Demons love warmer weather and are always more active at this time of year. Here is some advice for dealing with any demons you encounter.
Try not to. This almost never goes well.
Do not believe what the demons tell you. Especially don’t believe them if they tell you it won’t hurt at all, or that you will have fun.
It will hurt. It will not be fun.
Do not feed the demons. This is harder when they pretend to be cats.
Do not give demons your blood, even if they ask nicely. Do not give cats your blood either. Not all cats are demons but it is better not to take any risks on this score.
If you find a sunbathing cat, consider that it could be a demon and proceed cautiously.
If you chance upon a sunbathing demon/cat, and think of something funny you could do, don’t do it. It will hurt, it will not be fun.
Demons never possess you for just a little while. Let them in and you’ll have a hard time getting them out again. Sitting on you is not exactly possession but can lead to possession.
It is as well to be polite and considerate to cats in case they are really demons.
Do not give the demons pets or attempt to fuzz them under the chin. Do not ask the demons if they are adorable floof beans and the bestest little cattypus ever. This also doesn’t tend to go well.
The story so far… While rummaging in the attics of The Squid and Teapot, Benjamin Bencome had been swallowed up in a mysterious vortex, in which time was accelerated. Unfortunately, for Benjamin, his remaining years of life were discharged in a matter of minutes and, as Philomena, Rhys and Reggie looked on, the last vestiges of his earthly remnants disappeared to dust before their very eyes.
It seemed obvious to all that, with the vortex appearing to grow, all of the island of Hopeless, Maine, could soon be devoured; that was when someone had the bright idea of enlisting the unlikely assistance of Durosimi O’Stoat. It was correctly assumed that Durosimi would doubtless be as reluctant as anyone to see his future evaporate away in a few seconds, and therefore be happy to try and rectify matters.
After consulting various grimoires, therimoires, diabologues, necronomicons, and a yellowing edition of ‘Old Moore’s Almanack’, Durosimi discovered that a lodestone placed into the centre of the vortex, and in a north-south alignment, would banish it completely. Unfortunately this would entail the person volunteering for the role of lodestone-depositor to age alarmingly before such times as they could leave the vortex. And so, it came to pass that with a generous measure of glory in his eye, and an upper lip stiffer than a rifle barrel, Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton boldly bade his friends farewell, and, lodestone in hand, prepared to enter the vortex and meet certain death.
“Are you really that keen to die?” asked Durosimi.
“Well, someone has to do it, and I didn’t hear you volunteer,” replied Reggie, indignantly.
“No, you didn’t,” said Durosimi. “And you don’t have to… unless you are looking forward to a glorious martyrdom, of course.”
“So how do you propose we do this?” Philomena Bucket’s voice was brimming with hope. The thought of Reggie walking to his doom was dreadful beyond belief.
“By getting that infernal dog of yours to do it, of course,” snapped Durosimi.
Philomena’s pale skin grew even paler.
“Drury?” said Reggie. “That’s asking a lot of him. Why the devil should he want to sacrifice himself any more than you do?”
“Do I have to spell it out?” said Durosimi, exasperation in his voice. “Drury died years ago, long before any of us currently in this room were born. He could be in and out the vortex in just a few seconds. Another hundred years or so would be nothing to him.”
“Are you sure of that?” asked Philomena.
“Of course I am,” lied Durosimi, “but whether he’s intelligent enough to see the task through is another matter.”
“Oh, he’s intelligent enough – more intelligent than a lot of humans I know,” said Philomena. “Let me talk to him.”
Drury had been easy to track down; he was slumbering happily in the snuggery, and snoring loudly, when Philomena found him.
There is a common belief among pet owners that their particular familiar has the ability to understand every word that they say. This may, or may not, be true, but in the case of Philomena – the last of a long line of powerful witches – and Drury, who had been hob-nobbing around humans for a couple of centuries, this was no idle platitude.
Philomena was able to give the osseous hound directions regarding the placing of the lodestone, and, much to the dog’s chagrin, firm instructions not to bite Durosimi.
To everyone’s obvious relief Durosimi’s information appeared to have been correct. Drury slipped into the vortex, placed the lodestone and ambled out again with no apparent ill-effects.
