When you wake up, your aunty is all around you. When you went to sleep you thought that you had only one aunty, but now there seem to be a lot of her.
You may be feverish. You feel very cold – but it is normal to feel cold so this clarifies nothing.
You’ve heard that there are tiny magical creatures who some people call aunties. You do not think your aunty is a small magical creature but also you have no idea what would happen if an aunty gets inside an aunty.
“This is all perfectly normal” she tells you, and all of her mouths move at slightly different times.
This makes you wonder how many heads you have, and how many mouths, and whether you have woken up with the same number of eyes you had when going to sleep.
“It’s just a nightmare,” one of her mouths says.
You have the feeling she is lying to you.
“When you wake up it will all have been a dream.”
You do not want to go back to sleep, because you have no idea what will have been a dream. This vision? Your life? Everything you have known? If you go to sleep you might wake up into something even worse than this.
“You are just a bone remembering when you had flesh,” she says. “Go back to sleep.”
If this is the only life left to you then you do not want to give it up.
“You are just driftwood and dry seaweed imagining that you are a person, and having a nightmare,” she says, oh so sweetly.
You are drifting now, sliding gently towards oblivion with no confidence that there is anything in you capable of ever waking up again.
Reggie Upton picked up the fallen candle-lantern, which by some miracle had stayed alight, and looked down at the prone form of Doc Willoughby, sprawled in the mud. The last thing that the Doc had said to him was, “I think I’m dying,” and, to all intents and purposes, had proceeded to do exactly that.
“Surely not,” thought Reggie.
To the accompaniment of a series of grunts, wheezes and winces, he managed to drop to his knees and, dredging up some dimly recalled instructions barked out by Surgeon-Major Shepherd, of the Royal Herbert Military Hospital in Woolwich, he rested three fingers just below the fallen physician’s jawbone to check for a pulse. The tiny flutter of life that he felt was not encouraging, but at least it proved that the Doc was still in full receipt of his mortal coil, though only just.
“How the devil am I going to get him any help?” Reggie muttered to himself. It was long past midnight, and the mean streets of Hopeless, Maine were dark and deserted. Only one lonely light glimmered some distance away from, what might be laughingly referred to as, the island’s main thoroughfare.
Reggie groaned inwardly.
To say that Durosimi O’Stoat was somewhat annoyed by the rapping on his front door would be an egregious understatement. While I have no idea what he might have been up to at such a late hour, it is safe to assume that it was unlikely to include any plans designed to benefit his fellow islanders. Finding Reggie Upton standing upon his doorstep did nothing to improve his mood.
“What?” he barked, with a ferocity that made the veteran of the Siege of Ladysmith quake in his boots.
“It’s Willoughby,” said Reggie, who went on to give a brief account of his meeting with the Doc, and all that followed.
“Blast the man,” growled Durosimi, dragging on an overcoat. “We’d better get him inside before something eats him, I suppose.”
Luckily, Doc Willoughby had been considered decidedly indigestible by any predator who may have been passing, and remained, as far as could be ascertained, totally intact.
“Why is it,” puffed Durosimi, “that the only corpulent man on the island decides to play dead in the middle of the night?”
He and Reggie had taken an arm and a leg each, and were carrying the Doc up the hill to Durosimi’s house.
“He’s certainly no lightweight,” conceded Reggie, ‘but we’re nearly there old chap. Chin up, and all that.”
It was fortunate that the darkness concealed Durosimi’s scowl. No one had before said – or even dared to contemplate saying – ‘Chin up’ to the sorcerer, much less referring to him as an ‘Old Chap.’
Doc lay on a vast leather sofa that took up most of one wall of Durosimi’s parlour.
“It’s beyond me,” admitted Durosimi, scratching his head. “The answer might be in some grimoire or other, but to be honest, healing is really not my forte.”
“No, I can imagine,” thought Reggie, but wisely decided not to say it aloud.
“I could go and fetch Philomena,” he suggested. “She’ll still be up. It was James Weaselgrease’s birthday bash in The Squid and Teapot last night, so you can guarantee that there’ll be plenty of mess to be cleared up.”
“Very well,” said Durosimi, resignedly, seeing all hope of completing his night’s work rapidly disappearing.
In less than half-an-hour Philomena was in the parlour and looking down at Doc with concern. She had never liked the man very much, but she had never wished him harm… Well, not real harm, anyway.
“It is as though his spirit has left him,” she declared, after a cursory examination of the Doc’s aura.
“Are you sure?” queried Durosimi. “The only spirit I associate with that man is my whisky, which he seems rather too fond of.”
“He’s not drunk… for once,” said Philomena. “Something is very amiss, though. I fear that it’s beyond my ability to cure him.”
Durosimi looked thoughtful.
“We could ask Mr Squash to take him to the monastery where I stayed,” he said. “If anyone can work miracles, those monks can.”
Philomena looked at him approvingly. Since his couple of weeks recuperating in Tibet he seemed to be a changed man. He was still as dangerous as a viper, but somehow more human than he allowed people to believe.
“Mr Squash looked in at young Weaselgrease’s party earlier on,” she said.
‘Looked in’ just about summed it up. There would have been little enough room for Mr Squash’s bulk in the bar last night.
“I’ll go and see if I can find him,” said Reggie. “I know all of his usual haunts.”
Mr Squash scratched his enormous head and regarded Durosimi with puzzlement.
“What makes you think that the monks would be able to cure him?” he asked.
“They know things that I can only dream of,” said Durosimi. “If they can’t do it, no one can.”
Philomena looked at him in astonishment; for once in his life Durosimi was actually showing some humility.
“He’s very weak; the journey there could kill him,” warned the Sasquatch. “Remember how it affected you?”
