The Hopeless Vendetta started life as the newspaper for a fictional island. These days, the site is a mix of fiction, whimsy, and news about other Hopeless, Maine projects.
Hopeless, Maine is a haunted island off the coast of America. It first put out its tentacles as a web comic and blog. This has since led to graphic novels, prose novels, poetry, live performance and more.
I’ve made a Hopeless Handbook to help people orientate themselves. Hopeless is a large, many tentacled entity lurching in at least three directions at any given time.
If you have questions the handbook doesn’t currently answer, please wave, and answers will be forthcoming.
The Hopeless Vendetta started life as the newspaper for a fictional island. These days, the site is a mix of fiction, whimsy, and news about other Hopeless, Maine projects.
Sometimes Hopeless gives birth to strange entities who do not live on the island. Over to Steven C Davis for a story about a story.
What does a meme from 2019, the talented Gurdybird, a visceral retelling of the Robin Hood tales and Hopeless, Maine have connecting them?
Well.
Hopeless, Maine were putting together a video-event (which aired in Jan 2023 and is still available on Youtube) and were looking for content. Always eager to join their brand of tentacular madness – I mean, creativity – I said I’d contribute something. (Here’s The Hel-boar – https://youtu.be/9vYdDzlaops?si=6diVhkBMKYgxlz_a)
I was gearing up to spend 2023 writing three novels simultaneously (the Hurnungaz trilogy, a mere 250,000 words across all three) and had already started; the idea of taking a character or a scene from the first book and spinning it into a stand-alone tale seemed perfect …
The Hurnungaz trilogy and the spin-off short stories delve into an alternate, dark Pagan, visceral world where Robin is known as Hurnungaz and gods walk the ancient, terrifying forest. A character from the first of the trilogy is Elu of Keadby, daughter of a swan, who needs the help of one of Wōden’s Ravens and the mad stag-godling Caerne to retrieve her cloak … but that’s another story.
This story is about Brother Alberich, a brother of the Christ of the East, a new religion that is sweeping the country, who sees a little part of a ritual and wholly misconstrues what is happening and flees, fearing for his life. Remembering the news and memes about “30 to 50 wild hogs” which had terrorised an American homesteader, I thought a humorous twist would be to play on that and have Caerne unleash a horde of wild boar (hogs) to haunt his footsteps.
And then I looked up from my writing, and there it was (and still is) – a print of Gurdybird’s ‘Fiery Pig Lord’ which suited the piece perfectly. With her permission, that image now graces ‘The Hel-Boar of Kedby’.
Winston Oldspot, Hopeless Maine’s young Night-Soil Man, was always glad of whatever company he could get, even that of the ghostly Miss Calder, who helped manage the Pallid Rock Orphanage. Miss Calder had recently taken to dropping by, and updating him on the various goings-on at his old alma mater.
“Most of the boys and girls of your year have left, or are leaving soon,” she said, sadly. “Heaven knows how they will manage, fending for themselves.”
“Are there any new kids starting?” asked Winston, not really interested in the answer, but happy to be having a conversation.
“There is always a number of orphans looking for a home with us,” replied Miss Caldwell. “As you know, life expectancy on the island can be unpredictable, to say the least.”
Winston nodded. His own parents had vanished without a trace when he was just ten years old.
Miss Calder’s face began to change, her soft beauty alarmingly transformed into a grinning skull. Winston had seen this before, a hundred times or more, and it had long ceased to trouble him; it merely meant that she was becoming emotional.
“It is so sad,” she said, partly regaining not only her composure, but some of her face as well. “Our youngest – and newest – arrival is an adorable little boy who can’t be any more than two years old.”
“What happened to his parents?” asked Winston.
Miss Calder shrugged helplessly,
“He was found washed up on the beach, barely alive, “ she said, and once more Winston found himself looking into the fathomless eye-sockets of a skull.
It was much later that night, and Winston was joined on his rounds by his old friend, Reggie Upton. You may remember that Reggie’s lack of a sense of smell allowed him to quite happily enjoy the company of the Night-Soil Man without retching, dry heaving or passing out. The two would exchange whatever bits of gossip they might have gleaned, and while Reggie could provide some juicy tidbits regarding the activities at The Squid and Teapot, Winston’s conversation was usually confined to the abysmal state of the island’s many and varied privies. Tonight, however, there was something different to talk about.
