It was a blustery morning on Hopeless, the sort of day when even the fog seemed to be having second thoughts about hanging around. It wasn’t the wind, however, that rattled the windows of The Squid and Teapot; it was Pyralia Skant throwing open the inn’s heavy front door in what can only be described as a theatrical manner. She was returning from her morning inspection of the island, which mainly entailed checking to see if Screaming Point had decided to move away from under the lighthouse which, until recently, she had called home. As always, Pyralia’s familiar white lab coat flapped around her calves like an impatient flag, and her stilettos made a sound not unlike that made by a petulant woodpecker as she crossed the floorboards.

Philomena Bucket, behind the bar, raised a polite eyebrow. She had long since grown used to the curious wardrobe choices of her fellow islanders, but there are limits to what even the most hospitable woman can watch without comment.

“Pyralia,” she said, with the gentle firmness one reserves for people about to do something inadvisable with a ferret and a pair of trousers. “Why do you always wear that lab coat?”

Pyralia blinked, slightly taken aback, as though being asked why she continued breathing. “Because,” she said, in her clipped, methodical way, “I am a scientist. One must always look the part.”

Philomena’s gaze slid downwards to the black patent stilettos, which were utterly inappropriate for the island’s terrain. 

“You do know,” she began in that mild, lethal tone familiar to anyone who’s ever crossed Philomena Bucket, “that you are the only person in living or dead memory who wears stiletto heels on Hopeless?”

Pyralia straightened, as if preparing to defend the honour of the entire footwear industry. “I like stilettos,” she declared. “They are elegant. They say, ‘I am a woman of precision and pointy things.’”

Drury the skeletal hound, lying under a table, gave a small clack of bone against the floorboards that could have been a canine chuckle.

Philomena leaned on the counter, the way wise women do when preparing to drop a conversational anvil. “Well, my dear, if you truly intend to unmake Hopeless,” she made a vague gesture at the ceiling, as if Hopeless might be listening in, “then perhaps you might start by changing your own style.”

“Style?” Pyralia repeated, as though it were an obscure form of quantum physics.

“It’s like this,” said Philomena, with the particular relish of a woman about to deliver devastating common sense, “you can’t possibly expect Hopeless to take orders from someone wearing spiky shoes. I long ago discovered that the island responds to symbolic magic. Fog respects boots. Mud respects wellies. Screaming Point fears only the quiet tread of knitted wool. If you want to change the outside, then sometimes the inside – or at least the wardrobe – must shift too.”

Pyralia frowned. “I don’t do symbolic magic. I do experiments.”

Philomena gave her a knowing smile. “And yet you have worked wonders in improving The Squid’s dinner menu without making any apparent effort. That’s magical enough for me.”

This, Pyralia had to admit, was difficult to argue with.

The following day, the regulars of The Squid and Teapot bore silent, reverent witness to a vision none would ever forget.

Pyralia Skant, architect of reality’s unraveling, was wearing a chunky wool cardigan the colour of overcooked peas, and a pair of practical rubber wellington boots. Her lab coat, however, remained. It hung defiantly open at the front, daring anyone to question its authority. 

She clomped determinedly through the mud, every step squelching with the tragic dignity of a woman betrayed by her footwear.

“Very good,” Philomena called approvingly from the steps. “The island likes a bit of sincerity. You’ll have it eating out of your hand in no time.”

Drury, trotting happily beside Pyralia, gave a small wag of his tailbone.

“I feel ridiculous,” Pyralia muttered.

“That’s how you know it’s working,” Philomena replied.

And, as if to prove her point, a patch of the omnipresent fog shuddered slightly. It was just the smallest of ripples, as though the island itself was having a think.

Later that evening, Pyralia came back inside with her boots covered in sludge. She was wearing a faintly triumphant expression. “Something has moved,” she announced.

Philomena smiled serenely and poured her a cup of tea. “I told you so. Never underestimate the power of sensible shoes.”

And so, the atemporal Pyralia Skant, scientist, reality-tinkerer, enthusiast of both lab coats and stilettos, had learned a valuable lesson: sometimes, in order to change the world, you must first change yourself.

Drury, for his part, approved heartily of the new look. The boots were far easier to chew.