There had been more than a little excitement in The Squid and Teapot lately, with a card-carrying Valkyrie – complete with winged helmet, impressive armour, and a huge black charger – thundering into the snuggery in response to Doc Willoughby blowing a ceremonial Viking horn. To Reggie Upton’s evident disappointment, this was not the Wagnerian Brünnhilde, but a lower-ranking Valkyrie named Astrid, and in true Squid and Teapot fashion, it did not take long for everyone to be on first-name terms.

The more astute readers of these tales may have noticed that one stalwart of the inn was conspicuous by his absence. Drury was not in the snuggery when Astrid arrived.

This was remarked upon only later, and then mostly in hindsight, when people began to notice the things that had not happened. At the time, there were sparks and hoofbeats and matters of procedure to attend to, and no one thought to ask where the skeletal hound had gone. It was only after the house had settled, and had stopped holding its breath, that Philomena realised Drury was missing.

She found him at the far edge of the inn’s grounds, where the path gives up pretending it knows where it is going, and the marsh begins to decide what it will be next. He stood very still, facing outward, as though listening for something that had already passed.

“Drury?” she said softly.

He did not turn, but his tail made the faintest movement. It was an acknowledgement, not an invitation.

Behind her, Granny Bucket arrived without sound.

“Oh good,” she said. “He knew where to be.”

Philomena looked again, noticing the mud on Drury’s paws. It was darker than marsh mud ought to be. A faint tang of cold air and salt clung to him, like the memory of a door closing somewhere else.

“He’s been guarding,” she said.

Granny smiled into the darkness.

“Not guarding,” she corrected. “Holding.”

And when Drury finally turned and followed them back inside, the boundary he had been minding closed behind him as neatly as a well-made gate.

By the following morning, Drury was back to his usual habits.

This, in itself, was the first sign that something had been resolved. He took up his place by the fire, stretched out with the careful dignity of someone arranging old bones, and regarded the room with an air of mild satisfaction. If anyone had been hoping for lingering drama, such as strange lights, uneasy silences, or unexplained cold spots, they were to be disappointed. The inn felt like an inn again.

Philomena, however, had learned to trust the things that didn’t happen.

She noticed that Drury slept more deeply than usual, and that when he dreamed, his paws twitched not with pursuit, but with patience. She also noticed that the threshold stones had apparently shifted slightly overnight. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that the draught, which had plagued the front door for years, no longer troubled it.

The Tomte noticed too.

He appeared just after breakfast, sitting on the hearthstone with his cap in his hands and his boots neatly aligned beside him. He was not known to be keen on dropping by for a chat, so this, Philomena decided, was yet another indication that something had to be taken seriously. He nodded once toward Drury, who acknowledged this with a slight thump of his tail.

“Busy night?” Philomena ventured.

The Tomte considered this.

“It was a necessary night,” he said at last, in the careful English he reserved for matters of importance. “Lines were walked, and order was restored without anyone getting hurt.”

Drury lifted his head at that and thumped his tail again, softly.

The Tomte glanced toward a space somewhere beyond the door, and frowned faintly.

“Nothing followed her,” he said. “That is good.”

Philomena felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

“And Astrid?” she asked. “Will she return?”

The Tomte shrugged.

“She was expected,” he said. “But you know what the real work of the Valkyrie is, and that doesn’t usually involve collecting relics. it’s good that you didn’t invite her to stay.”

He replaced his cap, stood, and went about his tasks, setting a chair straight, brushing a scattering of ash back into the hearth, restoring the room to the exact degree of order he preferred.

Later that day, Granny Bucket remarked that the marsh was quieter.

“There was nothing to show what had gone on,” she said. “Just mud being mud.”

Drury raised his head at the word mud, gave a satisfied huff, and settled again.

Whatever line had been held, whatever door had been closed, whatever courtesy had been extended and returned, it had been done properly.

And on Hopeless, that makes all the difference.

In last week’s tale we left Doc Willoughby somewhat alarmed, when the ghost of Granny Bucket told him that the only way to rid himself of the ceremonial horn was to blow it again. 

---

As the last notes of the horn died away, Philomena, Granny, Doc and Durosimi waited in silence.

A full minute passed, and Doc was just about to make some caustic remark when Granny Bucket raised a ghostly finger to her lips.

“There,” she said quietly.

At first it was difficult to be sure what they were hearing. A distant rumble, perhaps. Then another. The faintest flicker of light followed, briefly illuminating the far wall of the snuggery.

“Thunder and lightning?” Doc whispered, his voice doing him no favours. “What can it mean?”

“That’s hoofbeats you’re hearing,” said Granny, with unmistakable satisfaction. “And that isn’t lightning either. Those are sparks; sparks from extremely well-shod hooves.”

Doc went very pale indeed as the sound grew louder. With each beat, the air in the room seemed to tighten. The candles guttered, shadows stretched and warped, and shapes moved where there ought to have been none at all.

Even Granny gasped, leaning back as the snuggery filled – and yet did not fill – with the presence of a huge black horse and its rider.

The horse was magnificent, coal-dark and powerful, its hooves striking sparks from the very fabric of the room. The rider upon it was both beautiful and utterly terrifying: flaxen hair billowing beneath a winged helmet, silver breastplate gleaming like a storm-lit sea. For a moment it seemed that horse and rider were larger than the room, larger than the inn itself. It was as though they occupied the sky rather than the space before them.

Then the rider spoke.

At once, impossibly, they were all back in the snuggery of The Squid and Teapot.

“Whose idea was it,” she said coolly, “to summon me into a room with a sloping floor?”

She glanced about, one eyebrow lifting.

“Really? Come on… own up.”

The silence that followed was broken by a polite cough, as though someone was clearing their throat in preparation for a speech. No one had noticed Reggie Upton wander in.

“Good Lord. You’re a Valkyrie,” he said. “Brünnhilde?” He ventured this with the cautious hope of a man testing ice.

