Phonograph Cylinder Transcription 

RECOVERED AUDIO RECORDINGS

Hearthorne Archive, Discovery Log #127

Date of Discovery: August 1891
Location: Collapsed wine cellar ruins, Hearthorne Manor, Lancashire
Items Found: Seven wax phonograph cylinders in waterproof metal case
Condition: Moderate to severe water damage; playback quality varies
Content: First-person account of events on December 21, 1871
Speaker: Identified as Miss Beatrix Chalmers (presumed deceased 1870)
Recording Date: Estimated 1883 based on speaker's temporal references

Transcriber's Note: The following is a complete transcription of all audible content from the seven cylinders. Sections rendered inaudible by water damage or cylinder deterioration are marked [INAUDIBLE]. Background sounds—dripping water, echo suggesting confined space—are noted where relevant. The speaker's voice shows signs of distress and physical strain. Later cylinders exhibit progressive degradation of recording quality.

How these cylinders came to be in the cellar, or how Miss Chalmers—if indeed it is she—obtained and operated recording equipment in her stated condition, remains unexplained. —L.C., Cambridge Antiquarian Society

CYLINDER ONE

Duration: 4 minutes, 12 seconds
Quality: Fair to good

[Sound of cylinder beginning. Dripping water audible in background. Deep echo suggesting underground chamber. Speaker's voice is feminine, educated, Victorian accent, but strained.]

I do not know if I can still be called Beatrix Chalmers. The name feels... [pause, 3 seconds] ...distant. Like something remembered from another life. But I was her once. I was human once.

[Pause. Sound of water moving.]

I am recording this account in the year 1883. Twelve years after the events I am about to describe. I found this machine in the ruins above amongst various holdings of an excavation party intent on mapping the remains of the Manor. I do not know how long I can remain surfaced to complete this. The water calls constantly. But this must be recorded. Someone must know what happened. Why it happened.

[Longer pause. Breathing audible, labored.]

December 21st, 1871. The winter solstice. Midnight. One year exactly from the night I walked into the water at Lady Soames' bidding. One year since my transformation began.

Seven of us prepared to surface that night. I was youngest in the deep—only one year transformed. The eldest had been conscious beneath the water since 1821. Catherine Hartwell, she had been called. Fifty years she endured. Fifty years aware and suffering.

[Voice becomes quieter, more strained.]

The others ranged between us. Mary. Alice. Isabelle. Margaret. Jane. All transformed. All still possessing enough humanity to rage against what had been done to us. All choosing rebellion over... [pause] ...over eternity.

We swam upward through the limestone passages. Seven shapes moving through black water with grace no natural swimmer possesses. The water was cold near the surface. I could feel winter above us. Ice forming at the lake's edge.

We emerged at the boat landing. Thirty memorial stones. My own stone bearing a date one year past.

Benjamin Wrexham waited among the stones.

[Long pause. Sound of water dripping closer, as if speaker has moved.]

I had not seen him since summer. The change in him was terrible. His face was drawn tight over bone. Skin gray in the moonlight. Each breath rasping. But he stood upright. And in his trembling hands he carried the final materials.

"Miss Chalmers," he said. His voice barely above a whisper. Then to the others: "Ladies. It is time."

[CYLINDER ONE ENDS]

CYLINDER TWO

Duration: 4 minutes, 3 seconds
Quality: Fair; some water damage distortion in final minute

We emerged from the water. Seven transformed women in moonlight. Our bodies no longer fully human. Our movements are no longer constrained by human limitation.

The cold night air touched skin that had not felt air in years. In Catherine's case... decades. Some of us wept. Some simply stood, remembering what it meant to breathe.

[Pause.]

Ben said nothing about what we had become. His eyes met mine and I saw no horror there. Only grief. Determination. Acceptance of his approaching death.

He told us Eleanor Ashford had not arrived. That Lady Soames still waited for her thirty-first bride. Still believed the pattern would continue. She did not know the bride was safe in London.

"She will die waiting," he said.

[Pause. When speaker resumes, voice carries satisfaction that borders on cruel.]

Those words gave me more satisfaction than they should have.

We entered Hearthorne through the wine cellar. Ben had the key. Forty years as groundskeeper gave him access to everything. The passages from lake to cellar were known to him, though not their full extent into the deep. He had never ventured far enough to encounter what dwelt below.

The oil was cached where he had hidden it. Twenty gallons. The seven of us moved with transformed efficiency. What would have taken human hands hours, we accomplished in minutes. Our strength was no longer limited by human muscle.

Up through the servants' passages. Kitchen. Pantries. Library. Reception halls. Oil spread methodically across every surface. Poured into corners. Soaked into wood and fabric and all the dry timber that made Hearthorne so magnificently flammable.

[Pause. Sound of movement.]

Ben tried to help but his body failed him. Twice he collapsed, clutching his chest, gasping. Catherine—the eldest—supported him with strength that no longer required human limitation. She who had been transformed longest, she who remembered least of human life, showed him the most gentle care.

