Gran's box

Extracted from the personal notebook of Detective Charles E. Willows, 1891-1940 Of what has become of Frank Elwood or where he has vanished to; none can rightfully say. When the townsfolk of Portland were questioned extensively by authorities; only a handful of the more rustic country folk could say they had spied him traveling the old dirt roads to Hopps Hill in the eve of Good Friday. Their initial investigating to the shunned old hill hidden by thick forest growth was only met with the morbid discovery of small pools of blood; foul odour in green, brown, black, yellow, and purple spatters of tar like liquid, with trace scraps of clothing found among those monolith slabs of dark antiquity. Further investigation of nearby locals provided the discovery of a medium sized pad-locked cylinder jammed against a rock in Dragon's River before it meets with Salamander Bog; to which it must have ventured down from the hill whence the river's mouth flows. Upon prying it open with a spade, they found the most material 'evidence' to the fate of the young New Englander. Among its chief bulk of contents were a charred hand woven skin-bound book whose characters had been damaged by age but clearly those of the Irish language; a pair of spy glasses, the leather bound portfolio of notes and report's badge branding the name Robert B. Loch who disappeared in 1891, and the commonplace journal of Frank Elwood. Yet the most curious find came when all of these contents had been removed, for in the bottom of that cylinder lay a strange jack-shaped black stone the size of a large rat; in which strange characters were carved and dyed a luminous red by some unknown means. It was agreed upon by the investigators to send it to the famed Massachusetts University of the occult in that witch haunted old city where men of science and scholars alike could study it; had not a young officer of Welsh blood seen the stone, which had stirred him to anarchist action in deposing it into the bottomless depths of Back Cove. Upon being detained and questioned thoroughly for the reason for his insane action of disposing of crucial evidence; the young officer could only vow on his own soul that he had forever rid the world of a horror that would be set loose had it remained in the realms of mankind. One must bear in mind that all recorded in Frank Elwood's commonplace journal may be an imaginative spectacular hoax. For he may have known of the local hidden legends of the old grotesque and unorthodox Coven of the Black Goat; despite his claims in the journal as only knowing of trickled whispers of the supposed witch cults survival while in Vermont the year prior. Nor was he ever truly mentally sound after his experience in the witch-house near his university when he was still a student; as the dwellings speculation of having unnatural beings had been confirmed. His disappearance may merely be the catalyst boon for the tourism and industrial growth of Maine's forgotten countryside. There are still those who believe the journal should be taken at its face value and even though highly irrational; take Elwood's account as truth. Correlating the found evidence with all the journal has to offer allowed for such a solid grounding of beliefs. It may have been by such gossip among the early investigators of Elwood's disappearance that the young officer moved to his radical extremes upon seeing the stone. Then, what is the true fate of Frank Elwood? The facts and the fantastic become blurred the longer Elwood remains lost. It is between the schools of reality and fiction one must discern in pondering. The tangible evidence has been made clear and with a calculating mind may the mystery be merely an answer. To which, the journal can be brought into question. Now, studying the journals contents closely, listlessly, and at our leisure; the macabre chain of events can be surmised by their chief actor. Young Elwood had come to Maine in the late autumn of 1931, taking a cozy dwelling of a small Georgina cottage off Baxter Woods. With a gentle smile did he greet the majority of towns