She will visit you in the longest and darkest nights. There is no certain day for her coming, so you must always be ready after Halloween. The Bone Daughter will come to your house. If you have left a gift for her, she may be satisfied with that. She likes wooden spoons, polished sea glass and the complete skeletons of mice. Other offerings may also be acceptable.
If there is no gift for her at the door, she may come into your house, into your bedroom and into your dreams. You will wake with the sound of her laughter in your ears and no idea what she has made you do. The Bone Daughter’s humour is unpredictable at best.
If you are lucky, she will have only made you sing the bum in the bumhole song in some very public place.
If you are slightly lucky then when you wake plummeting from the church spire, you’ll land in a tree.
If you are unlucky, someone else will find you and conclude that The Bone Daughter played a terrible game with you.
Story by Martin Pearson, ghost of Lady Margaret D’Avening by Cliff Cumber
The snuggery of The Squid and Teapot glowed in the cosy warmth of a blazing log fire. It was the end of a long and tiring day, and the landlord, Bartholomew Middlestreet, was glad to take the weight off his feet. He was sitting with his wife, Ariadne, and their friends, Philomena Bucket and Reggie Upton, who both lived at the inn. Drury, the skeletal hound, had invited himself in, and was snuffling and snoring on the fireside rug. Bartholomew could not have felt happier. In such cordial company, generously lubricated by a few tankards of ‘Old Colonel’, even the miserable climate of the island and its attendant horrors could be forgotten for a few hours.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Reggie Upton, “it is the end of October already. Do the islanders usually celebrate Halloween?”
Ariadne laughed derisively.
“What would be the point?” she asked. “It’s Halloween every day on Hopeless.”
“Yes, but you know what I mean,” said Reggie. “People have always liked to sit around a roaring fire and tell scary stories at this time of year.”
“I saw the makings of a good scary story yesterday,” broke in Philomena. Her voice was a little slurred. “Father Stamage climbed out of his hat, yawned, scratched his arse, then went back to bed.”
It was not particularly funny, but everyone laughed. Even Drury managed to emerge from his slumbers sufficiently to wag his bony old tail.
“Steady on,” said a voice. “I might be dead but I am certainly not deaf.”
An annoyed Father Stamage had thrust his ghostly head through the wall.
“And for your information,” he added, crossly, “I have never knowingly scratched my… scratched myself in front of a lady.”
“Ah, go on with you, Father,” said Philomena, ignoring the priest’s displeasure. “Aren’t you ghosts supposed to be celebrating, or something, this evening?”
“The only celebrating I will be doing,” said Stamage, imperiously, “is Mass, with Lady Margaret. It’s All Hallows Day tomorrow and it’s only a pity that we have to mark the occasion in the privy.”
Lady Margaret D’Avening, also known as the Headless White Lady, famously haunted the stones that had been used to build the inn’s flushing privy, and was not able to venture very far from them.
“I could prise out a block for her to haunt, and put it somewhere more appropriate,” offered Bartholomew.
“It is not worth your trouble,” said the ghostly Jesuit, the landlord’s generosity driving all annoyance from his voice. “Besides, I think Lady Margaret feels at home in the privy. She doesn’t enjoy travel very much.”
With that Father Stamage disappeared, probably to return to the comfort of his hat – his beloved Capello Romano – and once more wander the hallowed corridors of his old alma mater, Campion Hall, in Oxford.
“Well, as far as I am concerned Halloween wouldn’t be the same without a ghostly story or two. Does anyone know any? – and I mean real stories this time,” said Reggie markedly, eyeing Philomena.
The barmaid smiled mischievously and said,
“Well, I do… but it’s more of a poem really, I suppose, called The Strange Visitor. Granny Bucket taught it to me years ago.”
“Let’s hear it, then” urged Ariadne.
Philomena settled herself into her seat, and began, her Irish lilt becoming broader and more pronounced with each word. She spoke slowly, and as the verse progressed, the fire seemed to die down a little, and shadows gathered around her.
