Last year’s Yule Goat Extravaganza turned out to be a sorry little event. Only three of us went along and at the time it hardly seemed newsworthy. Putting bells on a goat barely counts as festive, and as the goat escaped within a few minutes of my arrival there wasn’t much spectacle at all. I only mention it now because rumour has it that a new Yule Goat Extravaganza will happen this year. Even bigger and better than last year! Which in fairness is a really low set bar.
The rumours are at present short on details. Will we set fire to the Yule Goat? Will the Yule Goat set fire to us? Or instead, will the head of the Yule Goat explode in a sudden burst of utter darkness from which the tentacles of a ravening elder god will inevitably emerge?
Those of you who were only driven temporarily mad by the whole business with the Yule Rabbit a few years ago have every reason to feel cautious. There’s often a fine line between well meant community activities and accidently starting a cult and summoning something unspeakable. And potentially unreasonably amorous. I still have nightmares.
Perhaps we could ditch the festive chanting this year? Could those attending find it in their hearts to leave all cursed family heirlooms at home, refrain from bringing occult texts and keep the morris dancing to an absolute minimum. Thank you.
Following the defeat of the evil lama, Dawasandup, and the destruction of Mr Squash’s mysterious portal to Tibet, normality had once more been restored to Hopeless, Maine, inasmuch as that foggy island can ever be said to be normal.
“So what are we going to do about you, now that the portal is gone?”
Philomena regarded the young monk, Tenzin, with a look of pity. For no fault of his own, the boy was stranded on Hopeless, thousands of miles from home and with no hope of ever seeing his monastery and fellow monks again.
Tenzin shrugged. “I can be as good a Buddhist here as I can in the monastery,” he said. “Although, a prayer wheel would be nice…”
“That’s not a problem, we can easily get one made, I’m sure,” said Philomena, having no idea what a prayer wheel might conceivably look like.
“You’re very welcome to live with us in The Squid and Teapot,” she added, “but you’ll need to do a few jobs around the place occasionally.”
Tenzin nodded his thanks, and smiled to himself; doing a few jobs around The Squid would be a breeze after the harsh regime of the monastery, where anything less than perfection often led to a beating.
“Now, about this prayer wheel thing. You had better talk to Rhys or Reggie and show them what you need.”
“I’ve seen prayer wheels in Buddhist temples when I was in the army, in India,” said Reggie Upton. “But they were huge great metal cylinders, the size of cannons, that were rotated on a spindle. I’m not sure how we can get something like that made for you.”
“I won’t have any use for anything that big,” laughed Tenzin. “Just a hand held one will be fine.”
“Can you draw it for me?” asked Reggie, hopefully.
Tenzin shook his head. “I’m no good at drawing; in fact I couldn’t draw anything to save my life,” he said.
Reggie scratched his head, and then decided to do that which he always did when confronted with a problem; he ransacked the attics for an encyclopaedia, fully confident in the knowledge that it would tell him all that he needed to know.
“Well, a fat lot of good that blasted well was!” he fumed to Rhys Middlestreet later that day. “All that it showed me was a picture of something that looked like a baby’s rattle with a lot of unintelligible script running around the outside.”
Rhys smiled. He didn’t have a lot of time for what he considered to be mumbo-jumbo.
“If the worst comes to the worst,” he said, “Tenzin will have to change his religion. They’re all about as bad as one another, as far as I can tell. We can send him along to have a word with Reverend Davies.”
“Hmmm, I can’t see Tenzin embracing apostacy with any great enthusiasm,” observed Reggie.
Rhys wisely made no reply, having absolutely no idea what the old soldier was talking about.
It was only one day later that salvation arrived in the most unlikely of guises. Philomena Bucket was in the kitchen of The Squid and Teapot preparing a batch of Starry-Grabby pies for the evening trade, when a knock came on the window. She looked up to see the pinched face of Durosimi O’Stoat pressed against the glass.
This was unusual, to say the least. Wiping her hands on a tea-towel, she went to see what the old rogue might be after.