“I hear that there is a batch of new kids starting at Pallid Rock this week.”
“Oh dear,” said Reggie, concernedly. “Has there been a sudden surge of fatalities on the island?”
“Not that I know of,” admitted Winston, “but there never seems a shortage of children going into the orphanage. According to Miss Calder, the youngest this time is only two years old.”
“Poor little chap.” said Reggie. “Life on this island is hard enough, but it must be doubly awful for the youngsters who lose their parents.”
Winston said nothing; he was too busy fighting back his tears.
By the time that Reggie came down to breakfast, late the following morning, everyone else in The Squid and Teapot was getting on with their day. Philomena was making the first batch of Starry- Grabby pies; Rhys was banging about in the cellar; Tenzin, the young Buddhist monk was meditating and Caitlin, Rhys and Philomena’s adopted daughter, was being Caitlin.
“Anything I can do to help?” volunteered Reggie, wiping crumbs from his moustache.
“You could entertain Caitlin for an hour,” said Philomena, looking decidedly stressed. “She’s in one of those ‘getting under people’s feet’ moods this morning.”
“Happy to,” beamed Reggie, “but how keen she’ll be to have an old duffer like me keeping her occupied is another matter.”
“We’ll see, but I take your point,” said Philomena. “It’s a real pity she hasn’t got a brother or sister to play with.”
“God knows, it’s not for the want of trying,” broke in Rhys with a grin, emerging from the cellar and rolling a barrel of Old Colonel before him.
Reggie couldn’t help but notice the faint blush that coloured Philomena’s pale cheeks.
Just then an apparition slipped silently through the kitchen wall, nearly giving Reggie a heart attack. It was Miss Calder, but not as he had seen her before. Her usually attractive face had been transformed into a loathsome death’s head.
“Miss Calder, whatever is the matter?” asked Philomena, who was well aware that, to look like this, the ghostly manager of Pallid Rock Orphanage must be in a highly emotional state of mind.
“I’m sorry to barge in like this,” said the ghost, “but we seem to have something of a problem at the orphanage.”
As she spoke, Miss Calder’s face flickered disconcertingly between her normal countenance and the terrifying bone-white skull, which was somewhat off-putting to everyone.
She went on to tell them that Pallid Rock’s latest and youngest arrival, a two year old, whom Reverend Davies insisted be named Oswald, spoke no English and was refusing to eat or drink, so traumatised was he at being suddenly plunged among older, larger and very much noisier children. As she spoke, and the story poured out, Miss Calder calmed down, allowing her to resume her usual, pleasing form.
“I wondered if you might be inclined to lend Caitlin to us for an hour or so, please, to see if playing with a child of his own age might settle him down?”
Philomena looked at Rhys, and an unspoken agreement passed between them.
“We can do better than that,” said Rhys. “Bring him here to meet Caitlin and if he’s happy, then he can stay.”
Had the long dead Miss Calder been in a position to breathe, she would have exhaled with relief.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I can collect him at bedtime.”
“When Rhys said that Oswald could stay, he meant stay with us – forever – if he wants,” said Philomena.
Miss Calder needed no second telling; she vanished into the ether, leaving only a spectral ‘Thank you again’ hanging in the empty air.
When Philomena saw Oswald she fell in love immediately. Like Caitlin he was fair, to the point of being unusually pale, but where Caitlin was bold and rumbustious, Oswald was quiet and withdrawn. Nevertheless, his hunger-strike was brought to a abrupt end with a large slice of Starry-Grabby pie and a small cup of sarsaparilla, the non-alcoholic root beer brewed especially for Norbert Gannicox, Hopeless Maine’s teetotal distiller.
“This is working,” said Rhys, watching the pair play together.
“They seem very happy in each other’s company,” observed Reggie.
“For the first time ever,” said Tenzin, looking around at the others, “I feel part of a big, happy family.”
Philomena smiled and nodded.
“A family indeed,” she declared. “And now we are six.’
Cloistered in the inn’s famous flushing privy, Lady Margaret D’Avening and Father Ignatius Stamage listened to the conversation in the kitchen with the preternatural hearing peculiar to the spirit world.
“Blasted cheek,” muttered Father Stamage. “Now we are six, indeed. What about us?”