The Valkyrie looked at him.

She did not glare.

She did not bristle.

She merely regarded him in the way one might regard a person who has confidently addressed you by the wrong name in public.

“You have got to be joking,” she said. “Brünnhilde wouldn’t get out of bed for this. She has standards.”

Reggie coloured faintly.

“I thought… well, according to Wagner…”

“Yes,” she said crisply. “We’re all familiar with Wagner. Enormous man, full of opinions, very loud and a bit too imaginative for his own good, sometimes.”

She glanced around the snuggery again, taking in the low ceiling, the sloping floor, and the horse, who chose that moment to snort disdainfully.

“This,” she went on, “is not an operatic matter. This is procedural. Anyway, it’s my turn. I’m on a rota.”

Granny Bucket beamed.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” said the Valkyrie. “Which of you summoned me here?”

As one, Doc and Durosimi pointed to each other, and said in unison,

“It was his fault.”

The Valkyrie glared at them, but before she could comment, Reggie Upton said,

“I must admit, I had a hand in this too.”

Maybe it was Reggie’s gallantry in sharing the blame, for the Valkyrie’s features softened a little as she listened while the confessions were made.

Durosimi spoke first, plainly and without embellishment. Doc followed, rather less plainly. Reggie, to his credit, waited until the end and then cleared his throat.

“I should add,” he said, “that the decision to place the horn in the museum was, at least in part, mine.”

The Valkyrie regarded the three of them in silence.

Then she rolled her eyes.

Turning deliberately away from them, she addressed Philomena instead.

“It takes just three men to cause this sort of havoc,” she said. “Why am I not surprised?”

Philomena did not answer. She merely inclined her head, which seemed to satisfy the visitor.

The Valkyrie dismounted with an ease that made it clear the horse was an extension of her rather than a conveyance. The animal snorted softly and shifted its weight, causing the floorboards to creak in a way that suggested they would be filing a complaint later.

The Valkyrie gestured toward the horn.

“That object was laid down deliberately,” she said. “Boxed, weighted and left. Not lost and not hidden. It was parked.”

Her gaze returned briefly to Doc.

“It was not meant for possession. Still less for curiosity.”

Doc swallowed.

“What… what should we do with it?” he asked.

She sighed. Not impatiently, but as one sighs at a task that should never have been necessary.

“You will return it to the marsh,” she said. “The same place. As close as makes no difference. It must be boxed again, but properly, this time. No speeches. No ceremony. No audience. And above all…”

Her eyes flicked to the horn.

“…no further blowing.”

The horse stamped once, sharply.

“If you do blow it again,” she added, “I will not be the one who answers.”

That, everyone present understood, was not a threat so much as a statement of policy.

Philomena hesitated, then said, “And if anyone asks who gave the instruction?”

The Valkyrie considered this, as though weighing how much courtesy the situation merited.

“Astrid,” she said at last. “That will be enough.”

Reggie blinked.

“Ah, Astrid,” he said weakly. “I once had a horse called Astrid.”

The Valkyrie regarded him for a moment.

“Yes,” she said. “Quite.”

She swung back into the saddle, pausing only to glance around the snuggery one final time.

“And for future reference,” she added, “if you find something that has been boxed, weighted, and left alone for a thousand years, just leave it.”

With that, horse and rider diminished impossibly, shrinking to fit the room, the inn, the night beyond – and then they were gone.

The silence that followed was profound.

Granny Bucket smiled.

“Well,” she said. “That went rather nicely.”

They chose the morning carefully.

There was little fog, which was unusual enough to feel like permission, and the tide was on the turn, neither coming nor going, but pausing, as though prepared to listen. Philomena came along, partly to ensure that things were done properly, and partly to make sure that no one said anything unnecessary. Granny Bucket declined, claiming that she had already done her part and that the rest was “just tidying up”.

Durosimi and Doc, fearing the consequence of not helping, volunteered to box the horn up again. It was not elegantly done, as neither possessed the skill or inclination for that, but it was thorough. The mouthpiece was stopped with wax and cloth, the lid secured, the whole thing weighted with a stone. No one spoke while they worked.

At the edge of the marsh, Reggie – who had decided that no one else could be trusted with the task – rolled up his trousers, took the box and waded out until the water almost reached his knees. He did not hesitate, but placed it carefully where the mud was deepest, pressed it down once to be sure, and stepped back as the water closed over it.

By the time they turned away, there was no sign that anything had ever been there at all.

That night, Doc Willoughby slept. Not deeply (he suspected that would take a while) but without dreams of oars or voices, and also without the sense of being watched from the foot of the bed. When he woke, the house felt like a house again.

At The Squid and Teapot, the floorboards in the snuggery creaked a little less than usual. The fire drew properly. Someone remarked that the place felt calmer, though no one could say why.

Reggie said nothing at all.

And far away – or perhaps not so very far – a huge black horse stamped once, in approval, then turned its head toward other matters.

The island of Hopeless, satisfied for the time being, settled back into itself and waited.

Doc Willoughby, you will remember, had blown an ancient ceremonial horn (which, according to Reggie Upton, was called a lùr) that he and Durosimi O’Stoat had stolen from the Hopeless Museum. Ever since, Doc had not been able to rid himself of the infernal instrument, and as a result, was not sleeping.

This was not, in itself, unusual. Unless anaesthetised by alcohol, Doc had never been what one might call a natural sleeper. He had always been inclined to wake in the small hours with a head full of half-finished thoughts and dimly remembered conversations. Lately, however, even the best that the Gannicox Distillery could offer was not enough to deliver him safely into the arms of Morpheus. 

Doc had taken to going to bed fully dressed. Not out of prudence, exactly, but more from the sense that if something were to happen, it would be better to be prepared for it. Shoes by the bed. Jacket folded. A candle-lantern burning all night. The horn, which he had tried unsuccessfully to return to Durosimi on three separate occasions, was never where he left it. It seemed to have a need to be close to Doc at all times.