“A woman was sitting at her reel one night; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of broad, broad feet, and sat down at the fireside; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of small, small legs, and sat down on the broad, broad feet; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of thick, thick knees, and sat down on the small, small legs; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of thin, thin thighs, and sat down on the thick, thick knees; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of huge, huge hips, and sat down on the thin, thin thighs; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a wee, wee waist, and sat down on the huge, huge hips; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of broad, broad shoulders, and sat down on the wee, wee waist; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of small, small arms, and sat down on the broad, broad shoulders; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a pair of huge, huge hands, and sat down on the small, small arms; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a small, small neck, and sat down on the broad, broad shoulders; And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.
In came a huge, huge head, and sat down on the small, small neck.
‘How did you get such broad, broad feet?’ quoth the woman. ‘Much tramping, much tramping’.
‘How did you get such small, small legs?’ ‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e—moul’.
‘How did you get such thick, thick knees?’ ‘Much praying, much praying’.
‘How did you get such thin, thin thighs?’ ‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e–moul’.
‘How did you get such big, big hips?’ ‘Much sitting, much sitting’.
‘How did you get such a wee, wee waist?’ ‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e–moul’.
‘How did you get such broad, broad shoulders?’ ‘With carrying broom, with carrying broom’.
‘How did you get such small, small arms?’ ‘Aih-h-h!–late–and we-e-e–moul’.
‘How did you get such huge, huge hands?’ ‘Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail’.
‘How did you get such a small, small neck?’ ‘Aih-h-h!–late–wee-e-e–moul’.
‘How did you get such a huge, huge head?’ ‘Much knowledge, much knowledge’.
‘What do you come for?’
Before Philomena was able to deliver the last line, a wailing banshee emerged from the chimney, burst into the snuggery and screamed at the top of her voice,
“I HAVE COME FOR YOU!”
Everyone quailed visibly and drew back; even Drury yelped in alarm and slunk into the corner.
“For goodness sake Granny,” shouted Philomena, “that is not funny.”
“Oh, I think it is” cackled the ghost of Granny Bucket. “You should see your faces.”
“My dear Mistress Bucket,” said Reggie, regaining his composure and straightening his regimental tie. “Another shock like that and I’ll be a ghost myself.”
“Then I think you all need another drink,” laughed Granny. “I only wish that I could have one meself. Happy Halloween, everybody.”
After braving the vertiginous descent that took her to the tunnels, Marigold found, with no small measure of relief, her journey through the Underland to be uneventful. Philomena had mentioned that no one had walked through the region for some weeks, so she was surprised to find that the rush lights, placed in great iron sconces along the walls, were burning as if they had been lit that very hour.
Marigold felt bad about stealing Philomena's key to the faux-chest in the attic, the secret entrance to the Underland. She felt certain that the barmaid would understand her reasons; surely, if anyone could cure her amnesia, and tell her where her home was to be found, it would be the mysterious Doctor Dee, whom Philomena had first met there.
As she walked along the fire-lit paths, Marigold pondered the information that Philomena had unwittingly given her, regarding the cave which lay at the very end of the tunnels. Apparently, it had presented itself differently each time she had visited. Well, however the cave chose to appear to her, Marigold decided that her course was set, and there would be no turning back until she had either found Doctor Dee, or solved the mystery of her origins herself.
Marigold's heart missed a beat; the mouth of the cave loomed before her. It was smaller and less imposing than she had expected and pale fingers of mist reached out, as if beckoning her to come in. The heat from the rush-lights had kept the tunnels warm, almost too warm for her to need the blanket that she had thrown over her shoulders when she left The Squid. Now, however, a cold draught made her skin prickle, and she drew it close around her. Then she took a deep breath and stepped into the reaching mist.
"Oh, for goodness sake!" Marigold exclaimed crossly.
The view in front of her bore absolutely no resemblance to the inside of a cave, or an Elizabethan alchemist's study, as she had hoped. In fact it bore no resemblance to anything other than the island of Hopeless, Maine. She could see the Gydynap hills outlined in the moonlight.
