Most people don’t think a great deal about where dust comes from. Dust is people. Dust is dead skin, although unless you have the opportunity to stare at it under a microscope and see the tiny cells for yourself, this may not be a familiar thought. For most people on the island, dust is just something that turns up; a small, relentless nuisance that adds to the discomfort of daily life.
Dust is you.
It might be tempting, if you live alone, to gather the dust that is made purely from your skin, and hoard it all in a massive jar. You might spend years, carefully collecting the dead bits of yourself that gather, ghostlike in the silent place you call home.
Sweeping with a small paintbrush, slowly cleaning surfaces of your own dead self.
You might wonder after a while exactly how much dust you will make in your lifetime. Will you live for long enough such that there is more dust in the dust jars than there is living skin on your body? You might panic at that point, afraid of what could happen if your dust self becomes bigger than your not-yet-dust self.
Philomena turned slowly. She recognised the voice, well enough, but the tone was unusually conciliatory.
“Yes, Mr O’Stoat?”
Durosimi O’Stoat stood before her, his hands clasped before him, a wan smile upon his face.
“Miss Bucket… may I call you Phyllis?”
“Philomena,” she corrected him.
“Philomena… what a pretty name… I feel I owe you an apology.”
Philomena could think of several things that Durosimi might have to apologise for, but, in her experience, remorse had never been high on his agenda. She was fairly certain that the wily old rogue was up to something.
“An apology? Whatever for?”
“I feel that I have been less than well-disposed towards you, recently. I have had much on my mind, of late, and fear that I may have come across as being maybe a little tetchy, occasionally.”
Philomena said nothing. Durosimi had been a good deal more than a little tetchy, from the very first day that she set foot on the island.
“The truth is, Philomena, I cannot rest until I have made it up to you, in some way.”
“Oh, you needn’t…” she began, but Durosimi held up a hand to silence her.
“Please, humour me. It is Saint Valentine’s Day on the fourteenth, a most appropriate occasion to heal our wounds. Do me the honour of coming to dinner with me.”
“At The Squid?” she asked, more than a little taken aback.
“I think not,” said Durosimi. “After all, you work there; it would be less than conducive to our needs. Besides, I have far better fare in my own humble abode.”
“You are asking me to have dinner with you in your home?”
“Indeed, and I very much hope that this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful friendship.”
Valentine’s Day was just two days away. Philomena knew that going to Durosimi’s home alone could be dangerous but she was curious to find out exactly what he was scheming. She decided that, whatever it might be, she would play along for a while.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would be delighted.”
“I would love to know what he is up to,” said Philomena to Miss Calder that evening.
She had just left a basket containing a generous slice of starry-grabby pie and two bottles of Old Colonel on Rhys Cranham’s doorstep. On her return to The Squid and Teapot she had met Miss Calder, the ghostly administrator of The Pallid Rock Orphanage. Miss Calder was given to regularly haunting the path to Poo Cottage, the Night-Soil Man’s home, just as darkness was falling. She was forever in the hope of running into Rhys as he started his rounds.
“Be careful of him, Philomena,” warned Miss Calder. “By what you have told me, this behaviour is very out of character. Is there anything I can do?”
“Not really,” said Philomena, then added, thoughtfully. “Can you get into his house?”
“No problem,” said Miss Calder, “as long as it’s not protected by a ring of salt, or anything like that. You know, the usual ghost deterrents.”
“Then would you, please?” asked Philomena. “There might be a clue there.”
The church clock struck three. That meant very little, as the mechanism had long had a mind of its own and was particularly taken with the sound of three chimes. The only certainty was that the time was not three o’clock. It did not matter. The island was in darkness, and even Durosimi O’Stoat needed to sleep occasionally.
Miss Calder drifted noiselessly up to ‘Dun Necromancin’ (or whatever it was that Durosimi chose to name his house) and slipped through its walls as if they did not exist. She checked each room with care, even the master-bedroom, where the great man lay in bed, snoring gently.
She was about to leave when something stopped her. It was not a noise or movement that made her halt, but a sense. It was the sense that one ghost will get when another is trying to communicate with them. And this one was definitely unhappy. Miss Calder allowed herself to be drawn towards the source of the sense, the feeling of anxiety and distress growing with every step she took.
