Winter in New England. A perfect time to look for exciting antiques, or so Bessie Coleridge thought. People would be interested in getting some extra cash to spend in the spring, and most other antique dealers would be huddling in their stores. Bessie had reconnoitered Topsfield on the map, a location that had its brief moment of infamy some time ago, when a power plant exploded.
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TOPSFIELD POWER PLANT EXPLOSION
Monday, April 13, 1925
The Topsfield Power Plant was destroyed in a series of powerful explosions followed by a conflagration that left the Arkham Fire Department helpless to curb the flames. The cause of the explosions remains to be determined, but it has been noted that Dr. MacNamara, Ms. Baker, Mr. Lake, Mr. Pollack and Mr. Bowers, all of Arkham, are held by the Arkham Police for questioning, although some of these individuals were severely injured in the blast. Mr. Lake has also been charged with reckless driving. Neither the owner of the power plant, Mr. Otto Argo, nor the site manager, Mr. Bogislav Klimnik, have been available to comment.
Mayor Jonathan D. Bryce held a press conference this morning, and he stressed the serious nature of the explosion, and how Arkham has been plagued by a series of violent events over the last week or so. Mayoral candidate Dunstan Dunford accused Mayor Bryce of displaying "yet another example of his legendary ineptitude" in dealing with the current bout of violence, while Councilman Bedford Duvall pointed out that the destruction of the power plant will lead to a permanent power shortage in the Miskatonic Valley.
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Bessie Coleridge did manage to convince Frank Cannon, Bill Lockwood, and Brad Doctorow to come along with her, both for the sake of good company and to carry whatever antiquities that Bessie might lay her hands on. The fellow investigators drove off on Thursday, January 20, 1927, and they truly enjoyed the wintry wonderland, despite the snowy and trecherous New England roads. The village of Topsfield was actually located across the Miskatonic River from the ruined site that was supposed to have been finished as a modern power plant, and the village was quaint indeed.
The village of Topsfield, incorporated 1768.
The investigators checked in at the Topsfield Boarding House, which was more akin to a particularly nice bead and breakfast. The proprietor, Mr. Evan Sullivan, was a kind old man, and there was only one other boarder, a quiet and gruff prospector who mainly kept to himself (and yes, Doctorow could not resist breaking in to the prospector, and he a had a Geiger counter and many other strange items not seemingly related to prospecting, as well as potential connections to the government. Mystery unsolved). As the company of investigators settled in at the boarding house, Mr. Sullivan shared some horrible news regarding the disappearance of a young boy, William Lind, who possibly disppeared under the ice while exploring the abandoned saw mill by Rugby Lake, His mother, Erica Lind, was beyond herself, having lost her husband just two years ago, and Sheriff Joseph Miller in the nearby small town of Danvers had really not been of much help, stating that the ice had to melt before they could look for a body in earnest.
William Lind.
Erica Lind.
Frank Cannon and Bill Lockwood could not resist visiting Mrs. Lind, and she was indeed in great emotional distress. She kept on blaming an older woman for her son's disappearance, cursing and wailing at a "that woman", a Catherine Charlier, who lived just north of Topsfield. It also seemed as if Sheriff Miller's performance may have been lacklustre: Further examinations of the abandoned saw mill indicated that young William Lind hadn't even been close to Rugby Lake. Back at the boarding house, Mr. Sullivan told Bessie Coleridge and Brad Doctorow that Mrs Charlier was a poor old woman who had lived north of Topsfield for as long as could be remembered together with her dog, as of recently a delightful mutt called "Charlemagne", but that she was shunned, or at least distrusted, by many members of the population because she was a... Catholic! From Quebec!
It was clearly time to visit Madame Catherine Charlier. This required a bit of a walk along a narrow path, but the weather remained gorgeous when the investigators set out next day, Friday, January 21. While walking down the path, the investigators were greeted by a very happy dog that they assumed was Charlemagne.
The investigators eventually found a small cabin, and they were greeted by and old woman, who did introduce herself as Madame Charlier. She was delightful and quite chatty, and it did indeed seem as if she had been missing company in her very humble cabin for some time. She claimed that she liked living just north of Topsville, despite some of the local population being more than a bit wary of her. Bessie Coleridge took the opportunity to ask if she might have some antiques that she might be interested in selling for a handsome sum of money? Madame Charlier assured Bessie that this might be the case, and they decided to look at some of Madame Charlier's heirlooms, while Doctorow, Cannon, Lockwood, and Charlemagne went outside to look for any tracks or traces of young William Lind.
Catherine Charlier's cabin
Madame Catherine Charlier
Dusk was rapidly approaching, and the wintry wood seemed increasingly strange and surreal around Doctorow, Lockwood, and Cannon. Was it just the increasingly weird light, or were these apparitions from the strained minds of the investigators? After all, they had all three had experiences outside anytrhing that might be deemed normal. They did not know this at the time, but Bessie Coleridge was also seeing strange and disturbing things outside Madame Charlier's cabin while the old woman looked through her belongings in an adjacent room.
It seems as of the apparitions were just harbingers of what was to come. This may have been the opportunity Madame Charlier had waited for: a quartet of out-of-towners that no one would miss, and that could used for whatever dark purposes that Madame Charlier might pursue. As Madame Charlioer came out to Bessie Coleridge, she had turned into something much more hidious and violent that her previous kind slef. Correspondingly, the adorable Charlemagne har turned into a blood-frenzied beast fully prepared to bite and slash the investigators (who by now, by the way, were partially separated in the darkening woods) into steaming chunks of meat, all ready to be devoured by beast and man alike.
Madame Charlier.
Bessie Coleridge did not attempt to fight the monstrous form of Madame Charlier in the cabin. She chose the wiser alternative, to flee out of the cabin in search of her friends. She was, however, pursued by the grotesque shape of Madame Charlier, clawing into the air and rending Bessie's jacket and shirt into shreds without reaching her pale, exposed skin. Meanwhile, Doctorow, Cannon and Lockwood struggled with the enormous canine beast that seemed to use the twilight to dodge bullets, fists and curses. But the fellow investigators were resourceful, and as they joined forces, the solid gunfire from Doctorow and Lockwood may have put down the dog-creature, while Cannon grabbed Charlier, allowing Bessie Coleridge to land a solid, rock-hard punch in the face of the witch, dissolving her into what seemed like foul-smelling soot.
As the intrepid investigators stumbled back to the cabin of Madame Charlier, it seemed as if decades had passed, The cottage seemed to have fallen into decay, seemingly being abandoned for decades, Unfortunately, it seemed as if young master William Lind had fallen victim to the vicious Madame Charlier, judging from remnants in the fireplace. It was with very mixed feelings that the investigators travelled back to Arkham, even if Bessie II was loaded with some great finds that Jules Pollack Fine Antiques back in Arkham would pay well for.
From the diaruy of Brad Doctorow, Wednesday, January 26, 1927.
It is strange and distressing that we have had so many experiences out of the normal over the course less than a year. We did do some research into the property of Madame Charlier, and it seems as if the property was orginally acquired by a Yolanda Digby back in 1801, but there was no trace of any ownership being passed to a Catherine Charlier. Yolanda Digby! I am horrified! Is this the Yolanda Digby that was the grandmother of Eunice Saunders, whose notebook we found in Arkham after that horrifying night? The strange, strange aunt of Caroline Schubert, actually Caroline DeLuca, who succumbed in the explosion in Arkham
last September?