“Ah, Miss Bucket…” Durosimi sounded as awkward as he looked.
Philomena said nothing, but continued to dry her hands.
“Miss Bucket, I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude. You saved my life the other day…”
“I’m sure that you would have done the same for me, Mr O’Stoat, ” said Philomena, and Durosimi nodded, although they both knew that this wasn’t true.
“I’ve just come to say thank you,” said Durosimi. The words felt strange in his mouth. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“For a start, you can stop trying to get Tenzin to come back to live with you,” said Philomena. “The lad is just a humble monk. He doesn’t have any magical abilities for you to draw on, whatever you might think. He doesn’t even have a prayer wheel.”
At that Durosimi suddenly began rooting in his bag, and eventually produced a beautifully inscribed golden cylinder, no more than a few inches high. A handle of dark, polished wood acted as a spindle running through it, and an intricate gold chain hung from its side.
“It is a genuine prayer wheel. Give Tenzin this, as a gift from me,” said Durosimi, magnanimously.
“Where the devil did you get that from?” asked a surprised Philomena.
“I imagine that I somehow picked it up in error when I was in Dawasandup’s home,” said Durosimi, blushing a little. “It must have been in my pocket when the Yeti brought me back here.”
“Oh well, Dawasandup won’t be needing it, not where he’s gone,” said Philomena, and they both shuddered slightly, recalling the hideous crunch of bones when Dawasandup disappeared into the tiger-demon’s jaws.
“Thank you,” she said to Durosimi. “This will make Tenzin a very happy lad.”
Durosimi flashed her a thin smile.
“And we’re now even?” he asked.
”We’re even,” said Philomena.
Author’s note: The inscriptions on the side of a prayer wheel are Buddhist mantras written in Tibetan script. While repeating the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” the wheel is rotated clockwise to accumulate good karma and purify negativities.
I’ve seen the castle a few times now, when the mist rolls in and the last rays of the setting sun catch the headland in just the right way.
There are ruins up on that headland, but I do not think they are the ruins of a castle. Perhaps buildings can dream, and this is the ghost of a memory of something a building once wanted to be. Perhaps it is the dream of a builder who imagined castles in the sky, but lacked the means to build such a thing.
Sometimes I think that the mist itself dreams, or remembers. That’s why there are so often faces, or eyes that seem to do nothing much. They say water remembers things, and mist is only water after all.
I like to go and stand in the mist, and gaze up at the castle that isn’t there. I can feel the mist on my skin when I do that. I like to think that the mist is experiencing my face, and that in the future it will remember me, and reconstruct me out of those dreams.
I do not want to linger as a ghost, trapped here in death as I have been in life. But I would like to be remembered. I want to become as this castle is, something grander than I have been in life. The idea of a person, with this face of mine smoothed into a better appearance by the softness of water droplets.
Her old life is little more than a dream now. She belongs to the shore, to the sky and the wind.
It began with gathering feathers, day by day, weaving them into the worn fabric of her clothes. She wanted to be warm, and to forget herself, to give grief a shape and to fill the hole in her heart with something soft.
The wind heard her prayers, hair growing feathery, shoulders sprouting new growth to push through her tattered clothing. She no longer makes much sense to herself, but she does not care. She is bones wrapped in feathers. The wind soothes her. The sea speaks to her.
To recap… The sorcerous lama, Dawasandup, had broken through to Hopeless via Mr Squash’s mysterious portal, scheming to take the young monk Tenzin, and Durosimi O’Stoat, back to Tibet and sacrifice them to the tiger demon, Tagsan. Philomena Bucket and Durosimi had combined their magical abilities to thwart Dawasandup, but the unexpected arrival of Tagsan had seemingly doomed both of them…
Rising to his knees, and swamped in Tagsan’s massive shadow, Dawasandup looked triumphantly at the scene spread out before him. The puny foreigner, Durosimi, who foolishly believed that he could outwit him, lay trembling beneath the huge paw of the demon, while just a few yards away lay the crumpled form of the witch, Philomena. Dawasandup had to admit that the woman had been an impressive foe, but she had failed, and like Durosimi, she would pay the price of failure. Dawasandup would give the two of them to Tagsan as a tribute and, with the demon sated, he could return home to the clean mountain air of Tibet.