For what seemed like an eternity, nothing significant happened. Then the vortex slowed, and gradually diminished in size, until it resembled nothing more than a small green navel spinning in the corner of the room.
“There, it’s perfectly harmless now,” said Durosimi. “And far too small to do any damage.”
“But it hasn’t gone completely, has it?” said Reggie, concerned that this was not quite the end of the matter.
Suddenly, everyone jumped, and was rendered temporarily deaf, as a loud explosion rent the air and blew the glass out of the small attic windows.
“It has now,” said Philomena, but of course, no one could hear her except Drury, who wagged a bony tail, yawned, and went back down to the snuggery to catch up on his interrupted sleep.
For a while, we had a side project called The Ominous Folk of Hopeless, Maine. This (for those of you who missed it) was a performance team that took music and stories to events. We did a couple of stage shows, set on the island that each went out for a season, with high points including performing at Festival at the Edge.
The original team was Tom Brown, James Weaslegrease, Susie Roberts and myself. The largest team we ever had added Jessica Law, Keith Errington and Robin Burton to the mix for a gig at Woodchester in 2023. Towards the end, the whole project showed signs of opening out into something larger involving more people.
However, between Susie getting ill and Tom and I separating, the original project became unviable. Four of us became Jessica Law and the Outlaws (myself, James and Keith supporting Jess) and the last few Ominous Folk gigs were handled with that line up.
Back in the autumn of 2023, James and I gave some serious thought to what we wanted to do next, because we both wanted to keep much of the repertoire we’d developed for Hopeless, and have room for people to get involved. Most especially we wanted something Susie could come back to if she recovered. She’s doing really well and we’re looking forward to being able to sing with her again.
Carnival of Cryptids keeps the weird, magical, sinister mayhem that was at the heart of Ominous Folk. It’s a project with a lot more people involved – we wanted to make it flexible so that people with health issues, care commitments, work commitments and the like could be part of it without risking being over extended. It’s gone really well, and we have some great new voices in the mix.
The above photo shows a selection of the team at a fairy event in Gloucester. The lineup varies a lot (James, Keith and I are constants, Jessica almost always sings with us), but it’s not a wildly different sound from Ominous Folk. At the moment we’re not offering shows, only sets, but I can probably be talked into writing something if anyone turns out to be really keen. We are mostly performing in Gloucestershire with this project (Jessica Law and the Outlaws go further afield). I am open to suggestions, if anyone fancies some folky steampunk cryptid eccentricity for an event.
I’m glad that we’ve been able to evolve something new – fewer tentacles, more wings and the occasion fish hat, it’s a joyful sort of project, and getting good things done.
Following on from the great success of his ghostwalking service, Artemus Deadman is now offering unexorcisms.
Have you had a friend or loved one exorcised recently? Did it not go to plan? Granted, none of us really enjoyed the way Horace Chevin used to screech during the period when he appeared to have been possessed by the spirit of a furious chicken, but what happened next was so much worse.
Reverend Davies’ exorcism returned Horace to his original condition. At which point he took up yelling about foreigners and newcomers and how we ought to throw shipwreckees back in the sea because there isn’t enough milk to go round at the best of times and they do it to themselves because they’re heard about how good our milk is.
On reflection, the Chevin family decided that Horace’s personal belief in the health benefits of drinking your own urine was also rather unpleasant. It turned out that while he thought he was a furious chicken, his personal hygiene greatly improved, and there were far fewer incidents where he actually bit anyone.
Unexorcism fixed all of this, and Horace is back to scratching around in the yard and occasionally eating worms. He shrieks, but he says mercifully little. It turns out to be the least troubling option.
If you’ve tried exorcism, and it hasn’t worked for you, then pay a visit to Artemus Deadman. He will undertake to coax the exorcised spirit back into its former vessel and return your loved one to a more manageable state.
Unexorcism, because sometimes demons aren’t anything like as horrible as the people they’ve possessed.
It cannot be denied, the news came as something of a shock to everyone. Benjamin Bencome, botanist and Bachelor of Science, was dead. The presence of death is certainly no novelty on Hopeless, Maine; the Grim Reaper seems to find the island to be something of a home-from-home, considering the amount of time he spends there.
