Despite her more-than-occasional wish that Durosimi O’Stoat would take an extended holiday somewhere far, far away – at the bottom of the Atlantic, for instance, or possibly on the dark side of the moon – Philomena Bucket could not shake the feeling of guilt that had been gnawing at her for some weeks. Was it a coincidence that Durosimi had been missing ever since she, in a moment of poor judgement (combined with a slight feeling of panic), had given him the ancient grimoire that had so demanded her attention while foraging in the dusty attics of The Squid and Teapot? Regular readers will recall that Philomena had originally tried to foist this book off on the Hermit of Ghastly Green, Neville Moore, but it was obvious that Neville would not be able to control the unruly tome. It needed someone versed in The High Magic, so who better than Durosimi?

“Don’t fret, m’dear” Reggie Upton told her, as he laced up his shoes in preparation for a spot of flaneuring. “A scoundrel like Durosimi would never do anything that he didn’t want to, so you are definitely not to blame for whatever it is that has befallen him.”

Others had said very much the same sort of thing. Even the ghost of Granny Bucket – who usually made a point of materialising at only the most inconvenient and embarrassing of times – had come to offer her granddaughter some words of comfort. Drury, the skeletal hound, had done his best but was less than helpful, his reassuring gestures mainly consisting of wagging his bony tail enthusiastically, while knocking over a coal scuttle and a bottle of Old Colonel ale.

Yet none of this seemed to assuage her guilt. The image of Durosimi’s eager, if slightly malevolent, grin as he took the grimoire haunted her every waking hour. She ought to have known better. A book that hummed ominously and occasionally snapped shut of its own accord was not something to blithely hand over to a sorcerer, much less one of the O’Stoat variety.

And then, quite out of the blue, the blasted thing had reappeared.

To her great surprise Philomena discovered that it was back in the attic, precariously perched atop of an almost complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (it was the 1910 -1911 edition, published by Cambridge University Press, should you be interested in such trivia). It was almost as though it had never left, but something was different this time. The grimoire no longer trembled with barely contained menace. It no longer growled, or at least, not audibly. Now, it sat as demurely as any respectable tome might, slightly foxed around the edges, and its cracked leather binding sporting a distinct patina of green mould. It may have been her imagination, but Philomena fancied that once or twice she caught a faint whiff of brimstone, but otherwise the book behaved perfectly bookishly.

Philomena eyed it with suspicion.

“Behaving yourself, are you?” she said aloud.

The book, as if keen to preserve its newfound reputation, remained silent and motionless.

With great caution, and a poker from the fireplace firmly in hand, she prised it open. The action raised a small dust cloud, but it wasn’t that which caused her to catch her breath. There, etched in the corner of one of the elaborate, full-page illustrations, was none other than a tiny Durosimi O’Stoat. Unusually, at least for an illustration, he was waving frantically from the confines of an ink-and-wash landscape, looking very much the worse for wear but unmistakably alive – or at least, no worse than his usual pallor.

“Durosimi!” She gasped. “For goodness’ sake! What have you done now?”

He appeared to be shouting something, though of course no sound emerged. Philomena squinted and tried to lip-read, but all she could make out was, “Help! Help! …. Oh, and whatever you do, avoid the margins.”

Slamming the book shut with a decisive thud, she hurried down to the snuggery and made straight for the corner by the fireplace. There, Granny Bucket’s ghost lingered in her usual state of slightly disapproving semi-transparency.

“Granny,” Philomena said, not bothering with pleasantries, “I need the benefit of your wisdom.”

The ghost’s expression softened. This was the sort of thing that Granny liked to hear.

“This is about that no-good sorcerer, O’Stoat, isn’t it?” she said.

Philomena nodded.

“I think he’s trapped in the grimoire,” she confessed. “In one of the illustrations. And I mean to get him out.”

“That’s a noble aim,” Granny admitted, “but a foolish one, in my opinion. I wonder if he would lift a finger if your positions were reversed?”

Philomena had no answer to that.

“Oh well… if you must. There is a way, child,” Granny continued. “There’s always a way… for those prepared to pay the price.”

