there were many more. Probably several dozen around the world and with several generations involved." Lizbeth's mouth was slightly ajar and she frowned.

"It was a group interested in how events were unfolding. Almost all the information is lost, because the organization practically disappeared by the turn of the 20th century. There are even rumors that the Fog Society itself stems from another, much older, secret society. And that's where the book comes in."

Lizbeth looked at the book and then at Shin. "What does that have to do with it?"

"Rumor has it that the Fog Society and other occult groups had some sort of reverence for that book."

"What's so special about it?" she asked, flipping through it. She didn't understand many parts, but it was illustrated.

"Well… The Hypnerotomachia is considered one of the most beautiful books of the Renaissance. It was printed in Venice in 1499. Basically... it is a love tragedy, with allegories, architectural elements, alchemy, with knowledge of botany, mythology, history and many other things. A lot stuff, believe me. You need a certain level to understand the whole book, because of the type of language and style in which it has been written. A bit pedantic and confusing, to be honest. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's really engaging to anyone who dives in."

"It's a tragedy?"

Shin nodded. "Well, it has some parts where it's obvious inspiration, like the Divine Comedy, Tesoretto, or the Amorosa Visionne, but it has a lot more. It's a headache to get into the book without having some references."

"Why have so many been interested, if it's a headache?"

"Precisely because it's a headache. I myself must admit that the first time I read it I didn't understand too much, but I couldn't stop reading until I finished it. It has something similar to grimoires. Once your eyes get on them you can't stop. They have something hypnotic about them."

"Too bad I can't read it…"

"I'll see if I can't get you some other language version, or some other, and I'll read it to you."

"Is it a bedtime story?"

"Eh… A little, though not recommended for children."

Lizbeth raised her eyes.

"The book has quite a bit of erotic imagery. That's where one of the clues is. There are strange rumors about its author. Whether he was an Italian nobleman of the time, whether he was a monk. A woman. Or if it was a book written by two people or many. Because the book is divided into two stories with different points of view. The artist of the engravings is an enigma too, if it was one or several from the same workshop who made the woodcuts."

"Written by two people?"

"Yes. There is a rumor that the author of the first part was a woman who died. The book would basically be a revealed book, which her lover put in writing dictated by her before she died. Since he was a monk, he had to censor certain parts with the help of an architect of the time. This would explain the excruciating architectural details. Then came the second part which would be her story, but written through the eyes of the monk."

"The censorship is because of the time?"

"Yes, self-censorship in this case. That's where the legend is. It is said that the story the woman told was different. And that, in a veiled way, the author left the clue in the name of the character Poliphili: He who loves many things… or too many? The book went through a rewriting process of almost thirty years, until it was published and was a gift to a duke for his participation in the war between Pisa and Florence. The Duke of Urbino if I am not wrong…"

"What was removed?"

"It is not known. But given the amount of references to legends, myths and gods, it is a miracle that the church at that time had not taken it out of circulation. Although... it was probably because of the illustrations. It has more than two hundred. For the time it was incredible to put so much effort into a book that is basically a hodgepodge of many things—because the story itself takes up very little space. Most of it is architectural descriptions, allegories, and therein lies the rumor. It is said that all these descriptions were used to replace the original content, whose story differs. Be that as it may, it, the legend, the language inside, has always attracted people."

Lizbeth rested her eyes on the book again and flipped through the first few pages. In them were illustrations of a man walking through a forest, coming out of the forest and then falling asleep.

Although she couldn't read it, the pictures told the story even though she couldn't read the text. An illustration of the same man, now walking through some ruins. She turned a few more pages and stopped at the next illustration.

Her breath caught for a few seconds. Her pulse skipped. Something —impossible and undeniable. Something stirred like a beast under ice in her mind.

She didn't understand, but she knew.

That illustration brought her to a complete halt, and she was almost ready to get up from her chair with one blow. She barely restrained herself, because she didn't know what would happen to her if she had an outburst like the day before.

The ancient illustration was simply what looked like a stepped pyramid. At the base was a door with columns on either side. Then the top did not end like normal pyramids. Instead there was an obelisk with some sort of sculpture at the top.

She couldn't remember where, but she had seen it at some point. Where and when? Her mind was in chaos trying to think of it, but she couldn't conjure up the image. It couldn't just be something from her imagination. She was sure she had seen it.

Shin across the table saw her expression, but said nothing.

Lizbeth tried to restrain herself and clenched her hands into a fist as she calmed down. It didn't matter. She had discovered more in those two days than in all the years before. She couldn't be sure she would remember more in the future. In fact, those memories of her parents had begun to fade, when she had stopped having dreams about them. Now, all she did was to bring back those memories of when she had been a prisoner, to remember those faces. Now, fortunately, she could recall them since she knew their identities. Shin also knew now that they were important to her. And as for that last feeling, there was no point in getting upset if she couldn't remember where she had seen it—nor did she know anything about it.

That lasted for a couple of minutes until she got up the courage to ask something else with page of the pyramid still open.

"You said that society was interested in this book?"

"Yes, but I told you, it was all because it was a strange book and full of legends regarding its creation."

"Is there anything else about them that you know of?"

"Well, there are a lot of stories, I don't know if half of them are true. Given what I've seen, and what you've experienced yourself, it's not really clear which is which."

"Like what?"

"They say that for a time they hunted vampires, and in fact came to cleanse the entire kingdom across the pond."

"Vampires? Isn't there a truce?"

"These weren't in it. They are of the groups that are renegades, like the ones we met in Belgium. To those there is no truce and no sides worth a damn. They'll hunt whatever they want and whoever gets in their way."

"Aye, I remember," she said, looking down and sighing.