“I was here before any of them,” complained Lady Margaret, cradling her head in her lap, adding, “that’s the living for you, I suppose… they can’t be relied upon.”
“And heathens and heretics to boot, every last one of ‘em,” said Father Stamage. “I’ve a jolly good mind not to haunt the place anymore.”
“Me too,” agreed Lady Margaret.
She paused, and considered what fun she might be missing.
The quills of a Quizzel have long been sought after by islanders as roasted in vinegar, they harden till the resemble long steel pins. Quills from the ridge that runs down their back in particular make fine needles.
It is said that if you cover a captured Quizzel in clay and bake the whole beast, they also make for fine eating, though if you over roast your clay packed Quizzel the clay will harden to the point you need a hammer and chisel to break it open. But on pulling the hardened clay shell apart all the quill’s will come free allowing you to devour the succulent meat of the Quizzel.
This same method can be used to cook hedgehogs, which are smaller creatures but otherwise much like the Quizzel, which some say tastes like chicken. Having tried this island delicacy only once I can say this much. Those who say it tastes like chicken have never tasted chicken.
The Quizzel is a shy beast, it is said to be about two foot long with an elongated nose, timid and known to hide in piles of leaves or other foliage. Given the propensity of Hopeless residents to bake them in a ball of clay I cannot say I blame the beast. When threatened they curl up into a ball. Quills extended. As the quills are both sharp and hard enough to go through leather soles, walking through piles of leaves is inadvisable if there is a Quizzel about. Nor is it wise to use them as an improvised football.
It is however perhaps the usefulness of the quills that has led to the age-old Island tradition on the last day of autumn, whence the islanders take down their family Quiddle sticks, hand them out to the children and send them off quiddling.
A quiddling stick is about three feet long with the bottom wrapped in old cloths to make a padded ball, this part is called the quiddle. Quiddling requires the stick to be thrust repeatedly into piles of leaves in the hopes that if there is a Quizzel in residence it will ‘spike up’ and thus be impale by its own quills into the quiddle whence it can be removed from the leaf pile safely.
The Quiddling hunt is accompanied by much shouting, screaming and running about and normally last for the whole of the morning after which successful ‘Quiddlers’ are supposed to return with their catches. Though, more often than not, the children get bored of the hunt and use the padded quiddling sticks to beat each other. Fights erupt. And eventually the adults declare the hunt at an end and the quiddling stick is returned to its place of honor above the fireplace.
The Quiddling hunts at the orphanage are particularly violent affairs…
Sadly, in recent years Quizzel have become rare, indeed in my lifetime I have never heard of one being captured despite the great enthusiasm of the annual Quiddling hunts. These days of course I do not partake in the hunt itself as such is the task of children. Instead, I share the many mugs of drop apple cider with the adults who reminisce about the great quiddling hunts of old. Mostly they reminisce about the fights.
Few if any can ever recall capturing a Quizzel, though they all swear to know someone who has.
*Authors note. Quiddling is an 18th century word, it means to fiddle about with trivial things as a way of avoiding the important ones. It has nothing to do with sending children off to hunt large hedgehog like creatures that don’t exist while the adult’s day drink. I was just quiddling about when I wrote this…
Last year’s Yule Goat Extravaganza turned out to be a sorry little event. Only three of us went along and at the time it hardly seemed newsworthy. Putting bells on a goat barely counts as festive, and as the goat escaped within a few minutes of my arrival there wasn’t much spectacle at all. I only mention it now because rumour has it that a new Yule Goat Extravaganza will happen this year. Even bigger and better than last year! Which in fairness is a really low set bar.
The rumours are at present short on details. Will we set fire to the Yule Goat? Will the Yule Goat set fire to us? Or instead, will the head of the Yule Goat explode in a sudden burst of utter darkness from which the tentacles of a ravening elder god will inevitably emerge?
Those of you who were only driven temporarily mad by the whole business with the Yule Rabbit a few years ago have every reason to feel cautious. There’s often a fine line between well meant community activities and accidently starting a cult and summoning something unspeakable. And potentially unreasonably amorous. I still have nightmares.
Perhaps we could ditch the festive chanting this year? Could those attending find it in their hearts to leave all cursed family heirlooms at home, refrain from bringing occult texts and keep the morris dancing to an absolute minimum. Thank you.
