The first thing anyone noticed about the man who called himself “Mr. Delkin” was that his boots were new and impossibly clean. Not even Reggie Upton had managed to achieve such a feat when he first arrived on Hopeless. Most people’s boots tended to look as though they had been dredged from the belly of a whale.

And yet here was Mr. Delkin, standing in the doorway of the Squid and Teapot, smiling faintly as though he had simply wandered in from a fitting in a shoe shop.

“A room for a few nights, if you will, landlady,” he said, regally. “I’m just passing through.”

This last remark rippled through the bar like spilled gin. Passing through? Passing through what? There was no “through” in Hopeless. For most it was a one-way journey. 

Within the hour, rumours swirled thick as fog. Some swore that Delkin had come by sea, although no vessel had been sighted. Others said he had marched straight out of the marshes with a lantern that never guttered. A few insisted he had stepped bodily from a mirror, blinking at the sudden smoke and candlelight. None were correct, of course. Only the woman who had watched his arrival with suspicion, from her seat in a shadowed booth beneath the stairs, had any inkling of the truth. Dr Pyralia Skant did not greet him, nor did she so much as lift her glass, but her eyes lingered on him with the faintest curl of disdain. It was the kind of look that said she already knew how the story would end.

Philomena Bucket leaned on the bar and peered at the newcomer. “And where, exactly, are you bound for?” she asked.

Delkin’s smile deepened, though his eyes did not. “Oh, here and there. You know how it is.”

“No,” said Philomena flatly. “No one ever knows how it is. That’s the trouble.”

By the following evening, The Squid and Teapot was awash with gifts, flattery, and thinly veiled bribes. Reggie Upton pressed his second-best waistcoat upon Delkin and hinted, in his roundabout military way, that a gentleman who could come and go at will might be prevailed upon to take a passenger or two. Norbert Gannicox turned up with a bottle of the distillery’s finest spirit. Even Drury, ever the equal opportunist, deposited a long-dead seagull at Delkin’s feet, in what could only be described as a gesture of goodwill.

But others whispered uneasily. Mrs Beaten declared that no one ever came to Hopeless without consequence. If this stranger had slipped in, then there was a reason, and what might that be?

On the third night of his stay, the inn seemed quieter than usual, as though everyone’s ears had been pricked by the stranger’s presence. He sat by the fire, his smile stretched a little too wide, his eyes reflecting the flames in a way that was not entirely human.

From her shadowed corner, Dr Pyralia Skant regarded him over the rim of a glass of absinthe. Her expression was the sort that could wither ivy and make mirrors crack out of sheer self-preservation.

At length, she spoke,  not loudly, but with the unerring precision of a knife sliding between the ribs.

“Funny thing about skins,” she said. “They’re never quite the right size, are they? Too tight here, too loose there… never quite your own.”

The traveller’s grin faltered for the briefest moment, like a mask slipping. An uneasy murmur ran through the room.

Pyralia drained her glass, set it down with a deliberate clink, and rose.

“Do carry on,” she said, sweeping past the traveller without a glance. “But don’t mind me if I choose not to shake your hand.”

And with that, she left, but not before quietly taking Philomena by the arm and leading her into the snuggery.

“He’s no traveller,” she rasped to Philomena, when they were alone. “Believe me, that’s a borrower. It has worn out its last skin somewhere else and went hunting for a new one –  and has no intention of  giving it back.”

Philomena returned to the bar and regarded Delkin warily. He was laughing at some story being told by Reggie, but his mouth was moving a fraction too slowly, as though trying to remember what laughter felt  like. His hands were careful. Too careful

Philomena felt a shiver go down her spine. 

“This feels unwholesome to me,” she thought. “He’ll drain the soul out of this place, if I let him.”

The climax came swiftly. On the fourth night of Delkin’s stay, to everyone’s horror Drury dragged in the body of a fisherman, or what was left of it. The face was gone, as though peeled away, leaving only rawness beneath.

Philomena confronted Delkin there and then, in the middle of the inn.

“I know what you are,” she said, her voice steady. “You’ve borrowed that skin, and it’s time to give it back.”

Delkin’s smile faltered. The hands flexed. The voice, when it came, was no longer measured but hollow, as though stretched across several worlds at once.

“This shape is pleasant,” he growled. “I think I shall keep it.”

The room erupted. Shadows sprang from the corners, black and writhing, as though drawn to the words. Patrons scrambled for the door. Guided by nothing but instinct, Philomena reached for the lantern that hung above the bar. To all intents and purposes it was dead and cold, but she was keenly aware that this was the Lamp of the Penitent that had so recently helped rescue Reggie Upton’s shadow from the Marsh Thing. It could only do good. 

She thrust it forward, and suddenly the flame flared hotly within, throwing out a dazzlingly bright light.

The thing called Delkin screamed. The skin shrivelled, sloughing away like parchment in fire. What stood revealed was not a man at all, but a shape of smoke and bone, eyes like wet coals. With a final shudder it fled upwards, dissolving into the rafters and out into the night, leaving behind it the faint reek of pitch.

In the silence that followed, Philomena watched a pair of blackened boots fall with a thud.

