You can tell by looking at him, that absolutely no orphans have been consumed by this gentleman.
One of the things folklore has taught us is that it is important to be polite. This is why we refer to fairies as good neighbours, even if they do steal our milk and our children and take our cows for weird nighttime adventures. Not that fairies are usually the ones to blame around here, but they make for a nice, safe, example. The odds of offending them are pretty slim, as they are such good neighbours as to not be neighbours at all.
It is also a good idea to praise the helpfulness of goblins rather than complaining about what they borrow. ‘Steal’ is such a judgemental word. Goblins often pay for what they take, or leave gifts. If you have ever found unexpected bones in your home, this is probably why.
Sometimes it is best not to risk causing offence by naming an entity in too blunt or derogative a way. It is best therefore to say that Mark is a fine gentleman. A very sensible and reasonable gentleman. Definitely not someone who would at any point have felt to urge to so much as nibble a research orphan. Certainly not someone who would take an orphan as an apprentice, conduct hideous experiments on them and then eat the results.
That definitely didn’t happen, and I for one will sleep more soundly at night for having been so very clear on the subject.
(This unfortunate incident was brought to you by Mark Hayes and Nimue Brown)
(Durosimi image by Nimue Brown, based on Erek Vaehne, with thanks for the loan of his face.)
No one could ever accuse Durosimi O’Stoat of being unduly burdened by his conscience. The sorcerer has, in his time, caused enough misery and destruction to drive anyone else insane with feelings of guilt. He is a master of manipulation and treachery, stopping at nothing to further his own ends. That, at least, is what he would like you to believe. Indeed, until recently it was pretty much his own self-image. But all of that was before the Lost Boys incident.
You may remember that he had cruelly sent five young men into the arms – and teeth – of the hideous, flesh-eating sirens who inhabit the waters around the island of Hopeless. The continued existence of the Lost Boys, as they had become known, had become somewhat inconvenient to Durosimi, and he considered such a course of action to be quite reasonable. After all, on Hopeless people disappear all the time. What difference would five more make?
Some weeks after their disappearance, when the first full moon of Autumn – the Hunter’s Moon – rose in the sky, to stare dimly through the perpetual mist that hangs over the island, Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, was taking a well-earned break from his labours. As usual Philomena had wandered along from The Squid and Teapot and left a bottle of ‘Old Colonel’ and a generous slice of starry-grabby pie on his doorstep. These were now sitting on the lid of his bucket, which doubled-up nicely as a makeshift table when he was on his rounds. Meanwhile, his old friend Drury, the skeletal hound, was snuffling around in the darkness in the hope of picking up the scent of a stray spoonwalker or maybe a puddle rat, or anything else likely to provide the chance of a chasing game while Rhys was eating his meal. Suddenly the dog stiffened. This, of course, bore little resemblance to the elegant, silent freeze of a pointer, or the quiet menace of a German shepherd on guard duty. Drury’s attempts at pointing generally involve a series of rattles and clacks, as of bone meeting bone, and on this occasion, making just enough noise to disturb the silence of the night.
Reacting to the sound, Rhys looked up, and was surprised to see a pale, luminescent smoke creeping up from the threshing ocean and gradually make its way inland. As it grew closer the Night-Soil Man realised that what he was seeing was not smoke, but a huddle of ghostly human shapes. This was unusual. While fulfilling his duties Rhys had seen any amount of ghosts, phantoms and apparitions generally, but these were usually solitary entities, and not given to wandering around in groups.
From his position on the headland he watched the eerie tableau drift noiselessly from the coastal path and disappear into the trees. Drury, having more sense than many gave him credit for, made no attempt to follow them.
Durosimi O’Stoat has always prided himself on needing little sleep. Three or four hours are usually sufficient. Tonight, however, he had nodded off into a deep, satisfying slumber while sitting in his armchair. Even when the hefty tome that he had been reading slipped off his lap and fell to the floor, he did not stir. It was only when a faint bluish-green glow insinuated itself through the heavy oak front door and settled in the corner of his study, did he awake.
He sat, stock still, for several minutes staring at the phenomenon. Most of us would have fled in terror, but not Durosimi. A lifetime of weird encounters has left him unfazed by virtually anything.
“Who, or what are you?” he demanded sternly.
The glow shimmered and expanded, as if to respond, then resumed its original shape in the corner.
“I am waiting…” said Durosimi, sounding like a schoolmaster addressing a wayward pupil.
Almost reluctantly, the glow spread once more and broke into five distinctive shapes.
