While we all know that dustcats mostly eat dust, you only have to look at those tongues to know they could probably eat other things as well. Being cats, it’s also a fair assumption that they chase things, kill things they can’t actually eat and knock things off tables.
This led to some pondering about what kinds of things dustcats might be inclined to harass. Here we have some very small and airbourne entities, you can no doubt work out which one is which…
Dustmites, dustmights, dustbunnies, bluebottles and granny’s shroud moths. The terrible but inevitable consequence of people who like puns spending too much time together. Put James Weaselgrease and Keith Errington in the same room and apparently this brings out the worst in Nimue as well, who was responsible for drawing the silliness.
If there was going to be a little game, it might be entirely about dustcats chasing things. We’re not absolutely saying that this is going to be a thing, but at the same time, if this is the sort of thing you would like, please do say because this would probably help motivate the coding elf and wake it from its summer slumbers.
Recently at the Raising Steam festival, Mark Hayes helpfully pointed his camera at The Ominous Folk. He’s now turned his videos into a blog post.
There are a couple of technical things here – because we’ve migrated to a different host, while we still look like a wordpress site we’ve lost the power to reblog, so we have to take a slightly different approach to sharing things.
Thing number two is that Mark is a lovely author who is hugely supportive of other authors. If he’s not on your radar already, do take a few minutes to explore his blog and get a sense of the wonderful creative things he does.
What we’re going to get in a bit is a charming little insert block (wait for it….) If this was a reblog we’d start with the opening text of Mark’s post and then there would be a link, so I shall try to replicate that effect….
“Probably because there was no one competent available I was asked to record the Ominous Folk of Hopeless Maine performance at Rising Steam 2023. So I did…
The first song is about demonic devices, which is to say it is a song form the perspective of a demon forced to power a device. Possibly a steam roller, may be a kettle, or possibly a really over engineers rotary washing line. Please remember not to try this kind of thing at home unless you have a 5th level summoning circle and an emergency banishing spell to hand…
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll be aware that Martin Pearson’s Tales from The Squid and Teapot are a Tuesday feature. This has been a thing for such a long time now that it seemed a good idea to take a moment for the project as a whole.
In terms of the island setting, The Squid and Teapot is the name of the pub. Said pub is down near the harbour, and is often the first port of call for people who have survived shipwrecking. It’s a friendly, well meaning sort of space, in that the ghosts are friendly, the tentacles can be very friendly, especially with unsuspecting ankles and oddly enough not everyone feels instantly comfortable with this.
Tales from The Squid and Teapot are a mix of things – some are stories set around this location, and others are the sorts of stories regulars might amuse each other with over a large glass of something murky and fermenting. The tales have their own established cast, and also involve characters from the graphic novel series.
You’ll find The Squid and Teapot in other stories too – while the pub is the invention of Martin Pearson, it’s become an important part of island life and lots of other contributors like to refer to it. This may say some things about the natural affinity Hopeless, Maine people have for places selling that which claims to be beer.
While we do have some photographic evidence of Martin Pearson, his preference is not to have that shared too much, which is also why you haven’t seen him at any of the online festivals. In terms of words on this blog he is without a doubt the most prolific contributor. Zero effort has been made to figure out if that changes when you add in Nimue’s novellas to the equation, but we can say with confidence that it’s not clear.
If you’ve ever read The Squid and Teapot and thought that Martin’s writing style is a bit like Nimue’s, you’d be close. It would be fairer to say that Nimue’s writing style is a bit like Martin’s and that he’s very much been an influence on both her writing style and her interest in getting into writing in the first place.
(The Squid and teapot photo above are also Martin’s.)
Those are actual eyes in there, not just decorative ones. But whose eyes are they? Whose eyes would you put in a pudding?
We’ll come back to what kind of eyes. First, let us set the scene. Imagine The Crow, on a damp and uninviting Tuesday afternoon, on a day when everyone is unreasonably bored. The stew had been beaten into submission, the things in the cups had been chased to the point of tedium and no one wanted any more of the slightly soapy cake Mrs Ephemery kept offering them.
“Have you ever had ice cream?” a more recent arrival enquired.
Of course those words were unfamiliar in islander ears and were misinterpreted as a consequence. But Jemmy Vizor – the aforementioned new arrival – had spotted some tall glasses that were clearly meant for sundaes and enthused in all innocence about the glory of a cool pudding in a tall glass.