The oak door presented no problems. She had not noticed it earlier, which was unsurprising, as, to all intents and purposes, it was part of the bookcase. She glided down the narrow stairs and into a basement.
You will remember that Durosimi had gate-crashed Granny Bucket’s deathday party the previous week, and captured the ghost of Melusine O’Stoat, trapping her in a bottle. Melusine had been a sixteenth century witch, a common ancestor, not only to Durosimi, but also to none other than Philomena, to whom she bore a most remarkable resemblance
“Philomena? How did you…?
“I’m not Philomena, but I know all about her,” said the ghostly figure, imprisoned firmly in a circle of salt. “Ye gods, her grandmother wouldn’t stop going on about her. It was Philomena this and Philomena that…”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m Melusine. Can you please get me out of here?”
“Sorry,” said Miss Calder, “But I can’t move things, least of all salt.”
“Well, we need to do something,” said Melusine, frantically, “because that maniac out there has got plans to bottle me up inside Philomena. She is the ideal vessel, he said, as to all appearances we could be the same person. He would have us totally in his power, slaves to do his bidding.”
Miss Calder was a little shocked, but maintained, as ever, a calm exterior.
“He won’t be doing anything until Valentine’s Day,” she said, reassuringly. “I’ll find a way to get you free by then.”
It was early in the evening of February the thirteenth, and darkness had once more fallen upon the island of Hopeless, Maine. The church clock struck three.
A casual observer might have noticed an unearthly flickering amid the trees. But hey, this is Hopeless; what do you expect?
That same casual observer may also have spotted Durosimi O’Stoat dragging on his overcoat as he slipped through his front door. He did not bother locking it, safe in the knowledge that no one would be foolish enough to attempt to break into his home.
Miss Calder, followed by Rhys Cranham and Drury, the skeletal hound, left the shelter of the trees and hurried towards the house.
Rhys turned the door knob and said,
“Right! That’s as much as I dare do until you’re out again. He’ll smell it if I go inside. You’re on your own in there, but I’ll stay around”
Miss Calder led Drury to the bookcase, quietly praying that the dog would be able to get them through the hidden door. She need not have worried, for it took little more than a push with his bony old legs for the door to swing open. A candle had been lit in the basement, and Miss Calder entered with her usual grace and dignity, unlike Drury, who bounded noisily down the stairs, missed his footing and ended up as a pile of bones at the bottom. He staggered to his feet, shook himself and made sure that everything was where it was supposed to be.
“What the devil is that?”
“That” said Miss Calder, with some emphasis, “is Drury, and you can thank him for being the key to your freedom.”
Drury gave the ghostly witch a puzzled stare, then realised, with relief, that she was not his good friend Philomena, who was, thankfully, still in the land of the living.
Gingerly he pawed at the salt circle, disturbing a few grains. Miss Calder had told him to move a bare minimum of the salt.
He scratched away some more until there was a slim but definite means of egress from the trap.
“Now go, quickly, before he returns,” said Miss Calder.
Melusine required no second bidding. In an instant she was no more than a violet mist, gently evaporating through the wall.
With exquisite care and precision, which surprised even himself, Drury pushed the disturbed grains of salt back into place.
“It’s time that we were gone,” declared Miss Calder, and with no more ado they raced up the stairs and back to the front door, where Rhys was waiting to secure it.
“My dear Philomena,” said Durosimi “I am so glad that you asked me to meet you here this evening.”
The other patrons of The Squid and Teapot had given them a few sidelong glances, not quite believing that Philomena would be the sort to get pally with Durosimi O’Stoat.
They had been sitting and talking quietly for over two hours. Philomena stretched and yawned.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, Durosimi,” she said, “but I need to get some sleep. I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, and if I’m having dinner with you, it will doubtless be a late night.”
Durosimi smiled, and looked at his pocket watch.
“I had quite lost track of the time, my dear. Is it really nine o’clock already?”
As if in confirmation, somewhere, in the distance, the church clock struck three.
The Marshes is a Hopeless, Maine story by Keith Healing, performed by Tom Brown. Originally this story was broadcast as “interruptions” to the scheduled broadcast during The Eldritch Broadcasting Corporation’s online festival. For this video, they have been presented together here, so you can follow the whole piece in one go.