These thoughts of home cheered Dawasandup. He hated this place, and marvelled at how anyone could live for more than a day on such a miserable little island. What was it called? Ah yes, Hopeless, that was it. How appropriate. A hopeless, fog-bound land for hopeless, useless people.
Dawasandup suddenly felt uneasy, and frowned at an advancing bank of fog that seemed to have an unusually well-developed sense of purpose and direction. He had lived his life with one foot firmly set in the realm of the supernatural, and believed himself to be its master, but he had never witnessed anything quite like this. The fog was alive, and appeared to be heading straight for him.
If there is one thing designed to put the ghost of Granny Bucket out of sorts, it is someone threatening her family, and this Dawasandup character and his pet tiger had managed to put themselves inextricably into her bad books. Granny, however was well aware of her limits; she had seen how the demon had fought. Luckily Granny had allies; many, many allies who would be more than keen to help.
For countless generations the women of the Bucket line had practised their witchcraft more or less quietly, and each had understood that, if necessary, not even death itself would prevent them from defending their own. Even the oldest, most primitive of them, daubed in red ochre and wearing hides and antlers, viewed the opportunity to mingle with their descendants as a pleasant day out, and happily rallied to Granny’s call. The only fly in the ointment was that they were duty-bound to protect Durosimi as well. Long-time readers of these tales may remember that, according to Doctor John Dee, a certain Melusine O’Stoat had married into the Bucket family during the sixteenth century (see the tale ‘A Remarkable Resemblance’) and Durosimi was undoubtedly a relative, albeit many times removed.
As the fog-bank drew closer, Dawasandup could make out scores of female shapes writhing within it. Terror rose within him, but then, to his great relief, the fog gradually slowed and stopped, completely enveloping Philomena. He smiled to himself, convinced that the wraiths within the fog had come to claim her body, or better still, devour it. It did not matter; he still had Durosimi to sacrifice to the demon.
The fog rolled over Philomena and, little by little grew thinner, and as it did so the forms within it faded too. When it had cleared entirely, Philomena was left as Dawasandup had last seen her, apparently dead, and lying on the cold earth. Then, to his dismay, she groaned, and with some effort, raised herslf up onto one knee.
Taking no chances, Dawasandup hurled a small ball of blue, crackling lightning at her. Without looking up, Philomena raised a hand and caught it easily. Painfully, she rose to her feet and held the glowing ball before her. To Dawasandup’s horror it quickly ballooned to about the size of a human head.
“To the death, this time,” she said, and it sounded as if a hundred voices were speaking at once.
Ignoring Dawasandup, she tossed the lightning ball at Tagsan, who tried unsuccessfully to swat it away. It bounced off his chest, leaving a livid scorch mark behind. Free of the demon’s paw, Durosimi wasted no time in scampering to what he hoped was safety.
Tagsan, wounded and angry, roared at Philomena, who merely smiled the sweetest of smiles, and extended her arms towards Dawasandup. The lama was surprised to find himself suddenly levitating, lifted higher and higher until he floated level with Tagsan’s gaping maw. Dawasandup screamed as he felt the demon’s hot breath and toxic saliva upon his body.
“Let this be your tribute, demon,” Philomena chorused. “Take it and go back from whence you came, you have no place here. Do not think that you can ever beat us, for we are legion.”
With a sickening crunch, Tagsan clamped the still screaming Dawasandup between his jaws, and, with his tribute paid, soundlessly faded into the portal between the ash trees.
“We’ve beaten him,” cried a jubilant Durosimi, forgetting that he had spent much of the battle trapped beneath the tiger demon’s paw.
“Not quite yet,” said Philomena.