Following the defeat of the evil lama, Dawasandup, and the destruction of Mr Squash’s mysterious portal to Tibet, normality had once more been restored to Hopeless, Maine, inasmuch as that foggy island can ever be said to be normal.
“So what are we going to do about you, now that the portal is gone?”
Philomena regarded the young monk, Tenzin, with a look of pity. For no fault of his own, the boy was stranded on Hopeless, thousands of miles from home and with no hope of ever seeing his monastery and fellow monks again.
Tenzin shrugged. “I can be as good a Buddhist here as I can in the monastery,” he said. “Although, a prayer wheel would be nice…”
“That’s not a problem, we can easily get one made, I’m sure,” said Philomena, having no idea what a prayer wheel might conceivably look like.
“You’re very welcome to live with us in The Squid and Teapot,” she added, “but you’ll need to do a few jobs around the place occasionally.”
Tenzin nodded his thanks, and smiled to himself; doing a few jobs around The Squid would be a breeze after the harsh regime of the monastery, where anything less than perfection often led to a beating.
“Now, about this prayer wheel thing. You had better talk to Rhys or Reggie and show them what you need.”
“I’ve seen prayer wheels in Buddhist temples when I was in the army, in India,” said Reggie Upton. “But they were huge great metal cylinders, the size of cannons, that were rotated on a spindle. I’m not sure how we can get something like that made for you.”
“I won’t have any use for anything that big,” laughed Tenzin. “Just a hand held one will be fine.”
“Can you draw it for me?” asked Reggie, hopefully.
Tenzin shook his head. “I’m no good at drawing; in fact I couldn’t draw anything to save my life,” he said.
Reggie scratched his head, and then decided to do that which he always did when confronted with a problem; he ransacked the attics for an encyclopaedia, fully confident in the knowledge that it would tell him all that he needed to know.
“Well, a fat lot of good that blasted well was!” he fumed to Rhys Middlestreet later that day. “All that it showed me was a picture of something that looked like a baby’s rattle with a lot of unintelligible script running around the outside.”
Rhys smiled. He didn’t have a lot of time for what he considered to be mumbo-jumbo.
“If the worst comes to the worst,” he said, “Tenzin will have to change his religion. They’re all about as bad as one another, as far as I can tell. We can send him along to have a word with Reverend Davies.”
“Hmmm, I can’t see Tenzin embracing apostacy with any great enthusiasm,” observed Reggie.
Rhys wisely made no reply, having absolutely no idea what the old soldier was talking about.
It was only one day later that salvation arrived in the most unlikely of guises. Philomena Bucket was in the kitchen of The Squid and Teapot preparing a batch of Starry-Grabby pies for the evening trade, when a knock came on the window. She looked up to see the pinched face of Durosimi O’Stoat pressed against the glass.
This was unusual, to say the least. Wiping her hands on a tea-towel, she went to see what the old rogue might be after.
“Ah, Miss Bucket…” Durosimi sounded as awkward as he looked.
Philomena said nothing, but continued to dry her hands.
“Miss Bucket, I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude. You saved my life the other day…”
“I’m sure that you would have done the same for me, Mr O’Stoat, ” said Philomena, and Durosimi nodded, although they both knew that this wasn’t true.
“I’ve just come to say thank you,” said Durosimi. The words felt strange in his mouth. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“For a start, you can stop trying to get Tenzin to come back to live with you,” said Philomena. “The lad is just a humble monk. He doesn’t have any magical abilities for you to draw on, whatever you might think. He doesn’t even have a prayer wheel.”
At that Durosimi suddenly began rooting in his bag, and eventually produced a beautifully inscribed golden cylinder, no more than a few inches high. A handle of dark, polished wood acted as a spindle running through it, and an intricate gold chain hung from its side.
“It is a genuine prayer wheel. Give Tenzin this, as a gift from me,” said Durosimi, magnanimously.
“Where the devil did you get that from?” asked a surprised Philomena.
“I imagine that I somehow picked it up in error when I was in Dawasandup’s home,” said Durosimi, blushing a little. “It must have been in my pocket when the Yeti brought me back here.”
“Oh well, Dawasandup won’t be needing it, not where he’s gone,” said Philomena, and they both shuddered slightly, recalling the hideous crunch of bones when Dawasandup disappeared into the tiger-demon’s jaws.
“Thank you,” she said to Durosimi. “This will make Tenzin a very happy lad.”