She drifted closer, peering at the book under Philomena’s arm. “Of course, it won’t be as simple as turning the page and pulling him free.”

Philomena sighed. She had suspected as much.

“You’ll need the right tools,” Granny said. “A candle blessed at both ends. A drop of ink from a cuttlefish that dreams of the open sky. And – perhaps most importantly – someone to mind the book from the outside while you go in.”

Philomena’s eyes widened. 

“Go in?”

“Oh yes,” Granny said, with a thin, spectral smile. “If you want to save him, you’ll have to step into the story yourself.”

The fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows on the wall. Outside, a storm was gathering, heavy with the promise of strange happenings, not to mention rain. Philomena felt a chill run down her spine, though whether this was from the draught blowing through an ill-fitting window frame, or from Granny’s words, she could not say.

But one thing was certain.

One way or another, she was going to get Durosimi O’Stoat out of that book – although, it seemed that in order to do that, it would mean throwing herself feet first into its pages.

To be continued…

When not haunting the flushing privy of The Squid and Teapot, Father Ignatius Stamage generally retires to the comfort of his hat. As I have mentioned before, for Father Stamage this is far more than the old and battered Capello Romano that we might see hanging incongruously in the bar of The Squid, smelling as it does of sweat, incense and cheap brilliantine. Once inside his hat, Father Stamage is transported to the Jesuit college Campion Hall, in Oxford, where he can wander the cool deserted corridors of his old alma mater at leisure. This, of course, is Campion Hall as he would wish it, devoid of the bustle of staff, students and other annoying intrusions.

                                ……….

You will doubtless remember Tenzin, the young Buddhist monk who left Tibet under a yeti’s armpit, via one of Mr Squash’s mysterious portals. Since taking up residence in The Squid and Teapot he has always shown great willingness to help with any task that needs doing. However, having spent his formative years chanting, meditating and twirling prayer wheels, Tenzin proved himself to be supremely unqualified to be allowed anywhere near the daily running of an inn, even one on Hopeless, Maine. In view of this, Philomena decided that he would be far more useful looking after her adopted children, Caitlin and little Oswald. After all, she reasoned, he had been a child himself not so long ago, and apart from the aforementioned chanting, meditating and prayer wheel twirling, he ought to have a rough idea what might be required of him. 

Tenzin thought hard how best he might entertain two infants aged four and three. His monastery, high in the Himalayas, was not known for its penchant for merriment (unless chanting, meditation and prayer wheel twirling happens to be your idea of fun). Then he spotted Father Stamage’s hat dangling from the coat stand in the corner of the bar. Youthful inspiration suddenly blossomed, and from then on it was only a matter of time before he invented the imaginatively named ‘Tossing the Hat Around Game’.

Father Stamage was admiring the Charles Mahoney painted panels in the Lady Chapel when he realised that something was not right. To begin with it was little more than a suggestion that the whole building seemed to be on the move, but as the hat was tossed back and forth, to a chorus of giggling as it wobbled through the air, things became decidedly uncomfortable. This only stopped when ‘Uncomfortable’ slid up the scale to ‘Really Alarming’, then swiftly progressed to ‘Really Alarmingly Awful”. This was akin to a ride on a rollercoaster devoid of brakes, or being flung around in an unheated  tumble-dryer. Unfortunately Father Stamage had no knowledge of either of these examples to bring him any sort of comfort, and so he had to resort to stifling a scream, which was only right and proper behaviour in the Lady Chapel. 

Of course Tenzin and the children were blissfully unaware that with each throw, the unseen spectre within the hat was being flung about like a particularly helpless leaf in a gale. Father Stamage found himself in an unprecedented state of distress. He was used to haunting, not being haunted – by inertia, by gravity, and by the terrible indignity of it all.

The children eventually tired, as children are wont to do, and much to the Jesuit’s relief the hat was put down. With his ectoplasm churned around like milk, Father Stamage’s ghost fell into a deep slumber. 

That could have been the end of the story, but he was disturbed once more when Drury, the skeletal hound, burst onto the scene with his own, unique brand of aplomb. With unbounded enthusiasm  Drury lunged, clamped his bony jaws into the hat, and tore off through the inn and out of the front door, his wagging tail rattling noisily behind him.