She replaced the lantern on its hook. Its flame guttered back, once more feigning to be cold and dead.

Reggie brushed plaster from his waistcoat, and muttered, 

“Well, that’s dashed inconvenient. I’d rather fancied that the blighter might have given me a lift back to England.”

Philomena snorted. “A lift, indeed. A lift into the grave, most likely. Anyway, I’ve got a feeling that you’d have a problem recognising England anymore. And Reggie… the Squid wouldn’t be the same without you.”

It had been a long night, and a sullen blanket of sea-fog hung over the rooftops of Hopeless, ringed by its reefs and marshes and snarls in time.

The traveller was gone, and what scraps remained of him were not the sort one gathered up willingly.

Rhys was contemplating locking up for the night when the unmistakable sound of stiletto heels rattled along the cobbles outside. Dr Pyralia Skant wandered in, her signature black bag in her hand.

“You must be exhausted, darlings,” she said. “Luckily I found a litre bottle of Napoleon Brandy in the back of my cupboard.  Could anyone fancy a drop, or two? I might even have some coffee and dark chocolate in my bag.”

Brandy! Chocolate! Coffee! These were luxuries that washed up on Hopeless all too infrequently, although since Pyralia had come to the island there had been a marked improvement in the standard of available refreshments. 

The next hour or so passed by in a most agreeable fashion, and Philomena, Rhys, Reggie and Pyralia could be found sitting in the snuggery. The brandy bottle was somewhat depleted, and they were now mellowly wallowing in the comforting ambience of fresh coffee.

“Stolen skins never last long,” Pyralia quietly murmured, almost to herself, though the sound carried clear as bells in the deep, velvet hush of the early hours.

“You’ve seen this sort of carry-on before, m’dear?” asked Reggie, helping himself to another square of chocolate.

Pyralia smiled enigmatically and winked. 

“More coffee, anyone?”  she asked.

It is not easy being a gentleman without a shadow.

Reggie Upton – formerly Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton – had been without one since magnanimously sacrificing his to the creature known as the ‘Marsh-Thing’, for the sake of his fellow islanders. He thought it would be no great loss. However, for a sacrifice to mean anything, it has, by definition, to be a great loss. Within a very short time its absence weighed heavily on Reggie’s mind. Wherever he walked, light did not follow him properly. He stood out, quite literally – and on Hopeless, that is never a good idea.

Philomena Bucket had been sympathetic from the outset, determined that the shadow should be returned. Pyralia Skant, on the other hand, was indifferent, seeing the sacrifice as being necessary, but even she confessed that the sight of Reggie strolling across a lantern-lit room, perfectly visible while the floor remained blank beneath him, was a trifle unsettling. Granny Bucket muttered darker things about a man without a shadow being halfway to a corpse. Reggie himself tried to carry on with his usual insouciance, though he admitted privately to Drury the skeletal hound, who would be very unlikely, not to say unable, to repeat something told in confidence, that he felt “quite unfinished, “like a boiled egg without a spoon.”

It was Bartholomew Middlestreet who first mentioned the Lamp of the Penitent.

“It’s mentioned in an old document I found in the museum,” he said, as though that were sufficient explanation. It was only when Granny Bucket fixed him with a spectral eye that it occurred to Bartholomew that it might be a good idea to expand on this nugget of information. 

“It seems that it came here with a boatload of monks, centuries ago. The story is that it was lit once a year to coax back the shades of the penitent. Shadows, spirits, the bits of you that slip loose when you’ve been a bit careless.” 

He paused and gave Reggie a reassuring grin.

“If your shadow is still trapped by the Marsh-Thing, the lantern could call it home again.”

“Well, we all know where my shadow is,” said Reggie, brightening. “But where the deuce is this dashed lamp kept?”

“It’s not too far from the Marsh-Thing’s lair,” Bartholomew replied. “And housed in a ruined chapel, dedicated to St Ermintrude.”

“I can’t say that I’ve heard of her or her chapel,” said Philomena doubtfully.

“According to the museum records, she’s quite obscure,” explained Bartholomew. “Patron saint of Marsh Dwellers apparently …”

“And this chapel is out in the marshes?”

Bartholomew nodded.

“Just a stone’s throw away from the Marsh-Thing?” suggested Philomena, warily.

“That would depend very much upon the size of the stone, and who was throwing it,” said Bartholomew, trying to sound positive.  

“Well at least my shadow won’t have to go too far to find me,” said Reggie. 

“You’ve all forgotten one thing,” broke In Granny Bucket, who had been unusually quiet until now.

“You sacrificed your shadow to stop the monster terrorising the islanders,” she said. “It’s unlikely to give it up without a fight.”

The ruins of St. Ermintrude’s Chapel lay where the boggy ground was at its most treacherous. Accompanied by Philomena, Granny Bucket and Drury (who insisted on carrying a femur as if it were a map), Reggie made his way through the reeds.

They found the chapel door half-swallowed by mud. Philomena muttered a charm to coax it open; Granny supplied a glare that would have split granite, and the stones of the ruin yawned like an old and obedient dog.

Inside lay the dust of centuries, perfumed by the stale reek of the marsh. Resting on top of a cracked altar sat the lantern. It was simple ironwork, yet within its glass a faint glow smouldered, though no candle burned.

