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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The raven fixed her with a beady stare.

‘They do now,’ came the caw.

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

Above, the corvids muttered like a drunken choir.

“Shinies, shinies, shinies.

The Marsh-Thing promised.

We bring scraps.

It gives shinies.

Fair trade, fair trade…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do I have a choice?” Skant replied.

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

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

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

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

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

The Marsh-Thing stilled. “Despair?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“WHO DARES TO DO THIS?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the magic misfired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pyralia Skant allowed herself a smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued…

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

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

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

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

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

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

They sat. Tea was poured.

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

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

Philomena gave her a long, hard look.

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

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

And then, right on cue, the lights dimmed.

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

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

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

Philomena did not turn.

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

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

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

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

Granny cocked her head, squinting at Skant.

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

Skant smiled politely. “I do, actually.”

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

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

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

Granny floated closer, folding her arms.

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

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

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

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

Philomena stood.

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

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

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

“Oh, I know that I am,” said Skant.

“Doesn’t mean you’re wise.”

“And it doesn’t mean you’re right.”

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

Then, a familiar clatter.

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

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

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

And just like that, the atmosphere snapped.

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Skant flashed a dazzling grin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m here for my wife,” he said.

There was a pause.

“You what?” asked Rhys.

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

Philomena blinked. “You’re… a ghost?”

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

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

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

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

“Of course it is,” muttered Rhys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problem began, as such problems so often do on Hopeless (and indeed, at all points elsewhere, in my experience) with the well-intentioned, but deeply regrettable, act of tidying up.

Saul Washwell, in his capacity as keyholder of the Hopeless, Maine Museum (mentioned in the tale ‘The Postman’), had – with the help of Bartholomew Middlestreet – undertaken to reorganise some of the museum’s dustier corners. One such area in particular, floridly labelled ‘Miscellanea and Misadventure’, seemed to be in dire need of some urgent attention.

This was the sort of activity which, under other circumstances, might have resulted in the reclassification of some dubious Viking artefacts, the rediscovery of the museum’s second-best badger pelt, or perhaps the matching up of two previously unrelated chair legs. On this occasion, however, it led instead to the outbreak of an entirely new and deeply troubling disease.

At the heart of the calamity was a small chest. Plain, sea-warped, and locked with rusted clasps, it bore the unconvincing label:

“Property of Poet and Scholar Shrivensby Pinfarthing — Touch Not, Lest Verse Ensue.”

So naturally, Saul opened it.

The contents were innocuous enough at first glance: a stack of brittle, seaweed-bound manuscripts titled ‘The Ode Cycle of Sea-Borne Sorrows’, an inkwell fossilised to its stand, and a peculiar fungal bloom clinging to every surface like melancholia in spore form. He passed it to Bartholomew for cataloguing. Bartholomew gave it a curious sniff, and promptly began humming in iambic pentameter.

Within twenty-four hours, Saul was drafting instructions to his seven sons in rhymed couplets and Bartholomew was composing a carefully metred suggestion to his wife, Ariadne, concerning the proper stacking of firewood, ending with the line:

“Let logs not lie like lovers in dismay / but stand, erect, in rows both tight and true.”

It was only a matter of time before more victims followed.

At first, they were not alarmed. Reggie Upton, always partial to a bit of Kipling, initially took the infection as a return to form.

 “We marched in fog and clamminess, we bivvied in the bog,
And once I ate the sergeant’s sock, mistaking it for dog…”

This, he claimed, was simply an old regimental marching song, but soon he could not order a drink without invoking the Empire and rhyming “beer” with “cheer” and “fear.”

Neville Moore, in his mausoleum-like home on Ghastly Green, descended into Poe-esque despair, declaring the spoonwalkers to be messengers of death and writing odes to a small shoal of lantern fish that may or may not have existed. He was later found weeping over a dead jellyfish, and quoting stanzas that no one had heard before, or wished to hear again.

