Dustcats are weird, feline inhabitants of Hopeless, Maine who float about being whimsical and mildly threatening.
One of the contributions to the recent Eldritch Broadcasting event – Anomaly – featured a paper on the hallucinogenic effects of licking dustcats. This all started at Raising Steam last year. We were doing some Hopeless, Maine live stuff in which Keith Errington ran a Hopeless, Maine meeting to discuss health and safety issues on the island. This was all very silly, as you might imagine. During the discussion, Susie Roberts (of The Ominous Folk) made some comments about the lovely, distracting effects of licking dustcats.
For Anomaly, Keith Errington took this idea and ran with it (no doubt while laughing maniacally) and then Susie Roberts recorded the piece for the event itself.
Island life depends a lot on these kinds of processes, where people playing with ideas lead other people to play with the same ideas, and things expand (un)naturally from there.
This video also has content from Andy Arbon – who started The Eldritch Broadcasting Corporation.
The Guttering Man was a familiar sight on the streets of the main town of Hopeless, Maine. If you had any sort of house in the town, it would have gutters, and if you had gutters, then you would need the Guttering Man.
You may imagine that this was a convenience. Why clean out your own gutters when the Guttering Man could come and do it for you? But, no, that was not the reason you needed the Guttering Man. You needed the Guttering Man for the same reason you needed the Cellar Scourge Man, or the Bush Bug Man; critters. Nasty, snappy, bitey, poisonous, scratchy, vicious, aggressive critters. Hopeless, Maine was full of them, dangerous varmints everywhere, the countryside, the town, your garden, your cellar and your gutters.
Granted, the critters living in your gutters were small, and in a certain light, maybe even cute. But woe betide you if you mistook their diminutive appearance to imply that they were no threat to you. It was not uncommon for house-owners wanting to skimp on outgoings to end up severely injured after trying to clear out their own gutters.
—◊—
Mrs Asphyxia Jones, a widow of some seven years, had a particularly severe case of gutter critters – she knew this as she could hear at least one at night, scuttering along, scratching and scrabbling in a way that was guaranteed to get on anybody’s nerves. Have you ever run your nails along a blackboard? That was the level of raw, excruciating, bone rattling, teeth-on-edge, sounds that Mrs Jones was experiencing during what should have been her sleeping hours. She did what any sensible person did with this much provocation – she put out the word for the Guttering Man to come a calling.
—◊—
The Guttering man was a big fellow, with broad shoulders, thickset, and with a demeanour that suggested he would take no trouble from anyone and would be equally happy to dish out trouble if needed. He arrived at Mrs Jones’ house with his customary critter sack, a range of tools – which may actually be better described as weapons – and a large carpetbag.
Out of the bag, he fished out a sturdy leather jacket along with a pair of gloves covered in mail. The other essential item was, of course, a ladder, which he set down firmly on the ground, propped against the eaves and tested a few times to ensure the ground was solid.
He turned to Mrs Jones before ascending the ladder, “Don’t worry Mrs Jones, I’ll have it sorted in no time, just you see. Yes. No problem. Now if I could just have payment before I start?”
Mrs Jones gladly paid him, as any amount of money was worth it to stop that incessant skittering at night and get a good night’s sleep.
The Guttering man climbed the ladder quickly and purposefully and surveyed the length of the gutter. It was full of leaves, as many gutters in the town were. Even if trees were not nearby, the winds were strong here and occasionally gutter critters would even collect leaves from elsewhere and make a nest with them in an otherwise clean gutter.
About a third of the way along – exactly where the Guttering Man expected it to be, was a large clump of leaves. Except these were not real leaves, they were breathing almost imperceptibly for a start. To his trained eye, the Guttering Man could tell that they were a slightly different hue to the other leaves in the gutter, a slightly different form, and there was something about the way they were stacked that was just a little too uniform.
“Found one, Mrs Jones,” the Guttering Man shouted down, “I suggest you get yourself inside and lock your doors. This could get messy.”
Mrs Jones grimaced and hastened to do as he’d suggested. From inside the house, she could hear a sudden bang, a frantic scrabbling, a loud, “Oof” from the Guttering Man, more scrabbling, more bangs, a loud, “Got yer!” and then finally, silence.
There was a knock on the door.
“All dealt with Mrs Jones. She was a feisty one, that one. Bit of a struggle to be sure, but safely in the sack now. You won’t have no more trouble.”
“Will they come back?” Mrs Jones asked.
“Well, there’s no guarantee, but I reckon you’ll be good for at least six months yet.”