“The light of repentance,” said Philomena softly. “Or perhaps the light of regret. Those things are not too far apart.”

Reggie, without a second thought, lifted the lantern and raised it high. The glow thickened, spilling over the stone like honey, and although the lamp shone brighter, the chamber seemed to darken. 

And then it came.

Not a shadow cast by Reggie, but a shadow seeking him: a slinking, upright silhouette, moving as though through water, with his own outline unmistakably stamped upon it. It crept from the wall, thin and famished.

Philomena gasped. Granny hissed. Drury barked enthusiastically, attempting to catch it in his teeth.

“Steady on, old fellow,” Reggie murmured, extending his hand. “I believe this one is mine.”

The shadow wavered, as though reluctant, then lunged. It clung to him, wrapping round his boots, his hands, his face, before settling into its rightful place at his heels. Reggie staggered, then stood taller than he had for days. He stamped one foot experimentally; the shadow obeyed.

“By Jove,” he whispered. “I’m whole again.”

But Granny Bucket was frowning.

“When the Marsh-Thing realises his hostage has gone,” she said, “there will be big trouble.”

As she spoke the glow within the lamp dimmed almost to nothing, the last ember flickering against the glass.

For a moment all was still, then the light winked out entirely. A susurrus of whispers filled the chapel, like dozens of unseen voices sighing at once. Something unseen shifted in the shadows beyond the lantern’s reach.

Granny Bucket shook her ghostly head. 

“That lamp loosened more than your shadow, and now the Marsh-Thing is waking up, you mark my words”

They each stood frozen to the spot, wondering what could be done. Every second that slipped by felt like an hour, then Drury barked and Philomena caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. 

The old hound was wagging his tail at something, or someone, materialising next to Reggie. 

“Annie,” Reggie gasped. “Is that you? I thought you’d deserted me long ago.”

The figure standing next to him was that of a short, quite pretty woman in her late thirties. 

In his younger days in India, Reggie had enjoyed a passionate relationship with a mystic named Annie Besant, who had introduced him to various occult practices. Before they parted, Annie taught Reggie how to create a thought-form, a Tulpa, in her image. The Tulpa had been a presence in the old soldier’s life for almost forty years, but since his arrival on Hopeless she had been less in evidence. 

Philomena and Granny saw the thought-form blow Reggie a kiss. Before he could respond she had drifted away like smoke, seeping through the chapel wall, towards the lair of the Marsh-Thing. Reggie stared after her, suddenly understanding what was happening, and aware that his last link To Annie Besant had gone forever. 

They left the crypt in silence, each conscious of the marshes seeming far darker than when they had entered. 

Back at the Squid and Teapot, Drury deposited the femur on the hearthrug and wagged his tail, apparently unconcerned. Granny muttered charms under her breath. Philomena tried to smile for Reggie’s sake. 

“Did you know that Annie was still around?” she asked, cautiously.

Reggie smiled ruefully, and nodded.

“I was being a fool hanging on to her like that, and thinking that she could ever replace the real Annie,” he said. “She was a thought-form, nothing more. And everybody knows that a Tulpa has no proper existence.”

“I don’t agree,” said Philomena. “She chose to take the place of your shadow. That’s not the actions of a mindless entity.”

“But without me she’ll fade away eventually,” said Reggie. “Then that dashed Marsh-Thing will be looking for its little trinkets again.”

“Then we’ll have to cross that particular bridge when we come to it,” sighed Philomena. 

She gazed gloomily out of the window, where, beyond the inn, the darkness seemed to move of its own accord.

Neville Moore had never seen Lenore, his pet raven, in such a state.

It was rare for her to abandon her usual aggressive hauteur, but that afternoon she hurled herself into Neville’s sitting room with such a frantic clatter that he almost tipped tea over a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore in his hurry to let her in.

“Steady on, old girl,” he soothed, holding out an arm as she flapped and cawed. “If you keep that up, people will think the place is under siege.”

This was unlikely, as Neville’s mausoleum-like home in Ghastly Green was half a mile from his nearest neighbour, Winston Oldspot, the Night-Soil Man. Even so, it was clear the bird was upset. Neville, who generally preferred to live as a hermit, gritted his teeth and decided desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going to see Philomena. If anyone can sort you out, she can.”

Philomena Bucket, who had been knitting something that bore only a passing resemblance to socks, narrowed her eyes. She was not fluent in Raven, but managed to glean the gist of Lenore’s outpourings.

“She says there’s trouble in the rookery.”

Lenore hopped indignantly along the table, scattering crumbs. Trouble? It was catastrophe. The island’s corvids had begun hoarding things that were not theirs to hoard: not bottle tops, not buttons, but fragments one does not expect to find in a nest — a fisherman’s shadow, a child’s laughter, the reflection of a face in a mirror.

“Shadows don’t just wander off, Lenore,” Philomena said firmly.

The raven fixed her with a beady stare.

‘They do now,’ came the caw.

The rookery clung to the cliffs like a shroud. One of the nests glittered with the strangest of treasures: the whispering shimmer of a woman’s scream, plucked at its height and bound with twigs. On the far side of the island, poor Begonia Slad opened her mouth only to produce a thin whistle where once her voice had been.

