Thread by @justabloodygame

A man stood at the doorway, arms crossed, as Jerome and Maggie trundled up the walk with her bags. His expression as they approached was inscrutable, a shadow for a brief moment as his eyes met Maggie's, but turning to Jerome, his expression melted into sunlight.

Maggie knew that look well, having felt it on her many times before when Rome still lived. That lingering look of love. Jerome dropped the bags in the foyer and they embraced quickly.

"Margaret," Jerome said, not facing, "this is Duncan... my husband."

Duncan turned his smile on Maggie, no hint of the shadow grazing his features just a few moments before. He had a round, kind face, ruddy skin, facial hair on his soft chin cropped to a close stubble. He extended a hand to Maggie.

"My, my, it's a pleasure ! I've heard so much-"

Maggie couldn't help but interrupt with a laugh.

"You have? For some reason-" She spared a glance at Jerome, who kept his back to her. "Well, I guess that's hard to believe is all."

Duncan was not discouraged by her doubt, countering it with the wink of a conspirator.

"Well, maybe I had to weasel the details out of him. Still, how wonderful to finally meet you."

His handshake was as warm and insistent as he was.

"Please... call me Maggie, or Mags." Jerome flinched, "I don't cotton all that formality."

"Mags it is. Can I show you the house?"

Despite her apprehensions about the neighborhood, Maggie had to admit Jerome and her husband had made a beautiful home for themselves in Autumn Lake. A three story colonial nestled midway up a gradually sloping hill, from the outside it looked like the surrounding homes.

The inside, however, was another story.

"We wanted the decor to reflect both of us. Jerome is more staid..." Duncan was saying, indicating the classically decorated living room. Maggie noticed the paintings: all striking tableaux of the night sky.

"...he painted those himself."

Maggie shivered looking at those paintings, so vast, so cold. She looked at them and saw the young boy who held her hand and looked up at the stars in humbling wonder, that young boy, though broken, betrayed and resentful, was still there: hidden inside her adult son.

"I, on the other hand-" Duncan was saying, opening the door into the next room off the hallway, "-have a taste for esoteric."

Maggie gasped. The room was little bigger than a closet. There was a shrine built into the far wall, she knew the face on the bas-relief all too well.

"That's... that's..."

Duncan grinned, so open, so warm, such a stark contrast to the horrible disfigured face he had just revealed.

"Oh, you're familiar with the works of Lovecraft? I've always had a taste for the occult. Loved his writing since I was a child."

He saw the concern in her face, and seemed to misinterpret its cause.

"I never put much stock in his opinions on, well, you know... Eugenics and all that? We're pretty enlightened here in Autumn Lake. Or so we hope. I just, where Jerome finds his peace in the night sky. I..."

Maggie gulped, turning away from the Dark God, the words carved in obsidian surrounding it. She couldn't stand being in that room a second longer, stumbling into the light.

Partially to interrupt Duncan's Lovecraftian spiel, and partially to cover her distress, she interrupted.

"So you're from here then?"

"Yeah," Duncan said, nodding, "my family's been around, gosh, since just about the town started. Here, let me show you the kitchen, Jer tells me you're quite a master at-"

But Maggie wasn't listening. She couldn't unsee that face, that stone face.

It couldn't be a coincidence could it? Here she was, a woman with a connection to eldritch legends. She who regularly consorted with Nylarhotep and Cthulhu. Who solved the crimes beyond the ken of the police.

Could it be a coincidence her son's husband had a shrine to Nyla?