Durosimi was relieved to hear that her voice had returned to its normal pitch, and no longer sounded like a great multitude when she spoke.
Philomena raised her arms once more, and the two ash trees, forming Mr Squash’s mysterious portal to Tibet, buckled and cracked, then noisily imploded, sending a thick confetti of shredded bark and leaves high into the air.
“There, now it’s finished,” she said. “The portal is closed forever.”
“What have you done?” yelled Durosimi. “That was our only way to uncover the magic and mystery of Tibet, and you have destroyed it completely.”
“My only regret is having to kill the ash trees,” she said, wearily. “And if you don’t shut your noise, you might find yourself joining them.”
Durosimi blanched. He had seen too much to argue.
Feeling quite exhausted, Philomena turned and walked away from him, wanting nothing more than to go back to her family and the safety of The Squid and Teapot.
This video was recorded at Radio Winchcombe as Keith and I played live on their folk show recently.
The song is called Nightshade, written by Keith and inspired by Hopeless, Maine’s Annamarie Nightshade.
Originally the song was written for Ominous Folk, and specifically for Susie. However, it never quite worked without the guitar, and since writing it Keith has been entirely persuaded to get out there and sing his own material. So here we are!
Do you look at the trees at all? Have you noticed how trees in the distance always look like pine forests, but trees close up always look like this:
I have been in to the woods, at least far enough to see the bare branches, and the leaf litter. At times there are leaves, but my sense of time is not good.
I have walked for what seemed like days to try and reach the pine forests that haunt this island. Always they seem to be on the next hill, the next headland. I see their dark greens, their mighty canopies, and yet I can never reach them. Up close I find only these stark and often lifeless trees, and I do not know why.
Where are these unreachable forests? Do they only exist in my mind, or are they somehow out there, beyond my grasp? I dream of the sharp scent of pine resin, and the soft footing of needles beneath my feet.
Is it that I am cursed? Do others wander into those distant pine woods whenever the fancy takes them? Am I alone excluded from their shade? What have I done to so offend them? I know not.
When I die, please bury me in a pine coffin. I am homesick for the trees of my childhood, and afraid that this is the only means by which I might yet reach them.
(Photo by Keith, text by Nimue – which will make sense if you’ve ever looked closely at the trees in the graphic novels.)
Philomena Bucket listened intently as Reggie Upton revealed that he had witnessed someone breaking through Mr Squash’s mystic portal. The interloper sounded worryingly like Tenzin’s description of Dawasandup, the sorcerous lama.
“That’s not good,” she said, after a pause. “According to Tenzin, Dawasandup has sworn to track both him and Durosimi down and drag them back to Tibet, to be sacrificed to some tiger demon.”
Reggie was aghast. “We jolly well can’t let that happen to Tenzin,” he raged. “And although I have absolutely no affection for Durosimi whatsoever, I’m dashed if I’ll allow some sorcerer chap to barge into Hopeless without a ‘by your leave’ and start terrorising the islanders. Why, the bounder needs a sound thrashing, and no mistake.”
“You’re quite right,” agreed Philomena, unsuccessfully concealing the ghost of a smile. “I’m afraid that if Dawasandup is the badass that Tenzin says he is, it will take a bit more than the threat of a sound thrashing to see him off.”
Despite her reluctance to use her magical powers, Reggie had seen enough of them to grasp Philomena’s meaning.
“You mean to play him at his own game?” he asked, already knowing the answer. Philomena nodded. “It’s the only way to help Tenzin,” she said, “and as it’s Durosimi’s battle, he needs to pitch in too.”
“Leave it with me, I’ll talk to him,” said Reggie.
“No,” said Philomena, firmly. “You can make sure that everyone at The Squid is safe. I’ll go and see Durosimi… oh, and if you see Granny Bucket hanging about haunting the place, send her after me.”
To Philomena’s surprise, Durosmi listened to what she had to say without a word of objection. He even nodded in agreement once or twice.
“If Dawasandup was able to break through Squash’s portal without mishap,” he said, “do you really think that the two of us might be enough to see him off?”