"I've taken a wrong turning somewhere," she muttered. That at least explained why the air had grown so much colder. Hopeless was dreary at the best of times. Now, at the end of October, the island was definitely trying on its winter wardrobe.
Marigold looked about her, trying to get some sense of where, exactly, she was. The cave mouth had disappeared and the only landmark was a stone cottage. There was a light in one of the windows. Whoever was inside would hopefully be able to direct her back to The Squid and Teapot.
The young man who answered her knock smiled broadly. A welcoming, golden light flooded through the open doorway.
"Of course I can tell you how to get to The Squid," he said amiably, " but come in and have a drink and a bite to eat first. We're having a celebration. I suppose you could call it a Halloween party."
"Halloween? Is it really? Gosh, I've lost all track of time since my... since my recent illness" said Marigold. " Well, just for minute or two wouldn't hurt, I guess. Thank you."
It was obviously a family gathering. The cottage rang with the laughter of three generations, a dozen happy people all clustered around a great oak table that was laden from end to end with the sort of food and drink that the inhabitants of Hopeless can usually only dream of. A blazing log fire roared in the grate, and slender white candles burned with a pure and even luminosity.
Marigold was puzzled by the opulence, but appreciating her good fortune, hung her blanket, to which she had pinned the chest key, on a hook on the wall. Gratefully she took a seat at the table.
"This is so lovely," she thought, wine glass in hand and reaching for another helping of roast potatoes. "It certainly beats starry-grabby pie."
She put her head to one side and tried to remember why she didn't like starry-grabby pie. Come to think of it, what was starry-grabby pie anyway? Wherever did she get that silly name from?
"More corn, Marigold?" said the young man, "Let me top your drink up..."
"Thank you," she replied. "This is such a wonderful evening, I wish it could go on forever, but I must leave soon."
The elderly woman sitting beside her smiled warmly.
"Why not stay a while longer? There's no reason for you to leave just yet."
" No, I've no reason to leave... " said Marigold, dreamily.
Philomena peered down the yawning shaft of the chest that squatted in a corner of the attic.
"We're going to have to leave it open," said Bartholomew Middlestreet . "It has only been a few days. You never know, she might come back that way."
Philomena said nothing. With, or without The Sight, she knew that such a thing would be unlikely. She really wanted to seal the passage up forever, cut the ladder from the wall, lock the chest and throw the key - the key she no longer possessed - far into the ocean.
It was on the following morning, while walking with Drury, that she found the blanket. Her blanket. Drury, for reasons best known to himself, had decided to explore a ruined cottage in Creepy Hollow. It had been little more than a couple of walls and a heap of rubble for years. The blanket had been lying on the floor. At least it looked like Philomena's missing blanket, though it was faded now, and thick with dust, as though it had been abandoned there fifty years ago.
"Oh Marigold," she thought to herself, "I don't know who or what you found in the cave, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't John Dee."
She picked up the blanket and noticed that an iron key had been pinned to one corner. Philomena recognised it immediately.
" She won't be coming back, " she said quietly to herself. "And this must never - will never - happen again."
Philomena had long doubted that she possessed any magical skills, despite the assurances and protestations to the contrary of both John Dee and the ghost of Granny Bucket. So maybe she thought, as those words left her lips, that the earth tremor was a coincidence. Nothing remarkable; seismic activity was commonplace enough in the state of Maine.
Bartholomew Middlestreet had to steady himself when the tremor hit. It seemed to come from directly beneath The Squid and Teapot, shaking the building so hard that pictures fell from the walls and crockery smashed. In the shaft that led to the tunnels, the agonized metallic death-rattle of the long iron ladder could be heard as it pulled away from the fabric of the walls, becoming suddenly, and unaccountably brittle, bending and shattering beyond repair.
Far beneath the inn, deep in earth, many hundreds of tons of rock tumbled like skittles, sealing forever all access to the Underland.