It is doubtless some of the long-time Hopelessers remember the history or have heard the stories about how, centuries ago, medieval monks from Ireland landed on the island and built a community upon it, totally unaware that they had landed on an island on the Maine coast and not in Scotland, as they had thought.
We now have reason to believe that their community was not limited to an abbey and a distillery; it may have been bigger than thought. In the thickly-wooded uplands of the island, Jim Farnsworth – 7-year-old son of Daniel and Winona Farnsworth – was out late playing in the woods against his parents’ wishes with his imaginary friend Guy O’Hara, 8-year-old son of unknown parents (though we may surmise at least one of them is also named O’Hara,) when O’Hara tripped on a rock and skinned his knee. In turning back to cuss the stone, he and Jim saw the stone was unusual.
“It wasn’t like any rock we’d ever seen in the woods,” said Jim, whose parents allowed him to speak with the Vendetta during his grounding. “Guy and I know the rocks here can be jagged, but it looked too clean cut, like a large brick almost.”
News spread quickly, and amateur archaeologists Hephzibah Corey and James Hansen were interested in the boys’ story.
The young Messrs. O’Hara and Farnsworth, the latter under the watchful eyes of his accompanying parents, guided Corey and Hansen to the spot, which is memorable for a prevalence of dead and curiously crooked pine trees. There they found the stone. The two archaeologists decided to clear it off, and after only a little brushing away of fallen leaves and pine needles, found the site consisted of even more stones, of similar shape.
“We could already tell that what we were looking at was something far grander in scale than any old drystone wall built up by any common farmer,” said Corey, who added, “though I have to give credit to Mr. and Mrs. Buxton for coming closest with their ambitious 100-foot-long 9-footer. We’re still trying to figure out how in Tunket they did that and why, but I digress.”
With shovels, mattocks, and willing hands John Adam, Damien Chevin, and Paula Greenstone, (hands which were undoubtedly difficult to come by, what with Ash Peterson’s archaeology- related death still imprinted on town memory) they returned to the site and conducted a fuller excavation. What they dug up was that O’Hara had literally stumbled onto the collapsed remains of a stone cathedral! Several well-worn inscriptions in Latin were found, two branding the building as “The Church of St. Brendan,” built “in the year of the Lord, 12__.”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions,” said Hansen, “as the stone is so badly effaced to be certain, but the tens digit looks like it could be a 1 or a 7. Don’t quote me on that.”
According to the team, it is safe to assume that the builders, having made a long ocean voyage, were inspired by St. Brendan the Navigator’s sea travels to strange lands. This corroborates a few tales about the medieval monks that are extant on the island, as well a recently rediscovered tale of a particular accursed dwelling lost in the woods of the island, still recalled by Lorraine Gagnon, a local Algonquian mythologist and storyteller.
When the team began digging at the floor, John Adam pried a flagstone with a prybar and was hit with a stench.
“It was foul and musty,” said Adam, “like the dry fart of death.”
Moving the flagstone revealed something wholly unexpected: a shallow recess beneath the floor with a bony foot. Removing more flagstones not only revealed one body, but a total of 48 skeletal corpses, all in the same state: they were bound by the wrists and ankles, their arms and legs were broken, iron nails were driven through the joints of their limbs and jaws, their sternums were each pressed under a boulder, and a rock was jammed between each of their jaws.
In the words of Corey, “To see them all at once, for the first time…it was paralysing. Of course, we’re aware of things like animal sacrifices made to be church grims, and even of people buried under the floors of churches, dead and sometimes alive. But this…all we could do was stare, in stunned silence, probably for a solid minute.”
The bindings and mutilations suggested that those who buried the corpses believed them to be revenants – most likely vampires. The belief in revenants is corroborated in Gagnon’s story, in which the people from across the sea who settled into their new stone dwelling succumbed to a strange sickness, and “despite their sickness, refused to die.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Corey says. “If these are foundation sacrifices, why did their buriers take such extreme measures? If these are church burials, why entomb so many dangerous ‘sinners’ on holy ground? Surely such a strong, evil presence would taint the ground, in the buriers’ minds.”
The next day, the team returned to the ruins of St. Brendan’s Church to conduct an even more thorough investigation, as well as to search the surroundings for other buildings and a quarry, to find the site disturbed; ground stakes were knocked over, tarpaulins moved, and every last one of the bodies was gone. According to Corey, “It was as if they had somehow wriggled out from under the boulders and left, like every last one of them was Harry Houdini.”