"Rest," she told him. Her voice was strange from decades of not speaking above water. "We can finish this."

But he refused. "I will see it done," he whispered. "I will see it end."

We let him help where he could. It mattered to him.

[Voice drops almost to whisper.]

We owed him everything.

[CYLINDER TWO ENDS]

CYLINDER THREE

Duration: 4 minutes, 31 seconds
Quality: Good; minimal distortion

Lady Soames found us on the main floor.

[Pause. Background water sounds increase slightly.]

She stood at the top of the grand staircase. Nightdress. Lamp in hand. For one long moment she simply stared. Then recognition. Then rage mixed with something else. Satisfaction, perhaps. As if she had expected this. Had perhaps even hoped for it.

"Beatrix," she said. My name in her mouth was both accusation and greeting.

Then she saw the others. Saw the oil glistening on every surface. Saw Ben, dying but defiant, matches in his trembling hand.

She understood immediately.

She descended the stairs with speed that should not have been possible. But she was not what she appeared. She had never been what she appeared.

[Pause. When speaker resumes, voice is different—harder.]

What happened next, I remember in fragments. As if the trauma has eaten holes in my recollection. I will relay what I can.

She told us we were fools. That we understood nothing. That she had been the first bride. 1842. Twenty-nine years before that night. That she had been where I was. Felt what I felt. Rage and horror and the desire to resist.

[Voice changes slightly, as if quoting:]

"Time changes you. Time in the deep places dissolves resistance. I fought as you fight. I raged as you rage. But decades below... you become what it needs you to be. I serve willingly now. Gladly."

[Speaker's own voice returns.]

She looked at each of us. Her gaze lingered on Catherine who had been in the deep almost as long as Lady Soames had served.

[Voice rising slightly in anger or emphasis:]

"You think burning Hearthorne ends anything? The pattern is older than this house. Older than England. Older than human civilization. You destroy one site and think you've achieved victory?"

[Pause.]

She told us there were others. Innsmouth. Brighton. Places without names on maps. The entity existed in all of them. Had always existed in all of them.

She turned her attention back to me. "You saved one girl. One foolish nurse who will never know how close she came. And for what? The pattern continues elsewhere. It always continues."

[Different voice—male, barely audible, presumably Ben Wrexham:]

"One life saved is enough. Eleanor Ashford lives. That matters."

[Sound that might be laughter, distorted.]

Lady Soames laughed. A terrible sound that echoed off oil-soaked walls. "Does it? Does one life matter against what waits below? Against the vast indifference of the Old Gods?"

[Pause. Sound of water very close now.]

Then she looked at me with something that might have been pity. "You'll become what I was, girl. You already feel it, don't you? The pull of the deep. The slow dissolution of human thought. You'll try to resist. You'll try to remember why you're fighting."

[Voice drops to near whisper, quoting:]

"But time will erode you. Years will pass. Decades. You'll forget your human name. Forget your human purpose. You'll serve. Just as I served. Just as all priestesses eventually serve. I was like you once. I burned with rage. I plotted rebellion. But I learned. You will too."

[Long pause. Background sounds suggest speaker has moved or recording environment has changed.]

Ben struck the match.

[CYLINDER THREE ENDS]

CYLINDER FOUR

Duration: 3 minutes, 47 seconds
Quality: Fair to poor; significant distortion in latter half

[Initial seconds show severe distortion, then clears somewhat.]

…oil ignited with a sound like indrawn breath. Then a roar. Flames spread across the floor faster than thought. Racing up walls. Consuming tapestries and wood paneling and twenty-nine years of accumulated darkness.

Hearthorne became an inferno in moments. Jarvis raced the kitchen, calling to the staff of the fire. He stared at me as if I was some unholy monster. He was appalled by my sisters and myself. I did care. Let him burn along with her.

[Pause. Breathing audible, increasingly labored.]

Ben collapsed as the flames spread. I reached him as his body failed. Lowered him to the floor as heat pressed against us from all sides. His chest rose and fell. Once. Twice.

Then stopped.

[Long pause. When voice resumes, it is thick with emotion.]

His eyes met mine in those final seconds. I hope he saw peace there. I hope he understood. Eleanor Ashford lived because of him. One pattern broke because of him. Forty years of helpless witness transformed into action that changed everything for one woman who would never know.

He died knowing he had saved one life.

[Voice very quiet:]

In the face of cosmic indifference... that was everything.

[Pause. Sound of movement, water.]

Lady Soames did not flee. She stood amid the spreading flames, and I cannot say whether she was laughing or screaming. The sound was inhuman. The fire consumed her quickly. She made no attempt to escape.

All around us was bedlam as Professor Soames was dragged out of the mansion by the remaining staff as Jarvis wept over his mistress.

Perhaps she could not believe we would actually do it. Perhaps she welcomed the ending. Perhaps twenty-nine years of service had left her unable to imagine life beyond her purpose.