Within half an hour, a few intrepid souls (Nob Chevin, Third Chevin and Spork Chevin) were busily putting eyes in a tall glass. Unfortunately the eyes in question belonged to a number of rather youthful and innocent agents of change who did not realise their peril until it was rather late in the proceedings.
By an odd coincidence, the consumers of the eyes scream were rather young and misguided humans who also did not realise their peril until rather late in the proceedings.
This dish was created using whatever milk could be obtained. There is a distinct possibility it was donkey milk. While agents of change floating in donkey milk does not look intrinsically that attractive, the descriptions of sweet and luscious eyes scream had the young Chevins willing to try.
The most usual consequence of eating an agent of change, is transformation. It’s an unpredictable process at the best of times. Eating an entire glassful is ill advised. In fairness, Third Chevin looked rather unusual before all of this and there are those of us who say that what happened to his nose was a great improvement. Nob Chevin is now even less likely to be able to play the harmonium. Spork Chevin ripped in two and both parts then fled into the sea.
Eyes Scream will remain on the menu at The Crow until further notice.
Out there in the more sensible regions of the world, there’s a coherence to how things work. Maybe it’s the world view of Catholicism, with angels, demons and getting things done in Latin. Maybe what works is folklore, and sacrificing people inside wicker men. In some places, what works is science, or mad science. Fantastical things tend to have their own rules.
In many ways, Hopeless, Maine is a chaos magic setting. Things work because people invest energy and belief in them. It’s not the system anyone uses that matters, it’s the will, faith and intention that get things done. Witchcraft works. Medicine would work if Doc Willoughby wasn’t such a heady mix of evil and incompetence. You really do need to be very good at belief to be cured of anything by him. Balthazar Lemon’s belief in the marvels of engineering enabled him to build a lighthouse out of the corpse of a massive sea monster. Durosimi’s belief in vampirism allowed him to become such a creature.
There’s no obvious system for working out what will happen when one set of ideas clashes with another. That is however also true in real life. This is also how we end up with people building complex devices and then shoving demons into them. It’s impressive that anyone believes this is a good idea, all things considered, but faith has never really been about reasoned positions.
Religion on the island tends to be less effective overall. This is because the place has its own presiding self-styled deity, and that ‘god’ is a jealous god, and would not tolerate anything or anyone else getting a serious hold on the place. Reverend Davies can hold up his symbols to ward off the vampires, but this is as far as his belief can take him. As for whose reverend he truly is, that would be a question for another day.
(Text Nimue Brown. Art Tom Brown with colouring by Nimue Brown.)
Septimus Washwell had been practising a few dance steps when his fiancée, Mirielle D’Illay, made this announcement.
Without looking up, his attention totally focussed on attempting to smoothly shift from a jazz-inspired ball-change to a conventional chassé, he said,
“Oh yes, and what might that be?”
“I have… how do you say? I have something in the oven.” Mirielle’s Gallic accent seemed, suddenly, even more pronounced than usual.
“Oh, that’s good,” replied Septimus. “I’m starving. Learning these new steps makes me really hungry, for some reason.”
“No, you imbecile,” snapped Mirielle, scathingly. “Mon Dieu, don’t you even know your own idiots?”
“I think you mean idioms…”
“Idiots, idioms, I don’t care, what does it matter? I am trying to tell you that we are going to have a baby.”
Septimus froze in mid-step.
“Did you say…?”
“Oui. You are going to be someone’s papa.”
Septimus flopped down into the nearest available chair.
“That’s wonderful… I think,” he said, more than a little bewildered.
“You think???”
“Yes, yes, wonderful news,” said Septimus hurriedly, mopping his brow.
Mirielle fixed him with a steely look.
“And you realise, mon amour, that you are going to have to marry me now.”
“Marry?”
“Why not? It is the right thing to do.”
“But it isn’t really necessary on Hopeless…” began Septimus, but could see by the look on Mirielle’s face that this issue was non-negotiable.
“My mother would expect nothing less,” she said. “If I did not marry the father of my child she would turn over in her grave.”
“Your mother is dead?” said Septimus. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes. My father strangled her,” replied Mirielle.