Mrs Jones sighed. “Well, thank you. I’ll let you know if they return.”
“You do that Mrs Jones, and I’ll be straight round to sort ‘em out. You can bet on that.”
“Thanks again”, said Mrs Jones, waving the Guttering Man off.
—◊—
The Guttering Man headed to the house of the Cellar Scourge Man, where, in a back room, a group of pest controllers of various types were sitting around chatting and drinking homemade beer. They nodded as he entered and sat down. He was handed a beer, and he rested it on the table next to him. He reached for his sack, opened it a little, and talked into it, “Hey, Beatrice, how are you doing? Would you like some leaves?”
He reached into his carpetbag and took out a handful of leaves from a pocket in the end, and proffered them to the sack. There was a sound like a deranged cat’s meow and then munching. “It’s alright girl, your children are safe – there’s plenty to eat in that gutter and I’ll return once they are of age to find them some new homes.”
The Bush Bug man addressed him then, “One of my customers went and got an axe and killed one of my best performers,” he said sadly, “What a brute. But how was your day? Did you have a good one?”
“Yes, thank you – a very good day indeed,” replied the Guttering Man, counting his money.
“It is quite past a joke,” declared Lady Margaret D’Avening, haughtily. “I have been putting up with the indignity for the best part of a hundred years, and I cannot stand it anymore!”
“I can talk to Mr Middlestreet,” said Philomena Bucket, “But, to be honest, I am by no means sure what can be done.”
Lady Margaret scowled, popped her head beneath her arm and disappeared into the wall.
“I do feel for her,” said Father Ignatius Stamage. “It is difficult enough for me, but at least I don’t have to haunt the privy all the time. I can go wherever you choose to put my hat.”
It was true. It was Father Stamage’s lot to haunt his beloved black, battered Capello Romano, so wherever that particular item of apparel was placed, became home to the ghostly Jesuit. Lady Margaret, on the other hand, was forever doomed to haunt the wall of the flushing privy of The Squid and Teapot, which had once been part of her bed-chamber. This was obviously a lot less portable than a hat and, after nearly a century, was causing her a certain amount of distress.
“If she doesn’t want to be in the privy, she could always haunt the other side of the wall,” said Bartholomew Middlestreet. “There’s only a cobbled path out there, but she could wander around a bit.”
“I suggested that,” said Philomena, “but she said that no one ever uses the path, so she would get lonely. She likes some company.”
“But not necessarily the company of people using the privy,” said Bartholomew. “I can understand that, I suppose. Couldn’t we put Father Stamage’s hat out there?”
“It would blow into the sea,” replied Philomena. “Besides, he enjoys the atmosphere of being in the bar of The Squid. He really wouldn’t want to be outside.”
“I’ll have a look in Sebastian Lypiatt’s old journal. It’s a mine of information for anyone interested in the history of The Squid,” said Bartholomew. “He was the one who built the privy, after all. There might be a clue in there as to what can be done.”
Following a period of neglect and mismanagement of the inn by one Tobias Thrupp, a shipwrecked English sailor, Sebastian Lypiatt, took charge and became the saviour of The Squid and Teapot, making it the welcoming hostelry that it is today. According to an entry in his journal, Sebastian, and his son, Isaac, had salvaged a quantity of dressed stone blocks, and also a fully functioning flushing lavatory, from the wreckage of a merchant steamer, the ‘Daneway’. Sebastian had written that the ship’s log revealed that her captain had ‘liberated’ the stones from the port of Newhaven, Connecticut (the full story of how they came to be there can be found in the tales ‘The Jacobean Manor House’ and ‘The Headless Lady’).
There was little in Sebastian’s journal that was not already known, but he made a reference to the Hopeless Annual Rock Race. Although interest in the race had waned in recent years, it had, traditionally, been held on the day preceding the first full moon following the vernal equinox. This sounds unnecessarily complicated, but the logic of the race’s founder, Reverend Crackstone, was that those islanders who could never remember when Easter was likely to fall in any given year, could use this event as a reminder (for as you probably know, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following this particular moon). It appears that one year, in order to give Lady Margaret a change of scenery, one of the stones of the privy was prised out and moved to a different part of the island. Unfortunately, someone decided that the smooth, dressed stone would be perfect for the rock-race and, to cut a long story short, it ended up in the shadow of Chapel Rock, famously haunted by the Mad Parson, Obadiah Hyde. By pure coincidence, during the English Civil War, Hyde had been the puritan cleric responsible for beheading Lady Margaret. She had, unfortunately, ticked the boxes of almost everything that he despised; she was an adulteress, a Royalist and a Catholic. Good enough reasons, in Hyde’s mind, to be killed on the spot. To put it mildly, neither ghost was thrilled to discover that they were sharing the same island and Lady Margaret was swiftly returned to the comfort of the privy, where she has been ever since.