Benjamin’s death, however, was different. When he had ascended the stairs to the attics earlier in the day, he had been his usual self, albeit a little glum. A couple of hours, or so, later, when Reggie Upton decided to look in on him, not only was Benjamin quite dead, but appeared to have been deceased for several months. Even Reggie, a seasoned soldier, was shocked, and so it was with no small amount of trepidation that Philomena Bucket and her husband, Rhys Cranham, went with him back to the attics to view the scene of this most remarkable and tragic phenomenon.
The corpse of Benjamin lay crumpled in a corner of the room.
“That’s strange,” said Reggie. “Something is different… his clothes seem to be suddenly too large for him.”
Rhys stepped closer to the remains. “You said he looked as though he had been dead for months. Well, I would say years, personally. He is nothing but bones.”
The three stood in stunned silence, for even as they watched, Benjamin’s clothing began to disintegrate before their very eyes.
“For decency’s sake, we need to move him,” said Rhys, and stepped towards the corner.
“No!” shouted Reggie, with an urgency that stopped Rhys in his tracks.
“Can’t you see what is happening? You’ll be as dead as he is if you go another step. It is as though time is moving at a different rate in that corner.”
It was true. There was little evidence of Benjamin left by now, and in the spot where he had lain could be seen a swirling green mist.
“There is a sinkhole in the garden of the House at Poo Corner,” said Rhys, referring to the home of generations of Night-Soil Men. “And, at its bottom, hundreds of feet beneath the island, you can just about see a green mist hanging, and it looks not unlike like that stuff.”
“And I think I can guess why it’s here?” said Philomena.
The other two eyed her quizzically.
“That corner is where the vertical ladder to the Underland once stood. It was concealed in, what appeared to be, an old sea-chest. After a dear friend of mine, Marigold Burleigh, took it into her head to venture alone down there, and disappear forever, I sealed the passage and persuaded Bartholomew Middlestreet to remove every trace of the mock sea-chest. I think whatever that green mist does, and whatever it is, it is emanating from the Underland.”
“So what can be done?” asked Reggie.
“I don’t know,” admitted Philomena. “And I can think of only one person who might have some idea…“
“It is a time vortex,” declared Durosimi O’Stoat. “I have seen an example just once before, and believe me, they are unbelievably difficult to dispose of.”
Since returning from the Himalayas, Durosimi appeared to be a changed man, and therefore more approachable than formerly.
“Is it likely to spread?” asked Philomena.
“I imagine so,” replied Durosimi. “Which means that you will have to waste no time in containing it as best you can.”
“I will have to…?” Philomena looked dismayed.
“Of course. I think we both know that you have demonstrated magical abilities far beyond anything that I am capable of. Anyway, you asked for my advice, and that’s it. After all, this is your inn, and, quite frankly, it is not my problem.”
“Oh, but it is,” broke in Reggie, angrily. “If that thing spreads, no one is safe, not even you, O’Stoat.”
Durosimi raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“He’s right,” said Rhys, “And if that happens, it could devour the island.”
Durosimi sighed. “Very well,” he said. “I will consult my books. There must be something in one of them that will shed some light on this.”
“Well, for goodness sake hurry up,” said Reggie.
Two anxious hours passed by before Durosimi returned.
“There is a solution, but it has one or two drawbacks,” he said.
A few seconds passed, which felt like an eternity.
“Well go on,” said Reggie. “Tell us.”
“It seems that a lodestone, placed in the centre of the vortex, upon a north-south alignment, will diffuse it.” said Durosimi.
“Do we have such a thing?” asked Philomena.
Durosimi smiled thinly and produced, from one of his voluminous pockets, a rough looking rock, almost as long as a man’s hand.
“That looks like a piece of fossilised night-soil,” observed Rhys, doubtfully. “But if that is all that there is to do, then it sounds easy enough,”
“True,” replied Durosimi, “but unfortunately, the person who places the lodestone in there will undoubtedly die. Remember, time is travelling at an accelerated rate within the vortex, and it seems to be speeding up – It’s now about ten years with every second that passes, I would guess.”
There was another brief pause, then Reggie said, “I’ll do it.”
“No you will not,” said Philomena. “I won’t let you.”
“You must,” said Reggie. “Look, I have led a full and exciting life. I
have no regrets. You young people have everything in front of you.