On the third morning following the unfortunate blowing incident, Doc found it standing upright at the foot of his bed. He stared at it for a long while before doing the only sensible thing available to him, which was to make some nettle tea and pretend nothing was wrong.

Indeed, nothing was wrong, except for the constant sound of water. This was not loud, and did not drip or splash. It was simply present; a slow, rhythmic movement somewhere just beyond hearing, like oars dipping into a sea that was not, by any reasonable measure, anywhere near his house.

By mid-morning, Doc had decided that matters had gone far enough.

He climbed the hill to Durosimi’s place with the horn wrapped in a scarf.

The sorcerer listened to his account in silence, nodding occasionally, his expression growing less thoughtful and more concerned with each detail.

At the end of it all, he sighed.

“This problem of yours, Willoughby,” he said at last, “is totally beyond me.”

Doc felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

“But… but you stole it,” he stammered. “You cleaned it. You told me it would be all right.”

“And I also told you that we should not blow it. Remember?” said Durosimi firmly. “Those are different things.”

Doc opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally said the one name he had been carefully avoiding.

“We’re going to have to tell Philomena.”

Durosimi grimaced.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I hate to admit it, but if anyone on the island has a chance of sorting this out, it is her. Unfortunately…”

He glanced towards the door, as though sensing a draft from somewhere much further away.

“…I’ve heard that Granny Bucket is visiting.”

Doc sat down very heavily indeed.

–◊–

Philomena listened without interruption.

She had developed this habit, having learned that when people arrive at The Squid and Teapot looking as though they have not slept, what they most require is not reassurance but space in which to finish some often alarming sentences. She leaned against the dresser, arms folded, while Doc spoke, his account punctuated by pauses in which he clearly considered leaving out certain details and then, to his evident regret, included them anyway.

When he had finished, there was a long silence.

“That,” Philomena said at last, “is a complaint.”

Doc blinked.

“A what?”

“A complaint,” she repeated. “You’ve woken something up, and it is dissatisfied with the way you’ve handled it.”

“I didn’t handle it,” said Doc weakly. “I blew it.”

“Yes,” said Philomena. “That would be the handling.”

From the corner of the room came a small, pleased sound; it was somewhere between a sniff and a chuckle.

Granny Bucket, who had been sitting very quietly, knitting something ectoplasmic that appeared to have no obvious end use, looked up.

“Well,” she said. “That explains the horse.”

Everyone turned.

“I’ve been hearing nothing but watery noises. I expected something a bit more nautical than a horse,” said Doc. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” said Granny cheerfully. “A great big thing and black as a coal cellar. Stamped its foot twice just before dawn.”

Philomena closed her eyes for a moment.

“Granny,” she said carefully, “why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to catch up,” Granny replied. “You did all right, girl.”

Doc swallowed.

“Is it…” he began. “Is it here?”

“Not yet,” said Granny. “But it’s been summoned, and then ignored, which is worse. Much worse.”

She set her knitting aside and looked at Doc with frank curiosity.

“You’re not the sort they usually turn up for,” she said. “Too many words and not enough backbone. No offence.”

“I take great offence,” said Doc faintly.

“You would,” Granny agreed.

Durosimi cleared his throat.

“So,” he said, “what do we do?”

Granny considered this.

“Well,” she said, “you’ll have to blow the horn again.”

There was a collective intake of breath.

“No,” said Doc immediately.

“Yes,” said Granny just as firmly. “You don’t leave a door half-open and hope whatever’s knocking gets bored.”

Philomena straightened.

“If he blows it again,” she said, “something will arrive?”

“You can bank on it,” said Granny, pleased.

“And if we don’t?” Philomena asked.

Granny smiled, not unkindly, but with unmistakable relish.

“Then it keeps coming anyway,” she said. “Only less politely.”

Doc looked at the horn, which had been resting against the leg of his chair and which he was quite certain had not been there a moment before.

“Where?” he asked hoarsely.

Granny’s eyes flicked briefly to the ceiling.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s the least of your worries. It’ll make room.”

To be continued…

You may remember that Winston Oldspot, the Night-Soil Man, had found an ornate horn which Reggie Upton insisted was of Viking origin, and called a lúr. Winston was keen to find out what sound it made when blown, but Reggie warned against it, suggesting that it should be stored safely in the Hopeless Museum.

There was, of course, no chance that rumour of the find would pass unnoticed. Indeed, patrons of The Squid and Teapot could talk of little else. After all, it was not every day that a genuine Viking ceremonial horn was unearthed on the island.

It was inevitable that this news eventually reached the ears of Durosimi O’Stoat. The speed with which Doc Willoughby raced up the hill to impart the information was impressive – or would have been, had it not taken him a full ten minutes to get his breath back.

“Seth Washwell’s very excited,” he said at last, with the air of a man passing on intelligence of great strategic importance. “They’ve acquired a Viking artefact for the museum. A proper one, apparently. Found in the marsh.”

Durosimi, who had been listening with his usual lack of interest, looked up.

“A what?” he asked.

“A horn,” said Doc. “Upton called it a lúr. Ceremonial, he says, from the Viking period. Seth’s put it in a glass case with a little card. He’s terribly pleased with himself.”

Durosimi’s expression did not change, but something in the room shifted slightly, like a tide that had intended to go out, then thought better of it.

“Has anyone tried playing it?” he asked.

Doc laughed nervously.

“That superstitious fool Upton specifically said no one was to blow it. Something about bad dreams and spectral boats.”

Durosimi nodded thoughtfully. Although he had little time for Reggie Upton, he recognised that there was more to the old soldier than he chose to reveal. His years in India, hob-nobbing with fakirs and theosophists, had left their mark. Durosimi knew a fellow mystic when he saw one.