Above, the corvids muttered like a drunken choir.

“Shinies, shinies, shinies.

The Marsh-Thing promised.

We bring scraps.

It gives shinies.

Fair trade, fair trade…”

Philomena’s heart sank. “They’ve made a pact.”

And then,  the unmistakable  click of stiletto heels broke the silence. There was only one woman on Hopeless likely to possess a pair of stilettos. The sardonic voice that followed carried the faint scent of lavender and something perilously close to brimstone.

“Oh, this bloody island. Does it never end?”

She emerged from the shadows, tall and severe, her white lab coat flaring around her calves. The rooks fell silent at her approach. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.

Dr. Pyralia Skant inclined her head the way one predator acknowledges another.

“I thought the last pact had been buried long ago. But then, Hopeless does have a knack for recycling its mistakes.”

“The last pact?” Philomena demanded. “Dr. Skant – Pyralia – who are you, exactly?”

“Someone who has lived long enough to know better,” she replied. “And yet, inexplicably, doesn’t.”

Before Philomena could press her, Granny Bucket’s ghost drifted into view, looking both exasperated and faintly amused.

“Well, Pyralia Skant,” said Granny with a sly smile. “Still haunting the living, are we?”

The doctor bowed, mocking but not ungracious. “Mistress Bucket. Still meddling, I see?”

Between them, a grudging respect glimmered like embers. It was the sort of understanding two very old cats might share while pretending not to like each other, yet carefully sharing the same cushion.

“I suppose you’ll be expecting me to help you again,” said Granny.

“Do I have a choice?” Skant replied.

Out on the marshes, fog thickened; reeds rustled though no wind stirred. Something vast and half-seen coiled in the murk: an assemblage of bones, reeds, and drowned faces. Its voice was a chorus of croaks and whispers.

“The pact is binding,” it rasped. “Scraps for shinies. Souls for splendour. Fair trade.”

Granny Bucket clenched her spectral fists. “It isn’t fair. You’re hollowing people out.”

The Marsh-Thing rippled, amused. “Hollow is useful. Hollow leaves room for me.”

Dr. Skant arched a brow. “You bargain like a fishmonger. There are other currencies. Consider despair: plentiful, renewable, and frankly, going to waste on this island.”

The Marsh-Thing stilled. “Despair?”

“Indeed.” Skant produced a notebook whose pages looked older than stone. “A far richer diet than shadows or laughter. You’ll never run short. On Hopeless, the supply is inexhaustible.”

The drowned faces shifted uneasily. At last it croaked: “I will feed on despair. But one soul fragment must bind the pact. One tithe.”

Back in The Squid and Teapot, Granny relayed the Marsh-Thing’s ultimatum. Philomena was furious.

“I don’t make deals,” she snapped. “We win or we fight. We never bargain.”

“For once I’m agreeing with that Skant woman,” said Granny. “One tiny sacrifice is a small price to pay.”

Philomena opened her mouth to retort, but Reggie Upton, who had been unusually quiet,  cleared his throat.

“Dash it all, I suppose it should be me, then. I’ve had a good innings…”

“You can cut that sort of talk straight away,” Philomena almost spat. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Anyway, the Marsh-Thing’s not asking for a life,” said Granny. “Just a bit of you. Like the fisherman…”

“My shadow?” said Reggie, comprehension dawning. “The bounder can have that with pleasure. Not much use for it in this murky climate. Trip over the blasted thing in broad daylight as it is.”

Before Philomena could protest, Reggie’s shadow detached, curling like smoke through the window and into the night. She shuddered at the thought of the Marsh-Thing’s waiting reeds. The pact was sealed.

“Oh, Reggie,” she cried. “What have you done?”

The rookery exhaled. The trapped voices and shadows unwound, fluttering back to their rightful owners. Begonia Slad’s voice returned, though now a good half-tone deeper – which she secretly rather liked. The corvids, mollified, kept to their bargains but still muttered “shinies, shinies” when they thought no one was listening.

At The Squid and Teapot, Dr. Skant lingered over a ghastly concoction only she seemed able to stomach. Granny regarded her with a dry smile.

“You know, girl,” she said, “you’re not entirely incompetent. With practice, you might even make a tolerable witch one day.”

Dr. Skant bristled, though she hid it well. “Darling, do you really think so?” she replied icily. “I’m flattered.”

“While you two are goading each other,” said Philomena crossly, “Reggie has no shadow. And I, for one, will not stand by and let this happen.”

Outside, in the gathering darkness, the rooks grudgingly kept their pact, the Marsh-Thing grew fat on despair, and the once-proud shadow of an old soldier floundered wretchedly in a tangle of bones, reeds, and drowned faces.

To be continued…

Granny Bucket and Doctor Pyralia Skant had formed an unlikely alliance to thwart one of Durosimi O’Stoat’s more spectacularly bungled spells.

In a bid to rid himself of Doctor Skant, Durosimi had plotted to encase both the lighthouse and its current tenant in a monumental block of ice.