Come on, O’Stoat, hand me the lodestone and work out which direction
is north, then we can get this business over and done with.”
“Please Reggie, there’s got to be another way.” Philomena was on the edge of tears.
Reggie shook his head sadly, then kissed her hand.
“Be sure to take good care of The Squid, m’dear,” he smiled sadly, and took the lodestone from Durosimi.
Tickets to this summer’s vampire ball are being made widely available as the event – previously more a myth than a certainty – will be going ahead in Gaunt Town in a few weeks time.
“I know Gaunt Town doesn’t have the best reputation, but it’s a great location with a wonderful atmosphere,” ball organiser Symphony Sange told The Vendetta.
Gaunt Town has a reputation for killing or driving mad anyone who ventures there after dark. Your understanding of the atmosphere may depend greatly on how mad or dead you were before even buying a ticket.
This year, the ball welcomes in any and all Hopeless citizens who wish to attend. The undead, the undead-wannabes and the death curious are all very welcome, we have been told. It’s an inclusive event henceforth and will no longer be excluding participation based on vitality.
However, not everyone is excited about this opportunity to dig out your grandmother’s grave attire and look your glamorous worst.
Reverend Davies said: It’s a trap, it’s clearly a trap. They’re going to feed on the living, they’re just luring you in with the excitement of a big summer party, but it really isn’t safe.”
When asked if he would be going, Reverend Davies confirmed that he had bought a ticket.
The skunk cabbage, as mentioned in this tale, is quite an innocuous-looking thing. In fairness, if prepared correctly it isn’t much of a problem at all.
To prepare it, boil the cabbage whole for an hour. Throw away the water. Do not use the water. Really, don’t, not even if you think it smells acceptable. Wash the cabbage in entirely different water, and then cut it up if you like. Cook it for a further three hours, at least. The results don’t taste of anything much, and tend to be sludgy.
Undercooking a skunk cabbage has consequences.
Inevitably, once children become aware of this, a certain percentage of them will set out to eat raw skunk cabbage, with the intention of causing olfactory distress to those around them. The results can be hideous. Sometimes of course the little dears eat far too much raw cabbage, or turn out to be more sensitive to it than anticipated.
The most usual outcome, aside from utter humiliation, is the necessity of burning anything the child happened to be wearing at the time. Quite possibly anything anyone near the child happened to be wearing at the time as well. Skunk cabbage smells do not wash out, or fade in a timely way.
About four years ago, Dr Abbey started drawing Salamandra with green hair. I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time, only that it belonged to the part of the story that comes after the graphic novels.
We’re in that time frame now. The last graphic novel (Survivors) has been out for a while, and as a community we’re figuring out what island life is like now that the fog has lifted (a bit). The island is still mostly cold, damp, haunted and weird, but people have more options and are finding their own way of doing things.
Hopeless has become a more hopeful sort of place. People are banding together to do what makes sense to them – be that researching the fungi, developing the science, being part of the folklore response squad or trying a bit of piracy. Islanders are getting better at making the most of what they have. Hopeless has become a slightly happier place.
Salamandra has green hair now, because she’s becoming a happier and more playful sort of person. Responsibility doesn’t sit so heavily on her shoulders. Not least because magic washes around the island more than it used to. Philomena Bucket has a lot of power, Lilly May is handling things well, Annamarie Nightshade lives in the sky, there are crow queens, and there’s lots of folk magic out there. Sal doesn’t have to worry so much about what she ought to try and fix, and what she might get wrong.
It’s always been tricky for her. Salamandra is magic, but she’s not always that keen on doing magic. She just wants to be left alone to get on with being herself, and she can do that now. She can be a bit reclusive, but she’s got green hair, and plants to grow, and a desire to live quietly. Whether she’ll be left in peace to do that is a whole other question…
Are you troubled by restless ghosts? Has there been too much moaning and throwing stuff about lately? Is it all a bit much?
Do you like them too much to want to get Reverend Davies to exorcise them? Consider hiring Artemus Deadman to exercise them instead!
Ghosts benefit from a change of scenery, from a bit of fresh air and the chance to billow about somewhere different now and then. Artemus Deadman is an expert in providing recreational opportunities for the departed. Give your ghosts a grand day out and enjoy some peace and quiet in their temporary absence.