Leaning across the table, he said conspiratorially,

“You should volunteer at the museum.”

Doc blinked.

“What for?”

“To help Seth.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“You have all the time.”

Doc considered this, which was unwise.

“What would I do?”

“Label things. Count things. Dust things.”

“And steal a Viking horn?” said Doc.

Durosimi smiled faintly.

“Well, now you come to mention it…”

Seth Washwell ran the Hopeless Museum on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and any other day on which he felt that history required his personal supervision. The building itself was small, pokey, and unhygienic, containing an assortment of objects whose only common feature was that they had been found on Hopeless and no one had been able to think of a better place to put them.

Seth greeted Doc with the enthusiasm of a man who had been waiting years for someone to ask.

“I’ll just show you the new acquisition,” he said, ushering him toward the far wall.

“Reggie Upton identified it, you know. Viking, by all accounts, ceremonial, and very important.”

Behind the glass, resting on a velvet cushion of questionable age, lay the horn.

Even in the dim museum light, it seemed wrong. Not damaged. Not sinister. Simply misplaced, like something that should never have been brought indoors.

Doc swallowed.

“It’s in remarkable condition,” he said.

“Yes,” said Seth proudly. “We’re calling it Object 142: Ceremonial Horn (Lúr). The card was my idea.”

Before Doc could muster an entirely insincere expression of approval, Seth’s wife Mabel burst through the door.

“Seth! Seth! There’s a fire in the foundry!”

Regular readers will recall that, when not rearranging exhibits in the museum, Seth was the proud owner of the island’s iron foundry, now run – in theory – by his seven sons.

“Of course there is,” said Seth testily. “That’s what’s supposed to happen in a foundry.”

“No, there’s a fire in one of the outhouses,” Mabel replied, panic edging her voice. “And I can’t find any of the boys.”

With considerable tutting and harrumphing, Seth handed Doc the keys and instructed him to lock up when he left.

Durosimi arrived ten minutes later, with the air of a man who already knew how the afternoon would end.

“Was that fire your doing?” asked Doc, alarmed.

“It’s only a small fire,” said Durosimi. “Not much damage.”

“And Seth’s boys?”

“A simple sleeping spell,” said Durosimi, smiling thinly. “Now, come on, let’s get the artefact.”

Doc fumbled with the display case.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t…”

Durosimi shook his head once.

“Washwell won’t be back today. We can make it look like an overnight burglary.”

The horn was lighter than Doc expected. Warm, too, which made no sense at all.

They wrapped it in cloth and left the museum, locking the door carefully behind them.

At Durosimi’s house, they went straight to the kitchen. The bundle was laid on the table and unwrapped. The horn emerged slowly, its brass fittings dulled by centuries of waiting, its curve still graceful, still certain of its purpose.

Doc lingered by the door.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“Of course you don’t,” said Durosimi.

He fetched a bowl of warm water, a cloth, and a small brush, and began to clean the horn with a patience that suggested he had done this sort of thing before. Mud and salt lifted away. The knotwork brightened. Inside the mouthpiece, the rune revealed itself fully. It was a single mark, deliberate, and not a little unnerving. 

The room grew colder.

“We should stop,” said Doc.

Durosimi paused.

“We should,” he agreed.

Neither of them moved.

Doc leaned closer. The horn felt smooth beneath his fingers, the metal faintly warm, as though it had not quite finished remembering the last hand that had held it, either in anger, or in hope.

He raised it, intending only to look inside once more.

He blew.

The sound was not loud. It did not echo. It did not behave as a sound should.

The air tightened. The windows filmed with frost on the outside. The candle flame bent, though there was no breeze.

Durosimi closed his eyes.

Doc lowered the horn, his heart hammering.

“What have I done?” he whispered.

Durosimi did not answer.

That night, Doc Willoughby did not sleep at all well.

He heard water in the walls. The slow creak of oars. A distant chanting that belonged neither to the living nor the dead. By morning, the horn was no longer on Durosimi’s table, nor, indeed, was it anywhere in his house.

When Doc awoke from his troubled sleep, he was surprised – not to say aghast – to find it lying at the foot of his bed, like a faithful hound.

To be continued…

Five or so years ago, before he was a landlord, a husband, or a respectable member of anything at all, Rhys Cranham was the island of Hopeless’ Night-Soil Man, a position which, as regular readers will know, comes with a shovel, a lidded bucket, and an intimate knowledge of everyone’s diet and habits.

It was during one of the winter tides –  the sort that rearrange the shoreline when no one is watching – that Rhys uncovered a box in the marsh at the far end of the island. A recent storm had scoured the ground, peeling back years of rot and rushes to reveal an old midden beneath. Although delving into antique latrines was not technically in his job description, the Night-Soil Man’s natural curiosity was irresistibly drawn to its murky depths.

Leaving his bucket at home and slipping a slice of Starry-Grabby pie (left on his doorstep by the pretty, but extremely pale, new barmaid at The Squid) into his knapsack, Rhys took his spade and candle-lantern and went to investigate before the island properly woke.

By first light,  with his boots sinking and his breath steaming,  he was beginning to regret the entire notion, when his spade struck something that was most certainly not compost.

It was a dressed stone, about eighteen inches square, with a single mark etched into its surface. Rhys thought it might be a rune, though to his eye it resembled nothing more than a few straight lines, arranged with quiet intent.

He knelt and cleared the muck away with his hands until the stone came free. Beneath it lay what had once been an elegant wooden box, its lid carved with intricate knotwork. When Rhys tried to lift it, the wood fell apart at his touch. The shape of the box remained, however, pressed into the mud as clearly as a memory, and in its centre lay an ornate horn, perfectly preserved after untold centuries.

The box had clearly been sealed to withstand time and tide, and whoever had placed the horn there had not meant it to be lost; only to be left alone.