"Then, other legends, they say they stopped certain groups from hunting certain objects in Spain. That was told to me a few years ago when I was in Spain. Part of the trail the Nazis were following also had to do with them. But there are many stories. If it really was a group that investigated all kinds of paranormal events, you can get an idea that they may have seen everything. From ghosts, to hunting creatures, to solving crimes, even. Not to mention, a lot of the things they may have investigated, must have been similar to what's going on around me. Anomalies."

"That's the reason you were interested?"

"No. To tell you the truth it was a coincidence. The first time I came across the name was during the The Great War. But then a few clues popped up here and there as well. I found most of it later when I went to the States. The Armitage Foundation has several books that are sort of bestiaries, which they say were put together by members of that society. And I know someone, who I suspect, was part of that group."

"Who?"

"An alchemist. He lives in China."

"Can't you contact him?"

"If I could, I would. But he's a pain to talk to. I have no idea how old he is, but he always speaks in riddles when you ask him questions about his past. It's a bit irritating, really."

"I see…"

"There's something important."

"What?"

"Well. The stories of the ley tunnels. When you think about it, it would have been impossible to set up a worldwide organization in centuries past because of the distances."

"..." Lizbeth kept quiet, expectantly.

"The stories say that members of the society moved across the entire planet through ley tunnels. "

"Would that have been possible?"

"Yes. There are many stories of others who did so. If they had a knowledge of when, and where, the ley line energy was going to flow in the right way, that would have allowed them to have some control of where they were going. It would have allowed them to very easily create a worldwide network."

"But ley tunnels are barely functioning today. Mari says it's possible that, in a few more years, they will stop working altogether. Not to mention that they produce a horrible sensation when moving through them."

Shin nodded. "Yep. Those shitty tunnels have been crumbling almost completely. Even those that have been trying to maintain themselves have been useless. The ley lines don't converge back into those places. But, in the last century, the story of the feys that disappeared is that they would have used the tunnels to go who knows where. Since then the tunnels have stopped working."

Lizbeth sighed in thought. That morning she had found out more than she expected.

What Shin had just told her fit with that conversation in her memories. It seemed like decades had passed since she had last dreamed it. Her parents meeting with someone in a room and talking about moving somewhere. And that they weren't together to face something. That must have been the Fog Society, about to embark on something her mother didn't want.

Lizbeth leaned back against the chair. From what she knew about her parents, she could now know that they had survived to see her grow into a woman. They hadn't seen her die or disappear... because to them she hadn't existed. Or at least that was what the papers said. No descendants. If what she thought was true, then there were two pasts. The one only she remembered and the one her parents had lived in, where she never existed.

That could only mean that, as she thought, the existence of humans turned fey disappeared from the world.

Erased from reality?

Lizbeth looked at the illustrations in the book. She could not tell anyone what she thought. If that was true, it could be that it was part of the anomalies. What could remembering the past life have to do with becoming fey?

"Are you all right?" Shin asked.

She smiled weakly at him. "Yes…"

"Do you want to stay a little longer?"

"Yes, I want to see if I can read some more. Or find some extra information."

"Sure."

***

She didn't find any more data in the library. But the two stayed for more than two weeks in that city.

They went through it inch by inch, looking for some clues. The writer of that local book had been dead for about eight years. But at least Lizbeth managed to find something else. The location of the house where she had probably been born and lived as a child. The town had changed since the 19th century,and there were many more buildings but, from her memories, she had extracted some data that she could extrapolate a little with the reference to the hills and valleys in the background. Now that whole sector was occupied with businesses—with storefronts advertising different types of products, where most of the stores received ration coupons.

It was a bit sad to think about it, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Shin, however, received some extra information. He had called a friend at the university to see if he could give him some data on the Poe.

There was quite a bit of history. Like that he had studied at a military academy to satisfy his foster father's wishes. The marriage between Edgar and Virginia had occurred when she had turned 16 and, given the kinship, the foster father had not looked kindly on the relationship, although at first the marriage had been due more to family reasons of convenience, perhaps love had come later? Having fulfilled his father's wish to complete his studies at a military academy, he decided to return to Great Britain to complete his studies in astronomy accompanied by his wife.

There was an enigma regarding the money he had amassed while gambling, as soon as he arrived in the UK. And what was it that allowed him to build a house in Wales. Although, in the papers, it appeared that they had always lived in Wales, there were mentions of the Poe's visits to the United States in numerous situations.

Shin suspected that this might be because they might have used the tunnels to move when they felt like it. The money issue was a little stranger, but there had been one case during the year that the Poe's had officially arrived in the UK that had involved a story about leprechauns being sighted in Liverpool and Oxford.

It was strange, but Shin wondered if they hadn't found a treasure or something. There were only a few leprechauns around today, all from the new generation in the twentieth century, but there must have been many before the disappearance of the last century. Who knew that part of that legend about treasure might well have been true. After all, almost every known member of the Fog Society had made a fortune in a short time.

Beyond that, there was no mention of any supernatural stories in the official records. It seemed that all the rumors of occult societies and paranormal events were only part of the occult world and had not reached the ordinary world.

What did catch both of their attention was something they did not expect. According to the official data, Lizbeth's great-grandfather had been originally from Ireland, more specifically from County Cavan. But there was something strange. On the gravestone in the Baltimore cemetery it said that he was born in Londonderry.

Londonderry.

The place where Lizbeth had appeared and from where she had been abducted. Was there a connection, or just a coincidence?

They agreed that on the journey north they would also go there, since Lizbeth had wanted to visit the location for some time. But, in the meantime, they would continue the slow journey. They had several stops to make.

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