“In those days,” observed Bartholomew, “she feared that she was fading away, so only manifested when there was a full moon. Now she is bolder, and comes out whenever she feels like it.”
“I think that’s Miss Calder’s fault,” said Philomena, “filling her head with ideas that ghosts should be free to haunt whenever they want, and not being bound to phases of the moon and suchlike. That’s why she’s getting fed-up with people going in and out of the privy all the time. When it was for just for the full moon, it was bearable; people made a point of avoiding the place.”
“Well, we can’t make the privy out of bounds to customers, just because it upsets the resident ghost,” said Bartholomew, reasonably. “What if we prise a block out, like they did in the old days? We could put it somewhere else on the island.”
“We can ask her,” said Philomena, doubtfully.
“That sounds marvellous,” said Lady Margaret, when she heard the suggestion. “And Father Stamage… my dear Ignatius… you’ll join me, won’t you?”
Stamage paused for a second before he spoke.
“But I like it here, Lady Margaret. I don’t really want to be anywhere else. Besides, while I’m in the inn, Bartholomew can keep an eye on my hat and make sure no one moves it.”
“But I’ll be lonely without you,” she wailed. “Pleeeeaasse come with me.”
“No, I’m sorry,” said Father Stamage firmly. “As I said, I’m very happy where I am. I’m not moving.”
“You can always go and live up into the attics,” suggested Philomena, but Lady Margaret shook her head. This involved holding it in front of her with both hands and wobbling it about.
They toyed with taking a block from the privy to the Orphanage, but when asked, Miss Calder expressed the opinion that the appearance of a headless lady wandering the corridors would frighten some of the children. Knowing what the orphanage children are like, this, quite honestly, is unlikely. I can only think that the appearance of Lady Margaret, headless or no and wearing only the diaphanous nightgown that she was slaughtered in, would not be in the best interests of some of the more impressionable boys.
When she found that no one had any real solution to her problem, Lady Margaret stamped a ghostly foot, went into a sulk and disappeared into the wall, vowing that she had no intention of coming out again, ever.
“She’ll get over it,” said Philomena, philosophically.
“If Sebastian had not bothered to salvage those blocks, the steamer would have sunk and she would have had nothing to haunt but cephalopods and fishes,” said Bartholomew. “He gave her a home! Why can’t she be grateful for that, at least?”
“Don’t be too hard on her, she’s very young,” broke in Father Stamage.
While the others had been talking, Stamage had allowed himself to fade unobtrusively into the coat stand, where his hat was hanging. They had quite forgotten that he was there.
“No she’s not young, she was killed hundreds of years ago,” protested Bartholomew.
“That’s as may be, but she told me that she was forced into an early – and ultimately unhappy – marriage, and was no more than a girl of nineteen, at the time of her death,” said the ghostly priest, manifesting fully before them. “That was an awfully young age for her to lose her life, whatever her sins were. The tragedy is, she will always be nineteen.”
The others were silent for a while as they mentally digested this thought.
“Just give her time,” added Father Stamage, disappearing once more into the coat stand. “She’ll get over it.”
An observation from the Hopeless, Maine Scientific Society.
Physics is a funny thing. Full of strange behaviours and surprising outcomes. It can inspire and confound. It can amuse and frustrate. But once you understand it, it’s entirely predictable. Science is like that. Even on Hopeless, Maine, where a good deal of magic interferes with many scientific principles, in day-to-day life science and logic generally still prevails.
Take the properties of light for example, universal and immutable. Refraction works here as elsewhere. And on Hopeless, Maine, it is a combination of refraction, weather conditions and freak cloud reflections that results in a phenomenon that is hard, but let us say, not impossible, to explain through physics alone. Unfortunately, Hopeless, Maine, is not known for a high level of physics knowledge amongst its inhabitants. I suspect they would probably think that refraction is the process of cutting a cake into even smaller pieces.
And so it is that the phenomenon that happens approximately once a year is referred to as The Coming of Dave by islanders – a very unscientific label in my opinion.
A small, haphazardly organised group of religious followers, or more accurately, nutters, has taken this annual event to heart and formed a fanatical sect. These believers refer to themselves as Davotees. In the month leading up to the possible sighting of Dave, they prepare as best they can and try to spread the word of Dave’s coming to other, mostly disinterested, often irritated, occasionally violent, islanders.