The team will pay for any information regarding the whereabouts of the corpses, and will pay handsomely for their return. They are each a few inches over five feet tall, with tawny, leathery skin stretched tightly over crooked, skeletal frames, and bearing multiple rows of sharp, pointed teeth. They will probably be attempting to communicate in Latin or cussing out in pain in Old Irish if not for the rocks in their mouths, and shambling with stiff joints and a wicked limp, if not still squirming or rolling around in their bindings.
Ask about Hephzibah Corey and James Hansen at the Historical Society or the Squid and Teapot for more information.
Philomena Bucket stood on the summit of the Gydynap Hills, watching, with some trepidation, the eerie mist that snaked up through the darkness.
“I’m glad that they are meeting here, and not in The Squid,” she thought to herself. “Even by Hopeless standards, this is beyond weird.”
It was late evening on the seventh day of February, the anniversary of Granny Bucket’s death. A few weeks previously Philomena had rashly suggested that there should be some sort of event to mark the occasion.
“After all,” she had reasoned, “everybody has a birthday, and they also have a deathday.”
If, like Granny Bucket, the departed are able to enjoy a full and active afterlife, happily haunting all and sundry, then Philomena could see no reason why there should not be a party, of some description, to celebrate their special day. What Philomena had failed to take into account was Granny insisting that she should have a veto regarding the guest list, and then summarily rejecting all of her granddaughter’s suggestions.
As the mist drew closer, Philomena could see wispy forms gradually taking shape within it. These were Granny’s party guests, the ghosts of her witch-brood ancestors; generation upon generation of Bucket women. Some were from such a distant past that they were almost invisible.
Philomena had no idea how the Bucket surname had originated. Given the mysterious nature of that ancient Irish clan, I like to believe that it derives from the old Gaelic word “púca”, for a shape-shifting spirit. The truth, however, is probably far more prosaic. Whatever its root, the name has been carried proudly for hundreds – possibly thousands – of years by countless female Buckets, regardless of their marital state. And here they all were, shades gathered upon a dark hilltop, honouring Granny Bucket. Philomena gazed fondly at her grandmother, and as she did so, the scene changed. She was in a tiny, badly-lit room where an old woman lay in a truckle bed. Her face was almost as white as the pillow upon which she lay. It was Granny. These were her final moments of life. Philomena was only a child at the time, but she could remember this vividly. The vision faded and once more it was night-time on the Gydynaps. Philomena’s gaze fell upon another party guest. Although a wraith, this one looked to be little more than a girl. Suddenly, alarmingly, she was ablaze, her hair a fiery halo, her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Shaken, Philomena turned away abruptly, only for her eyes to fall upon another ghost, who, an instant later, appeared to be hanging from gallows, her eyes bulging and her legs kicking helplessly. Horrified, Philomena knew at once that she was witnessing the deathday of these women. Wherever she looked, she was assailed by visions of violent death. Few had been as lucky as Granny, to die in bed surrounded by a loving family.
There was another watcher on those hills. For reasons known only to himself, Durosimi O’Stoat had asked for an invitation to Granny’s party.
“After all,” he had said, “I am family.”
It was true, to a degree. Somewhere in that melee of ghosts drifted a common ancestor, a forebear who marked the exact time when two magically powerful families – the Buckets and the O’Stoats – had found each other.
When no invitation had been forthcoming, Durosimi decided to turn up anyway.
By now the phantom witches had started chanting. This was obviously what passed as fun in witchy circles, Philomena decided. Not so much a party as a gathering. A meet.
“Merry meet and merry part, and merry meet again,” intoned Philomena aloud, somewhat surprising herself, for she had no idea where the words had come from.
It was almost as if this was a signal. Led by Granny, the witches drifted towards her and, surrounded, she felt herself lifted, as if by nothing more substantial than clouds. She floated, unafraid and deliriously happy, in the night-air, for what felt like an age.
Durosimi watched with fascination. While no stranger to the world of the supernatural, this was something completely new to him. In fact, so mesmerised was he that he had almost forgotten the reason for his gate-crashing the party. Then the weight of the little black bottle that he carried drew him sharply from his reverie.