Mrs Beaten was discovered crouched behind a hedge, scribbling Larkin-like observations about the declining state of bootlaces, garden statuary, and public morals in the margins of her parish watch notes.

And Norbert Gannicox – poor Norbert, artisan distiller and generally agreeable fellow – was afflicted with the full force of Byron. He was discovered atop of his gin still, shirt unbuttoned, hair in rakish disarray, declaiming to the fog:

 “O cruel gin, thou siren of my sleep,
Thy botanicals too bold, thy spirit deep!
Forlorn I stand, amidst thy copper grave,
And toast the soul thy juniper did save!”

This wasn’t bad, considering that Norbert was, these days, an avowed teetotaller and had previously claimed that gin gave him “visions of disapproving and long-dead aunts.”

At first, some found it entertaining. Then they realised it was contagious, not to say tedious.

Mirielle D’Illay, of Les Demoiselles Dance Studio, became uncharacteristically soft and sighing under the influence of Paul Verlaine, that velvet-draped master of delicate decadence, a poet who wept in vowels and kissed each aching stanza into wilting submission.

Septimus, Mirielle’s long-suffering husband, could only wonder what had happened to the feisty love of his life as she gently whispered lilac-scented verse into her pillow and refused to wear shoes, or speak anything but rhymed French.

Doc Willoughby, always ready to seize an opportunity for self-promotion, began composing and publicly performing in his crowded surgery. The result was McGonagallesque doggerel of such forceful inelegance that some townsfolk took to stuffing mud in their ears for protection.

Philomena, miraculously untouched by the contagion, decided that enough was enough when her husband, Rhys Cranham, began writing love poems to her. Under other circumstances this would have been delightful, but Rhys had adopted the style and tone of the notorious Restoration poet John Wilmott, 2nd Earl of Rochester.

It would have not have been so bad, she reflected wistfully, had her surname not been Bucket.

With a little bit of detective work Philomena managed to trace the source of the infection to the fungal bloom within Shrivensby Pinfarthing’s manuscripts. She tentatively burned one as a precaution, and noticed the nearby Tenzin falter, brusquely cutting Tibetan poet Milarepa off in mid-couplet.

When she later decided to light the fire using the last remaining pages of Sea-Borne Sorrows, Part XIV, the resulting flames sent spores, manuscripts, a small clerihew and a surprised collection of villanelles up in smoke.

The following evening came, and with unaccustomed camaraderie the townsfolk gathered together on the beach, afflicted and strangely united in verse, to perform a final farewell ode at dusk. The mood was sombre. The metre was passable. Mrs Beaten wept discreetly into a lace kerchief and later denied everything.

By then, the spores were burnt out and the last of the rhyme had faded from the air. Silence returned to Hopeless. Awkward, blessed silence.

Only Mirielle continued to write poetry. But only in French. And only on Tuesdays.

Winston Oldspot had lived much of his young life in a state of profound olfactory denial.

His was, he freely admitted, a job for someone with a strong constitution and a blatant disregard for their sense of smell. As Hopeless, Maine’s Night-Soil Man, he carried out his duties with quiet pride and a large wooden bucket. The cloak of stench that clung to him like a second skin was generally enough to guarantee solitude, silence, and a wide berth in all public places.

Which is why, when he first heard something following him through the island’s fog-cloaked pathways, his first reaction was not panic, but surprise.

With the exception of Drury, the skeletal hound, and his friend, the anosmic Reggie Upton, nothing — and no one — ever came within a dozen yards of Winston. Not rats. Not spoonwalkers. Even ghouls, werewolves and vampires held their breath when he passed.

But something was behind him.

Something that went splorch.

He turned. The path was empty.

Only the sloshing of his full bucket and the slow creak of his boots disturbed the morning.

Then — a sudden movement. (No pun intended.)

A slither at the edge of vision. A pale coil vanishing behind a bramble bush.

Winston blinked. “Oh,” he said flatly. “It’s you.”

