Work Text:
[Click]
[CARTER]
Statement of Hazel Levesque.
There's extra papers alongside her statement, not sure what to do with these.
Uh.
Carter Kane recording, on to the statement I suppose.
Statement of Hazel Levesque, regarding her experiences in Alaska with her mother, Marie Levesque. Original statement given July 12, 1942. Audio recording by Carter Kane, assistant archivist at Brooklyn house Institute, Brooklyn New York.
Statement begins.
[CARTER (STATEMENT)]
To Whoever is reading this, I hope it's the Institute I am going to try to send this to, I don't trust that it is but I hope it is. If you do find this, if you do manage to receive this somehow, today is July 12th 1942 and my name is Hazel Levesque and I do not think I am going to live much longer.
There is something wrong with my mother. I don't know what but something is wrong with her. There is something wrong with her.
I grew up in New Orleans we lived there my whole life, just me and my mother, my father left long before I was born apparently. I had a normal life; I went to school, I had friends, well mainly one friend; Sammy Valdez, but I was a normal kid, I had a normal life. I mean my mother, Marie Levesque, was a witch, but not really, she didn't believe in any of that it was just a scam but it got food on the table and people believed her, she would sell little good luck charms to folk and things like that and kids would tease me quite a bit about it but I was a normal kid other than that.
Then on my 13th birthday, after sneaking out to the stables to ride horses with Sammy, I came home and something was wrong with my mother. It was like she was in a trance, like the one she would do for customers when she was doing a “seance” but she was talking in a voice that wasn't hers, she had trances sometimes, would “talk to ghosts”, but never like that, never ever like that.
So I ran and I bumped into this creepy looking white man in our doorway, apparently he was my father I didn't talk to him very long, he gave me a birthday present though; a sketch pad and colored pencils told me happy birthday then went up to talk to my mother.
I hated him, still think I do a little bit. Maybe he's what's wrong with my mother, I don't know there was something about him, something bad something; like death.
I followed him. I won't pretend I didn't I wanted to know what they were talking about, my parents were finally in a room together for the first time since I'd been alive at least as far as I was aware, I wanted to know what they were talking about.
My mother was yelling, throwing a fit, and throwing things at my father, he was trying to calm her talking about things I still don't understand. My mother said we are going north and my father begged her not to, said we would both die if she listened to ‘Her’. I don’t who ‘Her’ is.
We went North, we're in Alaska now; it's cold and dark and I don't like it very much, I don't have friends; I go to school but no one likes me, I don't know why we're here.
But my mother said something about a goddess, something about the Earth, something about the ‘forever deep below creation', I haven't the faintest clue what she's talking about. I keep finding gemstones and precious metals everywhere I go; like the Earth is trying to reward me for something but I don't want its rewards, I want my mother back.
I don't know why I'm writing this best case scenario an Institute finds it or the postman comes by again and I can give it and it makes it your way but I don't think you can help me. I'm scared I guess, that's the reason why I'm writing this. I'm scared and I need to prove that I'm not going crazy, maybe I am, maybe this is the rambling of a mad little girl but there's something wrong with my mother.
About four or five nights every week since we got here we've been going to this place, it's terrifying and I hate it. It's this deep dark Cavern. It's on this little island we go out to and I don't know why we're going there we can barely fit inside but every night my mother insists we go deeper and deeper, one of these days I think it's going to collapse on us.
My mother has never been wonderful, I think she blames me for a lot of her problems but she's never been like this before. She was never a great mother but she was never like this. I want my mother back, as flawed as she was, I want her back .
If I die or disappear or something check that God forsaken Cavern on Resurrection Island, please I’m scared.
[CARTER]
Statement ends.
Wow um.
That was-
[He clears his throat]
That was a lot.
Follow-up research, the papers with this statement appear to be records about Hazel and Marie Levesque’s lives. Her story seems to match up; they lived in New Orleans in the 1930s, moved to Alaska in December 1941, and then a few days after this statement was written died or, well more accurately, went missing.
No bodies were ever found but it was assumed they had died.
A few years after the statement had been given the Nome Institute in Toronto sent out some researchers to Alaska to look into this quote unquote “God forsaken Cavern on Resurrection Island”. There is no Cavern on that island because there is no such thing as Resurrection Island, it doesn't exist. The locals were asked about it, several were taken to give interviews privately and everybody agreed there was no such thing, researchers went out on boats and looked for this potential island and found nothing, it doesn't exist.
The island doesn't exist but I-I want to believe Hazel, I want to believe this girl begging for someone to believe her, pleading that there's something wrong with her mom and she she doesn't know what it is and she's- she's terrified,; her handwriting is beautiful and neat but it's shaky and there's- there's tear stains on the on the letter.
This is a scared kid who wrote this and and maybe.. maybe it's fake,maybe it's fake but she was a real person, there're records of her existing, the town Folk in Alaska knew who she was back then; no one liked her or her mom, they thought they were witches, thought they brought bad luck Hazel got bullied, uh several classmates when interviewed about her and her disappearance said they didn't know what happened but they weren't that upset because they had never liked her.
She- she was a real person, she was a real scared little girl and she just fucking disappeared and I don't know why and she disappeared on, I assume, this island that doesn't actually exist but she was so sure did exist and-
[He makes a sound almost like a sob, then sniffles a bit]
And maybe Sadie and Uncle Amos were right at breakfast this morning, they both more or less said I maybe shouldn't be working on cases that involve parents and/or disappearances even though I don't know if it really counts as working on the cases, this is the first one I'm recording and I'm- and I'm freaking out and rambling because of a little girl from the 1940s who probably wasn't that much older than me or Sadie, she was probably around our age, who watched her mother become something entirely different and then disappeared off the face of the Earth alongside her mother and you know what maybe they were right, they were- they were probably right.
Dad, if you're listening to this- when- when you are listening back to this, I'm really worried about you, I'm really nervous I mean I know- I know you're going to come back you're going to be fine it's going to be fine but I'm scared.
I wonder if this is how Hazel felt writing a letter she was never sure was ever going to get read by anyone begging for something, for some deus ex machina that never came, begging for her mother back.
Sadie and Uncle Amos were probably right I-I probably shouldn't be working on cases right now, but if I do nothing I'm gonna go crazy so this is at least something, God damnit I'm going to have to record this again or edit the tape or something.
Um I think Walt mentioned I can edit the tapes in some way, I don't know, he said he would help me, so I guess I should keep going so I don't have to re-record all of it or record any more.
Uh.
[He clears his throat]
Even though no bodies were ever found it has been assumed they died, I mean if they didn't then they're probably both dead or at least incredibly old now.
I feel really bad for this girl, apparently there is another statement under the same name somewhere in the archives, according to Sadie, but it's a recent statement so probably just a coincidence unless Hazel Levesque is somehow alive and gave a statement while incredibly old I hope she is. I hope that's what the statement is a ‘hey guess what I made it out alive and so did my mom and we lived happily ever after’ but uh.. I think it's probably just a coincidence.
Um, Zia found a picture of what I assume is Hazel and her mother and I can't help but think the little girl looks familiar, probably just a coincidence though, Sadie agrees she looks familiar but I’m not sure where either of us would have seen her before.
[Click]