Durosimi flashed her a thin smile.
“And we’re now even?” he asked.
”We’re even,” said Philomena.
Author’s note: The inscriptions on the side of a prayer wheel are Buddhist mantras written in Tibetan script. While repeating the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” the wheel is rotated clockwise to accumulate good karma and purify negativities.
I’ve seen the castle a few times now, when the mist rolls in and the last rays of the setting sun catch the headland in just the right way.
There are ruins up on that headland, but I do not think they are the ruins of a castle. Perhaps buildings can dream, and this is the ghost of a memory of something a building once wanted to be. Perhaps it is the dream of a builder who imagined castles in the sky, but lacked the means to build such a thing.
Sometimes I think that the mist itself dreams, or remembers. That’s why there are so often faces, or eyes that seem to do nothing much. They say water remembers things, and mist is only water after all.
I like to go and stand in the mist, and gaze up at the castle that isn’t there. I can feel the mist on my skin when I do that. I like to think that the mist is experiencing my face, and that in the future it will remember me, and reconstruct me out of those dreams.
I do not want to linger as a ghost, trapped here in death as I have been in life. But I would like to be remembered. I want to become as this castle is, something grander than I have been in life. The idea of a person, with this face of mine smoothed into a better appearance by the softness of water droplets.
Her old life is little more than a dream now. She belongs to the shore, to the sky and the wind.
It began with gathering feathers, day by day, weaving them into the worn fabric of her clothes. She wanted to be warm, and to forget herself, to give grief a shape and to fill the hole in her heart with something soft.
The wind heard her prayers, hair growing feathery, shoulders sprouting new growth to push through her tattered clothing. She no longer makes much sense to herself, but she does not care. She is bones wrapped in feathers. The wind soothes her. The sea speaks to her.
To recap… The sorcerous lama, Dawasandup, had broken through to Hopeless via Mr Squash’s mysterious portal, scheming to take the young monk Tenzin, and Durosimi O’Stoat, back to Tibet and sacrifice them to the tiger demon, Tagsan. Philomena Bucket and Durosimi had combined their magical abilities to thwart Dawasandup, but the unexpected arrival of Tagsan had seemingly doomed both of them…
Rising to his knees, and swamped in Tagsan’s massive shadow, Dawasandup looked triumphantly at the scene spread out before him. The puny foreigner, Durosimi, who foolishly believed that he could outwit him, lay trembling beneath the huge paw of the demon, while just a few yards away lay the crumpled form of the witch, Philomena. Dawasandup had to admit that the woman had been an impressive foe, but she had failed, and like Durosimi, she would pay the price of failure. Dawasandup would give the two of them to Tagsan as a tribute and, with the demon sated, he could return home to the clean mountain air of Tibet.
These thoughts of home cheered Dawasandup. He hated this place, and marvelled at how anyone could live for more than a day on such a miserable little island. What was it called? Ah yes, Hopeless, that was it. How appropriate. A hopeless, fog-bound land for hopeless, useless people.
Dawasandup suddenly felt uneasy, and frowned at an advancing bank of fog that seemed to have an unusually well-developed sense of purpose and direction. He had lived his life with one foot firmly set in the realm of the supernatural, and believed himself to be its master, but he had never witnessed anything quite like this. The fog was alive, and appeared to be heading straight for him.
If there is one thing designed to put the ghost of Granny Bucket out of sorts, it is someone threatening her family, and this Dawasandup character and his pet tiger had managed to put themselves inextricably into her bad books. Granny, however was well aware of her limits; she had seen how the demon had fought. Luckily Granny had allies; many, many allies who would be more than keen to help.
For countless generations the women of the Bucket line had practised their witchcraft more or less quietly, and each had understood that, if necessary, not even death itself would prevent them from defending their own. Even the oldest, most primitive of them, daubed in red ochre and wearing hides and antlers, viewed the opportunity to mingle with their descendants as a pleasant day out, and happily rallied to Granny’s call. The only fly in the ointment was that they were duty-bound to protect Durosimi as well. Long-time readers of these tales may remember that, according to Doctor John Dee, a certain Melusine O’Stoat had married into the Bucket family during the sixteenth century (see the tale ‘A Remarkable Resemblance’) and Durosimi was undoubtedly a relative, albeit many times removed.
