Previously on Alike Indignity, dissolute and aging sorcerer Talcott Meiger hatches a plan to swap bodies with Elias Husserl, Jr., a young man from an up-and-coming family in Arkham. But Talcott soon discovers that he has only traded one set of problems for another… 

In anticipation of Fantasy Flight Games’ upcoming scenario pack Traces to Nowhere for Arkham Horror: The Card Game, we continue author Tim Pratt’s new serial, Alike Indignity. Meet the scions of the Meiger and Husserl families in this six-part series that mixes family rivalry with dangerous magics.

Read or listen to the second chapter, “An Out of Body Experience,” below, and subscribe to the Aconyte Fiction Podcast to make sure you catch the rest of the series. 

Alike Indignity

Chapter 2: An Out of Body Experience

by Tim Pratt

When the old man started shouting, the nursemaid Olive sighed, put down her magazine, and went down the hall. Talcott Meiger often lost track of where he was, who he was, who she was, and many other salient facts of his existence, though she had the strange feeling that he was pretending to be more addled than he really was. But why would he do that? To garner sympathy? Who needed sympathy from a servant? No one else visited him if they could avoid it, except occasionally his grand-niece Zelda, who had a soft, if privileged, heart.

Olive hadn’t been on the staff of the Meiger Estate for long. Before, she’d worked at the Silver Twilight Lodge, like many of her family before her. In fact, many Sapinskas had been members of the Order too, attaining ranks surprising for those of their class. One’s status in the outside world didn’t necessarily reflect one’s rank in the Order, and sometimes rich men had to bow to footmen in the deep basements where the rituals took place.

Olive had never risen higher than the level of initiate herself, but due to her family connections she knew enough about the occult to determine that such matters were best left alone. Magic had its uses, but a knife or a hammer usually proved more practical.

But now the Lodge house was gone, burned and collapsed (on her night off, fortunately); their leader Carl Sanford was either dead or on the run, depending on which stories you believed; and there was really no Order of the Silver Twilight to speak of anymore, just various splinter sects all claiming to be the One True Inheritor to the old society.

The Meigers had been members of the Order for decades, though, and Mrs Meiger had been kind enough to hire Olive on at their estate after her old job fell into a sinkhole. But then she was unkind enough to assign Olive as Talcott’s nursemaid; she’d hoped to take over as housekeeper after the peculiar disappearance of Penny White, who’d previously held the position. Ah, well. She’d had dirtier jobs, and the old man wouldn’t live forever…

The old man in question was moaning on the floor on the other side of the bed when she entered. She hurried to help him up, gripping a stick-like arm. “You should stay in bed, Mr Meiger–”

Talcott shook her off, stared at her, then sat down on the edge of the bed. He touched his face like it was a book he was trying to read in braille. “Meiger?” His voice was softer than usual. “Those fools? No, no, I’m not– I’m Junior, Elias Husserl, Jr. What’s happening to me? Who are you? How– what–”

“You’re confused, Mr Meiger. We were reading about young master Husserl this morning, but you’re still you, Talcott Meiger, and I’m still me, your nurse Olive. Here, let’s get you under the covers.”

“Unhand me!” he shouted. Terror filled his eyes, and this time, it looked entirely genuine. “Where– where’s Zelda? She was right in bed beside me moments ago! But, no, not this bed, we were at the Excelsior!”

Olive frowned. Zelda was a grand-niece from Kingsport, but she’d been staying at the estate for so long that she had basically blended in with Josef’s other children by now. Zelda visited Talcott sometimes, though the most he’d said about her was to insult flapper fashions as “degenerate poppycock.”

“Miss Zelda is out right now, Mr Meiger, visiting friends, but I will certainly tell her that you asked after her.”

He clutched Olive’s hands and stared into her face with desperation. “Listen. Ma’am.”

Olive tried not to bristle at that. She was only a year older than Zelda! Hardly a ma’am!

Talcott spoke calmly and with great deliberation, clearly attempting to master his emotions. “I do not understand what is happening. If this is some terrible accident or… the result of occult dabblings, but my name is Elias Husserl, Jr. Until a few moments ago, I was in a room at the Excelsior Hotel, with my… friend, Zelda. A great wave of dizziness passed over me, my vision dimmed, and when it cleared, I found myself here, on the floor, in this body that does not belong to me! Please, you must believe me. I need help. Something has happened, or else something has been done to me.”

Olive hesitated. The assertion was outrageous… but was it impossible? Her grandfather had discussed the transmigration of souls, even claimed the ability to astrally travel. There were also tales of ancient psychic creatures who stole the bodies of younger people to live eternally. Would it be possible to swap bodies with someone else? If so, did that mean old Talcott’s mind was now in the body of young Elias Husserl, Jr.? If Talcott had been plotting such a thing, that would explain the old man’s interest in the Husserl boy. It would also explain why Talcott had pretended such serious dementia: anyone his victim spoke to about his plight would dismiss his pleas as mere raving. Would Talcott be capable of performing such a rite? The Meigers did have a strong connection to the Order, and if any group possessed the knowledge of such a wicked ritual, it would be them.

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you.” Olive’s voice was careful and measured, too. “I’m not saying I do, either, but… I’m listening.”

He twisted his hands together. “I don’t know what else I can say. How can I prove who I am?” He laughed, tinged with panic. “I could tell you all sorts of things that only I would know, but you don’t know them, so it would hardly prove anything. I could put you in touch with my assistant, Eugene Peele, but he’d hardly believe me, either. And I don’t know much of anything about Talcott Meiger, except that he’s supposed to be some old degenerate and a drain on the dwindling resources of that fallen family, but again, what does my ignorance prove?”