“Oh, I remember well enough,” said Durosimi, wincing at the memory. “The thing is, if he doesn’t go to the monastery, to my mind he’s as good as dead anyway.”
Philomena nodded her head, then felt shocked that she was actually agreeing with Durosimi. The day was still only a few hours old, and it was becoming weirder by the minute already.
“Very well,” said Mr Squash, “but someone should stay with him; I refuse to leave him there alone. You know what he can be like. He could try the patience of a saint, and while those monks might be religious, believe me, they’re not saints.”
“I don’t mind travelling back,” said Durosimi. “Going through your portal last time nearly killed me, but it was worth it. I would relish the opportunity to visit Tibet again.”
I am fairly confident that Winston Oldspot (Hopeless, Maine’s latest Night-Soil Man) is not at all familiar with the adjective ‘miffed’. There is really no reason why he should be, having been raised in an orphanage where miffiness was definitely not tolerated. So, when he perched on a kitchen chair and dragged his boots on in sullen silence, he had no notion that the reason for the dark swampy gloop which had consumed his usually sunny disposition could be expressed very succinctly; he was miffed.
Winston did not dislike children; after all, he had been one himself not so long ago. However, the infant who had so recently arrived at The Squid and Teapot – what was her name? Catbrain? – seemed to have caused nothing less than a bout of insanity. In fairness he could understand Philomena and Rhys being quite fond of their adopted daughter, but Reggie? Really? And that’s even before you mention Drury! What had gotten into them? It was all beyond Winston’s understanding.
A little probing might reveal that the general climate of unconditional love for Caitlin (who most definitely has never been known as Catbrain) was not the real cause of Winston’s current feeling of discontent. It was purely the fact that her self-appointed fan-club of Grandpa Reggie and Uncle Drury seemed to have suddenly forgotten that Winston had ever existed. Ever since Rhys Cranham made the decision to retire from his post, and ceremoniously pass on the lidded-bucket and long-handled shovel to his apprentice, the two had made a point of accompanying Winston on his nightly rounds. Tonight, for the first time ever, neither of them had turned up. Even Mr Squash seemed to have forsaken him, although Winston could not imagine the great hairy bulk of the sasquatch simpering over some toddler.
Winston looked out into the misty, moonless night and hoisted the lidded-bucket on to his shoulders. A Night-Soil Man has to do what a Night-Soil Man has to do, and the cess-pools, midden-closets and privies of Hopeless would not empty themselves.
The self-styled hermit, Neville Moore, has always made a practice of lighting several lanterns around his property whenever he knows that the Night-Soil Man is due to arrive. This is a wise decision, given that the somewhat odd and ancient building in Ghastly Green, which more resembles a mausoleum than a house, has more than its fair share of obstacles to negotiate. Not least of these is Neville’s decrepit pet raven, Lenore, who always appears seemingly out of nowhere to warn the hermit of the presence of intruders; this she does by calling his name. Many a visitor has been shaken to the core by this sudden black apparition, terrifyingly bursting from the night’s Plutonian shore and loudly cawing, “Neville Moore”.
“Good evening Winston,” called Neville from his doorway, several yards safely upwind of the Night-Soil Man.
Winston, drenched in the light of the lanterns, waved feebly at the hermit.
“Hello Mr Moore,” he said, gloomily.
“Are you alright, my friend?” asked Neville, concernedly. “You sound a trifle miffed.”
Winston didn’t like ro admit that he had no idea what that meant, so he changed the subject.
“What are you up to at this time of night, Mr Moore? It must be nearly midnight.”
“Oh, not much,” said Neville. “I’ve been pondering over a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore that Philomena found in the attics of The Squid. Reggie dropped it off this afternoon. Only that, and nothing more.”
Winston nodded, and wandered off to the end of the garden, where Neville’s ornate privy awaited his attention.
“So Reggie can drag himself away from that brat long enough to run errands for Philomena, but isn’t able to come out with me,” thought Winston, bitterly.
Of course, had the Night-Soil Man been thinking straight, it might have occurred to him that Reggie and Drury, devoted as they were to little Caitlin, would be unlikely to be cooing and fussing over the girl in the middle of the night.
Drury was not cooing, fussing or indeed moving much at all. Instead he was sound asleep at the foot of Caitlin’s bed, having tired both of them out by playing with her all day.
Reggie was happy to let his friend sleep. He pulled on a stout pair of boots before setting off alone from The Squid and Teapot, having allowed himself plenty of time to get to The House at Poo Corner before Winston would be ready to start his shift. You may recall that the old soldier had lost his sense of smell many years previously while serving in the British army. Almost uniquely, on Hopeless, this gave him the ability to tolerate the company of the Night-Soil Man without gagging or passing out.
It was rare to meet anyone walking on the island after dark, so Reggie was surprised when a figure, carrying a small candle lantern, emerged from the shadows.
“Upton? Is that you?”
Reggie recognised the voice of Doc Willoughby. He did not trust the Doc, but the man was no physical threat, Nevertheless it was as well to be on his guard. He felt the reassuring weight of his trusty sword-stick in his hand, and said,
“Ah, Willoughby. Good evening.”
The Doc drew nearer, and the look on his face, illuminated by the amber light of the candle-lantern, told Reggie that all was not well.
“Upton… Reginald… I need your help,” he said, with a tremor in his voice.
“Whatever is the matter, old chap?”
“I think I’m dying,” said the Doc, and promptly fell face-first onto the muddy ground.
For the first time in living memory, the walls of The Squid and Teapot echoed with a child’s laughter. It had been no more than a fortnight since the small, pallid toddler had arrived on the island of Hopeless, Maine, but Philomena Bucket could no longer imagine life without her.
