Child Sal to the Dark Tower Came is the name of the first Hopeless Maine story I ever wrote for Tom. It happened long before I started working on the graphic novels. There are now three versions of the art for this story and they appear in order below – Tom’s first illustration for my short story, the version in The Gathering and Dr Abbey’s version. The words are new, and mine.

The title comes from a vague memory of reading Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. I don’t really remember the poem, except that it was miserable. The dark tower of this story is really a lighthouse, a light tower once it gets going. It’s an important image in terms of the history of the project. It also feels relevant now, because it comes in the story at a moment of profound loss and despair for Salamandra. It’s about having nothing you can really do, and yet still doing something.

 

Child Sal to the dark tower came

With windblown hair and eyes aflame

The sea and sky call out her name

And life will never be the same.

 

 

Child Sal in boots too loose by far

Led by her ancestral star

None would dare her entrance bar

Deserted tower, door ajar

 

 

Child Sal in loneliness comes in

To empty rooms devoid of kin

And hopes a new life to begin

A home to make, a future win

 

 

Child Sal to the dark tower came

And here in secret hoped to reign

Until her heart comes home again

Across the sea, to Hopeless, Maine.