Drury, being Drury, had no particular destination in mind. He enjoyed the chase, and the rushing of the wind through the holes where his ears should have been. It was only after an hour or so, when he became distracted by a spoonwalker (which offered the possibility of providing far more fun than a smelly old hat) that he dropped it somewhere along the marshy outskirts of the island.

For the first time since his demise, Father Stamage found himself utterly alone. No walls. No privy. No warm, dimly lit bar. No Lady Margaret D’Avening to preach to. Just the open moors, the distant crash of waves, and a creeping sense of abandonment.

Then the wind picked up.

The hat, light as it was, lifted and tumbled, rolling over the ground like a cursed tumbleweed. Stamage, trapped within, could do nothing but endure the indignity of being carried aloft by an enthusiastic gust, only to land in a gorse bush. Spending days, weeks or months in a gorse bush was not a particularly thrilling prospect, even for a ghost, but this became meaningless when a particularly enterprising raven decided that the hat might function as a liner for her nest, and once more Father Stamage peered out to find himself airborne. Miserably he recalled that most of Hopeless’ raven population resided up on Chapel Rock. This was also home to the ghostly Mad Parson, Obadiah Hyde, a particularly unpleasant spirit who nursed a deep and abiding hatred of people generally, and of papists in particular.

I suppose, given the circumstances, the fact that the raven dropped the hat before reaching Chapel Rock could be considered fortunate. Any celebration was short lived, however, as it rolled into a bog where it spent an unpleasant few days soaking up the smell of decomposed vegetation.

                            ……….

Reggie Upton liked to describe himself as something of a flâneur, an all-around devotee of leisurely perambulation. On such occasions he did not walk with urgency or purpose, but rather as an art form. One does not merely go somewhere; one arrives in a state of cultivated idleness.

It was in the midst of such aimless sauntering that he spotted the hat.

“By Jove,” he mused aloud. “A priest’s Capello Romano, and abandoned in the wild, I’ll be bound.”

He bent down, retrieved the sodden, slightly odorous hat, and gave it a shake.

“I say, steady on,” croaked Father Stamage, whose voice was, by now, hoarse from shrieking into the void.

Reggie blinked. “Stamage, old chap, is that you in there?”

“Of course it’s me, you ridiculous old fop!”, fumed Father Stamage! “I have been misplaced and require immediate conveyance back to The Squid and Teapot!”

Reggie considered this. “You’re certainly a long way from home. Would you say you have had an enlightening journey?”

The reply that came out of the hat was not what one might expect from a man of the cloth.

With great care (and a handkerchief to protect his fingers), Reggie picked up the hat and resumed his flânerie.

Upon arriving at the inn he presented the battered headwear to Philomena with a flourish. 

“I found this on my walk. Father Stamage seems to have been rather lost.”

She took it, gave it a sniff, wrinkled her nose, and hung it back in its rightful place. Almost immediately, a faint, deeply weary sigh emanated from within.

Thus restored to his home, Father Stamage resumed his haunting, though now with a certain wariness. He took to muttering prayers whenever Drury passed by and grew deeply suspicious of playful children.

Meanwhile, undeterred, Tenzin invented a new pastime for Caitlin and little Oswald. It was called “Tossing the Chamber Pot Lid Around Game”.

Father Stamage, disappeared into the privy and shuddered.

One could never be too careful.

Over the years The Squid and Teapot has entertained its fair share of peculiar visitors, but none quite as unsettling as the person who arrived one fog-choked spring evening. He didn’t walk through the door, neither did he knock. He simply… appeared, sitting stiffly at a corner table, his presence a gaping wrongness in the dimly lit tavern.

Philomena Bucket was the first to notice him. One moment, she was wiping a table clear of some suspiciously sentient mould, the next, a figure was simply there; pale and emaciated, and dressed in clothing that seemed a little too fashionable for Hopeless, Maine. The problem was that the fashion in question was a century or two out of date. While wearing a high-collared coat over a long, embroidered waistcoat, knee breeches, buckled shoes and faded cravat might be seen by the average islander to be reasonably respectable apparel, it is most unlikely that these would all be worn exclusively; throw in an army greatcoat, a Fair-isle sweater, a stovepipe hat, a pair of purple socks and winkle-picker shoes, and you might be nearer the mark. Hopeless fashion relies upon flotsam, jetsam and the contents of the attics of The Squid and Teapot. Haute couture it is not.