It had not been easy during those first few days. The girl’s limited vocabulary had been unintelligible; whatever language she had been raised in, it certainly was not English. There were, however, tiny glimmers of similarity here and there, and the meanings of a few words became dimly recognizable.
Small children, however, are quick to learn, and two weeks is a long time when you are only two years old. Her new name, new parents and the strangeness of Hopeless swiftly seemed commonplace to little Caitlin. The ghosts who haunted the privy became her friends, and the weird bony creature who slept in the snuggery was just another friendly dog – a funny looking one, admittedly, but a dog nonetheless. ‘Cu’, she called him, much to Drury’s puzzlement, but he doted upon her, as did all who came into the inn. Caitlin was the absolute darling of The Squid and Teapot.
Reggie Upton had never envisioned himself as being fashioned from the sort of material from which grandfathers are made, but Caitlin had other ideas. Within hours of her being conscious of her surroundings, she leaned out from Philomena’s arms towards Reggie and exclaimed “Gruac” as she tugged at his hair with joyful enthusiasm.
“Did you hear that?” he said, delightedly. “She called me grandpa.”
“Then you had better teach her to say it properly,” said Philomena, unconvinced, but happy that there was a bond so early on between them.
This voyage had not been the easiest. Maybe it was because they were nearing the edge of the world that violent tempests had blighted their daily progress. Or was it that Leif had forsaken the gods? He was supposed to be a Christian these days, but he was thousands of miles away from his home shores, and the Old Ones seemed more relevant here than some gentle messiah of the desert lands. Ægir, and his consort Rán ruled this realm, and if Leif and his crew wanted safe passage, they would demand a sacrifice.
The Norsemen had taken a dozen slaves when they last made landfall. These had proved to be a poor lot, a ragged knot of half-starved peasants, but all that the raid had to offer. Now they were a burden, taking up cargo space and consuming precious victuals. Their oblation would be no great loss, but would make a fine gift to Ægir and the ever-capricious Rán.
In virtual silence the slaves went to their deaths almost willingly. It was only broken by the young woman clutching her child. She fought back, screaming with rage when they tried to throw her into the icy, unforgiving ocean. Leif felt a sudden pang of humanity, and he prised the tiny youngster from her mother’s arms.
“She will be safe with me,” he said, but the hatred and anger blazing in the woman’s eyes as she toppled overboard would haunt him for the rest of his days.
It might be thought that the sea-gods would have been sated by the deaths of so many innocents, but it seemed not. Nothing improved for days. Perhaps it was the knowledge that one diminutive captive still survived that tormented them. Leif knew what he had to do, but his promise to the child’s mother made it impossible for him to simply cast the girl into the ocean. Instead he drugged her, and set her adrift in a small rowing boat for the gods to play with as they saw fit.
As I have mentioned on several previous occasions, the island of Hopeless, Maine enjoys a complicated relationship with time and space. It draws in those whom it chooses to grace its shores from wherever and whenever it pleases. Reggie Upton, now a man in his sixties, was once a Victorian soldier, while Philomena Bucket, barely thirty years old, was born around the same time as Reggie’s grandmother. Philomena would probably be surprised, and not a little amused, to learn that her adopted daughter, Caitlin, came into this world a thousand years ago. As for Leif Erikson, he was never destined to visit Hopeless. Instead, it is believed that he was the first European to set foot on continental America when his longship, tossed by storms, eventually made landfall on the shores of Newfoundland. That, however, is another tale, and will be forever celebrated in the Icelandic Vinland Sagas.
“I cannot, for the life of me, understand why she was alone in that boat.”
Reggie Upton stood at the open door of The Squid and Teapot and stared pensively out into the unremitting fog of, what was meant to be, a summer’s afternoon.
“I think I can,” said Philomena, “and it’s too horrible to contemplate.”
She looked down fondly at the exhausted infant sleeping in her arms. It had been no more than two hours since the girl had been found beneath an upturned boat on the beach, but already Philomena’s maternal instincts were marshalling their forces, and preparing to wreak a terrible fate on anyone or anything unwise enough to think of harming the child.
“When I left Ireland,” she said, “it was as a stowaway upon a small merchant ship. Not surprisingly, they found me in no time, but the captain was a kindly man. He agreed that I could stay wherever it was that I’d been hiding on board, until they made landfall. He made sure that I was given food, and protected me from the crew, who would have happily thrown me overboard. For a while things were fine – then, about three weeks into the voyage, there was a series of disasters, the worst of which was the captain having a heart attack and dying. Of course, with my protector gone I stood no chance. The mate blamed me for all of their misfortunes – he called me an Albino Witch.”
For the first time, during the telling of her tale, Philomena smiled.
“That was ironic. Neither of us knew exactly how accurate that description was. Anyway, to cut a long story short, before the crew had a chance to get rid of me, they all died and I didn’t.”
“But what has that to do with the child?” asked Reggie.
“Albinos are viewed by many as being bringers of bad luck,” explained Philomena. “And there are few people more superstitious than sailors. Draw your own conclusions.”
“That is dreadful,” said Reggie, his face flushing with anger.
“The main thing is that she is safe now; no one is going to harm a single albino hair of her head,” said Philomena.
“If it’s any consolation,” said Reggie, “neither you nor the child could possibly be called truly albino.”
Philomena raised a pale eyebrow.
“In my opinion,” Reggie went on, “you are both subject to a condition known as leucism.”
“Is that bad?” asked Philomena, worriedly.
Reggie smiled. “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “It simply means that you have a partial loss of pigmentation, resulting in your very pale skin and hair colour. It is perhaps more common in the animal world.”
