From the perspective of the people of Innsmouth, the Waite family is basically a true crime story; as a younger man, Ephraim used his extensive occult knowledge and research of local history to ingratiate himself into the town and eventually marry a woman from a respected high dagonian family. This was a matter involving immense trust, as high dagonians must hide themselves from outsiders or risk being persecuted for their appearance (earning them the colloquial name of “veiled beauties”), and always have access to source of moisture. She and her family trusted him to protect her after they went back to Arkham, and that any of their offspring would be taught about the reflection cities and the Deep Ones, and would return to Innsmouth to spawn. This would prove to only be partially true.
High dagonians aren’t particularly coherent to normal humans, as their mouths and teeth and minds are not properly shaped to utilize human speech. Ephraim was effectively her only connection to the outside world, and he would mostly keep her confined to a damp basement apartment (the dampness was a small blessing) with a reclaimed hydrotherapy tub under a pump faucet for her to moisten herself and sleep in. If she was complacent in this, it was in the sense of a fish or a reptile acknowledging that it had the minimum needed to survive and wasn’t actively dying. She assisted her husband in his occult studies and loved their big-eyed wide-mouthed baby, whom she nursed with oily milk full of abyssal antibodies in the basement tub.
She was never fully cognizant of Ephraim’s plan for her daughter, as her phenotypical expression lacked strong telepathic insight. But like all hybrids from out of time, she could see a little around its corners, and as a mother and an ambush predator she could tell something was off in their relationship. There were things she could never teach her husband, anyway. He didn’t have the right organs; he was a man, for one, and for the other he was too human. All tree shrew DNA, too new and warm to interface with the old magic. She always made sure to give Asenath her own private lessons after her father was finished with her. Where Ephraim was a cruel authoritarian, Asenath’s mother would play games with songshapes to strengthen her will and perception. It hardly felt like work at all.
Asenath’s memory of her childhood is blurry, which she now attributes to monotony and isolation. What made it through, she struggles to arrange chronologically. She will say this doesn’t bother her, because time is an illusion, identity is a game, and humans are only meat suits propelled by the blind worms within, waiting to be cracked open and processed. She will tell you that she is a nihilanarchorealist and has no attachment to her human shell. Anyway.
She can recall a few distinct moments, though, like the little house her father built for her in the yard. He said that it was very important that only she or her mother could ever go inside, and when he opened the door for her he wore dark goggles. It was made of wood and metal plates and wrapped around with dark cloth, and inside was one of those lamps with a cutout shade that made shadows dance on the walls, operated by a switch on a wire that led outside. But there were no holes in the lampshade, and the shadows were always different and moved around like animals, or more like leaves swaying in the wind. She would watch them and draw them in a sketchbook, and he would ask her afterward if her eyes ached. They never did, and he was always pleased with her. Ephraim was rarely pleased with her.
Things become a little clearer after her mother disappeared, because she remembers grieving, and then realizing just how much she hated her father with no one to balance him out. The only care he showed for her was as a product of himself, the perfect occult scholar. Why should he be the one to teach her magic, when her mother was made of magic and he was only a man? The lack of respect he had for his wife had always nagged at her, but it felt as if now she were gaining true sapience, broken away from the rigid structure of their family life like the poor sad fucks in that cave she kept hearing about. Her education was but a reflection of his own genius, and he only cared for her physical wellbeing in order to maintain the integrity of her body. To marry her off, she thought, or perhaps to labor as his assistant.
She thought that he was trying to violate her when he started the ritual, and in the metaphysical sense, she supposes he was. Maybe it saved her life to be so angry with him for so long. Maybe he expected her to be so thoroughly groomed that she wouldn’t think to smack the ceremonial knife out of his hand and knee him in the groin. It was convenient that his body cleaned itself up, but she didn’t know why. Later, Asenath would learn that her ego overwhelmed his in a battle of will, and that when she stabbed him, she was flooding his body with her digestive enzymes. Nyarlathotep calls her Saturn because she devoured her father. Nyarlathotep doesn’t have a strong grasp on human mythology or the desire to educate himself further.
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