“Not much,” Olive admitted, and then noticed a spill of liquid on the floorboards, next to an open newspaper showing Junior’s face. But instead of a round puddle, one side of the spill formed a straight line – pouring through a crack in the floor.

She knelt, almost touched the liquid, then paused to pull a handkerchief from her apron pocket, and dipped that hem in the dark fluid instead. She sniffed the cloth. Bitter herbs and something sharp. Olive toed at the floorboard, and it shifted, one end levering upward. She removed the board as Talcott leaned forward from the edge of the bed.

“What’s all that, then?”

“An old book.” She took the moldering tome from the hole and tilted it, the flaked gold leaf on the cover reading Recitations of Kamog, though when she opened it, it was clear the cover was a new wrapper for old contents, the worn vellum inscribed with faded glyphs in a language she could not read. There were also jars in the hole, holding ground herbs, turbulent fluids, and a half-full corked vial.

“It appears Talcott Meiger wasn’t quite as dotty as he pretended,” Olive said, flicking through the pages and finding one that was particularly worn and in a readable language. Some kind of recipe was scribbled down – ah, the ingredients for a potion, and the steps for a ritual. This was no mere spellbook; this was a wizard’s grimoire. “There are materials and instructions here for a magical rite. The one that swapped your mind into his body, and presumably, his mind into yours.”

“The dirty thief!” Junior – best to start thinking of him that way – said. “He’s taken my body? But why?”

Olive shrugged. “For your youth. And the Husserl’s money. Probably some element of revenge for the way your family has swept into the Arkham social scene and swept his out.”

“But… but, no, if he’s walking about in my body… He’s going to get me killed!” Junior buried his face in his hands.

“What do you mean?”

Junior flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling and coughing wetly, blood peppering his lips. “If this body wasn’t so, so crumbling, I might almost welcomethis trade! They’re after me, you see, these fellows from the Sheldon gang. It’s all a misunderstanding, really, but, well, they think I owe them more dough than I can presently lay my hands on. My family may be well off, but they don’t leave dosh lying around where I can get my hands on it, not after everything with my brother Albrecht – that doesn’t matter. The point is these Sheldons mean business. They want to make an example of me, take me hostage and demand a ransom from my parents who I regret to say would be reluctant to pay.”

Olive’s own family would have walked through fire for her, but she knew the rich could be… different. “You have gambling debts?”

“Ha. That’s more my brother’s vice. No, I made a deal with these men, but it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. It’s not my fault, but look, the details don’t matter. I was going to leave town tonight on a train, lay low and wait for all this to blow over! If Talcott lingers in Arkham, the gang will find him. Blast. I should have left already, but I wanted to see Zelda one last time–”

“To be clear, you are having an affair with Zelda Meiger?” Olive said. “How long has this been going on?”

He covered his face with his hands. “Not long. We met at some ghastly function a few months ago and, well, she’s a firecracker of a girl, you know.”

“I do know,” Olive said drily. “But still, the Meigers and the Husserls… There’s no love lost there.”

“Well, quite. That’s why we’ve kept our relationship a secret.”

“You and Zelda.” Olive shook her head. “It’s all a bit… ‘Two households, both alike in dignity,’ you know?”

Junior turned his head and looked at her blankly. “What?”

“Er. Romeo and Juliet?” A pause. “Star-crossed lovers?” Another pause. “Shakespeare?”

“Is that the one with the three witches? I never liked that one. I’ve known too many actual witches, most of them my relatives.”

“No, it’s… never mind.” Olive stared into the hole in the floor and its ritual objects. She had no idea what to do with any of this information.

“You have to help me.” Junior sat up with great effort.

“I don’t see how I can.” Olive shrugged. “If I tell anyone what you told me, they’ll think I’m mad. This is all beyond me.”

“I’ll pay you,” Junior said. “Anything you want. A fortune!”

Olive chuckled. “Junior, you just told me you can’t pay this gang what you owe them. Why should I believe you’ll pay me?”

“The sums they want are impossible, Olive, thousands of dollars, and I can’t lay my hands on that. But I’m not destitute. I have my traveling stake, just over six hundred dollars, tucked away in the back of my closet. It’s all yours if you help me get my body back!”

Olive considered. The Meigers paid generously, six dollars a week plus lodging and meals. A hundred times that… she could certainly use it, and her family could, too, make no mistake. But what could she actually do to help Junior?

Well. She had the recipe for the potion, and the steps of the ritual right here, maybe even a vial already half-full of the stuff, and she wasn’t completely unschooled in matters of magic. Her grandfather had told her that wandering souls wanted to return to their proper bodies, that there was a sort of invisible tether that could snap them together again. But according to the ritual, she couldn’t just pour the leftover potion down Junior’s throat. It had to be given to the mage who’d enacted the ritual at the start. On the upside, it should be far easier to switch their minds back than it had been for Talcott to do the ritual in the first place – that act was unnatural, whereas each soul would seek its proper receptacle naturally. If she could get Talcott to drink the potion…

Could she? Well, she knew the old man would underestimate her if the time came. She’d always avoided involving herself in such dark matters because of the balance of risks and rewards, but… such a payout was quite a reward.

“I will do what I can,” Olive said at last and then shivered at a sudden, horrible thought. “I’ll start at the Excelsior. Let’s hope Talcott Meiger is still lingering in your afterglow with Zelda.”