Upon seeing Philomena’s frown, he placed an avuncular hand upon her shoulder. “My dear young lady,” he said, “I have seen white lions in Africa and a white tiger in India, and I can assure you that they are stunningly beautiful creatures.”
The slightest suspicion of a soft pink glow crept into Philomena’s cheeks. “Thank you, Reggie,” she said.
Despite Philomena’s objections, Rhys had insisted on fetching Doc Willoughby.
“There’s nothing wrong with this child that a few hours sleep and some parental discipline won’t sort out,” Willoughby declared. “Who does it belong to?”
“SHE,” said Philomena pointedly, “belongs to us.”
“Oh! Yes indeed,” said the Doc. “I can see the family resemblance now.” He stood up, and looked about the room expectantly.
“Thank you Doc,” said Rhys, handing him a bottle of the Gannicox Distillery’s finest. “Hopefully this will…”
“Yes, yes…” said Willoughby, who grabbed the bottle and blustered out.
Philomena shot her husband a look that needed no words; nevertheless she saw fit to supply some. “Well, that was a monumental waste of time, not to mention the bottle of booze,” she said. “I told you, I didn’t want that quack anywhere near our daughter.”
“But she’s not really…”
“Oh, but she is now, Rhys. She most definitely is now, and nothing is going to change that.”
He flopped into the chair next to Reggie, who had been keeping an uncharacteristically tactful silence throughout the proceedings.
“Then there is one thing we have to stop doing straightaway,” Rhys said.
Philomena gave him a questioning look.
“What’s that?”
“We have to stop calling her ‘the child’ and give the poor girl a name.”
“She probably already has a name,” said Reggie, not unreasonably.
“I agree with Rhys,” said Philomena. “The less she remembers of her past the better, and a new name for her new life will help.”
According to the poet T.S. Eliot, it is necessary for a cat to have three distinct names. Fortunately, there is no such stipulation regarding the naming of humans (although, I must admit to being the not particularly proud possessor of three names myself).
Throughout that afternoon and into the evening Philomena and Rhys spent many hours trying to find the perfect name for the child who had been delivered to them by the sea.
“Might I suggest one?” ventured Reggie, having demolished several tankards of Old Colonel.
“Of course,” said Philomena. “You are part of our family.”
Reggie beamed. “Well… the name I’m thinking of actually means ‘Gift from the Sea.”
“Oh, that sounds perfect,” said Rhys. “What is it?”
“Doris” said Reggie.
Rhys and Philomena looked at each other, hardly knowing how to respond.
“Doris?” was all Philomena could say through clenched teeth.
“It was my grandmother’s name,” said Reggie, by way of explanation.
“Well it’s not going to be my daughter’s name,” thought Philomena to herself.
“We’ll think about that one,” said Rhys,
It was Granny Bucket who came to the rescue. Philomena guessed that as soon as rumour of their new arrival reached Granny’s ghostly ears, nothing in this world or the next could prevent her ancestor from homing in on The Squid and Teapot.
“You haven’t given the child a name yet?” said Granny, aghast.
“We just can’t agree on one.”
“You could name her after me,” said Granny.
“Don’t be silly,” said Rhys. “We can’t call her Granny.”
“I do possess a name, you know,” replied the ancestral ghost, coldly.
“It never occurred to me that you might have a name,” said Philomena. “You’ve always been just Granny to me.”
“Just Granny?”
“Oh, you know what I mean. Come on then… out with it.”
“It’s Caitlin,” said Granny. “And it means ‘Pure’. “
Reggie suddenly had a fit of coughing as he choked on his beer.
“I like Caitlin,” said Philomena, thumping Reggie on the back.
Rhys agreed.
Granny looked on approvingly as the proud parents and Reggie toasted the health of little Caitlin.
“Well, at least let me take a look at my great-granddaughter,” said Granny.
“She’s in bed – please don’t wake her,” said Philomena.
“Thank you for naming her,” said Philomena later. “Caitlin is a lovely name.”
“Better than Philomena.” said Granny. “You’ve got your father to thank for that. I’ve never liked it.”
“Neither have I,” admitted Philomena, “but I’m stuck with it…”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t the name I wanted you to have,” said Granny, ruefully.
She paused, probably for maximum effect, then said,
“I wanted them to call you Doris.”
Author’s Note: The full account of Philomena’s voyage from Ireland can be found in the tale “Philomena Bucket.”
Most magic users on the island of Hopeless, Maine, generally practice privately, quietly. This is either because of the public disapproval of magic*, which ranges from malicious tutting to firebrands and pitchforks, or because they have evil intent and wish to be away from prying eyes. Many just want to keep their magical knowledge to themselves and do not want to share it. Good witches don’t want to enable clumsy, unprofessional amateurs who might accidentally cause harm, and evil demons fear a powerful rival might emerge if they share too much.
*Incidentally, public disapproval of magic only extends to public discussion; privately, most islanders will happily turn to magic at the first opportunity if they think it will better their position.
But there will always be one, or two, or perhaps a few whose pursuit of fame will outweigh all these considerations. There are always individuals who will shout from the rooftops their achievements given the opportunity. There are always those who crave the stage, who are addicted to performance and the adulation of their fans.
Malcolm the Mighty actually didn’t have many fans, but he strived for fame nonetheless. And I am almost ashamed to say this, as it is such a storytelling cliché, but… there was a girl… Sheena. She was, perhaps, not the brightest of girls; she hung out with someone called Malcolm the Mighty for a start, but she was pretty and fairly harmless. Malcolm was besotted with her (although neither of them would have understood what the word meant).