He recognised the Lost Boys at once. They stood shoulder to shoulder before him, gaunt, haggard and accusing.
“You can stand there all night,” Durosimi said, unconcernedly, “but I am well aware that you cannot harm me, and you certainly don’t scare me.”
The Lost Boys said nothing; they just hovered within that ghastly light and stared at the man who had been responsible for their deaths.
Durosimi closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the Lost Boys were gone. The first few ribbons of morning light were fighting their way through the mist.
“I must have dropped off to sleep again,” he muttered. “Such behaviour is quite unlike me, and that was a most weird dream, to be sure.”
Lost in the business of the following day, Durosimi thought no more about his strange dream.
It came as something of a surprise, therefore, when the boys once more manifested in his study, sometime after midnight. Durosimi was poring over his books, trying to make sense of a complicated mediaeval spell written in Latin, when he sensed their arrival.
He turned abruptly and eyed them in silence.
The five stared back, accusingly. Not a word was spoken for what felt like an age.
“What do you want?” Durosimi asked, at last.
There was no reply, but the air seemed to grow colder, then little by little the apparitions faded, until there was no clue that the Lost Boys had ever been there.
Durosimi felt exhausted. Leaving his books on the table he lay down on his bed, fully clothed, and immediately fell asleep. Those five wasted faces haunted his dreams.
As the days and nights went by the sorcerer came to expect his strange visitors. He gave up asking what they wanted; after all, they were the Lost Boys, and they wanted their lives back. That was something that even he could not give them, and, to his surprise, it troubled him.
Durosimi found himself to be harbouring certain thoughts and feelings that he believed to be long-dead. One evening he allowed his mind to wander into an alternative future, where the five youngsters had matured into family men, becoming fathers and eventually grandfathers. These were the lives that he had stolen from them, and for once in his life Durosimi felt real remorse for what he had done.
When next the apparitions appeared, he wasted no time in addressing them.
“I am truly sorry for being the cause of your deaths,” he said, glad that no one else was there to hear. “I can only beg your forgiveness.”
His words hung in the air, and he feared that his apology had not been enough. Then the blue-green light that enveloped the five gradually turned into a ball of shimmering silver that grew stronger with each passing second, until it was far too bright to look at. As Durosimi turned away, shielding his eyes, the ball of light seemed to explode and, for a long while, he knew no more.
Sitting in front of his parlour fire, many hours later, Durosimi pondered over the events of the previous week. He knew that the Lost Boys had gone for good, now. They had reached into him and found the man that he might once have been. It made him uncomfortable. It was a weakness, buried so deep that he was unaware of its existence. That must never happen again.
Despite these thoughts, the briefest ghost of a smile flickered across his face. This in itself was a rarity.
“No, such weakness must never happen again,” he repeated to himself, but a part of Durosimi was glad that it had, just this once.
A Spinning Jenny is an advanced multi bobbin spinning wheel that first revolutionised the manufacture of cotton in the 1700s and set up the cotton trade in Lancashire and Yorkshire, kickstarting the industrial revolution , destroying the rural economy and making the farmer workers into city peasantry.
A Spinning Jenny is also what my mum would call a daddly-long-legs, or cellar spider , the type that’s all legs and tiny body. I think it was a popular name for them as Leeds was big in the cotton trade and spiders get everywhere , and those long legged ones tend to hand form a single thread a lot.
Anyway so a Spinning Jenny is to me not an early piece of mill equipment but a tiny spider with very long legs.
(all the above is entirely true)
A walloping jenny is a very large ‘tiny’ spider with very ever long legs , but as Hopeless is not the safest of environments, the front two legs have grown even longer and developed nub like clubs at the end of them with which the ‘wallop’ things. Sometimes , on those brief hot hours you might call summer elsewhere , the population booms and walloping jennies go one the rampage like a million tiny drummers… and not one of the buggers can keep time.
This can be loud but not a problem.
Urban legend says that once in a while you get a really really big walloping Jenny , then you have a problem.
It is fair to say that the islanders of Hopeless, Maine, can never be accused of being overly materialistic. When living in an environment which is generally agreed to be hostile to both life and limb, any preoccupation with trivial baubles and trinkets is widely regarded as being shallow in the extreme. Having said this, there is one item which is valued above all others, and tended with the reverence that certain cultures might reserve for an artefact of deep religious significance. I speak, of course, of the Edison-Bell Phonograph.