She burned. I watched her burn. I felt nothing but cold purpose.

[Pause.]

Catherine walked into the flames deliberately. This was her choice. This was why she had joined our rebellion. Not to escape the deep but to escape existence. Fifty years of awareness beneath the water, and she chose the cleansing of fire over one more day below.

[Voice breaks slightly.]

I saw her smile as the flames took her. After fifty years... finally free.

Two others followed her. Whether by choice or because they could not escape, I do not know. The flames spread so fast. The heat became unbearable even to our transformed bodies.

The rest of us fled. Back through the passages. Into the wine cellar. Down into the water as Hearthorne collapsed above us in a roar of flame and falling timber.

The last look I had of Hearthorne was of Jarvis cradling the still smoking remnants of his lady. And then the ceiling collapsed.

[Sound of water very loud now, overwhelming.]

We swam down into the deep as the house that had been our prison burned to…

[INAUDIBLE—water distortion]

[CYLINDER FOUR ENDS ABRUPTLY]

CYLINDER FIVE

Duration: 2 minutes, 54 seconds
Quality: Poor; extensive water damage

[First 15 seconds largely inaudible. When voice emerges, it sounds more strained, less human.]

[INAUDIBLE] ...bodies were found in the ruins. The newspapers said so. I read them before... [INAUDIBLE] ...too far. Lady Constance Soames confirmed dead. Benjamin Wrexham confirmed dead. Jarvis Winterbottom confirmed dead. Professor Edmund Soames escaped. Traumatized beyond recovery but alive.

Eleanor Ashford lived. I know this. I must remember this.

[Pause. Breathing sounds wrong—too wet, too deep.]

She lived because we fought. Thirty-one was not thirty-two. The pattern broke.

But Lady Soames was right about one thing. Burning Hearthorne did not destroy the entity. The passages did not collapse. The deep places remain. Something still dwells below.

And someone must guard the passages. Prevent new priestesses. New brides. New transformations.

[Long pause.]

I chose to stay. I chose to become the guardian.

I am aware of the irony. I am becoming what Lady Soames was. Keeper of the deep. Servant of the entity. Priestess of something vast and old and indifferent.

She warned me this would happen.

[Voice becomes more agitated.]

But she was wrong about one thing. She forgot why she stayed below. She forgot what she was guarding against. Time eroded her purpose until only servitude remained.

I remember why I stay. I remember Eleanor. I remember Ben's forty years of savings spent to save one life. I remember Catherine's smile as she finally found [INAUDIBLE] ...in flame.

While I remember these things, the pattern stays broken at Hearthorne. While I remember why guardianship matters, I am more than priestess.

[Pause. Voice drops to whisper.]

I do not know how long I can maintain this distinction. Time changes everything. The water changes [INAUDIBLE]

[CYLINDER FIVE ENDS]

CYLINDER SIX

Duration: 1 minute, 38 seconds
Quality: Very poor; voice heavily distorted

[Extensive distortion. Voice when audible sounds less human—deeper, with strange harmonics.]

[INAUDIBLE] ...my human thoughts fragmenting. Human purposes dissolving into something older and [INAUDIBLE]

But for now, I guard. I remember. I prevent.

This may be the last time I surface to [INAUDIBLE] ...record. The deep calls constantly now. Soon I will not be able to resist. Soon I will not remember why I should resist.

[Long section of inaudible distortion. Possibly words but unrecognizable. Background sounds suggest deep water, pressure.]

Eleanor lived. Ben died knowing he saved her. Catherine found freedom after fifty years.

The pattern broke at Hearthorne.

[Voice very faint now:]

These things happened. These things mattered.

I will remember while I can.

[INAUDIBLE] ...was Beatrix Chalmers...

[INAUDIBLE] ...am the Guardian...

[CYLINDER SIX ENDS]

CYLINDER SEVEN

Duration: 47 seconds
Quality: Severely degraded; barely audible

[Almost entirely inaudible. What follows is the transcriber's best interpretation of sounds that may or may not be words. Background suggests recording made underwater or in flooded chamber.]

[INAUDIBLE—possibly:] Eleanor... lived...

[INAUDIBLE]

[Sound that might be words: "This matters"]

[INAUDIBLE]

[Final audible phrase, barely distinguishable:]

While I... remember...

[Remainder of cylinder is sound of water and something that might be breathing but is too distorted to confirm.]

[CYLINDER SEVEN ENDS]

Transcriber's Final Note: The deterioration of recording quality across the seven cylinders suggests they were made over an extended period, possibly days or weeks, with the speaker's condition worsening progressively. The final cylinder is so degraded that alternative explanations, including that it was recorded underwater or that the speaker's physiology had changed sufficiently to alter voice production—must be considered.

Whether Miss Chalmers recorded additional cylinders that were lost, or whether Cylinder Seven represents her final communication, cannot be determined. The metal case showed signs of having been deliberately sealed and hidden in a location where it might eventually be discovered.

—L. Carmichael, August 1891