These days, unlike much of North America, Hallowe’en is not widely celebrated on Hopeless. This is fairly understandable; there seems little point in masquerading as some shabby version of a supernatural creature when living on an island where encounters with ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, vampires and a host of nameless horrors are fairly commonplace. This, however, has not always been the case.
Hallowe’en, as a trick-and-treating, dressing-up and scaring the neighbours affair, kicked-off as a commercial success in America in the 1930s. Although Hopeless was then no less of a haven for the weird and not particularly wonderful, the novelty value of the occasion was not wasted upon its inhabitants when the trader, Joseph Dreaming-By-The-River-Where-The-Shining-Salmon-Springs brought news of the festival to the island. (Joseph was now living on Hopeless, having very recently married Betty Butterow, the barmaid of the Squid and Teapot). It must be said that much of the enthusiasm generated for the occasion had a great deal to do with the prospect of a feast, for Joseph had loaded his canoe to the gunnels with candies, fruit, pumpkins, corn, vegetables and one very skinny game bird.
If the various communities of world have one thing in common, it is the desire to form a committee whenever the opportunity arises. There seems to be a universal belief that anything of the slightest importance which needs to be organised requires a group of people with vastly differing opinions to put it together. The Hopeless Hallowe’en committee was no exception. Arguments regarding the the distribution of the food, the venue or venues involved, even the exact specifications regarding the carving of the Jack O’Lanterns abounded for days. Hallowe’en was in danger of slipping by unnoticed while the committee debated the way in which it should be celebrated. At last Joseph, who was a patient man and had kept an inscrutable silence so far, banged the table with his moccasin and threatened to scupper his canoe, complete with cargo, if no decision could be made by supper time. This seemed to concentrate minds wonderfully and it was unanimously decided that all preparations for the celebrations should be put in the capable hands of the staff of the Squid and Teapot. It was a huge task and Joseph pretended not to notice the withering glance that Betty threw at him. Since marrying, the couple had set up home in a small cabin in Creepy Hollow. Joseph had the distinct impression that he might well be banished to the spare room for a night or two.
Both Betty and the Lypiatt family, who owned the inn, thought that the children of the orphanage might be recruited to carve the Jack O’Lanterns. Given the number of people to cater for, they reached the conclusion that the most economical use of the meat and vegetables would be to make a huge stew. The most mediocre of cooks will tell you – and I speak with some authority here – that not only is a stew one of the simplest dishes to prepare but also, when allowed to cook slowly enough to enable the various flavours and textures to combine, can rival the nectar of the gods on a cold October evening. All that was required to create this culinary delight was a container large enough to hold all of the ingredients.
It was Gwilym Davies who came to the rescue. His family had settled on the island over a century before and Gwilym and his descendants on Hopeless were the remains of the Davies diaspora that had left North Wales all those years ago.
Gwilym’s great grandparents, Gruffyd and Bronwen had sailed from Liverpool with few possessions but the one thing they refused to leave behind was the huge copper cauldron that had been in the family for longer than anyone could remember. As far as Gwilym was aware, the cauldron had not been used during his lifetime and it seemed an ideal vessel for the job in hand.
One of The Squid’s outbuildings was selected to house the cauldron. So large was the container that it was deemed necessary to keep a fire burning steadily beneath it for at least twenty four hours in order for the flavours to properly mingle. In view of this, a couple of islanders were roped-in to tend to it. These took the shape of Daniel Rooksmoor, one of the boys from the orphanage and old Amos Gannicox. In his younger days Amos had been the ship’s carpenter on the ill-fated ‘The City of Portland’. After the ship capsized Amos had found himself stranded on Hopeless. Now, some fifty years later, on this most auspicious of occasions, he was awarded the task of stirring the stew. Meanwhile, Daniel, a burly fourteen-year-old, volunteered to feed the fire.
All seemed to be going well until it came to adding the meat. When the game-bird was plucked it looked too thin and bony to provide any sort of meaningful nourishment. It was a disappointment but by this time it was too late to do anything other than gut the carcass and throw it into the pot as it was, head, legs and all. At least a day of slow cooking would gently ease whatever flesh it once possessed from the bones.