Seasoned readers of ‘The Vendetta’ will recall that the arrival of the phonograph on the island was, at first, regarded with some suspicion (as related in the tale ‘Ghost in the Machine’). However, once the populace had been exposed to the sound of a strangulated Irish tenor warbling ‘Molly Malone’, and had joined in a few refrains of ‘Alive, alive-o’, all was deemed well and the Edison-Bell machine, along with the ‘Molly Malone’ wax cylinder, was trotted out at every possible opportunity. It was a year or two later that the dance troupe ‘Les Demoiselles de Moulin Rouge’ became shipwrecked on Hopeless. They brought with them a huge trunkful of costumes and wax-cylinders of Offenbach’s ‘Infernal Galop’ (or the Can-Can, for most of us) and the Parisian Apache dance, ‘Valses des Rayons’, also by Offenbach. From then onwards, the status of the phonograph reached new heights. Had it been the Ark of the Covenant itself, it could barely have been treated with greater respect.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Reggie Upton, “that you have this marvellous machine, and it only plays three tunes?”
“That’s all anyone wants to hear,” said Philomena. “Everybody likes to see Les Demoiselles, and Molly Malone is a particular favourite at any event, especially when it comes to the chorus, and they can all join in. Personally, I wouldn’t care if I never heard it again.”
“Are there other cylinders hidden away somewhere?” asked Reggie.
“Oh yes, but nothing anyone seems very interested in. All classical stuff, I think. They’ll be up in one of the attics, somewhere.”
Reggie pursed his lips thoughtfully, then, without another word, wandered into the bar to speak to the landlord, Bartholomew Middlestreet.
“We really must do this,” said Reggie, the following day. “I have discovered an absolute treasure trove of music up in the attics.”
The others seated around the table seemed sceptical. The ‘Music Committee’, as Reggie had insisted on calling the hastily assembled group, comprised of himself, Philomena, Bartholomew, Norbert Gannicox and Mirielle D’Illay, who represented Les Demoiselles.
“While not wishing to be a killjoy,” said Philomena, “I don’t honestly think that there is anything there that anyone is likely to want to hear.”
“Sorry, but I don’t agree,” said Reggie. “Most of the music on those cylinders is very accessible. Heaven knows, I am but a simple soldier with a limited knowledge of music, but I could certainly be entertained by what we have.”
Much of this, of course was blatantly untrue. Reggie was from an old, aristocratic family, he had enjoyed an eye-wateringly expensive education and had risen to the rank of brigadier in the British army. What was correct, however, was that his musical tastes would never be considered as being remotely highbrow.
“Give us some examples, then,” challenged Norbert.
“Well, there’s the Drinking Song from La Traviata, that’s great fun. Then we have the Turkish Rondo by Mozart, Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns… believe me, there is plenty to go for.”
“And will you be presenting this?” asked Bartholomew
“Definitely not,” said Reggie. “If we have a concert it should be a young person running the show. A difficult audience won’t warm to some old fuddy-duddy like me telling them what’s on the programme.”
“Then who will it be?” asked Philomena, anxiously hoping that she would be regarded as being much too old for the job.
“Septimus will do it,” said Mirielle.
“That would be good,” said a much relieved Philomena. “Will you ask him, please, Mirielle?”
“Non. I will tell him. He will do as he is told,” said Mirielle firmly, and no one was in any doubt that her fiancé would have no choice but to present the forthcoming entertainment.
“So, you’re really going to do this?” Egbert Washwell said to his brother, a hint of mockery in his voice.
“It will be easy,” said Septimus airily. “It’s just a few old composers’ names and the titles of their tunes.”
“Who have you got there?” asked Egbert, not really caring.
“Mozart, Verdi, Saint-Saëns, Grieg and Rimsky-Korsakov.”
Egbert burst out laughing.
“Rips His Corset Off? Who is that – it’s surely not his real name?”
“No, Rimsky-Korsakov. He composed something called ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee.”
“Good old Rips His Corset Off,” chuckled Egbert. “I bet you get that one wrong.”
Septimus practised introducing the various pieces of work for a whole week before the concert took place. He was confident that he would be able to memorise each composer and their music. Mirielle had ensured that he was able to pronounce Saint-Saëns correctly, and the only name that was still giving him trouble was, inevitably, Rimsky-Korsakov. Every time he tried to refer to the composer, it came out as Rips His Corset Off. If only Egbert had not put that thought into his mind, all would have been well.
The Big Night came, and to the great relief of the Music Committee, the event seemed to be progressing without a hitch, partly because the audience had been promised that if they could sit quietly through the concert, they could have at least one rendition of ‘Molly Malone’ at the end of the evening. The song had apparently achieved something resembling the stature of a national anthem.