“Really?” said Septimus, not a little surprised. “I thought you told me that your parents had a fairy-tale marriage?”
“They did,” said Mirielle. “It was grim!”
When news of the forthcoming birth leaked out, it was greeted by general rejoicing by all who heard it.
“Well, I didn’t expect my youngest son to be the first to give us a grandchild,” said Mabel Washwell, casting a disapproving look over her six remaining offspring.
“No indeed,” said Seth, her husband. “And as Septimus is a seventh son, perhaps he and Mirielle could produce a few more kids. There’s a chance we might yet get to see a seventh son of a seventh son.”
“I wouldn’t be in a hurry to suggest it to her,” said Septimus, uneasily. “I don’t feel that she would think much of that as an idea.”
“That’s a shame,” said Seth. “Still, you never know…”
“Yes I do,” thought Septimus to himself.
In The Squid and Teapot Bartholomew Middlestreet proclaimed that the news merited ‘Drinks on the House’. As the only people present were Septimus, Philomena Bucket, Reggie Upton and Bartholomew himself, the innkeeper’s generous gesture did not diminish the alcohol supplies of The Squid too drastically.
“What is going to happen to the Demoiselles?” asked Philomena, gratefully sipping her glass of Old Colonel. “I wouldn’t think that Mirielle will be doing much dancing for a while.”
She was referring, of course, to the shipwrecked dance troupe, Les Demoiselles de Moulin Rouge. Mirielle was the leader of the four young ladies who regularly performed an energetic Can-Can for the delight of the islanders.
“They’ll be fine,” assured Septimus. “There has been a lot of interest from some of the girls who live on the island. They will be queuing up to stand-in for her.”
“Jolly good,” said Reggie. “The show must go on, and all that.”
“Oh, Reggie,” said Septimus, “that reminds me. Mirielle would like you to give her away when we get married.”
“I would be most honoured,” said Reggie. “It is only a pity that her real father won’t be here to do it.”
“It is,” agreed Septimus, “but it seems that he was guillotined after strangling her mother.”
“Well, that’s a conversation stopper, if ever I heard one,” observed Philomena.
“We were talking in The Squid about the wedding,” said Septimus, when he arrived back home. “I think Reggie is quite looking forward to giving you away.”
“That is good,” said Mirielle. “Despite the fact that he is English, and therefore quite mad, he is a good man, I think. Besides, he dresses better than anyone else on the island.”
Septimus grinned, thinking how Reggie seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of bespoke suits in his travelling trunk.
“I’d better get hold of Reverend Davies,” he said, “and see if he’s happy to marry us.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Mirielle. “I was raised a Catholic. I need a proper Catholic wedding.”
“That is impossible. As far as I know, Reverend Davies is the only ordained priest on the island,” said Septimus. “And some people have even got their doubts about that.”
“You are wrong,” said Mirielle. “There is another.”
“No there isn’t…” began Septimus, then said, “Oh, surely you don’t mean…”
“Yes I do. Father Stamage might be a ghost but he is still a priest. He has the proper hat to prove it.”
Septimus took a deep breath.
Today was getting weirder by the minute.
“Well, it is most irregular,” said Father Stamage, materialising from his hat, which was hanging in the privy of The Squid and Teapot.
You may recall that while haunting his hat – his Capello Romano – the ghost of Father Stamage is able to wander the hallowed corridors of his old alma mater, the Jesuit College, Campion Hall, which is part of the University of Oxford.
“She is set on it, Father,” said Septimus, the slight wobble in his voice betraying the fact that he was not totally comfortable conversing with ghosts.
“She is a spirited young lady, that’s for sure,” agreed the priest, tactfully. “On reflection, I cannot see the harm. Once a priest, always a priest is what I have always been told. I will do it.”
“Thank you,” said Septimus.
“And I would like to come too. I haven’t been to a wedding for centuries.”
Septimus was aghast to see Lady Margaret D’Avening walking through the wall towards him, her severed head tucked neatly, but bloodily, underneath her arm.
“I am sure that will be fine,” said Septimus, the wobble in his voice going a full octave higher.
“You’re not going to leave me out.”
The ghost of Granny Bucket suddenly appeared from nowhere.
“That was a bit of luck,” she said. “I was just dropping in on Philomena when I overheard your conversation. I love a good wedding.”