Predicting the coming of Dave has a random margin of error when it comes to knowing the exact timing and place. This means that Davotees have to keep an eye on known manifestation locations for several days. This is known as “Davewatch” and is generally accompanied by Davotional fasting and wailing in equal measure. (The wailing being mostly a direct result of the fasting).
Finally, there will be a faint shimmering for up to an hour and then Dave proper will appear. This generally results in a mad dash to that particular location by all the watchers in the other locations. Nobody wants to miss the Word of Dave.
For up to five minutes (Usually a lot less- one year it was a mere three seconds) Dave appears as a glowing vision, surrounded by a halo of light. During this time, Davotees will eagerly and voraciously watch everything Dave does and religiously record everything Dave says.
Afterwards, there will be weeks of debates. What did Dave say? What does it mean? How should we change our lives as a result? (Mostly Dave doesn’t speak – so many times the endless discussions will be over interpreting a glance, or a hand movement or the use of a potato peeler).
Once they observed Dave with a stack of magazines and a box of tissues. Well, that sparked a particularly lively round of debating, as you might imagine.
Dave himself, is entirely unaware of the import his mundane actions might have to a such a deranged bunch of individuals and goes about his daily life blissfully ignorant of the powerful influence he wields. He is not a famous person where he lives. His life is entirely uninteresting. Even amongst nondescript denizens of the world, his ranking is, at best, very, very average. He does nothing exciting, and in fact will do nothing exciting his entire life.
Basically, we have already spent more time in describing Dave that he should ever warrant. We don’t need to know what he does or where he lives – both facts are immaterial to this story and would only serve to increase the sense of ennui that Dave engenders in his peers, neighbours, friends and workmates.
To Davotees however, he is a god, an infallible oracle, an all-seeing prophet – a divine being. During Dave’s brief materialisations, Davotees will hang on to his every word, his every move, his every expression, his every sneeze, or cough, or fart.
There have been a series of official pronouncements from the Davotees – and these are being collected in a tome they refer to as The Book of Dave. Such pronouncements include: “thou must always put your right sock on first”, “thou must never unbutton your shirt completely before removing it” and most controversially “thou must addest the milk after the tea”. Two Davotees had to be forcibly detained after a fight broke out over that one.
As well as the debates, there is a week of official mourning for Dave’s passing after the manifestation ends. During this period, Davotees only wear strictly black and only eat black food. And as this will follow the Davewatch period of fasting, they are all generally in a black mood.
Whilst they are interesting to observe from an ethnological point of view, Davotees really have very little impact on the island, with most others tending to ignore “those nutters”. Generally, the most interesting thing about the whole affair is the physics behind the phenomenon. But as we stated earlier, there are very few people on the island with sufficient knowledge to investigate. Whilst here at the Hopeless, Maine Scientific Society, we have neither the time nor the resources to investigate what is, after all, a relatively harmless phenomenon.
Even in the sullen, grey light of a Hopeless dawn, it was clear that the dark shape in the sky was that of a sailing ship.
Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, and Miss Calder had been the first to notice its presence. It had shaken the trees, blocked out the moon, and even stopped Miss Calder being flirtatious, for a while.
There are some folk who tend to rise early on the island of Hopeless, Maine. It was inevitable that word of this strange sight would soon get around, and, sure enough, in that early, misty light, a small knot of people had gathered along the pathway leading to The House at Poo Corner, their necks craned, hardly daring to believe what they were witnessing.
Rhys, ever conscious of his anti-social odour, slipped away downwind. Meanwhile, the ghostly Miss Calder had levitated high into the branches of the trees, in order to get a better look.
“Surely, it’s an apparition,” someone in the crowd suggested. “Or an optical illusion.”
Miss Calder said nothing. She knew all about apparitions, and the rope stretching from the ship’s bows, and the large metal anchor attached to it, was real enough. Besides, there was a figure making its way down the rope.
She allowed herself to rise above the tops of the trees until she was level with the man, whom she supposed to be a sailor.
He looked to be in difficulty. His face was an unhealthy red, his eyes bulged; he was holding his breath.
“Like a man under water, and desperate for air,” she thought.
Instinctively Miss Calder reached out to help him, forgetting for a moment that, being a ghost, she was incapable of doing anything other than frightening the poor fellow.
He looked at her in horror. If apparently lunging towards him had not been enough, Miss Calder had inadvertently done ‘The Face’. It is something that happens when she gets overly excited; it is enough to perturb even her closest friends. Her once beautiful face had suddenly become a hideous grinning skull.