Unfortunately for Malcolm, there was a rival, Percy the Powerful. Percy was a slick, silver-tongued boy who, although far from powerful, had caught Sheena’s attention with his good looks, his flowery prose and his large wand.
When I said that Percy was not powerful, that was probably an understatement; the truth was that neither of these wizard wannabes had much magical talent at all. Percy had found a book of magic tricks and the associated props amongst his father’s old belongings; these were parlour amusements no more. But Sheena was impressed with the way he produced flowers from a hat, ‘magically’ unknotted two ropes, and turned water into confetti.
Malcolm, however, was at least the real deal. He was distantly related in some way to a famous witch and was born with a small amount of innate magic, which he had yet to master or even awaken.
Then, one day, things changed. He was in the right place at the right time. An elderly witch fell into a river and was knocked unconscious just as Malcolm was passing, and he dove in and rescued her. In return, she gave him one wish. She told him to think about it carefully and not to think of anything stupid. So he asked for magic beans and… no… wait… that’s not this story, is it? No. Wishes are so lazy. No, what actually happened is that the witch recognised the latent magic in Malcolm and gave him a slight boost, the ability to perform one spell, and only one spell, as many times as he liked. And it would only work if he caused no harm to anyone with it. She asked Malcolm what spell he would like.
Malcolm thought about this for a few seconds: “I have always wanted a flying horse! If I could fly on my horse and pick up Sheena, she was sure to be impressed!”
The Witch gave a snort. “You’ve barely enough talent in you to create a flying ant, young boy. And they can already fly!” She considered him, he seemed like a good lad, and he had just saved her life. “You are lucky I am a powerful witch. I cannot give you a flying horse spell; you do not have the power, but the ability to make another animal fly; I can give you.” And she did, along with a contract to sign, which included a long list of provisos, wherefores, legal clauses and a whole section absolving her of any responsibility for pretty much everything. Malcolm happily signed it. Now he would show that charlatan Percy!
For weeks, Malcolm practised the spell. He started with mice and found that after a little practice, he could make them rise a few inches in the air. Sadly, they did not sprout wings; they just rose up for a few seconds, then fell, and at that point, he would catch them.
After a while, he moved on to bigger creatures. He once levitated a spoonwalker, which was so shocked that it dropped all its spoons on the floor. Malcolm laughed at this, and the spoonwalker fell to the floor. It was unharmed, but it silently gathered up its spoons and left as quickly as it could, clearly grumpy and annoyed.
All the while, Malcolm searched for a horse, but there were none to be found. Not to be deterred, Malcolm searched for other animals that might, at a pinch, serve as a worthy steed for a mighty magician such as himself. Oh, and carry Sheena, too, of course.
Finally, he was ready. He decided the best time to cast the spell would be at dawn, nice and early, to save any public interference. And he had picked a quiet spot round the back of a slate-roofed cottage. There was no smoke issuing forth from the chimneys, so he had assumed that no one was home. As the object of the exercise was to impress Sheena and humiliate Percy, he invited them to see the spectacular feat. He felt strong, he felt magical, he felt… mighty. However, what he actually was, was overconfident.
When Percy and Sheena turned up, they could not believe their eyes. Malcolm had underestimated the comic effect of his set-up. Both Percy and Sheena burst out laughing, for there was Malcolm, sitting on a donkey.
Malcolm went red. Did they not understand how important this was? This was his moment. He waited until they had finished laughing. This took quite a while, as when one stopped, the other’s laughter would set them off again.
“I am about to fly!” Announced Malcolm.
This triggered yet another round of raucous laughter. And Malcolm had to wait again for their attention.
“This is no trickery, no sleight of hand. This is MAGIC!” he announced. More laughter. There is only one thing for it, thought Malcolm, and he said the magic words that he had been given, waved his oakfir wand in his right hand, and gripped the donkey’s mane tightly in the other.
At that point, there was a whoosh, a thud, a thunk and an “Ow” – the latter being Malcom expressing discomfort at having been unseated from the donkey and falling a few feet to the ground. Nobody was quite sure what had happened; magic is not logical, and it has an unsettling effect on the brain and the senses.
“What a waste of time” Sneered Percy. “No flying donkey here!”
“No, wait,” said Sheena wondrously. Where is the donkey? Malcolm has made a donkey disappear! An entire donkey. Oh my!” She looked at Malcolm adoringly as he dusted himself off.
“Well, maybe he used some mirrors or smoke or something. That’s how it’s done, you know” (Percy had clearly never heard of the Magic Circle vow never to divulge how a trick was done.) “I’m going home.” Stated Percy. “Are you coming with me, my princess of the dawn?”
“No.” Said Sheena petulantly, just short of stamping her feet. “I’m staying with Malcolm the Mighty.”
She helped Malcolm up. Suddenly, there was a noise from the cottage, and they both heard a voice shout, “Who’s there?” They both ran away, arm in arm, laughing.
The lady of the cottage came out into her garden in her nightdress and looked up for the source of the strange and unsettling noise she had heard coming from the slates on the roof. There she saw, in the uncanny half-light of an early summer morning, in amongst the chimney pots, a donkey. A donkey. On the roof… her roof. What evil omen could this be? What dark demon had marked her out for this curse? And how the hell had the donkey gotten up there anyway? She shivered, shook herself, and rushed back inside her cottage, bolted the door, went straight back to her bed and pulled the sheets up tightly around her head.
“Ah! Good old Hopeless fog. By Jove, you cannot imagine just how much I’ve missed it.”
Reggie Upton inhaled the damp morning air with the brisk appreciation of someone contemplating exercise in an expensive Swiss health resort.