The instrument was beautifully made, tipped with a brass mouthpiece and bound with bands of the same metal along its curved length and flared end. The brass had greened with age, but otherwise, if the horn truly was a relic of the well-documented Viking settlement, it had no business being in such remarkable condition.

Rhys lifted it and felt, immediately, that he had done something he would one day have to account for.

He wiped it on his sleeve and peered into the mouthpiece. Inside, faint but unmistakable, was a single mark, scratched by a hand that had not been in any hurry. He was tempted to blow it, but some sixth sense stopped him. The very air around the thing seemed to be waiting for him to make that particular mistake.

Instead, he placed the horn carefully in his knapsack, picked up his spade and lantern, and returned home with unusual care, as though the island itself might be listening.

By the time the sun rose and began its losing battle with the mist, the marsh had already started to reclaim the place where he had found it.

Rhys kept the horn on the mantelpiece. On the third night after its discovery he arrived home in the early hours, exhausted from a particularly busy round, and fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of dragon boats. The following night, the boats returned, but  this time spilling spectral warriors onto the beach. Each night thereafter, the dreams grew worse. Soon he dreaded going to bed at all.

Certain that the horn was responsible, he wrapped it in a leather pouch and stowed it in an old outhouse at the end of his garden, near the sinkhole. If it troubled him again, he resolved, he would drop the cursed thing straight down the hole.

In the event, the dreams ceased. And, as time passed, Rhys forgot all about the Viking horn… until this week.

Winston Oldspot had been Hopeless’s Night-Soil Man for just over a year. In his late teens, and full of youthful confidence, he was nonetheless grateful for Reggie Upton’s occasional company on his rounds. Having lost his sense of smell while serving with the British Army in India, Reggie was in the unique position of being able to endure the occupational burdens of the Night-Soil Man’s role without complaint.

So when Winston announced that his New Year’s resolution was to clear out all the unnecessary clutter from the House and Poo Corner and its outbuildings, Reggie was more than happy to help. That was when the leather pouch and its ancient contents came to light.

“What is it?” Winston asked. “Some kind of musical instrument?”

“No, lad,” said Reggie, carefully taking the pouch from him. “And it’s not a hunting horn either. This, I believe, is a lúr – a ceremonial horn. I saw one once, years ago, in the British Museum. Not in anything like the condition of this, though.”

“Can I give it a blow?” Winston asked eagerly.

“Certainly not,” said Reggie. “You never know what these things are capable of, especially somewhere like Hopeless. I’ll speak to Rhys, I imagine he knew it was there.”

“Oh yes,” said Rhys when told. “I remember it well. It gave me bad dreams for a week.”

“As I suspected,” said Reggie. “We’ll bung up the mouthpiece so no one’s tempted, and bequeath it to the Hopeless Museum. It should be safe enough there.”

“Yes,” said Philomena, uneasily. “What can possibly go wrong?”

To be continued.

The edge of the new year had arrived and there was still one lone mince pie left.

It had survived Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the long, ambling procession of customers who drifted in with home-made paper crowns and tired smiles. By the morning of the thirty-first of December, it sat alone on a china plate behind the bar of The Squid and Teapot, slightly overbaked, the pastry cracked at one corner, the sugar on top no longer sparkling but settled into an unappetising crust.

Philomena noticed it while wiping down the counter.

“I’m not throwing that away,” she said.

Rhys, who had been about to suggest exactly that, paused with the cloth in his hand.

“We could offer it to someone,” he ventured.

Reggie was warming himself by the fire with a favourite book and a tot of something restorative – for purely medicinal reasons, you understand. He peered at the pie over his spectacles.

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting that,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t meant for someone.”

Philomena frowned at him.

“That’s a very odd thing to say before breakfast.”

Reggie closed his book with care.

“There’s a strange atmosphere about The Squid lately,” he said. “It’s something I’ve sensed before, when I was in India.”

“Now that you mention it,” said Philomena, “things do seem a bit out of kilter. It’s as though the inn is waiting for something.” 

Outside, the fog lay low against the windows, and the world beyond appeared to have disappeared completely. The wind, which had spent the previous week flinging itself about with unwarranted enthusiasm, had fallen completely still, as though pausing to listen, and the mince pie was left where it was.

By mid-morning Philomena had changed her mind. She went to fetch it, determined now to stop this nonsense and at least offer it to the crows, but the plate was empty.

She stood quite still.

“I don’t suppose either of you moved the mince pie?” she called.

Rhys shook his head from the hearth.

Reggie, from his chair, did not even look up.

The plate, when she examined it more closely, bore the faintest smear of filling at its edge, as though a finger had tested the sweetness and thought better of it.

Philomena replaced the plate on the counter and said nothing.

By the time the kettle had boiled for the fifth time and the morning had properly established itself, the mince pie had reappeared.

It now sat on the broad windowsill by the front door, the china plate balanced neatly between two sprigs of holly that Philomena was quite certain had not been there before.

No one commented on this at first.

Hopeless has long taught its residents that drawing attention to the wrong thing is the surest way to encourage it.

Rhys was the one who eventually broke the silence.

“That wasn’t there earlier.”

Philomena nodded.

“I know.”

Reggie lowered his book a fraction.

“Well then,” he said, “we appear to have an itinerant mince pie in our midst.”

Drury, who had stationed himself in front of the hearth, rose and padded over to the windowsill. He sniffed the air, wagged his bony tail once, and lay down beside the door, as though posted there on duty.

The day passed in its usual unhurried fashion.

Norbert Gannicox, who had become somewhat besotted with the recently improved menu, came in for tea and toast. Even Mrs Beaten dropped by for a buttered scone. Tenzin swept the back steps, pausing often to admire the way the frost had appeared to sprinkle lace along the edge of the barrels.

During the afternoon, Philomena went to check on the whereabouts of the pie. It had moved again.

