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"Something in Wood" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by August Derleth, originally published in the March 1948 issue of Weird Tales.
Synopsis[]
Jason Wecter is an art critic and collector of weird and macabre art works who lives in Boston. To balance his collection, he wishes to obtain something made of wood that would be evocative of the same exotic imagery of Clark Ashton Smith's stone sculptures that he already owns. A friend of Wecter called Pinckney locates a wooden bas-relief of an octopoid creature in a second-hand shop in Portland, Maine, and purchases it as a gift, which Wecter gratefully appreciates.
Pinckney is unable to identify the wood that the sculpture is made of, but notes that it is dark and surprisingly heavy. Neither can he identify the language of the inscription that says "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn". Wecter is fascinated by the incredible age of the piece and how closely it resembles some of the stone sculptures by Smith, wondering how an ancient civilization and a modern artist could have independently come up with something so similar.
For the next weeks, Pinckney notices an inexplicable change in Wecter's art reviews, which now unleash harsh criticism on artists that he had formerly viewed favourably, while celebrating others that he previously hated. The sole criterion for Wecter's judgment of art now seems to be how similar or dissimilar it is to ancient and occult sources. He chastises a sculptor for failing to follow "the cult-art of Ahapi or Armnoida", and applauds a musician whose work calls to mind "the music of the Great Old Ones".
When Pinckney questions Wecter about this, the latter tells him that he has no memory of writing these reviews, and is not familiar with the cultures and creatures mentioned in them, although he is convinced that they exist. Since Pinckney brought him the sculpture, Wecter has been plagued with strange dreams that reveal new information to him, including the name of the creature depicted in the bas-relief: a shapeshifting monster called Cthulhu, who dwells in a sunken city named R'lyeh, at the depths of the Atlantic Ocean [not the Pacific, as in most depictions]. He is also aware that the sculpture was carved by ancient cultists in Ponape, and acts as a "point of contact" to another dimension through which Cthulhu can reach out to him, both mentally and physically.
As proof of what he is saying, Wecter points out to Pinckney that the tentacles of the sculpture appear to have moved, but Pinckney can't tell whether they have or not. Wecter claims that he went as far as to see Cthulhu materialize in his room for the briefest of moments, before retreating and turning back into the sculpture, to which Pinckney reacts with skepticism.
Over the course of the next weeks, Wecter continues to produce controversial reviews, and is occasionally sighted in the rare books section of Miskatonic University's library. One night, he visits Pinckney's apartment and tells him that he actually saw and felt Cthulhu's tentacle grabbing him by the leg while sleeping, and saw the creature retreat once again into the sculpture. Wecter claims that he can also hear the pipe music played by Cthulhu's servitors, which he regards as fascinating and beautiful. Despite his fears, he can't bring himself to destroy the sculpture, but makes Pinckney promise that if anything happens to Wecter, Pinckney will throw the thing into the sea, preferably off the coast of a town named Innsmouth.
On the next day, Wecter mysteriously disappears, last seen by a neighbor while working on a new article, which is never found by the police. He leaves the Cthulhu sculpture to Pinckney, who follows Wecter's instructions and disposes of it in the sea near Innsmouth. However, before he does so, he is surprised to notice that the sculpture has changed, and now depicts a small human figure being held by one of the beast's tentacles. Furthermore, while he throws it into the sea, he seems to hear Wecter's distant voice calling his name.
Publication History[]
"Something in Wood" was reprinted in Derleth's collection The Mask of Cthulhu (Arkham House, 1958), which has appeared in many editions. The story was later included in The Cthulhu Mythos (Barnes & Noble Books, 1997), In Lovecraft's Shadow: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of August Derleth (Mycroft & Moran, 1998), and Quest for Cthulhu (Carroll & Graf, 2000), other collections of Derleth's Lovecraftian fiction. It also appeared in the multi-author anthology Fantasy: The Literature of the Marvelous (McGraw Hill, 1974).[1]
Derleth's story has been translated into Dutch, French, Italian, and German.[1]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: Something in Wood."