“We were gone for less than a day,” Philomena Bucket commented drily. “And it was your idea to go looking for sunshine, after all.”
“I won’t be doing that again in a hurry,” said Reggie.
Their brief sojourn in Tudor London, courtesy of Durosimi O’Stoat’s passage through the Underland, had seen Reggie being bundled into a priest-hole to avoid being burned as a heretic. All in all, the trip had been less than successful; it had, however, apparently cured him of any desire to be anywhere other than on the island of Hopeless, Maine, which he now considered to be his home.
“I must say, the London of the sixteenth century was a bit of a disappointment,” added Reggie. “All that filth and squalor! Not to mention having to make sure that one was batting for the right religion. So much for Merrie England!”
Drury, the skeletal dog, wandered in and sniffed the air, hoping that they had brought some of those interesting smells back with them. Disappointed, he shook himself noisily and settled into his favourite corner spot with a clatter.
“Don’t get too comfortable old chap,” said Reggie, “I was hoping that you might accompany me in a spot of beachcombing today.”
Always ready for an adventure, Drury leapt back up, wagging his bony tail happily.
“It will be good to be able to wander around unmolested, free to belong to any religion, or none, and blaspheme without fear or favour.”
Philomena rolled her eyes.
“He’s not going to let this go,” she thought to herself.
“Well, just make sure that Father Stamage doesn’t hear you,” she said. “If you start blaspheming in front of him, he won’t be too happy.”
“I’ll keep away from whichever bit of The Squid he’s currently haunting,” promised Reggie. “After all, I wouldn’t want to upset our resident holy ghost.”
As if to test the sincerity of Reggie’s newly-found fondness for all things fog related, the visibility along the beach that morning was down to just a few yards. The heavy mist rolling in from the sea blanketed everything, muting colours and sounds. Even the waves, relentlessly pounding the rocks, seemed quieter than usual. Reggie could not help but think that the atmosphere was decidedly eerie, even by Hopeless standards, which began to bother him a little. Drury, on the other hand, was completely unfazed, and trotted in front with his tail held high, a bone-white beacon for his companion to follow.
Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Drury failed to see the upturned boat. He clattered awkwardly over its hull, to descend on the other side into an unseemly pile of bones and festooned in seaweed.
“Dashed bad luck, old chap,” said Reggie, quietly thankful that Drury had been the one leading the way.
The osseous hound clambered to his feet and shook himself vigorously, broadcasting bits of seaweed everywhere. He then proceeded to sniff the boat.
“Have you found something, my friend,” asked Reggie, as the dog began to dig furiously in the sand.
“They have been gone an awfully long time,” said Philomena to her husband, Rhys. “The mood Reggie was in this morning could get him into trouble in some places.”
“Aren’t they beachcombing? I can’t imagine them running into difficulties doing that,” replied Rhys, “especially as Drury is with him. I don’t mind taking a stroll along the beach, though, if it would make you feel happier.”
“Let’s go together,” said Philomena, grabbing his arm. “It will be just like when we were courting.”
*
“I am jolly glad to see you two,” said Reggie as Philomena and Rhys emerged through the mist. “Drury seems convinced that there is someone or something trapped under this boat, but I am dashed if I can turn it over on my own.”
Rhys grinned. His previous role as Night-Soil Man had bestowed muscles upon him that were the envy of every young man on the island. It was the work of seconds for him to turn the boat over, and expose whatever it had been concealing.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Reggie.
The child lying on the sand was no more than two or three years old. She was still alive, but breathing shallowly.
Philomena could not take her eyes away from the girl, whose hair was long and matted, but so fair as to be almost white in colour, as was her skin.
“Albino,” she whispered to herself.
“The poor child,” said Reggie. “We must get her to the orphanage. Miss Calder will know what to do.”
“No,” said Philomena, urgently. She gave Rhys a long and lingering look.
“Can we?” she mouthed, soundlessly.
Rhys wiped an uncharacteristic tear from the corner of his eye.
“She looks enough like you to be your daughter,” he said, a tremor in his voice.
Philomena knelt down and scooped the girl into her arms.
“Our daughter,” she corrected him. “And it’s time to take her home.”
I love you like spoonwalkers love spoons. But there’s only one of you, so I cannot show my adoration by piling you into heaps and then laying my eggs on you.
I love you like the mist loves the island. Clammy and clinging, wanting to wrap myself around you so entirely that my dampness permeates you, right to the depths of your soul. I want to be the reason you can’t see the sun, the reason you shiver at night. Breathe me in, feel me on your skin. I will never leave you.
I love you the way very small cows love hiding under things where there really speaking isn’t enough room for them in the first place.
I love you like donkeys love being on roofs. Some things don’t have to make sense. It isn’t about physics, or physiognomy. It’s the uncanny clatter of hooves at night when there is no sensible way the hooves could have got to a place of clattering. Love is irrational like this.
I do not love you in the way that tentacles love everything. Tentacles are indiscriminate, and will give their attention and affection to absolutely anything. It means nothing, to have the emotional promiscuity of a tentacle. To sneak into everything, as tentacles like to do, writhing shamelessly for anyone to see them. Not like that, then. My love is more subtle and particular, although given half the chance, I would certainly slide, tentacle-like across your face in the darkness. But only your face, no one else’s would do.
(Image and text entirely the responsibility of Nimue Brown.)
The story so far… Reggie Upton, having endured the perpetual fog of Hopeless, Maine, for over a year, one day decided that he desperately needed to see some sunshine. With the aid of a surprisingly accommodating Durosimi O’Stoat, he and Philomena Bucket ventured through the Underland to Doctor John Dee’s study in Mortlake, then out into the heart of Elizabethan London. To their dismay, the skies over the smoky city were little clearer than those of Hopeless. Adding to their discomfort, the air was foul and the gutters ran with filth.