The ghostly throng surrounding Philomena seemed to be unaware of Durosimi’s presence. It was only when he held the bottle aloft that one of the witches turned towards him, as if in answer to a summons. She drifted through the night until her shimmering form was within his arms’ length.
Durosimi smiled, coldly. The spell had worked. And then he froze. The witch standing before him looked exactly like Philomena Bucket.
“Melusine?” he asked, incredulous.
It was Doctor John Dee who had given him the idea. The sixteenth-century alchemist had visited Hopeless some time before and had revealed that Melusine O’Stoat, burned for heresy and witchcraft in Elizabethan times, was not only Durosimi’s ancestor, but Philomena’s as well. She had been a wonder-child, the product of the union of two magically powerful dynasties. The O’Stoats would not allow her to revert to her maiden name, however, and that had been her undoing. It was dangerous being an O’Stoat in those days.
Granny’s party had been the perfect opportunity for Durosimi to summon the spirit of Melusine, and trap her. The black bottle looked innocuous enough, but Durosimi had soaked it in enough magic to capture a dozen of her kind. But he did not want a dozen; only Melusine. How he would extract the power and knowledge that he craved, he had yet to work out.
Philomena opened her eyes. She was lying on the damp grass of the Gydynaps.
“Happy deathday, Granny Bucket,” she called, but no one replied.
The phantom witches had gone. Even Granny.
Philomena shivered, pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders, and made her way down the hill.
“Well, that’s over,” she thought to herself, with a certain amount of relief. “Thank goodness that nothing untoward happened.”
Durosimi gazed at the nondescript bottle sitting on his desk.
He smiled to himself. Who said that you couldn’t put a djinn back into a bottle?
But now that he had her, how was he going to control her?
Left to right… Tom Brown, Nimue Brown, Keith Errington, James Weaselgrease, Kat Delarus and, Susie Roberts
So here we were, in Susie’s kitchen, singing the new Hopeless, Maine anthem as written for us by Keith Errington. Previously, Keith’s been more involved with us on the book side – having written a Hopeless, Maine novella called The Oddatsea, which is published by Outland in the same volume as New England Gothic. He’s been a frequent contributor here on the blog and has performed with us at events.
Keith has been increasingly involved with The Ominous Folk for some months now, as he’s recording our album and has written us a couple of songs. As this photo indicates, he’s also now singing with us, at least sometimes. He’s very good at the comedy stuff, and has a different selection of musical influences while also being folk-affected, so he adds to our overall sound rather well.
The young human in the foreground is Keith’s daughter, Kat. She’s an incredibly multi-talented person with serious art skills, a fabulous singing voice and considerable word taming skills as well. Rumour has it that she’s also good at acting, so that’s something to explore in the future. We’re currently in the process of working out exactly how everything fits together, but I think it’s safe to say that you will be seeing more of her in assorted Hopeless, Maine projects, and here on the blog.
From the beginning, Hopeless was envisaged as a project people could get involved with. The community aspect of it has always been really important. Sometimes it feels more like a family, and this recording session was definitely one of those moments.
There are young humans in the Hopeless, Maine books, but this was never intended to be a project for children. However, there are children who rock up enthusiastically. Today’s guest art was the work of Connie, who introduced herself to us by throwing her hat at us during our performance at Raising Steam last year. She went on to make Tom and James sing her ‘bum in the bumhole’ song.
Not all children are into pretty and innocuous things. James as a child considered the owl demon from the first book to be cute. Connie, as we can tell from the drawing, also likes things with a lot of teeth. We’re aware of at least one other young human who is a big fan of Drury – our resident dead dog.
“Invited?” Philomena Bucket’s face was a picture of innocence.
If she had been shocked by being whisked away to some liminal place, as a whim of the ghost of Granny Bucket, Philomena did not show it. Over the years she had ceased to be surprised by any stunt that Granny pulled. She was, however, a little taken aback that her elderly, and long-dead, relative had got wind of the impending celebrations.
“To my surprise deathday party. Don’t pretend you’re not planning one,” said Granny. “I heard you plotting with that Middlestreet fellow. Now, who have you invited?”
Philomena knew that there was no point in trying to hide the details any longer.
“Well, I have asked Miss Calder…” began Philomena
“Miss Calder?” interrupted Granny. “I hardly know the woman. Why are you asking her?”