In fairness, the spell had partly succeeded. The lighthouse now stood as a great, bluish column of frozen misery. Unfortunately, thanks to something called Reflected Arcane Harmonics, not only had The Squid and Teapot been flash-frozen, but Durosimi’s own house as well. Durosimi himself was trapped in his study like a smug fly in amber.

Doctor Skant withdrew a glowing object from her bag: metallic, grapefruit-sized, and suspiciously pulsating with blue-green light.

Granny Bucket peered over her spectral shoulder. “What in blazes is that? Looks like something from the guts of a fallen star – or a very poorly designed kettle.”

Skant adjusted her goggles (they were totally unnecessary, but she liked the look) and smiled in a way that made Granny deeply uneasy.

“This is an entropic stabiliser. It encourages molecular structures to stop being so stubborn. I use it when laboratory doors freeze shut. Or when dimensional membranes need a bit of persuasion.”

She glanced at the ice-bound Squid and Teapot. “Or, indeed, this sort of thing.”

The stabiliser emitted a faint hum and a smell like burnt cinnamon as she placed it on the ice.

Inside the frozen Squid and Teapot, Rhys Cranham stirred, rubbing a lump on his head where he had met an unexpectedly icy beer pump. He squinted through several inches of frost at the shimmering blue-green glow outside.

“Reggie,” he mumbled, “Durosimi’s casting spells  again, isn’t he?”

Reggie Upton, bundled into several pullovers and an army greatcoat, grimaced. “Remind me to give that blighter a dashed good thrashing when this is over.”

Meanwhile, in his own frozen home, Durosimi floated in a kind of suspended animation, mouth locked in mid-smirk, eyes narrowed in self-satisfaction, quietly hoping he looked magnificent in profile. Unfortunately, the stabiliser’s hum was playing havoc with his spell, and the icy dome over his house began to creak ominously.

“Hmm.” Granny tilted her head. “Either your glowing kettle’s working or the whole island’s about to shatter like spun sugar.”

Skant frowned and increased the device’s power. The glow brightened, the ice hissed, and because Hopeless always finds a way to make things stranger than they need to be, Durosimi’s spell retaliated. A blue-white surge shot through the ice, spiralling into the sky like a deranged aurora. Every seagull on the island howled in unison.

“I’m fairly confident that wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Skant, already backing up.

“No, dear,” sighed Granny. “But I’m glad you feel confident about something.”

The stabiliser whined. The ice cracked, far too loudly to be comforting, and a deep, magical, and distinctly irritated voice echoed from somewhere within:

“WHO DARES TO DO THIS?”

Granny folded her arms. “Oh, don’t start with me, Durosimi O’Stoat. You’re fooling no one with that silly voice. You’ve frozen half the island, and with you in it. What do you intend to do about that?”

The voice faltered. “…Granny Bucket? Is that you? I don’t seem to be able to move.”

“Things aren’t all bad, then,” said Granny. “But your spell’s grown a mind of its own. Now hush before you make it worse.”

Too late. The ice melted unevenly, steaming in some places and freezing harder in others, as Durosimi’s magic fought both Skant’s technology and Granny’s ghostly counter-charms.

“You’d better have another one of them tropical stable thingies in your bag,” said Granny, “because this is about to go… ”

The stabiliser pulsed brilliantly once, then exploded into harmless glitter.

Skant stared at the empty space where it had been. “Well… that’s never happened before.”

The ice groaned and split, and from far beneath, something vast began to rise; a shape that belonged neither to science nor magic, which meant it was perfectly at home on Hopeless.

At first glance it resembled a dinosaur – perhaps a plesiosaur- before Durosimi’s spell had rewritten reality. Now it had too many eyes, three thrashing tails, and what appeared to be the balustrade of a veranda protruding from its barnacle-studded side. It gave a melancholy bellow that resonated in the bones of everyone present, living or spectral.

“Did Durosimi just summon a dinosaur into his own living room?” asked Skant, shielding her eyes as the thing’s glow intensified.

Granny gave a world-weary sigh. “No, dear. That’s probably been under the island for millions of years. He just woke it up.”

The creature, stubbornly ignoring the laws of gravity entirely, rose ponderously into the air, trailing ribbons of melting ice and a very confused weathercock from the Squid and Teapot’s roof.

Inside the thawing inn, Rhys, Reggie, and several regulars stared at their half-frozen tankards.

“Did… did a dinosaur just float past the window?” whispered Reggie.

“Don’t ask,” muttered Philomena, brushing ice from her shoulder. “Just don’t ask.”

Meanwhile, Durosimi’s ice prison collapsed, dumping the sorcerer in a slushy heap in his front garden. He spluttered, frost clinging to his eyebrows, and looked up just in time to see the floating dinosaur drift toward the horizon.

“Please, no one mention this,” he croaked, trying to salvage some dignity.

“Too late,” said Granny, floating closer with a smug expression. “You froze half the island, nearly flattened the Squid and Teapot, and released whatever that was. I’d say your reputation’s in tatters.”

Skant, still staring at her shattered stabiliser, smiled faintly. “On the bright side, I’ve just proven my device can melt magically-imbued ice. Though waking up a dinosaur… that’s new.”