Rhys Cranham regarded the stranger warily, slightly discomfited by his expressionless eyes and smooth, waxy face. Rhys has long learned that some things are best left unacknowledged. Not everyone, however, shared his circumspection. Some patrons began whispering, and eventually Seth Washwell cleared his throat and said, “I take it that you’re new to the island.”

The stranger did not immediately respond. Instead, a slow, dry creak – a sound that held all the warmth of a shifting coffin lid – echoed through the room, as he turned head a fraction.

                ……………………………

“That character was bad for trade,” grumbled Philomena, sweeping brush in hand. “It must have been midnight before he left.”

“I can’t say that I actually noticed him leave,” remarked Reggie Upton. “One minute he was there, and by the next, he wasn’t. Gad, he was a rum ‘un, and I’m dashed well not sorry to see the back of him.”

But Reggie had spoken too soon. At sometime, during the course of the next evening, the uninvited guest arrived once more and remained until midnight. It was not as if he suddenly appeared and disappeared; it was more a case of his being in evidence, and then not. No one could later put hand on heart and say that they definitely saw him come or go.

This strange state of affairs carried on for the next few evenings. Tenzin, the young Buddhist monk who was now resident in the inn, noticed that his arrival seemed to coincide with the rising of the moon, and he would stay until exactly midnight.

Throughout all of his visits, the stranger did not move. He remained at his table with his hands folded, gazing fixedly at some unknowable point in the distance. He neither ate, nor drank; he did not even blink. And yet, every time someone looked away, he seemed… slightly different. Was his coat now a shade darker? His waistcoat a little more ornate? And his expression – inasmuch as he had such a thing – was just a touch more knowing than before.

Philomena whispered to Rhys, “I could swear that he wasn’t wearing gloves earlier.”

Rhys nodded. “I didn’t think that I would ever hear myself saying this, but this is one time I wish that Durosimi O’Stoat was here. He’d know what’s going on.”

Durosimi was the self-appointed expert in all things eldritch and unpleasant, and would doubtless have attempted to communicate with the man at the table using a variety of obscure and potentially dangerous incantations.

“Well, according to Doc Willoughby,” said Philomena, “Durosimi seems to have disappeared, so we’ll have to manage without him. We could try sprinkling salt around the windows and doorway. That might work.”

And that is what they did.

To no one’s surprise, it achieved nothing.

                   ……………………

A week passed, and by then, The Squid and Teapot had become unusually quiet. The regular patrons each found good reasons to be elsewhere. While Philomena, Rhys, and Reggie pretended not to be perturbed by their uninvited guest, Tenzin decided to indulge in some extended meditation practice in his room. The formerly convivial atmosphere in the bar had lapsed into a silence that was becoming noticeably thick, not to say oppressive. Then, finally, almost impossibly, the figure moved.

He gave a slow tilt of the head, and with a voice not unlike the rustle of the wind through dead and dried leaves, he declared,

“This is not my place.”

“You’re damned right it isn’t,” thought Reggie, but wisely kept this observation to himself.

With painful slowness, the stranger reached into its coat, to withdraw something small and round. It was an old, tarnished pocket watch, the glass at its face was cracked, and the hands unmoving.

Philomena, usually unfazed, swallowed hard.

“Y-you’re lost?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

There followed a long, somewhat anguished, pause.

“I was not meant to wake,” he said.

And suddenly, to Rhys, it all made a dreadful sort of sense.

Trembling, he recalled an old tale that had been related on the island for generations. It told of a shipwreck, which, in itself, was not unusual on Hopeless. Among the handful of survivors was a foppish gentleman passenger who, for reasons best known to themselves, the superstitious crew blamed for their misfortune, and they wasted no time in meting out their own brand of justice by hanging him from the nearest tree.

Ironically, each of his assailants perished quite horribly within a week or so. Who says that the island of Hopeless hasn’t got a sense of humour?