This time it occupied the settle by the fire, positioned carefully at the warmest corner of the snuggery. The plate beneath it had been turned so that the crack in the pastry faced the hearth, as though whatever had arranged it preferred to see its imperfections clearly.

Reggie regarded this development with interest.

“Someone is making sure it doesn’t go to waste,” he observed.

“Or making sure it’s noticed,” said Rhys. “Maybe it’s the Tomte.”

“No, that’s not his style at all,” replied Philomena. “If he had wanted the pie, it would be gone by now.”

As the day wore on, the fire drew better. The chill that had lingered since Christmas Eve seemed to have lifted. Even the fog outside decided to loosen its grip, retreating just enough to allow the suggestion of the harbour beyond the glass.

When evening fell and the lamps were lit, the mince pie had reached the foot of the stairs.

Philomena found it there while fetching fresh candles, the plate placed with deliberate care on the bottom step, as though waiting for someone who was slow in coming.

She stood looking at it for a long moment.

“We’re being reminded of something,” she said softly.

Reggie, who had followed her, inclined his head.

“New Year’s Eve is a threshold,” he said. “Some things prefer to be acknowledged before the door is closed.”

They did not touch the pie.

That night, long after the inn had settled, and the last glass had been rinsed, and the wind had returned in a gentler mood, the mince pie vanished for the final time.

In the morning, Philomena found a single currant by the hearth, and a faint dusting of sugar on the edge of the bar.

Nothing else.

But the year turned easily, and The Squid and Teapot felt, for no reason that anyone could properly name, as though something that had been owed had, at last, been paid.

On the sixth day of January, when they had taken the last of the decorations down, and she had carried the holly out to the edge of the woods, Philomena paused on the threshold of The Squid and Teapot and closed her eyes. For a moment – and it was only a moment – she had the peculiar impression that something within the inn had nodded to her in approval. She smiled, closed the door, and the year, which had been waiting patiently for permission, finally began.

Tenzin, the young Buddhist monk, had just spent his second Christmas on the island of Hopeless. Was it really only fourteen months since he had been brought here, whisked away from Tibet tucked beneath the arm of a very large Yeti?

This Guardian of the Glaciers, who was otherwise known as Willy (or possibly Billy), was a creature who considered his distant relative, Mr Squash the sasquatch, to be particularly small and puny. That had not, however, prevented him from using Mr Squash’s mysterious portal to smuggle Tenzin to safety.

The journey, undertaken to escape the evil lama Dawasandup, was short and brutal, but not that Tenzin remembered much about it. Humans travelling through Mr Squash’s portals were always rendered comatose, which was just as well, for ensconced beneath a Yeti’s armpit is not the most salubrious place to find oneself.

In any case, living at The Squid and Teapot had proved a splendid education. Tenzin’s almost-perfect English was spoken with an accent all his own, drawn mainly from Philomena’s gentle Irish lilt and Reggie Upton’s clipped, upper-class militiariese. There were, however, still a few linguistic mysteries waiting to unfold.

On the last day of December, Tenzin was pleased to greet his friends in the bar with a cheery:

“Merry New Year.”

“Ah! Actually, we don’t say that, old chap,” said Reggie. “We say Happy New Year.”

Tenzin frowned slightly.

“Not merry?”

“Never merry,” said Reggie. “Always happy.”

Tenzin considered this.

“Why?”

Reggie opened his mouth, then stopped. His brow furrowed.

Why indeed?

“I’ll get back to you on that, old chap,” he said at last. “For the life of me, I’m dashed if I know.”

Throughout much of that afternoon, any casual observer might have concluded that Reggie was no longer in full possession of his metaphorical marbles. He wandered back and forth before The Squid, muttering, nodding, and occasionally laughing to himself.

In fact, the truth was that Reggie was in full battle preparation, employing thought processes that had served him well in many a campaign.

It was early evening when he next encountered Tenzin. Caitlin and little Oswald were safely tucked up in bed, and the residents of The Squid gathered in the snuggery, as the inn enjoyed its brief hush before the New Year’s onslaught.

“Well,” said Reggie, “you’ve certainly given me something to think about. But I believe I’ve cracked it.”

As several hours had passed since their original exchange, Tenzin – like everyone else – had absolutely no idea what he meant.

“Oh no,” said Philomena, aghast. “Not the flushing privy. I don’t know how we’ll replace that.”

“No, no –  not the old thunder-box,” laughed Reggie. “I meant, why we don’t say Merry New Year.”

Relieved, Philomena settled with Rhys and Tenzin, to hear the inevitable lecture.

“According to a very fine little book I found gathering dust in the main attic,” said Reggie, “merry didn’t originally mean jolly at all. Its older meanings were lively, spirited, unrestrained and, most importantly, slightly dangerous. A merry person was not necessarily nice, and certainly not the sort of chap one would lend a fiver to. He would be high-spirited, possibly reckless, and probably over-lubricated.”

“I’ve heard people described as being a bit merry after a drink or two,” said Rhys. “I thought that just meant cheerful.”

“Oh, I expect they were,” said Reggie. “But a merry person steps outside the rule book,  though usually not far enough to cause alarm.”

“But surely,” said Tenzin, “when you wish someone a Merry Christmas, you are encouraging them to break the rules?”

Reggie smiled.

“You still have much to learn of our customs, dear boy. That’s exactly what Christmas is for. It is the last socially acceptable space for misrule. That’s why those blasted Puritans banned it.”

He took a long swig of Old Colonel, dried his moustache, and continued.

“Christmas was never cosy. It was noisy, rowdy, topsy-turvy and faintly alarming. Lords served servants. Work stopped and boundaries blurred. The Lord of Misrule was no metaphor, and the whole shenanigans went on for twelve days.”

“So Merry Christmas doesn’t mean ‘Have a nice time’?” asked Philomena.

“Good heavens, no,” laughed Reggie. “It means: allow the usual rules to loosen their grip. A little pleasure, a little noise, a little risk and, quite often, a far from little hangover.”