Drury wandered in and wagged a bony tail, as if to say “And me!”
Septimus crossed his fingers that Mirielle would approve of so many ghosts being there.
If spirits kept appearing at this rate, there would be more dead people than live ones at their wedding.
If you make your way along Gaunt Street, you will eventually come to the bridge of bottles, which crosses the Gaunt River. Hopeless has two towns, for there is an old town and a new town. No one lives in the old town – also known as Gaunt Town. That is not to say it is unoccupied.
Gaunt Town lies on the far side of the bridge of bottles. It is not a place for the living, or for anyone who intends to continue living. The tradition of putting bottles on the bridge is old – old enough that many people do it without knowing why they do it. This is as well for them, but only if they uphold the tradition.
The bottles keep the gaunts out.
Gaunts can only cross the river at twilight. However, like many creatures of folklore, they are susceptible to shiny things, to that which might need counting. They cannot resist checking the bottles. New things in bottles distract them. If there are enough bottles for them to check, they will not make it all the way across the river before the night settles. If they ever do make it all the way across it will not end well for the citizens of Hopeless, Maine.
Once upon a time, Gaunt Town was just the town. Further inland than the harbour, sheltered by a crook in the hills, it thrived. Briefly. The houses are empty of human life, now.
Make sure to leave a bottle at the bridge now and then. The gaunts like to be entertained. It is best if they do not cross the bridge looking for other things to shake the contents out of.
This week we have some happy book news as one of our previous projects is now more widely available.
Once Upon a Hopeless Maine is the brainchild of Keith Errington. This is an evil sort of brainchild, and terribly, horribly funny. Tom Brown did the line drawing for the illustrations, Nimue Brown did the colours. Like all children’s books, it’s a cheery brightly coloured thing. Unlike most children’s books, some of the brightly coloured things are the people the central protagonist has murdered.
Originally there was a kickstarter to put this out into the world. It seemed like a cunning plan to put it on Amazon, from whence it may be acquired by anyone who finds they need a copy.
On the whole this is not a book for children. Although there was one child – already a fan of Drury the skeletal dog – who got his mitts upon it, read the whole thing with a look of utter glee upon his small face and insisted his father buy him a copy. If you know one of *those* children, you may want to get them a copy. If you choose to encourage and support their murderous inclinations, you of course do so at your own risk.
You may have that sort of inner child. We’re not judging you. Of course we aren’t – having made this little book of slaughter, it would seem unreasonable to judge anyone for buying it. Those pennies we get in Amazon royalties definitely won’t go on buying some new knives or a really good spade. Why would we need a spade? It’s not like anyone has bodies to hide or anything.
A few months ago, as you may remember, I wrote of the death of Seth Washpool (related in the tale ‘The Next to Die’). Seth was a quiet and unassuming man, but that did not prevent Philomena Bucket, the barmaid at The Squid and Teapot, admitting that she frequently called him by the wrong name, mixing him up with the larger-than-life blacksmith, foundry owner and father of seven sons, Seth Washwell, a man whom he resembled in no shape or form. As far as anyone was aware, Seth Washpool had led a very chaste and uneventful life, but the truth is somewhat different.
Seth had been raised in the Pallid Rock Orphanage, and from an early age wanted nothing more than to be out of it. As far as he was concerned, the years could not pass quickly enough. He regarded the older children with envy, knowing that they would soon be free to live as they chose upon the island. Throughout his early life his burning ambition had been to become that most revered of figures, a Night-Soil Man. In order to do this he would have to first become an apprentice, but, on the very eve of his leaving the orphanage for the bunkhouse at The House at Poo Corner, his plans changed completely. Like many a young man before and since, the direction of Seth’s life altered when Cupid chose to let fly an arrow in his direction.
There is a tradition in the orphanage that children of unknown parentage are given the surnames of notable islanders. As no one knew who Seth’s parents were, he had been awarded the name Washpool after the legendary Cosimo Washpool, the shipwrecked showman who established a fun fair on The Common. By the time Seth was born, the fun fair was long gone, but its memory, and that of the man who founded it, lived on in tales and legends. In a similar way, Annabel Selsley, who had been left in a basket on the steps of the orphanage, was named after the brave and pious Sister Mary Selsley. Sister Mary was the nun who had risked life and limb to bring to Hopeless the baby who would one day become the most famous of all Night-Soil Men, Randall Middlestreet.