“We should throw everything we can at him, and finish things once and for all,” said Philomena. “He isn’t going to give up until he has you and Tenzin at his mercy.”
Durosimi looked at her with new respect. She was suggesting that they should totally annihilate Dawasandup, which sounded like a splendid plan.
“But we really need to let him find us first,” she added, ominously.
The pair did not have to wait too long before they caught sight of Dawasandup. His tall, narrow shape seemed to drift across the ground, like the mist that whispered through the trees. He came to a halt no more that twenty feet away from them, and slowly beckoned to Durosimi, It took a huge effort of will for Durosimi to ignore that unspoken command. Philomena could clearly see the beads of sweat forming on the sorcerer’s brow.
“Stand firm, stand firm,” she muttered.
“It’s just about all that I can do at the moment,” replied Durosimi. “Can’t you distract him, or something?”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a shaft of crackling blue light arched through the air and slammed into the lama’s beckoning hand. This was unexpected and Dawasandup scowled at Philomena, flexing his fingers and rubbing his wrist.
“Thank you,” said Durosimi, “however, I believe that you’ve really upset him now.”
Before Philomena could formulate a suitably scathing reply, a glowing orange ball materialised in the air before them, hung there for a second – which felt like an hour – and then exploded with a faint popping sound, knocking them both off their feet. Without standing up, Durosimi skillfully sent a rope of light snaking across the ground, which wrapped itself around Dawasandup’s legs. With a flick of his wrist Durosimi spun him onto his back.
“Now!” he shouted to Philomena, and an instant later a flaming sword hovered inches above Dawasandup’s helpless form.
“Go on!” yelled Durosimi, but Philomena shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she said. “Not like this.”
Durosimi gave her a withering look. “Well I damned well can,” he hissed and sprinted across the gap to where the lama lay.
As Philomena’s fiery sword faded into the air, Durosimi lunged, wielding a heavy hunting knife. Suddenly he stopped. Emerging through the mist behind Dawasandup was a massive tiger, its great bulk blocking out the light. That did not matter really, as its eyes blazed with a cold, intense fire that cast shadows upon the ground. This was Tagsan, the tiger demon, more huge and terrifying than either Durosimi or Philomena had ever imagined.
The creature roared, and the noise shook the windows of every house on the island. Clasping his hands over his ears, Durosimi dropped to his knees. Extending a lazy paw, the tiger reached out and dragged him across the ground, as a cat would a mouse. Deafened and dizzy, Philomena attempted to toss another lightning bolt towards the demon, but Tagsan stopped it in mid-air, and with a growl turned the bolt around easily, sending it back to Philomena. It hit her hard on the shoulder, spinning her around like a top. Philomena gave a gasp of pain, and dropped to the ground, where she lay perfectly still.
No one swims at Gethin’s Beach. Not anymore. True, it is a sheltered spot, and the currents here seem gentler than is generally the case around Hopeless. There used to be a small settlement here, but they are long gone. Or at least, they are no longer present as people.
At high tide, you cannot see them at all. But, as the waters recede, they reappear. With each tide they become a little less like the people they once were – these days if you did not know what you were seeing, you might mistake them for rocks.
Once a year, Reverend Davies brings people out here to shout the names of the dead. We do not really know if they are dead – they don’t move any more, and people who spend that much time in the sea can hardly be expected to be alive. And yet, we do not know if they still hear us. All we can do is come to them, year on year, and call out their names so that they know we haven’t forgotten them.
It’s a good time to shout the names of the recent dead, too, and those other souls lost to the sea. Do not get close to the waves. We do not know what befell the people of Gethin’s Beach, and while the beach itself seems as (un)safe as any other, it may be that something in the water transformed them and trapped them here.
“That’s not going to happen,” raged Doc Willoughby. “You ignore me when I visit, treat me like dirt and expect me to run around the island undoing the messes that you’ve caused with your mistakes. Well I’ve had enough of you and your ways, O’Stoat. You are nothing but a fraud and a charlatan of the worst kind, and I refuse to be your lackey any more.”