As the fog-bank drew closer, Dawasandup could make out scores of female shapes writhing within it. Terror rose within him, but then, to his great relief, the fog gradually slowed and stopped, completely enveloping Philomena. He smiled to himself, convinced that the wraiths within the fog had come to claim her body, or better still, devour it. It did not matter; he still had Durosimi to sacrifice to the demon.
The fog rolled over Philomena and, little by little grew thinner, and as it did so the forms within it faded too. When it had cleared entirely, Philomena was left as Dawasandup had last seen her, apparently dead, and lying on the cold earth. Then, to his dismay, she groaned, and with some effort, raised herslf up onto one knee.
Taking no chances, Dawasandup hurled a small ball of blue, crackling lightning at her. Without looking up, Philomena raised a hand and caught it easily. Painfully, she rose to her feet and held the glowing ball before her. To Dawasandup’s horror it quickly ballooned to about the size of a human head.
“To the death, this time,” she said, and it sounded as if a hundred voices were speaking at once.
Ignoring Dawasandup, she tossed the lightning ball at Tagsan, who tried unsuccessfully to swat it away. It bounced off his chest, leaving a livid scorch mark behind. Free of the demon’s paw, Durosimi wasted no time in scampering to what he hoped was safety.
Tagsan, wounded and angry, roared at Philomena, who merely smiled the sweetest of smiles, and extended her arms towards Dawasandup. The lama was surprised to find himself suddenly levitating, lifted higher and higher until he floated level with Tagsan’s gaping maw. Dawasandup screamed as he felt the demon’s hot breath and toxic saliva upon his body.
“Let this be your tribute, demon,” Philomena chorused. “Take it and go back from whence you came, you have no place here. Do not think that you can ever beat us, for we are legion.”
With a sickening crunch, Tagsan clamped the still screaming Dawasandup between his jaws, and, with his tribute paid, soundlessly faded into the portal between the ash trees.
“We’ve beaten him,” cried a jubilant Durosimi, forgetting that he had spent much of the battle trapped beneath the tiger demon’s paw.
“Not quite yet,” said Philomena.
Durosimi was relieved to hear that her voice had returned to its normal pitch, and no longer sounded like a great multitude when she spoke.
Philomena raised her arms once more, and the two ash trees, forming Mr Squash’s mysterious portal to Tibet, buckled and cracked, then noisily imploded, sending a thick confetti of shredded bark and leaves high into the air.
“There, now it’s finished,” she said. “The portal is closed forever.”
“What have you done?” yelled Durosimi. “That was our only way to uncover the magic and mystery of Tibet, and you have destroyed it completely.”
“My only regret is having to kill the ash trees,” she said, wearily. “And if you don’t shut your noise, you might find yourself joining them.”
Durosimi blanched. He had seen too much to argue.
Feeling quite exhausted, Philomena turned and walked away from him, wanting nothing more than to go back to her family and the safety of The Squid and Teapot.
This video was recorded at Radio Winchcombe as Keith and I played live on their folk show recently.
The song is called Nightshade, written by Keith and inspired by Hopeless, Maine’s Annamarie Nightshade.
Originally the song was written for Ominous Folk, and specifically for Susie. However, it never quite worked without the guitar, and since writing it Keith has been entirely persuaded to get out there and sing his own material. So here we are!
Do you look at the trees at all? Have you noticed how trees in the distance always look like pine forests, but trees close up always look like this:
I have been in to the woods, at least far enough to see the bare branches, and the leaf litter. At times there are leaves, but my sense of time is not good.
I have walked for what seemed like days to try and reach the pine forests that haunt this island. Always they seem to be on the next hill, the next headland. I see their dark greens, their mighty canopies, and yet I can never reach them. Up close I find only these stark and often lifeless trees, and I do not know why.
Where are these unreachable forests? Do they only exist in my mind, or are they somehow out there, beyond my grasp? I dream of the sharp scent of pine resin, and the soft footing of needles beneath my feet.
Is it that I am cursed? Do others wander into those distant pine woods whenever the fancy takes them? Am I alone excluded from their shade? What have I done to so offend them? I know not.
When I die, please bury me in a pine coffin. I am homesick for the trees of my childhood, and afraid that this is the only means by which I might yet reach them.
(Photo by Keith, text by Nimue – which will make sense if you’ve ever looked closely at the trees in the graphic novels.)
