Winston Oldspot was feeling decidedly unsettled. He had been Hopeless Maine’s Night-Soil Man for almost two years, and had carried out each of his tasks conscientiously, putting into practice the skills taught him by his predecessor, Rhys Cranham. During this time Winston had encountered just about every horror the island could throw at him and, thanks to the all-pervading stench that was both the blessing and the curse of his profession, they all avoided coming within a dozen yards of where he stood. In fact, the only one who could tolerate his company, besides the skeletal hound Drury, was Reggie Upton, the ex-army officer who had contracted chronic anosmia while soldiering in India, years earlier. 

And then, one night, she had appeared. 

At first Winston thought he was seeing an apparition. It was not an unreasonable assumption. After all, she had been wandering around the island in the middle of the night, her white coat flapping around her calves like supernatural semaphore; what was he supposed to think? And then, without warning, she breezed up to him, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do on a dark and fog-swept headland, and introduced herself.

“Good evening, handsome,” she breathed. “You must be the dashing young Night-Soil Man whom I have heard so much about. I am Doctor Pyralia Skant, but you, dear boy, can call me… anytime.” 

She didn’t seem to notice the smell. 

Winston’s eighteen years, spent in the soul-stifling shelter of the orphanage, followed by the cloistered austerity of the Night-Soil Man’s cottage, had not prepared him for this. He tried to reply, but realised that although his mouth was working, no sound was coming out. 

“You must drop into the lighthouse for coffee – or maybe a glass of absinthe – some time,” said Dr Skant conversationally, apparently oblivious to Winston’s awkwardness. “But sadly, not tonight dear, I’ve got a thousand things to do.” 

Dr Skant paused, as if mentally checking her diary, on the off chance that she had made a mistake. “Ah well,” she said at last. “It can’t be helped. It was absolutely delightful to meet you, darling.”

She flashed him a dazzling smile, blew a kiss, and swept off into the night. 

When I mentioned that Winston was unsettled, it was a definite understatement. Slightly inconvenient weather is unsettled. This was a tropical storm.

“Come on Oldspot, get a grip,” he muttered to himself, “She must be almost old enough to be your mother.”

Somewhere, out of sight and nebulous as the sea-fog that surrounded her, a woman in a white lab coat grinned, and the Hopeless night missed a beat.

If only he knew the truth…

The next time that the Night-Soil Man saw Pyralia Skant was about a week later, not far from The Squid and Teapot. She seemed to be talking to someone. Winston couldn’t see who it was. Not wishing to have to suffer the embarrassment of another encounter, he stood some distance off, in the shadow of the inn. 

It was midnight. On Hopeless, the real conversations seem to always crawl out at that hour, half-slicked in sea-mist and black sand. 

Doctor Skant and Granny Bucket were facing off on the cliff path behind The Squid, and the moon was peeping through the curtains of mist like a gossip, too fascinated to blink.

Granny stood planted in the salt-bitten grass, arms folded, hair like a bale of frostbitten twine. She narrowed her ghost-glow eyes to slits and threw Pyralia Skant the sort of stare that could sour milk.

“You think you’re the cleverest creature to ever cross this godforsaken island,” she snapped. “But I’ve seen what you are. You’re not a goddess; not a devil either. You’re not even a bloody trickster.”

Granny leant forward, practically spitting spectral vinegar.

“You’re unnatural. You’re the worm in the apple pretending to be the bloom. You’re… you’re the damned Unmaking.”

There was a pause.

Doctor Skant lifted one sardonic eyebrow, and then the other. Slowly, a smile curved along her wine-dark lips like a wave.

“Oh, darling,” she purred, stepping forward, so that the fog curled around her ankles like worshipful cats. “You finally get it.”

She took one gloved finger, tapped it once against Granny’s translucent chest. “I was beginning to think you’d never name it. You’ve been haunting your bloodline for so long, you’ve forgotten what the fresh air of reality tastes like.”

Granny flinched. It was not from the touch, but from something else. Recognition? Regret? An old story trying to wake up?

Skant’s grin sharpened.

“The Unmaking. That’s what you’re calling me? How delightfully quaint.” She twirled once on the spot, arms out like a ballerina on the gallows. “Does it frighten you, dear? That I came not to destroy, but to undo the lie?”

Granny snarled, her teeth suddenly bared, long and a little too white. “You’ll tear this place in half.”

“Good,” Skant whispered. They were nose-to-nose. “Because it was never sewn together properly in the first place.”

From his vantage point in the trees, Winston watched, frozen to the spot. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but felt the wind shudder through the grass. Drury howled in the distance, and something vast and aquatic rolled over, somewhere out in the depths of the ocean.

Granny, unsubstantial as the mist and twice as cold, leant in close. Her voice dropped, soft as venom on velvet.

“But if you’re the Unmaking…”

Pyralia Skant leaned in closer, her lips at Granny’s ghostly ear.

“I am. And I wear it like silk.”

And with that she stepped back, turned, and to Winston’s horror, she winked at him. Then Pyralia Skant vanished into the fog. It wasn’t a teleport, nor a fade. She just went, as though she had never been. Or worse, as though she’s still there, just on the other side of your eyelids.

The ghost of Granny Bucket stood alone and trembling. Even the wind refused to comfort her.

Back in the comfort and safety of The Squid and Teapot, Philomena stirred in her sleep.

And somewhere, out there in the infinite darkness, something laughed in the ink between the stars.

---

Author’s note: For those of you who might be keen to put a face to Dr Skant, you could do worse than think of the actress Lana Parrilla. The resemblance between the two is uncanny – and probably quite deliberate.