(You can find out more about what Artemus Deadman really does on ghostwalks over here – https://adeadman.co.uk/ . Text by Nimue)
Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton had always prided himself on being fazed by nothing. Even finding that he had been deposited upon the island of Hopeless, Maine, when his intention had been to board the RMS Titanic, was something that he had taken in his stride. So ready was he to embrace his new life that he had insisted on being known simply as Reggie Upton, and had thrown himself completely into what passed as Hopeless society. One or two of his friends noticed, however, that, in recent weeks, his stoic approach seemed to have been somewhat bruised.
You may remember that he had discovered that the well-known song, ‘Goodbye Dolly Gray’, popular during the Boer War, had been parodied on the island by a former colleague and fellow comrade-in-arms, Colonel ‘Mad Jack’ Ruscombe-Green. It had shocked Reggie to learn that the colonel’s brief venture into the world of songsmithing had, apparently, occurred more than a century earlier. This was all very perplexing. As far as Reggie was concerned, Ruscombe-Green, who had been considerably younger than he was, and at the time a lieutenant, was last seen, no more than a dozen years earlier, causing mayhem in South Africa. To add to his confusion, this revelation had come not long after the young, and palely beautiful, Philomena Bucket had informed him that she had been born in the same year as his grandmother.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” advised Rhys Cranham. “There is little rhyme or reason to anything that happens on Hopeless.”
“But I can’t help but worry,” confided Reggie, “take that new chap on the island, what’s his name? Bencombe…”
“Benny?” said Rhys. “He’s alright.”
“Don’t let him hear you calling him Benny,” broke in Philomena. “It’s Benjamin or nothing, as far as he’s concerned,”
“Well, as I was about to say,” said Reggie, slightly annoyed at the interruption, “he reckons that a few weeks before he found himself here, Britain had crowned a new queen. Another Elizabeth, apparently.”
“Is that bad?” asked Rhys.
“My point is,” said Reggie, “how far in the future does this happen? When I left England, the royal male line looked fairly solid. There was no sign of any woman called Elizabeth, or anything else for that matter, who might be likely to ascend to the throne.”
“Good luck to her, I say,” declared Philomena. “You lot might not be so warlike with a woman in charge.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Reggie. “Queen Victoria built an empire. The Empire upon which the sun never sets.”
“That’s because you can’t trust an Englishman in the dark,” muttered Philomena.
Reggie was not the only person fretting about the island’s eccentric attitude towards time, and just about everything else, It had taken Benjamin Bencombe several weeks to come to terms with the strange fauna and flora, including that skeletal dog that seemed to get everywhere. He hated the eternal fog, and the total lack of any sort of modern amenity. Then there were all of the ghosts, even in the pub. No one batted an eyelid when that Jesuit priest drifted through the wall of the bar, or when Philomena’s grandmother manifested in the snuggery. And as for the headless woman haunting the toilet, how the devil did she get there? Then to cap it all, that massive yeti fellow turned up, speaking perfect English and treated by all and sundry as though his presence on the island was the most natural thing in the world.
“I don’t know if I will be able to survive this place for very much longer,” he confided miserably to Philomena.
“Of course you will,” she reassured him, “everyone says that when they first come to the island.”
‘And the majority of them don’t last a fortnight,’ she thought to herself.
‘But I am a man of science, a botanist,” he insisted. “Without my books I am lost.”
“There are plenty of books up in the attics,” said Philomena. “There must be something up there that you’ll find useful.”
“I will look,” Benjamin sighed, ‘but I don’t hold out much hope.”
It was some hours later when Philomena realised that Benjamin had not returned from the attics.
“Maybe he’s dropped off to sleep,” she said to Reggie. “I’ll send Rhys up to check on him.”
“No need, I’ll go up,” offered Reggie, who never minded a browse around the attics, himself.
Five minutes later he was back in the kitchen, his face deathly pale.
“Is everything alright?” asked Philomena. “Where is Benjamin?”
“He’s… he’s dead…” Reggie stammered.
Philomena was surprised at Reggie’s reaction; after all, he must have seen a lot of death during his time in the army.
“… And he looks as though he has been dead for several months,” he added, grimly.