Before the two were able to make their way back to the Underland, Reggie was mistaken for a distant ancestor, Sir Walter Upton. It appeared that Sir Walter was a notorious heretic, wanted by the authorities for sheltering priests, a crime punishable by an unpleasantly fiery death. While it had been fortunate that the person accosting Reggie was one of Sir Walter’s fellow conspirators, in the haste to get him off the street, he and Philomena had become separated.
If Philomena was surprised to see the ghost of Granny Bucket flickering in the shadows, she didn’t allow herself to show it.
“I don’t suppose you have any idea what I’m supposed to do now, by any chance?” asked Philomena.
“You know me,” said Granny, breezily. “I’m full of good ideas. Here’s one; why don’t you just go back the way you came?”
“Back to Mortlake, and leave Reggie to his fate? I’m not going to do that!”
“Well, if you insist on making your life difficult, be my guest,” sighed Granny, then paused. “Oh, I suppose that you had better come with me,” she added, huffily.
Philomena smiled inwardly. This was typical of one of Granny’s games. She had obviously followed them, and was quite aware that her granddaughter would never leave her friend high and dry.
Without another word the ghost weaved her way through the crowd, passing through people and obstacles as if they did not exist, but always staying within Philomena’s line of vision. Only two citizens in that heaving throng appeared to even notice that Granny was there.
“They must have ‘the sight’,“ thought Philomena. “That’s a dangerous gift to possess in these times.”
A dangerous gift indeed, but had she known it, at that moment Philomena was being led into the very core of danger.
While Philomena was busily pursuing the ghost of Granny Bucket through a maze of city streets, Reggie Upton’s would-be rescuer had garnered the aid of two accomplices. Protesting to deaf ears, Reggie found himself being roughly bundled into a mule-cart and covered with a pile of empty sacks which, in the very recent past, had been used for the transportation of some anonymous, but less than fragrant cargo.
“Don’t you worry, Sir Walter,” said the somewhat less-than-confident voice of someone obviously crossing their fingers. “We’ll get you out of here soon enough.”
Reggie found little comfort in this. The only place where he wanted to be at that moment was back in the safety of The Squid and Teapot.
Philomena had walked for miles and was not at all happy that Granny Bucket had decided to disappear without a word of explanation. Looking about her, the awful realisation dawned that she was back in Mortlake, not far from Doctor Dee’s house. For the first time in her life she felt betrayed by her grandmother. Her dear friend Reggie was stranded somewhere in Elizabethan London, and Granny had deserted him totally. Philomena felt wretched.
She was suddenly startled by the sound of heavy bolts being drawn back. It was only upon turning to discover the source of the noise that she realised that she was standing in front of the grandest house in Mortlake – at least, it had been grand at one time; now she sensed sad neglect oozing out of every brick. A door opened in what might once have been the porter’s lodge, revealing the slender form of a girl, barely into her teens.
“Are you Mistress Bucket?”
Philomena swallowed hard. This was bizarre.
“I suppose I am,” she said warily. “Who is asking?”
The girl said nothing, but beckoned her to follow.
The two made their way through a gateway that showed all the signs of having once sported a portcullis, then through an open courtyard and into the body of the house. Philomena did not know whether to feel comforted or threatened that there seemed to be no one in this huge, decaying building but her and the girl.
They climbed a flight of stairs which brought them to a gallery. Half way along its length the girl stopped, wordlessly pushed open a heavy door, and ushered Philomena into a room where every wall, from floor to ceiling, was lined with books.
“Welcome to my library, Mistress Bucket.”
Philomena turned abruptly at the sound of the man’s voice.
He was a finely dressed, typical Elizabethan gentleman, casually sitting in the corner and eating an apple, which he sliced with a silver knife.
“You must be Mistress Bucket, I assume?”
Philomena looked nervously at the knife, and nodded.
As if on a predetermined cue the girl quietly left the room, closing the library door behind her.
“Excellent,” said the stranger, laying the apple – but not the knife – upon a small side-table.
“Welcome to Mortlake Manor – or what is left of it.”
Then, to Philomena’s surprise, he began to pull the books from one the shelves, until the whole of the panelled wall behind it was exposed.
“You realise that you have now gone beyond the point of no return?” he said, fingering the blade, which suddenly looked worryingly lethal.
Philomena had no idea what he meant by this, but nodded in agreement. She had no wish to upset her host.
It was then that the strangest thing happened. One of the wall panels flipped up, and the familiar face of Reggie Upton poked through the gap.
“My dear Philomena,“ he beamed, “what an absolute pleasure to see you at last. You have met Father Anthony, I see.”
“Father Anthony?” she said, regarding the knife-wielding dandy standing in front of her.
“I can hardly wear my priestly garments, can I?” explained Father Anthony. “Any hint of popery is a death-warrant these days.”
He paused, then added, “And yes, I would have killed you if necessary. Mortlake Manor is too valuable a resource to lose to betrayal.”
“How did you know I would be there?” asked Philomena, as she and Reggie made their way along the road to Doctor Dee’s study and the Underland.
“It was Granny Bucket. ” said Reggie. “She followed the mule-cart which took me to Mortlake Manor. That priests-hole in which they hid me was cramped, I can tell you!”
“Oh, that woman!” fumed Philomena. “Why couldn’t she just have told me where you were?”
“That’s ancestors for you,” said Reggie. “Mine are as bad. If it hadn’t been for dear old Sir Walter Upton, that might have been a fairly tolerable excursion.”