While having the presence of mind to keep his mouth tightly clamped shut, the sailor threw his arms wide in alarm, letting go of the rope.
“Oh no!” wailed Miss Calder, her good looks returning. “You’ll fall to your death from here.”
It is not often that Miss Calder can be shown to be in error, but on this occasion she was. To the surprise of everyone watching, the sailor floated away through the air, like a balloon, up towards the ship.
From her vantage point Miss Calder could see a life-belt thrown out and arms pulling the intrepid sailor back on board.
“Should I go up and speak to them?” she wondered, then thought better of the idea. The sailor’s reaction to her offer of help had been quite upsetting. Besides, levitating to a little above the treetops was one thing, but the ship was at least fifty feet above that. If seemingly solid ships could float about up there, it made the sky a much more uncertain place. She had no idea what would happen to her at such a height.
Suddenly, the uppermost branches of the trees began to move. Miss Calder looked down and saw a figure scrambling around in the thin foliage.
“Septimus, is that you?”
Young Septimus Washwell, lately famous on the island for his dancing skills, stuck up a thumb in salute. Being more agile than most, he had shinned up into the tree and, even as Miss Calder watched, was hacking away at the branches in an effort to free the anchor.
After an energetic few minutes, which he coloured generously with a variety of obscenities in both English and French (obviously learned from his fiancée, the delectable Mirielle D’Illay), Septimus freed the anchor. From where she hovered, above the trees, Miss Calder waved her arms and shouted to the sailors who, by now, were lining the deck, and wondering what exactly was going on, down there in the depths.
I suppose the combination of shouting and arm-waving is a universal language, and to everyone’s amazement the thick rope tightened and the anchor was drawn up through the air, swaying majestically in the morning breeze.
Only Miss Calder was close enough to see the sailors on deck, waving back in gratitude.
Sails were hoisted, and the huge, dark shape slowly drifted away through the morning air, casting its shadow over the island, until it disappeared forever, into the thickening fog.
The talk in The Squid and Teapot that evening, and for many more to come, was all about the strange ship that had sailed through the skies. If its anchor had not caught in the trees, no one would have ever known that it had been there.
“Do you have any idea what it was, or where it had come from?” Bartholomew Middlestreet asked Philomena Bucket.
Philomena thought for a moment, and shook her head.
“Not at all,” she said. “But I am fairly sure that I remember Granny saying that such a thing was seen in Ireland years ago. After all, there are more things in heaven and Earth, Mr Middlestreet, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“Oh, that’s profound,” said Bartholomew admiringly. “You should write that down somewhere.”
“Oh, it isn’t original,” confessed Philomena. “It was something that Doctor Dee said to me once, in a tavern, when I visited him in Tudor England.”
Author’s note: Granny Bucket was, as ever, absolutely correct. Towards the end of the eleventh century, Bishop Patrick of Dublin catalogued, in Latin Verse, the twenty-seven wonders of Ireland. One of these was of a ship glimpsed in the air, and a fisherman who swam down to retrieve his spear. Earlier, in the eighth century, The Abbey of Clonmacnoise was cited as a spot where a ship’s anchor snagged in the altar rail, and a sailor almost drowned retrieving it. It is likely that these two sightings may have arisen from the same legend, and, in the manner of such things, become somewhat embellished with the telling. Leastways, it was a good enough tale to inspire the poet Seamus Heaney, who quoted the episode in his poem ‘Lightenings.’
As Philomena so rightly said, there are certainly more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. I can only imagine that when Doctor Dee told her this, a young man with theatrical ambitions, recently down from Warwickshire, had been sitting at a nearby table, eavesdropping and quietly making notes with his quill-pen.
The illustration with this post shows me as a crow queen. It’s part of the image we’ve been using this year with The Ominous Folk.
There’s something evocative about the queen of crows, something that speaks to more people than just me. One of the people who has found the idea meaningful is Pauline Pitchford. In the video below, Pauline explores the idea of crow queens from the perspective of a member of The Hopeless, Maine Scientific Society. It’s a beautiful piece, full of magic, possibility and menace.
Spring is coming. As the sap rises, the people of Hopeless, Maine consider taking off at least some of their coats, and unwrapping their faces. Inevitably, with such flagrant displays of flesh, many find that their thoughts turn to romance. And so it is that some of them leave expressions of hope and longing on the big black board outside Frampton Jones’s house…
Does anyone want my spleen? I’ve been offering up my heart to people for years and that’s not working out well for me so I’m just wondering if there are any other body parts that would be more persuasive? Can I court anyone with my kidneys? Are you the sort of person who would be impressed if I showed you how far my digestive system goes when stretched out?
