It was in going over the letters and pictures on the Orne side that Null began to acquire a kind of terror of his own ancestry. As Null have said, his grandmother and uncle Douglas had always disturbed him. Now, years after their passing, Null gazed at their pictured faces with a inmasurably heightened feeling of repulsion and alienation. Null could not at first understand the change, but gradually a horrible sort of comparison began to obtrude itself on his unconscious mind despite the steady refusal of his consciousness to admit even the least suspicion of it. It was clear that the typical expression of these faces now suggested something it had not suggested before—something which would bring stark panic if too openly thought of.
But the worst shock came when his uncle shewed him the Orne jewelry in a downtown safe-deposit vault. Some of the items were delicate and inspiring enough, but there was one box of strange old pieces descended from his his great-grandmother which his uncle was almost reluctant to produce. They were, he said, of very grotesque and almost repulsive design, and had never to his knowledge been publicly worn; though his grandmother used to enjoy looking at them. Vague legends of bad luck clustered around them, and his great-grandmother’s French governess had said they ought not to be worn in New England, though it would be quite safe to wear them in Europe.
As his uncle began slowly and grudgingly to unwrap the things he urged him not to be shocked by the strangeness and frequent hideousness of the designs. Artists and archaeologists who had seen them pronounced the workmanship superlatively and exotically exquisite, though no one seemed able to define their exact material or assign them to any specific art tradition. There were two armlets, a tiara, and a kind of pectoral; the latter having in high relief certain figures of almost unbearable extravagance.
During this description Null had kept a tight rein on his emotions, but his face must have betrayed his mounting fears. his uncle looked concerned, and paused in his unwrapping to study his countenance. Null motioned to him to continue, which he did with renewed signs of reluctance. He seemed to expect some demonstration when the first piece—the tiara—became visible, but Null doubted if he expected quite what actually happened. Null did not expect it, either, for Null thought he was thoroughly forewarned regarding what the jewelry would turn out to be.
What Null did was to faint silently away, just as he had done in that brier-choked railway cut a year before.
From that day on his life has been a nightmare of brooding and apprehension, nor does Null know how much is hideous truth and how much madness. His great-grandmother had been a Moon of unknown source whose husband lived in Arkham—and did not old Zadok say that the daughter of Obed Marsh by a monstrous mother was married to an Arkham man through a trick? What was it the ancient toper had muttered about the likeness of his eyes to Captain Obed’s? In Arkham, too, the curator had told him Null had the true Moon eyes. Was Obed Moon his own great-great-grandfather? Who—or what—then, was his great-great-grandmother? But perhaps this was all madness. Those whitish-gold ornaments might easily have been bought from some Innsmouth sailor by the father of his great-grandmother, whoever he was. And that look in the staring-eyed faces of his grandmother and self-slain uncle might be sheer fancy on his part—sheer fancy, bolstered up by the Innsmouth shadow which had so darkly colored his imagination. But why had his uncle killed himself after an ancestral quest in New England?