Despite fears to the contrary, everyone was happily tapping their feet to the Turkish Rondo, swaying in time to Verdi’s Drinking Song and genuinely enjoying the experience. Only Septimus was uneasy. ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’ was the last classical piece on the programme, and he was still having a barely-disguised panic-attack at the thought of having to introduce the dreaded name of Rimsky-Korsakov.
“Rimsky-Korsakov… Rimsky-Korsakov… Rimsky-Korsakov…” he kept repeating to himself, desperately trying to avoid thinking about Rips His Corset Off. To make matters worse, Egbert was sitting in the audience, just a few feet away from him. He had a huge grin plastered over his smug face and was obviously willing his brother to get it wrong. Catching Septimus’ eye, he gleefully mouthed the words ‘Rips His Corset Off’.
Septimus’ heart sank and his mouth felt as though it was full of dust when the inevitable moment arrived.
With sweat trickling down his neck and his face flushing, Septimus loosened his collar, drew a deep breath and said,
“And finally, a piece of music from the great Russian composer… Rimsky-Korsakov…”
A huge feeling of relief swept over the young man, as he gratefully added, with an expansive wave of his hand…
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… The Bum of the Flightle Bee.”
Coffee beans do not grow on the island of Hopeless. Anything that cannot be grown or made here might occasionally wash up from a shipwreck. For people who have lived on the island all their lives this isn’t much of a problem because real, proper coffee has never been a thing. However, if you’ve known true coffee, then what happens on the island is a source of pain and dismay. There really is nothing quite like salt soaked, wood flavoured coffee that’s been in the sea for a day or two.
Then there are the coffees the islanders like to make. Much of this is inspired by having consumed salty wood flavoured coffee. Or by having survived the coffees made by other islanders. Sometimes, the people who have consumed proper coffee in the past go a bit mad and try to make coffee out whatever is to hand. This never goes well.
Desperation breeds terrible choices. Yes, there are plants that taste bitter and not all of them will kill you. Yes, a bit of dirt will give you exactly the right colour. Yes there are two kinds of berries that give you a buzzy, lively feeling. One causes chronic flatulence and the other may lead you to temporarily believe that you are a duck.
Last year, we did an online Hopeless, Maine festival. It was a lot of fun (I know this may undermine our horror cred a bit, but fun it was). During that process we discovered that Andy Arbon had an Eldritch Broadcasting Corporation that he’d stashed somewhere down the back of his labyrinthine underground layer. Having retrieved it and dusted it off a bit, there’s been some careful oiling and hand cranking and the whole thing looks ready to roll.
On Saturday the 4th of February there will be an online festival over on the Hopeless, Maine facebook page. The whole thing should migrate to youtube afterwards and we’ll share that here when it does. This year it will be a broader event and we have some exciting new contributors in the mix as well as plenty of familiar faces.
On the Hopeless, Maine side, the Scientific Society have been decidedly busy. Sorry about that. The ones who survived their recent research projects will be giving talks on said research.
There’s new material in from The Ominous Folk as well, and some of the Hopeless, Maine crew will be in the mix doing non-Hopeless things, just to add to the fun and confusion!
Andy Arbon will be reading The Cursed Letter Opener of Otley Chevin, which first appeared here on the blog.
Come and wave your tentacles in our general direction!
On the isle of Hopeless, Maine The weather is always insane There’s never rhyme nor reason Pointless is the weathervane It’s insidious and perplexing At the very least it’s very vexing But there’s one peculiar thing Whether autumn, summer, or spring A dangerous weirdness does persist The mist, the mist, the mist.
The Hopeless Maine Scientific Society (Not known particularly for its propriety) Has studied the phenomenon Using tests of great variety Despite their efforts most fastidious All they can say is, “Well, it’s insidious” Their experts are dumbfounded Astounded and confounded Even Arkwright the anthropologist The mist the mist the mist.
It’s a certain kind of fog That smells of soggy dog Weird faces lurk within the gloom Too many to catalogue There are eyes and things that hum And things that brush your bum Dark tendrils reaching out Taking hair and casting about Like a demented hairstylist The mist, the mist, the mist.
It affects your mood and makes you sad Or melancholic or occasionally glad But there’s no escaping its devilment Stay out too long and you’ll go mad It gets in your hair And your underwear Always growing Always glowing A cloud with a Lovecraftian twist The mist, the mist, the mist.
When returning from the Inn After all the medicinal gin You’d better watch your step And make sure that you’re within For if you are outside When the mist it does betide You’d better beware You’d better take care Especially if you’re pissed The mist, the mist, the mist.