Quiet man seeks quiet man for sitting in front of the fire with. Willingness to be stared at obsessively for hours at a time a distinct advantage. I have three books and my own tablecloths.
Small woman with large posterior would like to spend time with someone who has a lot of teeth – ideally not just their own teeth. Location of teeth not an issue.
Are you very good at cooking? Do you like washing socks? Can you make chickens behave? Do you need a powerful man to tell you what to do? Did you shipwreck here so there’s a fighting chance we aren’t very closely related to each other? I will be at The Crow tomorrow afternoon interviewing all of the women who want to be my wife.
Are you looking for romance? Do you long to be adored and cherished? Meet me in the graveyard in Gaunt Town tonight for courtship, and attentive neck kissing. Bare necks are preferred. Lively constitution an advantage.
Drury, the skeletal hound, snored contentedly in front of the roaring log fire. While never happier than terrorising spoonwalkers, or stealing underwear from the washing-lines of the unwary, when inclement weather raged outside, there was nowhere that he would rather be than curled up in the snug of The Squid and Teapot. As you may know, the function of a snug, or snuggery, in an inn is to provide a small, intimate space for a limited number of favoured patrons. When a large portion of this small, intimate space is taken up by a generous pile of gently snoring bones, the number of favoured patrons must be, by necessity, drastically reduced. Drury, however, had earned his place in front of the fire that evening, and, indeed, for many more to come. All of his past transgressions were forgotten, at least for the time being, for Drury had, with a little help from his friends, saved Philomena Bucket from a terrible fate, as related in the tale ‘My Phoney Valentine’.
“You had a narrow escape, Philomena,” observed Bartholomew Middlestreet, “but I don’t know what it was that Durosimi expected to achieve.”
Philomena shrugged. Like everyone else on the island, Bartholomew had only been told the sketchiest, most basic facts surrounding the events of the previous evening. It was safer for all concerned. Although they had been instrumental in thwarting Durosimi’s plans, not even Philomena’s closest friends, Miss Calder and Rhys Cranham, knew fully the extent of her magical powers. Durosimi did, or at least, he thought that he did. After all, he had been blasted by them on more than one occasion, and that was enough. Although, in reality, Philomena was no threat to him, he feared her. Until he could control – or destroy – her, he would find no rest. For now, he had withdrawn, defeated and deflated. Philomena was wise enough to know that this was no more than temporary; there would be a next time, and she would be ready.
“Whatever he was up to, it did not work,” she said with a smile. “But, let’s forget it. I really can’t worry about Durosimi.”
Bartholomew was about to say that he thought that maybe she should worry just a little, but decided against it. He knew his barmaid too well to get into that particular conversation.
If Philomena was choosing to put all thoughts of Durosimi to one side, Miss Calder certainly was not.
It was in the early hours of the following morning that she met with Rhys Cranham. She was drifting along the pathway which led to the Night-Soil Man’s cottage; it was a favourite haunt of hers.
Rhys saw Miss Calder flickering eerily through the trees some minutes before she hailed him. He smiled to himself. These ‘chance’ encounters were becoming increasingly frequent, but he did not mind. It was lonely being a Night-Soil Man, and it was good to have someone to talk to, even if it was a ghost.
“Rhys…”
It was a measure of Miss Calder’s feelings towards the Night-Soil Man that she felt able to refer to him by his given name. It had taken a while, but in all the years that she had known Reverend Davies and Doc Willoughby, she had never felt comfortable enough to be anything but formal.
“Rhys, I am worried about Philomena. Durosimi seems intent on harming her.”
“I do what I can to keep an eye on her,” replied Rhys, “but I can’t be there all of the time… but she seems to have a charmed life, I must admit. I have never known anyone wander this island as freely as she does, and not get into trouble. Maybe Granny Bucket’s ghost is taking care of her.”
“I don’t know how,” said Miss Calder. “If you haven’t noticed, we non-corporeals cannot really do much, other than walk through walls and scare people, occasionally.”
“She worries me too, but I have no idea what can be done. Do you have any thoughts?”
Miss Calder hesitated. She had a solution, of sorts, but it was one that she found hard – painful, even – to put into words.
“I think,” she said, slowly, “that she needs a protector. Someone to be there for her all of the time.”
“Philomena would definitely have an opinion about that,” laughed Rhys, “and I wouldn’t want to be around when she expressed it.”
“I’m serious,” said Miss Calder. “She needs you, Rhys. You should marry her.”