“If you would allow me to finish,” said Philomena archly, “I have asked Miss Calder to talk to the other ghosts on the island and find out who would like to come.”
“And I don’t get a say in anything?” snapped Granny
“It is supposed to be a surprise party!” exclaimed Philomena, exasperated. “Anyway,” she added, keen to change the subject, “I don’t recognise this place. Where exactly is it that you have brought me?”
You, like Philomena, will recall that she had been wandering up the Gydynap Hills in an effort to clear her head. She had no idea that Granny’s wraith was following her until she found herself suddenly standing next to a babbling stream, deep within a sun-dappled hazel wood. It was quite beautiful and certainly bore no resemblance to anywhere on the island of Hopeless, Maine.
“We’re safe within a memory I have of the Old Country,” said Granny, nostalgically. “I used to do a spot of courting here, as a girl.”
This was news to Philomena.
“And who was the lucky man, may I ask?” she said.
“Ah, Indeed you may. ‘Twas a young rascal called Willie Yeats. That was long before your time, though” confided Granny. “You wouldn’t know him.”
“Hmm… the name’s familiar,” said Philomena, uncertainly.
“But back to this party business…” Granny was like a lurcher with a rabbit. “Who do you intend to ask?”
“The maiden ladies of the Mild Hunt…”
“Them old biddies? With their yappy dogs and fartin’ mules? I don’t think so!” said Granny, emphatically.
“Very well. How about Lady Margaret D’Avening and Father Ignatius Stamage?”
“That sanctimonious pair, haunting the lavvy in The Squid and Teapot?” Granny was aghast at the suggestion. “They’re devout Catholics, the two of them. They won’t want to be hob-nobbing with a load of witches, that’s for sure.”
“A load of witches?”
Philomena had echoed the words with a certain amount of unease.
“Well, the ghosts of witches, anyway. They are my friends and relations,” said Granny. “And it’s my deathday, after all.”
“How many, exactly, are we talking about?”
“Not sure yet,” said Granny. “I’ll let you know.”
As she spoke these final words, Granny began to gradually fade away, and with her went the stream and the hazel wood. Suddenly it was dark, and the familiar shapes of the Gydynap rocks were outlined against the misty skyline.
Drury was confused. He had spent hours searching for Philomena, following her trail high into the Gydynaps, only for it to disappear in a most unexpected manner. When it abruptly returned, in a dizzying burst of fragrance and accompanied by the lady herself, he was overjoyed. The osseous hound wagged his bony old tail in obvious pleasure. He had been seriously concerned when one of his two favourite people in all of the world had vanished, apparently into thin air.
“Come on Drury,” said Philomena, not even slightly surprised to find her old friend waiting for her. “I’ve got to get back and see how Rhys is faring. I must have been gone for hours.”
For the last few days, Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man had been struck down with influenza. Philomena, armed only with a clothes-peg to keep the smell at bay, had taken it upon herself to administer to him. Her humanitarian mission had to be put on hold for a while longer, however, when a lean figure emerged from the darkness.
Drury growled menacingly.
“You can call your dog off, Miss Bucket. I mean you no harm.”
Philomena recognised the voice of Durosimi O’Stoat immediately.
“I hear,” he drawled, “that you intend commemorating your grandmother’s deathday, next week.”
“I don’t know who might have told you that,” said Philomena defiantly, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. “But yes, you heard correctly. As a matter of fact I do.”
“With the island’s ghosts in attendance, if my information is correct,” said Durosimi. “Young lady, that is not a good idea and I suggest you abandon it now.”
“And why would that be, Mister O’Stoat?”
“It would not be … politic” he said, struggling to find a suitably apposite adjective. “The spirits of this island have come from different times, different cultures, different mind-sets. You would be creating a potentially explosive situation. In dealing with these opposing energies, I fear you would be unleashing forces far beyond your comprehension.”
“Well you needn’t be worrying on that score,” said Philomena, her face reddening with rage, “because the island’s ghosts don’t seem to be invited anymore.”
“How so?” Durosimi was suddenly interested.
Philomena felt suddenly bold. Who was Durosimi to tell her who could come to Granny’s party?