The floating creature gave one last haunting cry before disappearing into the mist, taking with it half of Durosimi’s balustrade and a rather nice deckchair from behind the inn.

Hopeless fell silent again. The last of the ice dripped into puddles. The Squid and Teapot’s door burst open and a soggy Reggie strode out, sword stick in hand.

“Right,” he barked, pointing it at Durosimi. “Next time you get the urge to cast anything bigger than a kettle charm, you ask first. Clear?”

Durosimi opened his mouth, then – catching the look in Granny’s eye – nodded dumbly.

Granny floated back toward Skant, a faint smile playing about her translucent lips. “You did well, girl. For someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

Skant raised an eyebrow. “I’m revising my position.”

They exchanged the briefest of nods before turning their attention to the squelching, embarrassed figure of Durosimi O’Stoat, already attempting to look as though the entire fiasco had never really happened.

Ever since the Founding Families – polite invaders clad in tweed and corsetry – had arrived on the island of Hopeless, Maine more than two centuries ago, it had been tacitly agreed that the O’Stoat family held a monopoly on magic. True, the reluctant witch Philomena Bucket had upset the balance somewhat, but in Durosimi O’Stoat’s mind she remained an inconsequential blip on the island’s long and peculiar timeline. The fact that this same blip had saved his life on several occasions rarely intruded upon his thoughts.

Lately, however, things had begun to shift. Change had come to Hopeless dressed in a white lab coat and clicking heels, answering to the name Doctor Pyralia Skant.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Durosimi O’Stoat was furious. This Skant woman, recently ensconced in the lighthouse, spoke breezily of “fixing” Hopeless; unmaking it, she said. What could that possibly mean? Fix what, exactly? If she thought she could waltz onto his island and, without so much as a by-your-leave, tamper with matters that had been the exclusive domain of O’Stoats for generations, she had another thought coming. Durosimi intended to make sure of it.

As high sorcerer, hereditary master of mystical energies, and proud owner of an ego that could blot out the sun, Durosimi stood in his study muttering into a cauldron that had never been asked its opinion on the matter.

“A simple spell,” he told himself. “Child’s play. Encapsulate her precious lighthouse in ice, and if she happens to be inside when it happens… well, she’ll learn not to meddle with powers she cannot possibly comprehend.”

He added the final pinch of powdered whelk-shell (for stability) and a sprinkle of dried skunk cabbage (for spite) and began to chant. Outside, the wind stilled, the gulls fell silent, and the air smelled faintly of something that might have been panic.

Then the magic misfired.

A great crackling sound rolled across the island as a sheet of ice swept from the lighthouse, solidifying into a gleaming column. Unfortunately, Durosimi had neglected to consider reflected arcane harmonics (a beginner’s error, though Durosimi would have throttled anyone who said so). The spell rebounded spectacularly, freezing not only his own home, complete with Durosimi still inside, but also, for reasons unknown, the Squid and Teapot, whose patrons were having quite an ordinary evening until their beer tankards became ice sculptures.

It was into this scene of catastrophic overreach that Granny Bucket’s ghost glided.

“Jaysus, Mary and Joseph,” exclaimed Granny, casually invoking entities who would have made a point of slipping quietly into an empty stable in order to avoid her.

She sighed in the way that only a spectral matriarch can sigh.

“This stinks of Durosimi O’Stoat,” she muttered to herself. “And Philomena frozen inside the pub, unable to help me. I can’t be undoing this on me own.”

Granny wrinkled her ghostly brow. She would have to swallow her pride.

Doctor Pyralia Skant, who had been on the far side of the island at the time, was suddenly conscious of an annoying phantom voice speaking in her head with an Irish accent. A mischievous grin flickered across her face as she realised that she was being contacted by none other than her arch-rival, dear old Granny Bucket. What was the old biddy up to now? And what did she mean with the words, “Come on, girl, we have to unstick this mess before someone loses an extremity.”

Skant regarded the frozen structures with an expression caught somewhere between professional curiosity and deep annoyance. “Is this normal for Hopeless?”

“No,” said Granny, folding insubstantial arms, “this is Durosimi O’Stoat messing things up. Again. And if this is going to be sorted out, we two are going to have to work together, whether we like it or not.”

Pyralia Skant allowed herself a smile.

“What is there not to like, dear?” she asked. “I’m sure we’ll have huge fun.”

And so began an unholy alliance: a ghostly witch who disapproved of almost everything modern, and an apparent immortal in the guise of a scientist, who, like all good scientists, purported not to believe in ghosts. Somehow they had to agree to work side by side if they were going to unravel a spell that really should have been impossible to cast in the first place.

The ice shimmered faintly, humming with a low, otherworldly resonance that set Skant’s teeth on edge. Somewhere inside the frozen Squid and Teapot, Reggie Upton donned another pullover and banged on a window in a distinctly unamused fashion.

“This is going to be messy,” muttered Granny Bucket.

Pyralia Skant gave her an amused look. “Messy? My dear, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Then the ice gave a sudden, unsettling crack, as though something inside it had just shifted.

“Ah,” said Doctor Skant, reaching into her bag for an object that glowed a little too brightly to be safe, “I think it just got worse.”