By nightfall, on the last day of October, the air around The Squid and Teapot was rich with the aroma of stew. Folk started to drift towards the inn, bringing bowls and cutlery. It was rare for anyone on the island to give their jealously guarded spoons an airing, for fear of theft by the Spoonwalkers, but tonight there was a devil-may-care attitude and caution was thrown to the wind. Lanterns, music, laughter and a certain amount of alcohol, all added to the atmosphere of the evening.
Daniel had gone to the woodshed for more fuel and Amos was alone with the cauldron when it suddenly bubbled with a strange glooping noise. The old man dug the wooden paddle, that served as a stirring-spoon, into the mixture and pushed it around. It was hard work – the paddle moved sluggishly, as if through treacle. The stew glooped again just as Daniel walked through the doorway, his arms loaded with logs.
“I don’t know what’s going on with this,” said Amos. “Give me a hand with the paddle, please lad.”
Daniel grasped the paddle and helped move it around. Maybe it was the firelight or something to do with the bottle of ‘Old Colonel’ he’d craftily consumed while supposedly looking for wood but the stew seemed to have taken on a strange hue. There was a certain luminous green quality lingering in its depths.
“Gloop”
This time the bubbles were fiercer and sent a fine spray of stew into the air, three generous drops of it landing on Daniel’s hand. The pair jumped back with some alarm, yelling in consternation and letting the paddle drop into the cauldron. Daniel licked the burning drops off his hand.
By now a crowd, hearing the commotion, had gathered outside the doorway just in time to see Amos fall over and Daniel reel back against the wall, holding his head.
The bubbling noises from the cauldron were louder and more frequent by now. A green steam arose from the surface of the stew and hung ominously in the air above it.
“Get back” screamed Daniel, grabbing Amos by the collar of his jacket and dragging him out of the building, the crowd falling back to let them pass.
The cauldron began to groan as if possessed by some demon and its sides appeared to pulsate in the dancing firelight.
The crowd drew back, everyone well aware that something unpleasant was about to happen. This was, after all, Hopeless on Hallowe’en. Of course something unpleasant was about to happen.
Then it did.
The cauldron groaned once more, a heart-rending, guttural cry that became a drawn-out moan, then a roar. With a blinding flash the cauldron exploded into a thousand copper shards, embedding themselves into the walls and ceiling of the outbuilding. Many of the spectators standing close by were temporarily blinded by the sudden burst of light. Very few saw the creature that arose from the ruins of the stew which, by now, was seeping into the earthen floor. Even by Hopeless standards it was odd. There was something reminiscent of a bird of prey about it, but huge and with glowing eyes, as big as turnips. Its wings might have been leather but looked like massive cabbage leaves and its talons were uncannily like parsnips. With a beak and wattles that glowed, as if made of copper, it rose into the air
with a deafening squawk, then flapped, slow and silent as a heron, into the night sky, towards the mysterious Gydynap hills.
Daniel Rooksmoor stood alone over the unmoving form of Amos Gannicox. The three livid red scars on his hand marked where the drops had landed and he had changed, for all to see. His skin was deathly pale and he looked older, far older, than his years. There was a light in his eyes that spoke of madness; the madness of prophets and poets. The madness which has little time for the mediocrity of daily life.
Wordlessly he walked away from the throng, into the darkness, following the flight of the Cauldron Bird. He was oblivious to danger and careless of any creature that might be abroad on this most haunted of nights. Those who saw him leave fell to silence. No one moved to stop him.
Despite the facts that Gwilym Davies was stoic about the loss of his cauldron, Amos had made a full recovery and there appeared to have been no fatalities, Joseph was wracked with guilt. He was convinced that the responsibility for everything that befell that night was all his own. He felt especially bad about Daniel Rooksmoor and resolved to find the boy and bring him back. Joseph knew this was something that he had to do alone. There was no changing his mind and so, with a heavy-heart, Betty Butterow watched the love of her life leave their cabin to head deep inland, where loomed the mysterious and forbidding Gydynap hills…