The Night-Soil Man knew how difficult that had been for Miss Calder to say.
“You know what happened the last time we went down that route,” said Rhys, bitterly remembering the brutal way in which his apprentice at the time, Naboth Scarhill, had been killed immediately before the wedding that he and Philomena had so lovingly planned.
“And I suspect that Durosimi was behind that,” said Miss Calder. “For goodness sake, get your new apprentice trained up Rhys – if you leave it much longer it might be too late.”
Rhys opened his mouth to reply when a great rending noise filled the air, and the nearby trees writhed alarmingly.
Neither had noticed the night grow suddenly darker as the pale, mist-shrouded moon and dim glimmers of starlight were blocked out by a huge, threatening shape in the air, high above them.
“What the devil…?” said Rhys, all thoughts of Philomena flown for now.
“It looks like… like a ship,” observed Miss Calder.
“Up there? Yes… it does, but that’s impossible. But look, there’s a rope hanging from it.”
Rhys made his way gingerly towards the trees, directly beneath the spot where the ominous shape floated.
Miss Calder was less cautious; she had no fear of injury, having already died some years earlier. With an elegant wave of her arms she lifted gently into the air and settled herself among the swaying branches.
“You’re right,” she called down. “There is a rope hanging down from whatever that thing is up there.”
There was a moment’s silence as the ghostly administrator of the Pallid Rock Orphanage examined the rope more closely.
“I think I was right. That’s a ship, somehow floating in the air.”
“Surely not. What makes you say that?” asked Rhys.
“Because attached to the rope is a huge anchor. It is snagged in the branches. And Rhys…” she added, almost nervously.
The Night-Soil Man caught the concern in her voice and looked up in alarm.
2B-loop had been given a very important mission. His first proper mission! And it was off world! He was very excited and honoured to be given this task. His supervisor, 1A-doop, had said it was vital work! So vital, in fact, none of the other protoinvestigators could be spared to do it. Only he, 2B-loop the student, was suitable for the task.
He went over the mission in his head one more time: land, observe, collect material, record data, and leave. Although it was simple, 1A-doop had stressed that it was vitally important work and also that he might face some trivial difficulties on the way.
As 2B-loop headed towards his circular spacecraft, his chest (or equivalent) puffed with pride. He beeped and chirped to himself. His first mission!
–◊–
He struggled a bit with the landing but managed to put the saucer shaped craft down in a small clearing in what his notes said was a forest. Now, what was the name of this place again? Oh yes, that’s right, this existence was known as Hopeless, Maine.
–◊–
As 2B-loop stepped down from his craft, he made the weird but cute chirping noises his species made when they were happy. He looked around. The edge of the clearing was surrounded by dense vegetation. “No creatures visible,” he noted in his log.
He walked forward into the forest and immediately a nearby piece of vegetation reacted to his presence, lashing out and wrapping itself around his appendage. “Bloof,” he chirped out loud. This was an unarmed fact-finding mission, so without a weapon, 2B-loop resorted to hitting the vegetation with his note taking scanner device. It recoiled and then attacked again. How annoying, thought 2B-loop.
A more thorough thrashing with his device was delivered, and the vegetation backed off, folding in on itself as it did so. Well, that was irritating. Fortunately, the note-taking device was virtually indestructible, so he was able to note down, ‘Aggressive plant life.’ And then he moved more carefully, and quickly through the forest.
–◊–
After a while, he cleared the edge of the forest and appeared to be on some sort of unnatural route. Hmm. He consulted his device. “Road” it told him. Ah, 2B-loop thought, perhaps I can now get to observe some of the creatures that inhabit this existence. Almost as soon as he had that thought, something came bounding up to him. 2B-loop aimed his note taking scanner at the leaping object.
The device started searching for matches within the data captured from other existences on this planet. No results. He fiddled with the settings. Ah, now he had something, “Dog – skeleton – remains – post living” Well, that’s all very well, thought 2B-loop, but this specimen is very much alive and jumping up at me!
Apparently, according to the data, the correct course of action was a “shoo.” He didn’t know what a shoo was, so he raised his cruethnot and waggled his dangbabbler. That seemed to do the trick as the “dog” ran away. It took 2B-loop a few moments to record some observations about the incident and then he resumed his walk.
–◊–
He was being careful to keep to the side of the road so he could hide in the woods if anyone should appear, when, jang! A creature rushed headlong out of the woods to his left, catching him completely unawares. Oh no! thought 2B-loop, I’m only supposed to observe – interaction was clearly forbidden. I’ve already failed!