To be continued…

The trouble began, as many Hopeless catastrophes seem to, with a pot of tea and a sudden atmospheric shift.

It was late morning, and The Squid and Teapot seemed to be uncharacteristically quiet. Rhys and Reggie had gone to help Norbert Gannicox at the distillery, and Tenzin was entertaining the children, Caitlin and Oswald, up in the attics. Taking advantage of this little oasis of peace, Philomena retired to the snuggery and brewed a soothing pot of nettle and sea-lavender tea. Since the arrival of Doctor Pyralia Skant to the island of Hopeless, she had been trying very hard not to think about temporal leakage, an unsettling floating eyeball, or the fact that Drury had been seen playing fetch with a disembodied scream that morning.

When the snuggery door creaked open of its own accord, Philomena surprised herself by feeling an unaccountable twinge of excitement.

Seconds later, in walked Doctor Pyralia Skant. She was wearing her trademark heels, gloves, and a white lab coat so pristinely starched that, if it wasn’t armed, it was certainly dangerous. She carried with her the scent of ozone, absinthe, and the slight sense of a threat that might really be a promise.

“The variety of food on this island is absolutely abysmal, darling,” Skant declared, placing a satchel on the table. “So I’ve brought over some English muffins and lots of best butter. I thought that a change of diet might put a little colour in your cheeks. By the way, I may have inverted the lighthouse lantern by accident. Hope that’s not inconvenient.”

Philomena smiled. “I doubt that anyone will notice,” she said, too occupied in gazing at the food in disbelief to complain.

They sat. Tea was poured.

“I don’t know where all this has come from,” stammered Philomena, “but I’m grateful. However can I thank you?”

“Would you like me to butter your muffin, dear?” said Dr Skant with a disarming smile, picking up the butter knife.

Philomena gave her a long, hard look.

“No, that’s fine,” she said at last. “I can manage.”

The two women ate in companionable silence. Philomena closed her eyes. English muffins and soft, creamy yellow butter. She couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted such luxury.

And then, right on cue, the lights dimmed.

Not the candle lanterns, nor  the fire. The air itself seemed to narrow, as if reality was bracing for an impact.

A shape shimmered near the hearth. Familiar, and – at this precise moment – unwelcome.

“Well, would you look at this!” came the thick Cork accent, wrapped in ghostly smugness. “The girl’s only gone and invited the bloody apocalypse in for elevenses!”

Philomena did not turn.

She closed her eyes, then breathed and quietly counted to ten.

Doctor Skant raised an eyebrow. “Who’s this? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

A vague blur of floral print and disdain solidified beside the fireplace.

“Granny Bucket, spirit of judgment past,” Philomena said through her teeth. “She drops by when the veil is thin or I commit emotional vulnerability.”

Granny cocked her head, squinting at Skant.

“You don’t smell right. You smell like surgery and sulphur. And you’ve got the air of someone who knows what a man’s spleen looks like from the inside.”

Skant smiled politely. “I do, actually.”

Granny sniffed. “So. One of those, is it?”

“I’m not sure what category you’re aiming for,” Skant replied. “But if it’s somewhere between a sorceress and an unmitigated disaster, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Philomena sipped her tea like it might explode. “Play nice. Please play nice ” she muttered.

Granny floated closer, folding her arms.

“You’re dangerous,” she said, fixing her new adversary with the sort of unnerving gaze that only the dead can summon.

“You’re right. I am,” Skant replied, unflinching. “Ask the fog. It still hasn’t forgiven me.”

“I’m Philomena’s ancestral guide, you know,” Granny said, peering through Skant as if expecting to find graveyard mould. “I knew her when she couldn’t tell an invocation from an invitation.”

“And I’m the one who is teaching her how to weaponize sarcasm,” Skant said sweetly. She held up a hand. “And there’s no need to thank me. You’re welcome.”

Philomena stood.

“Muffins, anyone?” she said too brightly, voice just on the edge of hysteria.

The two women – one dead, one eternal – locked eyes across the steaming teapot.

“You think you’re clever,” Granny said darkly.

“Oh, I know that I am,” said Skant.

“Doesn’t mean you’re wise.”

“And it doesn’t mean you’re right.”

There was a moment. A beat of psychic tension. A flicker of lavender flame in the shadows.

Then, a familiar clatter.

Drury trotted in, carrying a severed umbrella handle and looking pleased with himself. He wagged once, wagged twice, then barked.

Granny’s ghost rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re still here.”

Pyralia Skant reached down and scratched his nonexistent ears. Drury beamed with skeletal delight.

And just like that, the atmosphere snapped.

Granny scowled. “This is a monumental waste of my time. I’m off to harass a cleric. Is that Jesuit still hiding in the privy?”

Before Philomena could reply, Granny vanished in a small puff of mothballs and disapproval.

Philomena sat down slowly, pouring herself more tea. “Well,” she muttered, “that could have gone a lot worse.”

Skant raised a muffin. “I think I won, darling.”

“You absolutely did not,” said Philomena. “Granny always has to have the last word.”

Dr Skant flashed a dazzling grin.

“Then this is going to be so much more fun than I ever imagined,” she said.