“Granny is most insistent,” she said quietly, “that it will be a knees-up for just witches, and ghostly witches at that; friends and relations, some from different times, but every one of them with the same mind. So, there is no chance that I might be unleashing any opposing energies, whatever that means.”
“No, indeed,” said Durosimi. He paused for a moment, as if processing the information.
“I believe,” he said carefully, “that your grandmother is under the impression that she and I – and obviously you and I – share a common ancestor. In view of this I would very much like an invitation, being family, and all that. May I rely on you to ask her, please?”
“I can ask,” said Philomena, having a fair idea what Granny’s reply would be.
Durosimi smiled chillingly and disappeared into the night.
“I wish I’d never thought of any of this,” muttered Philomena.
Drury wagged his tail again. He could smell trouble in the air. Drury liked trouble. Trouble was fun.
No one knows quite how the first Meeping Kazoo came to Hopeless, Maine. Some say Lady Carriage Clock had a tame one – a rarity in itself, although little is known about Lady Carriage Clock, other than she was often pre-punctual for meetings. According to reports from that time, Lady Carriage Clock was not well liked and people would often try and avoid her – hence, she developed the habit of turning up to visit people before she met them to arrange the meeting.
But the Meeping Kazoo. Well now. Who has not heard a symphonicmare (the term for hearing a collection of Meeping Kazoos) and compared it unfavourably to the screeching of fingernails down a chalk board? It is a truly hideous thing to behold in the wild – and if you are lucky, such are its effects that you may be rendered deaf to all other sounds.
But in Hopeless, Maine, with its fog-enshrouded environs, the sounds of a herd (or some say, collateral) of Meeping Kazoo are somewhat muffled. Odd squawks are sometimes heard. A single finger, scratching at a chalk board. A random ting-ting-ting, but that may be the Meeping Kazoos attempts to lure a Spoonwalker out into the open.
They look rather like – well, perhaps that is not their best feature. The sounds they make are definitely not their best feature either, but they are the most striking aspect of them. Unless, of course, you happen to be a Spoonwalker who is caught out in the open –
They are a non-migratory species, which suggests there was some incident, possibly a tsunami caught some in the wild and delivered them to the island a long time ago. Breeding patterns and preferred habits are not known, and best not-guessed at. Frankly, even talking to you about a Meeping Kazoo is to invite the potential for a localised symphonicmare.
But one thing is known. No Meeping Kazoo ever hunts alone. Whether a collateral of them could tackle a human sized creature is unknown. But the best form of defence may be attack – since the physical aspects of the Meeping Kazoo are unknown, it may be that the range of Meeping Kazoo physical aspects is quite wide, and they may be identifiable more by sound than sight.
That being the case, if you think you are about to be attacked by a collateral, the best defence might be to sound like one.
This is David Atteneighbourhood, signing off, for Planet Maine. Hopeless, Maine.’
Doc Willoughby sucked on his teeth for a little while, as he tended to do when he wanted people to think he was considering matters carefully. The small ‘fff’ noise did not confer the dignity he imagined, but this was of little consequence. If Doc Willoughby had really understood how little dignity he was afforded, he might never have dared to even venture outside his own doors. Thankfully, a lifetime dedicated to the science of distilling had protected him from such discomforts.
He took a swig from the cup on his desk, which still had something in it. After a briefly unpleasant sensation in his mouth. It occurred to Doc Willoughby that some of what was in it had been a spider, probably now deceased. He shrugged, and swallowed anyway.
“Ffffff,” he repeated, on the inbreath, shaking his head slightly. “Too much excitement of the nerves,” he pronounced.
His patient sighed heavily at this.
“You’ve been overdoing things,” the Doc continued, nodding to himself as he warmed to his theme.
“I was worried I’d gone too far with the fasting this time,” Reverend Davies admitted, seeming relieved. “Miss Calder has been nagging me about it.”
“Fasting is good for you,” Doc Willoughby said. “It would be terrible for me, but it is clearly right for your nature and constitution.”
“I haven’t slept in about a week now,” Reverend Davies added, a statement supported by just how bruised his eyes appeared to be.
“That’s overstimulation for you,” Doc Willoughby said.
“What should I do?” Reverend Davies asked. “I was thinking about prostrating myself in prayer for an entire night, do you think that would help?”
“It might,” Doc Willoughby said. “But I think the most important thing is to try and have less fun.”
