Text and image by Nimue Brown

Hermit Cottage has been inhabited by members of the Jones family for generations. The main body of the cottage is the shell of a giant mollusc. There’s no knowing from the shell alone whether there was a more regular ocean-going giant mollusc, or whether it belonged to one of the hermits indigenous to the island. However ‘Hermit Cottage’ has a nice ring to it, and ‘Might have been a massive conch  cottage’ doesn’t quite have the same swing.

Hermit Cottage features in a story set after the graphic novel series. If you support me on Patreon, you’ll have already run into this (and thank you, it really helps). There are a couple of stories set after the series, and figuring out what happens to those will be a job for this winter. 

The cottage is in a fairly remote spot, tucked in amongst the dunes. It’s a short walk to the sea and a much longer walk in to town. Here we find Necessity, a young female-ish person who has built a wandering mechanical device. And yes, this whole thing started with the notion of necessity being the mother of invention, but I managed to get through the entire story without actually saying it.