It was a Tuesday, which everyone agreed was a poor choice of day for anything of significance to happen. The fog that rolled in was peculiar even by Hopeless standards: not so much thick as dense with feeling, and it insisted on hanging about the island like a guilty conscience. It was a fog that carried upon its breath the faint  scent of pickled herring that had once hoped for a better future.

Philomena Bucket was the first to spot the creature as it oozed its way up the shingle behind the Squid and Teapot, flopping into the yard with a noise like flatulent custard.

“It’s… glistening,” murmured Rhys Cranham, peering at it with a professional distaste.

The thing was roughly the size and shape of a calf, but pale and somewhat translucent. It had a fringe of tentacles where no tentacles had any right to be, and a pair of mournful, deeply expressive eyes that made everyone who looked at it feel vaguely responsible for something.

“It’s in distress,” said Philomena, crouching beside it. “Look at those eyes.”

Rhys squinted. “I am. They’re judging me.”

It emitted a low, wobbling sound, not unlike someone attempting to play a funeral dirge on a very damp harmonium. Drury, intrigued, barked twice and, having elicited no obvious response, got bored and wisely decided to go back to bed. 

The creature was nothing, if not compliant. It allowed itself to be bundled into an old washtub, where it was left to soak in one of the outhouses behind the inn. Unsurprisingly, it  was Philomena who christened it as ‘The Moon-Calf’. This was partly because the word was lodged somewhere in the distant recesses of her memory, but also that  it vaguely resembled the unfortunate union of a Jersey cow and a jellyfish.

Within hours, the mood in The Squid and Teapot  had shifted. No one was exactly poetic – thank goodness, given recent events – but everyone had gone a little quiet. The regulars sat holding their drinks,  eyes distant, muttering odd, half-finished thoughts about lost keys, missed chances, and a terrible sense of having misplaced something intangible and important.

By the second evening, folk began wandering out behind the inn for no apparent reason, only to end up gazing silently at the moon-calf as it pulsed gently in its tub. Its sighs came at regular intervals, as if it were timing its heartbreak with a metronome.

“It’s affecting the atmosphere,” grumbled Rhys. “Even Drury’s gone quiet.”

“He’s besotted,” said Philomena. “Look at his tail.”

And indeed, the skeletal hound sat vigil beside the washtub with the intense, wordless devotion of a creature who had fallen hard and fast for a wet, boneless slab of sadness.

On the third night, just as the mist began to thicken once more, there came a knock at the back door. Rhys opened it cautiously, with the air of a man expecting either a tax collector or something that required garlic.

Standing on the threshold was a figure out of a drowned man’s dream. He was lean and tall, with seaweed clinging to his oilskins and barnacles studding his boots. His beard dripped seawater onto the doorstep. His eyes were grey and fathomless, and just slightly annoyed.

“I’m here for my wife,” he said.

There was a pause.

“You what?” asked Rhys.

“The one you call the moon-calf,” said the visitor, peering past him. “She was my wife, once. That was before she offended a sea-witch, of course. It’s never a wise thing to do. Anyway, as you’ll appreciate, it’s a matter of urgency, as this is the last fog she’ll ride before she returns beneath the waves.”

Philomena blinked. “You’re… a ghost?”

“I am Captain Jabez Coaley. Drowned off the Dogger Bank in 1813. I’ve been following her for two centuries.” He removed his hat, revealing hair like damp kelp. “Love’s a persistent thing.”

Philomena gave a soft sigh that could have been mistaken for sentiment, had it not been accompanied by a firm grip on the broom she kept behind the door.

Rhys frowned. “I suppose this is the part where you carry her back to some mystical briny afterlife?”

Captain Dagg nodded solemnly. “To the Sea of Lost Lovers.”

“Of course it is,” muttered Rhys.

Drury barked once, unhappily, then placed himself in front of the washtub in a most uncharacteristically heroic fashion.

“Now, now,” said Philomena, placing a hand on the dog’s spine. “She has to go home.”

The moon-calf lifted its head. It made a low, yearning sound and seemed – for just a moment – to shimmer with a light not of this world. Then, slowly, it flopped out of the tub and across the cobbles, leaving behind a trail of seawater, slime, and unspoken farewells.

Captain Coaley opened his arms. The moon-calf eased into them, and together, they walked back into the fog.

Philomena watched until they vanished entirely. Somewhere out in the darkness, a wave crashed, and something sighed in time with it.

By the following morning, the mysterious fog had disappeared, and the islanders, once more left to enjoy good old Hopeless fog, seemed a little more themselves again. Philomena found a single luminous scale in the washtub. She placed it gently in a jam jar, labelled it Do Not Pickle, and tucked it beside the more dangerous preserves.

Drury sat in the yard for a good few hours, watching the sea.

No one said much about the moon-calf after that. But once a month, when the tide is high and the fog comes in blue and sad, you can hear a faint, familiar sighing behind the Squid and Teapot. And sometimes – if you’re very quiet – you’ll catch Drury humming along.

Author’s note: Philomena had probably come across the word Moon-Calf when hearing farmers describing cattle that had been born badly deformed, the full moon being deemed responsible. Shakespeare also used the term in his play ‘The Tempest’ in reference to the monster Caliban.