“We’ll give Tudor England a wide berth in future,” said Philomena. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Reggie. “I can’t wait to get back to The Squid and have a stiff drink.”
Author”s note:
Mortlake Manor started life as one of the palaces of the Archbishops of Canterbury, pre-dating the Norman Conquest of 1066, and was visited over the following five hundred years by a multitude of English kings. In 1536 Henry V111 gifted the manor to his first minister, Sir Thomas Cromwell, who had been newly elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon, as a reward for his part in the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell wasted no time in subjecting the manor to an enormous building programme. By 1540, however, he had fallen out of favour and had his come-uppance when Henry had him executed for treason.
At the time of our tale, Mortlake Manor was in a dismal state of disrepair, with bits of it being spirited away to build and furnish other residences. By the early years of the eighteenth century the building had been pulled down completely.
Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton, or simply Reggie Upton, as he prefers to be known, was desperate to once more see some sunshine. He had lived for more than a year on the island of Hopeless, Maine, and during that period had cheerfully endured almost all of its various privations. The only proverbial fly in his equally proverbial ointment was the eternal fog that envelops the island, a fog that sullenly insists on veiling any hint of sunlight that dares to struggle through the clouds. Having spent much of his military career soldiering in Africa and India, locations not generally known for permanently overcast skies, a desire for an occasional glimpse of the Eye of Heaven, as the bard had so ably expressed it, is not wholly unreasonable.
As you may have discerned from earlier tales, not far beneath the old warrior’s tweedy exterior surged the spirit of derring-do that had seen him through a multitude of conflicts, each apparently vital to the continuation of the British Empire. While this might be viewed as an admirable trait, it worried his friend, Philomena Bucket, the landlady of The Squid and Teapot. She was aware that Reggie was more than likely to attempt an escape from the island, an attempt which would almost certainly prove to be fatal. Philomena decided that rather than risk him dashing off on some madcap adventure, if he wanted another look at pure, unsullied sunlight, she would arrange it for him,
This is how, with the unlikely assistance of Durosimi O’Stoat, the pair found themselves standing in Doctor John Dee’s study, sometime in the mid fifteen-eighties, when the old alchemist was safely away in Poland. Reggie was adorned in the finery of an Elizabethan gentleman, while Philomena, posing as his servant, found that her daily work-wear was unremarkable enough to raise no Tudor eyebrows.
John Dee’s home was in Mortlake, a village some seven miles from the centre of London.
If Reggie or Philomena had entertained a vision of the idyllic ‘Merrie England’ of times past, this was soon dispelled as soon as they stepped into the street.
“They really need a Night-Soil Man around here,” said Philomena.
“No m’dear,” said Reggie, “they need a battalion of them. I had no idea London was quite so unhygenic in Tudor times.”
“Oh, it gets a lot worse than this,” said Philomena, lifting the hem of her long skirt to avoid it trailing in the filth that littered the cobbled streets. “But at least you can see the sun.”
“By Jove, so I can,” said Reggie. “It’s a good job that we’re this far away from the city, though. From here the dashed place looks as bad as Hopeless.”
A smoky pall hung over the huddle of buildings in the distance.
“So that is Tudor London,” he added. “Fascinating. Despite all, it would be a pity not to take a look while we’re here.”
The carrier looked askance at the fine gentleman and his pallid, pretty, servant, uncomprehending why they should want to ride on his humble cart into the heart of London. However, whatever they were up to, a groat was a groat; it was none of his business.
If the streets of Mortlake were dirty, they were nothing compared to the squalor of the city centre. Livestock of all varieties were being herded along the streets, leaving a trail of filth behind them, while the gutters ran with the detritus issuing from the huddle of shops and homes. The stench was atrocious.
“I think I’ve seen – and smelt – more than enough,” said Reggie. “In fact I…”
He was cut short when a heavy hand grasped his shoulder and spun him unceremoniously around.
“Upton! I thought it was you. By God’s teeth, you have some nerve coming into London.”
The speaker was a thick-set, bearded man with glittering eyes.
“But I… “ began Reggie, but before he could say any more, the newcomer grabbed his arm and bundled him roughly through a doorway. Things were happening very suddenly and Philomena could barely keep up.
The door closed behind them and the bearded man’s eyes flashed in the gloom.
“Whatever possessed you to come into the city?” he rasped. “You have put us all into danger. I’ll try to get you to safety, or we’ll be feeding the flames before tomorrow dawns.”
For possibly the first time in his life, Reggie was rendered speechless. This chap seemed to know his name. It was then that he recalled his first encounter with the ghost of Lady Margaret D’Avening. At the time he had been relieving himself in the flushing privy of The Squid and Teapot.
“What are you doing here, Uncle Henry?” she had asked.
It turned out that Reggie was a dead-ringer for one of Lady Margaret’s beloved relatives, a cavalier who had perished in the English Civil War. It seemed obvious that the Upton side of the family had managed to stamp an identical face upon various, selected, sons throughout the ages .
“Blasted ancestors,” Reggie thought to himself.
Taking his silence to be obstinacy, the stranger shook him by the shoulders.
“God’s teeth, Sir Walter, you know what fate befalls a heretic, especially one who has sheltered a priest.”
Although the stranger seemed to be more than a little obsessed with the deity’s dentistry, his use of the word ‘heretic’ struck home like a thunderbolt.
Reggie’s forebears had been devout Catholics, doggedly sticking to their faith throughout the turbulent years of persecution. This chap, Sir Walter Upton, with whom Reggie was being mistaken, was obviously into the thing up to his eyeballs. All in all, this suggested that now would be an excellent time to get back to Hopeless.
Reggie turned to look at Philomena. She would know what to do, but Philomena was nowhere to be seen.