In the manner of children everywhere, the orphans of Hopeless tend to play happily together for the first nine or ten years of life, until they begin to notice some apparently irreconcilable differences in the interests of the sexes. After a few years of voluntary segregation comes adolescence and all that it conveys, and suddenly some of those previously irreconcilable interests appear to be trivial in the extreme. This is exactly what happened to Annabel and Seth; they had lived beneath the same roof for fifteen years before they really acknowledged the existence of each other, and then they fell hopelessly in love.
For a year after leaving the orphanage the pair lived happily together, making a home in an abandoned cottage in Tragedy Creek. They lived simply, even by Hopeless standards, but loved each other deeply, and that seemed to be enough. Seth would often recite part of a half-remembered poem to Annabel. He had no idea who had written it, but the words seemed to sum up their relationship perfectly. This is as much as Seth knew of the poem:
‘It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee – With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.’
It was certainly for the best that he only knew a brief portion of the poem, for neither would have been happy had they been aware of the denouement.
On Annabel’s sixteenth birthday the pair went down to the beach, as they usually did, to search for any useful bits of flotsam or jetsam that may have been washed up on the tide. Today there was the usual fare, consisting of bits of rope, driftwood, shells and discarded bottles. Disappointingly, there was nothing of any great value to be had and they made to leave. It was then that they heard a plaintive barking, where group of harbour seals were gathered, just a dozen or so yards from the shore. Seth smiled at the sight, then his smile faded to a look of horror as he watched Annabel wade into the ocean, discarding her clothes as she went. “Annabel, come back,” he shouted, pulling off his jacket . “You’ll drown.” Annabel turned, seemingly unfazed by the icy water lashing at her naked body. She pointed to the seals and called to him, but her voice was lost on the wind. Although Seth made a valiant attempt to rescue his love, he was forced back time and time again by the angry, incoming tide. “Annabel!” he cried helplessly, as he watched her disappear beneath the waves. While he hoped that she would somehow manage to fight her way back to him, in his heart he knew that it was unlikely. If she did not freeze to death or drown, she would doubtless be taken by one of the monsters that lurked around the rocky shores of Hopeless, Maine. “Annabel, what madness possessed you to do this?” he sobbed. Then something caught his gaze. Emerging from the spot where the girl had disappeared was a young seal. For a few seconds she let her large, dark eyes rest upon Seth, before bobbing through the water towards the small group of seals patiently waiting for her. It was then that he understood. There had always been stories told on the island of the seal-people, the selkies, but he had never been inclined to believe in them. It was clear now that Annabel’s people had called her, and the lure of the sea was stronger than her love for Seth. “Goodbye, Annabel,” he murmured. “I will always love you. Come back to me one day, if you can.” But, despite his going down to the shore every day for the remainder of his life, Seth never saw Annabel again.
Seth was buried in the cold, stony ground of the churchyard. Afterwards, his friends bade him goodbye and retired to The Squid and Teapot to celebrate his life. No one noticed the woman and her grown-up son who came from the shadows to lay sea-shells upon his grave. Nor did they see them leave, making their way over the rocks before slipping quietly beneath the waves of the dark Atlantic Ocean.
Author’s note: For anyone not familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘Annabel Lee’, here it is in its entirety:
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love— I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.
It turns out that Roz White may have been making things up. This is going to come as a relief to some of you – it certainly did for me. All those things she said about ghasts might not be true. I’m still not entirely clear if ghasts are the same as gaunts or, for that matter, what a lady ghast is.
However, if they aren’t a new kind of monster and we aren’t all at dire risk of dying horribly in new and even less familiar ways, that’s about as close to good news as we’re likely to get this week.
Also it turns out that I was entirely wrong about her being a blacksmith, for reasons that should be perfectly understandable, I think. It’s a mistake anyone could make. Especially if, like me, they’ve mostly been getting by on hairy coffee for the last week and haven’t actually slept since the previous full moon. Has anyone else done that? Or is that just a me-thing? Anyway, there’s a point at which the hairy coffee doesn’t merely keep you awake, it adds in whole extra periods of time that no one else experiences and this is where (so I am told) all my issues with ghasts and blacksmithing have come from.