“Well, my you are a curious one” said the strange creature now standing in front of him, with 2B-loop’s notetaker translating. He tried scanning the entity, but it kept saying, ‘unknown, unknown.’
“I wonder where you are from?” Asked the creature, “Not of this world, I think.” There was a commotion in the trees to 2B-loop’s left, and the strange creature was distracted for a few seconds. 2B-loop took that moment to triumphantly engage his diffraction mode, which would make him invisible to all.
“You know I can still see you, right?” said the strange creature. “You’ll have to try harder than that to fool one such as I!” More noise from the trees, much closer this time. “No matter, I shall come and find you. And then we shall have some fun.” There was a strange expression on the creature’s face. Then it ran off, pursued by an angry mob of what the notetaker said categorically, were humans. There were shouts of “Come back Durosimi!” And “You’ve gone too far this time” and “she was my daughter, you demon!” They didn’t seem to notice 2B-loop at all.
2B-loop reflected on the event. Confusing, but it was pleasing that the encounter had ended with the creature suggesting fun. That sounded nice.
–◊–
2B-loop moved on. This time he didn’t move in a straight line, he wandered around examining this flower, that grass, this shrub, that moving tentacle. It seemed in diffraction mode he was less bothered by aggressive vegetation, so he remained invisible for now. All the while he took copious notes. Pleased that he was recording so much data for his report. 1A-doop was going to be mightily impressed – he knew it. In time, he came across a small house. It seemed to be owned by a small, black, four-legged furry creature. Which was odd, because the proportions were all wrong. The house was way too big for such a small thing.
‘Cat,’ announced his scanner. Although he still had diffraction mode activated, the creature actually seemed to sense him somehow, and they stood regarding one another for quite a while. Then the creature just turned, rolled over and started licking itself in a very relaxed manner. Was that a welcome gesture? 2B-loop thought it must be and tried to emulate the move as closely as possible. The creature stopped and stared at him. Then just walked away. I must have done it wrong somehow, thought 2B-loop, picking himself up off the ground. Or maybe the walking away was part of it? And so, he too, walked away, in the opposite direction. This is so exciting! Out on an alien existence and interacting with the locals! Of course, the fact that he wasn’t really supposed to be interacting made it even more exciting!
–◊–
Over the course of the next few days, 2B-loop had many encounters with the vegetation, creatures and inhabitants of Hopeless, Maine. Many were aggressive, dangerous even, but some were just interesting, or weird, or… curious. He had collected so much data. So many notes to present to 1A-doop. His scanner device had a finite storage capacity and 2B-loop noted that it was almost full. So, somewhat reluctantly, he headed back to his saucer ship for the trip home.
As he neared the spot where he left it, he realised that the clearing was no longer a clearing. A huge mound of spiky, writhing vegetation had taken over most of it. There was no sign of his ship… although the mound’s shape suggested the ship was at the heart of it. 2B-loop’s normally happy demeanour sank slightly. There was no way to get to his ship. He flopped down where he was. All the air seemed to go out of him as he contemplated his existence.
–◊–
After a very long time, his tracker beeped at him. A pre-recorded, personal message from 1A-doop. “2B-loop, by now, you may have realised the particular issue with this existence, Hopeless, Maine. We have sent in two researchers in the past and neither came back. It appears to be a feature of the place. Any entity that ends up on the island cannot escape it. It was decided that we would try one more mission. And you were chosen 2B-loop. You had an extremely important quality. You were entirely expendable, especially as you had proven yourself to be entirely useless in every one of the investigators’ specialisms. Of course, should you manage to come back, you will be lauded a hero, the greatest proto-investigator of all time and offered leadership of all investigators and investigations.”
There was an unusual noise then on the recording. 2B-loop realised it must be 1A-doop laughing.
“Good luck 2B-loop. And from all of us here, goodbye. Your sacrifice will hardly be noticed.”
2B-loop deflated further and for a day or so didn’t move at all. Eventually, he moved.
–◊– –◊– –◊–
The Squid and Teapot was mostly frequented by regulars, attracted to its character, if not its food and beverages. It was a place to meet friends and talk about enemies. Of course, those who found themselves freshly shipwrecked would often head for the pub, assuming it was some kind of safe haven, a bastion against the dangers and extreme strangeness of the Island. Whether that be true or not, strangers would occasionally arrive in the bar. Almost always they would walk up to the bar, acknowledge the server, order a drink and then look around. And almost always, their first question would be, “What is that bright pink and yellow blob covering the back table and two chairs?” “That, oh, that’s just 2B-loop. He’s an alien. Now, will you be wanting any food?”