Ever since he had received the note from Durosimi, Doc had rehearsed this speech a dozen times in the comfort of his living room. He had been determined to stand up to Durosimi once and for all. He was sick of being treated like a doormat. Now, standing nervously in the sorcerer’s study, this did not feel to be the best course of action.
“Well, now you mention it, old friend, I do tend to drop into The Squid and Teapot from time to time,” stammered the Doc, hating himself for his total lack of backbone.
“Splendid!” beamed Durosimi, “I knew that I could rely on you to get young Tenzin to come back to me.”
“I’ll do what I can…” said the Doc, dejectedly.
“I have every faith in your powers of persuasion,” boomed Durosimi, full of false bonhomie. “Now, where did I put that bottle of single malt..?”
“He’s busy meditating,” said Philomena Bucket, when the Doc enquired, later that day, if Tenzin might be available for a little tête-à-tête. The usually gentle Irish lilt had left Philomena’s voice, and it was cold and sharp. In those three words she managed to convey the message that there would be nothing further to add to the conversation, thank you very much.
Doc knew that he had been defeated at the first attempt. Despite his dislike of Philomena, however, he could not help but reflect that she would make a wonderful receptionist, and keep those blasted idlers from bothering him for appointments all of the time.
Doc was close to panic; he had no idea what he would do now. He briefly considered kidnapping the young monk, but wisely decided that youth and agility would be on Tenzin’s side. Besides that, there was always the possibility that the monastery had instruction in some sort of martial art in its curriculum, and that the monks routinely went around with an assortment of lethal throwing implements stuffed in their robes. With a heavy heart, Doc decided to go home and sleep on it. Maybe Tenzin would go back to Durosimi of his own accord. Maybe Durosimi would be eaten by the Kraken. Maybe the world would end tonight…
In the event, none of the above mentioned scenarios occurred, but the problem of getting Tenzin back to Chez Durosimi suddenly became much less important.
The reason that the Yeti (who, for convenience, we know as Billy, or possibly Willy) brought both Durosimi and Tenzin from Tibet to Hopeless, via Mr Squash’s mystic portal, was for them to escape the wrath of the anchorite and sorcerer, Dawasandup. As lamas go, Dawasandup was not as devoted to the notion of peace and love as he might have been, and was extremely keen on sacrificing Durosimi, or failing that, Tenzin, to a particularly unpleasant tiger demon named Tagsan. Not unreasonably, both believed that a distance of some seven thousand miles would be amply sufficient to keep Dawasandup safely out of the way. After all, he could not come through Mr Squash’s mystic portal… could he?
Reggie Upton adjusted his Homburg to a jaunty angle and set off upon one of his evening rambles around the island, swinging his walking cane as he went. His plan was to meet Winston Oldspot, the Night-Soil Man, near Mr Squash’s mystic portal, a natural archway formed by two ash trees which had collapsed into each other’s branches.
The evening was, as ever, foggy and the wind was little more than a zephyr. All was peaceful until, apparently from nowhere, a sudden whirlwind shook the ash trees, which thrashed wildly, sending their remaining leaves and odd bits of branch spinning to the ground. Reggie had seen some bizarre weather in his time, but never anything like this. Within the portal a gale raged, while just a few feet away the evening was tranquility itself. Sensing that something unusual was about to happen, he decided that it would be wise to slip into the shadows and keep quiet.
To begin with, Reggie thought he was looking at a ghost. The figure emerging from between the trees was completely unruffled by the tempest that raged all around. Its slender form appeared to be draped in a long white shift, and seemed to drift rather than walk. Then Reggie noticed the long, thick braids of dark hair that hung almost to the ground, and alarm bells rang in his head. This must be that Dawasandup chap whom Tenzin had described, and the bounder had doubtless come to fetch the young monk back. Well, Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton, late of the King’s own Royal Regiment would have something to say about that – but not on his own. That would be madness. Philomena would know what to do…
