The Flushing Privy of The Squid and Teapot has always been a place of peculiar unrest. Not merely because it was the only halfway functional water closet on the island (though, having been in constant use for over a century, “functional” is stretching the definition), but because it plays host to two ghosts: Father Ignatius Stamage, the Phantom Jesuit, and Lady Margaret D’Avening, known to one and all as the Headless White Lady.
The hauntings of this odd couple were usually fairly arbitrary affairs. When Father Stamage wasn’t disappearing into his hat to wander the hallowed corridors of his old Alma Mater, Campion College, Oxford, he made a point of getting in the way at the most unexpected moments. Recently, he had taken it upon himself to manifest in the privy and deliver a sermon to any unfortunate who appeared to be experiencing problems, regarding the vital role of roughage in the diet.
Lady Margaret kept to her usual lack of routine, wandering headlessly about, moaning mournfully and occasionally passing through walls which she forgot weren’t doors. Lately, between the two of them, it would be a good evening if you were allowed to finish the business in hand before being hounded into a state of constipation.
But then came that night…
Philomena, Reggie, Rhys and Tenzin had just finished an unusually serene dinner of Starry-Grabby Pie and carefully harvested potatoes (long term readers may recall the hazards involved in consuming even small quantities of the island’s variety of decidedly lethal and sentient Night Potatoes).
That evening the inn was uncharacteristically quiet. The fog outside swirled like smoke around the windows, while inside the flushing privy gurgled ominously.
“I don’t like that sound,” muttered Rhys, peering towards the privy door. “It sounds like it’s thinking.”
“It’s just the pipes settling,” said Reggie, crossing his fingers under the table. “I remember an incident in Poona…”
“I accept that my knowledge of Western plumbing leaves much to be desired,” interrupted Tenzin, “but I don’t think pipes settle by growling.”
Suddenly, a screech tore through the privy wall, followed by a clatter and a splash. The temperature in the room plummeted. Father Stamage’s ghostly voice yelled, “Unclean! UNCL – ” before cutting off with a shriek. Lady Margaret’s form came sprinting backwards through the corridor, arms flailing, head rolling like a football at her feet.
Philomena, grasping her trusty mop like a knight with a lance, edged toward the door.
“Someone ought to check on the lav,” she declared, with the air of one who really hoped that it wouldn’t have to be her.
Reggie made a feeble gesture that might have been a volunteering hand, or, more likely, an attempt to bat away the rising scent of elderly plumbing.
Before anyone could decide who had seniority in a lavatory-centric emergency, the privy door burst open and slammed against the wall, shedding flakes of peeling paint and something that looked suspiciously like ectoplasm.
“Something has come up the soil pipe,” wailed Tenzin, as if that somehow made things better.
The thing that emerged was wet. It was pale. It was impossibly long, like a sock full of nightmares, and smelt like the inside of a fisherman’s boot. A dead fisherman’s boot. It had too many eyes, none of which agreed on which way to look. A long filamentous tongue flicked out, tasting the air, and then…
It lunged, hissing wetly as it launched itself across the room.
“Not in my inn, you don’t,” yelled Philomena, swinging her mop like a cricket bat, and thwacking the creature in what was quite possibly one of its stomachs. The thing squealed, with all the mellifluousness of a deflating accordion, and recoiled. But then it surged forward again, wrapping around a coat stand and dragging it into the wall with a splintering crash.
Reggie looked around unsuccessfully for his sword stick. Bereft of his weapon of choice, and his military training temporarily forgotten, he executed a perfect vertical take-off, which not only belied his years, but deposited him up on to the bar.
Tenzin, meanwhile, emitted a falsetto scream that might have been impressive under other circumstances, and began chanting something ancient, arcane and possibly illegal south of the Himalayas.
To no one’s surprise, the Thing kept coming
“Rhys, the bucket,” yelled Philomena, urgently.
With a skill honed over a decade of servicing the privies and cesspools of Hopeless, Rhys sent the full bucket skimming across the floor without a drop of liquid splashing out. Deftly hooking her mop under its handle, Philomena flicked the bucket into the creature’s snout, simultaneously stunning and soaking it through.
Ignoring this quite touching example of marital harmony, the beast shook its disgusting head, and lurched forward again.
Suddenly the pandemonium reached new heights when an extra layer of noise, reminiscent of a bag of fish knives being hurled from a trebuchet, was added by Drury, the skeletal dog of indeterminate breed and indomitable enthusiasm. The old hound hurled himself into the fray at chaotic speed, and with a delighted rattle, leapt upon the strange creature.
There followed a squelching, thudding, yelping melee. For a brief moment the beast tried to escape up the chimney, but Drury followed, managing to ascend to a surprising height before crashing down in a cloud of soot and slime, having seized the monster by what might have been its tail or possibly its uvula.
“To the privy,” commanded Reggie from his vantage point on the bar, all of the old spirit of command coming back to him.
Drury happily obliged, dragging his prey through the privy door. The monster howled in annoyance, making a sound not unlike that of bagpipes being played under water. Badly.
Inch by precious inch Drury wrestled it down the pan, and back into the depths from whence it had come. Joining into the spirit of cooperation, the toilet obligingly flushed itself with a final gurgle of exhausted triumph.
Silence fell. Father Stamage had already retreated into the safety of his hat and Lady Margaret had disappeared into the privy’s stonework.
Philomena patted Drury’s boney old skull. “You deserve a biscuit for that little demonstration, old friend.”
Drury wagged his entire bony backside. The biscuit would rattle around his ribcage for a bit, and eventually drop to the floor, but the thought was there.
“Well,” said Reggie, still standing on the bar. “I suggest we use the outside privy until further notice.”
Everyone agreed. Even Tenzin, who generally preferred the warmth and luxury afforded by indoor plumbing.
For the rest of that week, whenever the privy gurgled suspiciously, a skeletal hound could be found dozing nearby. He was dreaming of adventures, and the possibility of sparring with whatever nightmares the waste pipe might next regurgitate.