“So that definition explains Robin Hood’s Merry Men,” said Philomena. “They were never particularly jolly. More of a gang of thugs, I’m my opinion.”

“Precisely!” said Reggie, thumping the table, and making everyone jump. “They lived beyond the law. That’s what made them merry.”

Tenzin, who had been silent, said thoughtfully,

“So Hopeless, with its odd and chaotic ways, could be called a merry place.”

“Indeed it can,” said Reggie.

“So when I say ‘Merry New Year’ I am not wrong.”

“No,” said Reggie, carefully. “I suppose you are not.”

Tenzin stood, raised his cup of sarsaparilla, and declared:

“Then a Merry New Year to one and all.”

The fire in the public bar of The Squid and Teapot had settled into that most companionable of moods. It was no longer roaring, no longer demanding attention, but glowing steadily, as though it knew it would be needed for stories. Outside, the fog pressed up against the windows like an uninvited listener, and inside, tankards were refilled, chairs drawn a little closer, and voices lowered without anyone quite noticing why.

Mr Squash sat on the floor with his back to the hearth, vast, shaggy, and contentedly immovable. Drury lay sprawled beside him, his bony tail ticking gently against the flagstones.

“You seemed to know that Christmas was coming,” said Tenzin, watching the firelight ripple across the Sasquatch’s dark fur. “Even before the decorations went up.”

Mr Squash considered this for a moment.

“Well,” he said at last, “I’ve had a fair bit of practice. And I spent one winter far north of here, where the nights are so long that even the stories grow beards.”

This, as everyone present knew, meant that a tale was inevitable.

“It was northern Sweden,” he went on. “And a long way from home. But that was six centuries ago, give or take. I was younger and a good deal sprightlier in those days, and less inclined to sit down for long periods. Anyway, there was an inn up there, very much like this one, only built of timber, and standing where the forest thinned just enough to allow travellers through.”

The fire gave a small, obliging crack.

“That inn was watched over by a house guardian, a Tomte,” said Mr Squash. “Not a showy fellow, performing tricks for their own sake. He kept the place warm, the food plentiful, the doors hanging true on their hinges. He did all this quietly, and for a very long time.”

Philomena smiled to herself but said nothing.

“Now, people often think a Tomte looks after a house,” Mr Squash continued. “That’s not quite right. A Tomte looks after the agreement between a house and the people who live in it. So long as both sides hold up their end, all is well.”

“And if they don’t?” asked Rhys.

Mr Squash’s broad shoulders lifted slightly.

“Then the Tomte notices.”

In the old inn, he explained, the first owners had been good people. Not saints, mind you; it’s well known that saints make terrible innkeepers. No, these people weren’t saintly but they were fair. They fed their guests properly, didn’t cheat their measures, and remembered that a house is something you live with, not in.

“But time passes,” said Mr Squash, “and hands change.”

After a while a new owner arrived. Then another. Corners were cut. Food was wasted. Guests were mocked once their backs were turned. It was nothing dreadful, just a slow and noticeable thinning of care.

“The Tomte didn’t rage,” Mr Squash said. “That’s a human habit. Instead, he took out his measuring stick.”

Reggie frowned. “Measuring stick?”

“Oh yes. He measured the hearth, to see if it still welcomed people. He measured the doorways, to see if they still invited strangers in. He measured the beams, to see if they remembered why they’d been raised in the first place.”

The fire popped again, rather sharply this time.

“Tomtar,” Mr Squash added, using the correct plural, “never measure in order to repair. Only to decide whether it’s time to leave.”

As the Tomte measured, small things began to go wrong. Bread went stale too quickly. Laughter didn’t linger. Guests left earlier than they meant to, unable to say why. The house grew colder, though the fire burned just as brightly.

“And still,” Mr Squash said, “no one noticed, except for a child. This was a boy, no more than six, who liked to sleep near the kitchen hearth. He awoke one night to see the little grey-bearded figure measuring the stones.”

“What are you doing?” the boy asked.

The Tomte looked at him for a long while before answering.

“I am seeing whether this inn still knows itself, as it should do.”

The boy thought about this, as children do, very carefully.

The next evening, he set aside a bowl of porridge.

 It was  properly made, with good oats and, because it was Christmas Eve, a generous knob of butter from the best they had. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t ask for anything; he simply left it out. 

The Tomte ate. Then he put away his measuring stick.

“In the morning,” said Mr Squash, “the house felt like its old self again. Not perfect, but just right. And the Tomte stayed.”

There was a silence in the bar, warm and thoughtful.

Outside, snow had begun to fall.

Mr Squash shifted slightly and glanced toward the kitchen.

“That’s why,” he said mildly, “it matters what you feed a house. And why it’s best not to forget who’s helping, even if you can’t see them.”

At that very moment, unseen by most, a small figure padded along the beams above the bar, pausing to straighten a sprig of holly and adjust a pine cone that had slipped out of place. Satisfied, he moved on, his work done for the night.

Philomena rose quietly.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “there’s some porridge that needs attending to.”

No one laughed, or commented.

And if, later that night, the inn felt warmer than it strictly ought to have done, and the beer tasted better than anyone remembered, well – it was Christmas Eve, after all.

Mr Squash shifted on the settle that he single-handedly filled, and the aged black oak complained with an ominous creak. 

“Go on then,” said Philomena. “You promised to tell us why you fell out with Pyralia Skant.”

“I promised someday,” said Mr Squash.

“It’s someday now,” she replied, in the tone that makes even a sasquatch rethink his boundaries.

He sighed, adjusted his great, shaggy elbows, and fixed his eyes on the fire. The flames made citrine glints in his fur.