Word of the privy creature had spread, of course. On Hopeless, nothing eldritch stays secret for long — especially if it’s likely to disturb folk while occupied in their privies.

The creature hissed. Its many eyes blinked at him hungrily.

Winston tilted his bucket slightly. “You’re following the scent, aren’t you? You poor, misguided horror.”

He turned back down the lane, adjusting his grip.

“Fine. Let’s dance.”

Most people, when stalked by a privy-dwelling monstrosity, would panic.

Winston merely walked faster.

The creature slithered in pursuit, weaving between the trees, flitting through the crumbling stonework, occasionally poking a mouth or tentacle out to sample the air.

Winston led it on — through the marsh, past Chapel Rock, and down the narrow, seldom-used path that led to his cottage: The House at Poo Corner.

Suddenly, Drury appeared, bounding along beside him with a cheerful rattle. Winston gave him a nod.

“The back gate’s unlatched, Drury.”

Drury vanished with an excited clatter.

Behind them, the creature picked up speed.

Winston’s garden was a quietly neat affair, although a few brambles, some suspicious-looking herbs, and one ancient washing line didn’t do a lot to enhance its kerb appeal. But at the very bottom, as regular readers will be aware, there lay the Night-Soil Man’s infamous sinkhole, marked only by a capstone. Almost two centuries earlier this had been pushed upright, like a tombstone, and the letter ‘D’ scratched on it. These days the letter was faint, and no one could recall why it was there.

(See the tale ‘A Dog’s Life,’ and be sure to have some tissues to hand.)

The sinkhole was deep — really deep — and an eerie green mist swirled at what was probably its base.

Things thrown in did not generally return — not even sound.

Winston trudged across the garden and upended the bucket ceremonially on the edge.

“Come and get it,” he said.

The creature surged into view, drawn by the scent. It reared back, let out a sibilant hiss of triumph –  and it was then that Drury shot out of the cottage, with a force that sent the Toilet Terror straight over the edge, and into the abyss 

There was a pause. A long pause. Winston thought he might have heard a distant, echoing splash, but he wasn’t sure.

Then… silence.

He stood there a moment, his jacket rippling faintly in the breeze.

“You won’t be trying that trick again in a hurry,” he said to the empty sinkhole.

Drury, looking understandably pleased with himself, stared up at Winston with strangely appealing eye-sockets.

“Good lad,” said Winston, patting his faithful friend on the skull. The Night-soil Man reached into his jacket pocket and gave Drury the biscuit that he kept for such occasions. This biscuit had been employed several times as a reward for Drury. It would rattle around the old hound’s ribcage like a tombola ball for a while, then drop to the ground — all ready to be recycled.

Back at The Squid and Teapot, the team listened in stunned silence as Reggie Upton recounted the tale that Winston had told him.

“He lured it to the garden,” said Rhys, aghast. “With his bucket?”

“Apparently it was all that he had,” said Reggie. “That took some pluck, what?”

“Or foolishness,” said Rhys, flatly.

“Oh, come on, Rhys,” challenged Philomena. “If you were still the Night-Soil Man, you’d have done exactly the same. You lot are cut from the same smelly bit of cloth.”

Rhys reddened. It was true enough. You had to be a little crazy to survive as a Night-Soil Man.

Philomena raised her glass. “To Winston Oldspot. Slayer of the Toilet Terror.”

Tenzin nodded. “And to the sinkhole. May it never backwash.”

Later that night, Philomena stood at the privy door, mop in hand. She stared at the pipework. It was still and silent.

“Do you think it’s over?” Rhys asked softly.

Philomena narrowed her eyes.

“I hope so,” she said. “That’s one visitor we don’t want returning.”

Behind her, Drury sneezed. An ancient and well-used biscuit that had somehow managed to lodge itself between his third and fourth vertebrae landed on the floorboards.

That felt better!

Drury wagged his bony tail, and with a mixture of pride and relief, lay down to sleep.