“Well,” he said. “If you’re to understand why I don’t get on with Pyralia Skant, you need to know what happened when the green children came to Hopeless. That was a long time ago – a hundred years, or more. Sebastian Lypiatt ran The Squid and Teapot in those days. Before his time the place had fallen into disrepair, but Sebastian turned it into the fine inn that it is today.”

He smiled at the memory.

“His best barmaid was Betty Butterow,” he went on, “Betty was one of those legendary characters that the island throws up occasionally. She and her husband Joseph Dreaming-By-The-River-Where-The-Shining-Salmon-Springs were the first islanders to meet the children.”

Philomena leaned in. 

“I’ve heard of Betty and Joseph,” she said. “Wasn’t he from the Passamaquoddy people? And you’re right – those two seem almost mythical.”

Suddenly interested, Tenzin, Reggie and Rhys abandoned their card game, and settled down to listen to the sasquatch.

Mr Squash nodded, and began his tale. 

“It was early winter,” he said. “Cold enough that even a sasquatch thinks twice about stepping outside. The fog lay in the hollows like it was hiding something.”

“That’s normal,” said Reggie.

“Not like this fog,” said Mr Squash. “This fog had intentions.”

He paused, lowering his voice.

“Pyralia was on the island. She’d arrived a month before, quiet as frost, asking strange questions about a legendary chest of bog oak and brass. You know how she can stir up trouble without even noticing. I felt her workings long before I saw her. The island felt somehow rearranged.”

Philomena shivered. This sounded all too familiar.

“One night,” Mr Squash continued, “I felt something shifting on the island, like a door swinging open. It wasn’t opened by me, and not one of my portals. I was pretty sure it wasn’t opened by any Hopeless hand, either. It was a slip, a weakening, as though someone was tugging at the weave of the island.”

“Pyralia,” murmured Philomena.

He nodded.

“She wasn’t trying to do harm. She never tries to. But she was unravelling something, unmaking a knot she thought ‘untidy.’ To her, it was housekeeping. To the rest of us, it was like a rip in the fabric.”

“And through that rip,” he said, “fell the children.”

“It was Joseph who heard them first. He’d been out doing something or other up on the Gydynaps.  At first he thought he heard Drury whining, as though he’d injured himself, but Drury  doesn’t speak, and he  certainly doesn’t glow.”

The pile of bones pretending to be asleep beneath the table grunted with indignation.

“Glow?” asked Rhys.

“Oh, only very faintly,” said Mr Squash. “Like soft green starlight.”

“They were tiny.  No more than six and eight years old, and green as new nettles. They were shivering in the cold, holding one another’s hands like they were the last things in the world they trusted.”

“And perhaps they were,” whispered Philomena.

“Joseph brought them straight to Betty,” Mr Squash continued. “He burst into The Squid and Teapot yelling for hot water and blankets. Sebastian Lypiatt nearly had apoplexy.  Not about the children, mind you, but that Joseph had tracked mud across his polished floorboards.”

Reggie snorted.

“But Betty took charge, of course she did. She wrapped them up, cooed to them, tucked them behind the kitchen stove. They warmed up quickly enough, but they never stopped looking terrified.”

He hesitated.

“They were afraid of the dark.”

“Children often are,” said Philomena.

“These weren’t,” said Mr Squash. “Not in their own world. But whatever it was that they’d fallen through frightened them worse than anything Hopeless could throw.”

Tenzin, who knew a thing or two about being dragged from his own world, swallowed audibly at that.

“Randall Middlestreet was the Night Soil Man at the time. He was the next to get involved. He’d found marks in the marsh. Not prints exactly; more like impressions. Shapes that didn’t belong. And a trail that stopped abruptly, and ended in thin air.”

Mr Squash tapped his knee.

“That’s when I knew where the children had come from. You know the Underland well enough, Philomena, and how it attracts other times and places to press against this island. The children must have wandered too far in their world, and Pyralia’s little ‘adjustment’ made the membrane too thin.”

“Like the babes in the wood,” Philomena mused.

“Maybe Pyralia didn’t notice,” said Mr Squash, darkly. “But my guess is that she noticed, and called it an ‘unfortunate side-effect.’”

His fur bristled.

“Children shouldn’t be side-effects. Not of anyone’s cleverness, at any rate.

“What became of the children?”

Philomena held her breath, not really wanting an answer. 

Mr Squash sighed.

“They lived,” he said gently. “For a while, anyway. Betty and Joseph cared for them as their own. Betty even taught them hopscotch. Joseph told them old Passamaquoddy stories so they wouldn’t be frightened at night.”

“And then?” Rhys asked.

“They grew weaker,” said Mr Squash, voice low.

“They belonged to a world that wasn’t this one. Their greenness faded. Their shadows grew thin.”

There was silence in the snuggery.

“When the mist rose one midsummer morning,” he said, “they walked into it. Together. Hand in hand.”

“They never came back,” whispered Philomena.

“Not to us,” said Mr Squash.

“But I think –  I hope –  they found the gap Pyralia made, and went home.”

Philomena blinked away the ache behind her eyes.

“And you’ve avoided Pyralia ever since?” she asked softly.

Mr Squash huffed.

“Yes,” he said. “She’s dangerous when she’s tidying. She straightens things that were never meant to be straight.”

“And that’s why you left when she returned to the island?”

“Oh yes,” said Mr Squash. “When I felt her energy again, all crisp and chilly like a librarian rearranging the universe, I thought it best to return to the Pacific North-West for a while.”

He scratched his chin.

“And then,” he admitted, “I missed this place. I missed you all. Even the ghosts in the privy. So here I am.”

Philomena reached out and patted his enormous paw.

“Thank you,” she said. “For trusting us with the truth.”

The fire crackled. Snow tapped at the window. And for a moment, the entire inn felt warm as a heartbeat.

–

Authors note: Readers should feel free to trawl the Vendetta archives for the many tales of Sebastian Lypiatt, Betty Butterow and her husband, Joseph, and also the mysterious chest of bog-oak and brass.