When the foppish gentleman was eventually discovered, his corpse swinging gently in the breeze, the islanders cut him down and laid him in an unmarked grave.

With this in mind, Rhys said, “Then it’s high time you went back, my friend.”

The gentleman inclined his head, then slowly, deliberately, placed his watch on the table.

Events had become so strange lately that no one gave it a second thought when the glass repaired itself with a faint crack, and the hands began to move.

And suddenly, although no one could exactly swear that they saw him leave, the man was gone.

One by one the regular patrons of The Squid and Teapot gradually returned but, strangely, no one mentioned the uninvited guest. The table he had occupied remained empty for weeks, and the watch, despite Philomena’s suggestion that it should be thrown into the sea, found its way into Reggie’s pocket. 

“Just in case our gentleman wants it back,” he reasoned.

Sometimes, just before the clock strikes midnight, a faint creak can be heard in The Squid and Teapot, a sound not unlike the shifting of a coffin lid.

It wasn’t often that Doc Willoughby sought Durosimi O’Stoat’s advice; experience had taught him that the cost often outweighed any advantage. However, an unfortunate interaction between a medicinal tincture of his own devising and a patient now exhibiting luminous pustules suggested that, just this once, it might be wise. The sorcerer, for all his unpleasantness, knew a thing or two about unnatural ailments. Besides, there was always the possibility of a glass or three of single malt, should Durosimi require a quid pro quo of some description.

Arriving at Durosimi’s rambling old house, Willoughby knocked. When no answer came, he did the only reasonable thing: he let himself in.

The interior smelled of burnt herbs and something distinctly amphibian. Doc feebly called out, half-hoping for no response, but the house merely absorbed his words like a sponge soaking up a spill. Lowering himself into an armchair, he attempted to warm his bulk by the dying embers smouldering in the grate.

After a moment’s thought — and railing against his better judgment — Doc decided to take a look around. He had visited Durosimi on many occasions, but had never ventured far beyond the front parlour.

A small, nondescript door opened into what could only be described as a laboratory. Shelves lined one wall, stacked with glass jars whose nameless contents twitched as he passed. A fat, many-legged thing pressed itself against the glass and mouthed something in a language Doc did not know but instinctively disliked.

He was beginning to wish he had left the house and its secrets undisturbed while he still had the opportunity. But for good or ill, here he was. And besides, the door through which he had entered the laboratory had disappeared.

Heart thudding, he searched for another way out. His eyes fell upon a circular iron staircase neatly tucked into a corner. Closer inspection showed that, unsurprisingly, it wound its way upwards, vanishing into a recess in the ceiling.

“This house has been owned by the O’Stoat family for generations,” Doc reasoned. “They’ve all had an unhealthy fondness for the occult, but by and large, they survived. If these stairs were good enough for them, they’re good enough for me. What could possibly go wrong?”

It was, he thought, a fair point. Allowing for the dubious pastimes practiced by successive O’Stoats, it made perfect sense that if the laboratory door had a habit of disappearing, an alternative means of egress would be required.

Gingerly ascending the staircase, Doc discovered that, once through the ceiling, the steps did not immediately lead into another room. Instead, they extended through a long, unlit passageway that seemed to fold back upon itself, making the ample Willoughby stomach lurch unpleasantly. After a few dizzying moments, he found himself somewhere else entirely—perhaps a different floor, or perhaps not.

Maybe this was Durosimi’s bedroom. It looked comfortable enough, in an austere sort of way. There was a narrow bed, a wardrobe, and a full-length mirror on the door. Doc could never resist a mirror. Smoothing what remained of his hair, he sucked in his stomach and wandered over, preparing to admire the fine example of manhood it would doubtless reflect.

The image in the glass was, indeed, a fine example of manhood — but it was not Doc Willoughby. The figure staring back was taller and considerably thinner (as were most people on the island). It scowled, giving every indication that Doc’s presence was not entirely welcome.

Hurriedly turning away, Doc spotted Durosimi’s cloak draped over a chair, still slightly hunched as if its owner had just stepped out of it. But there was no Durosimi. Only the lingering sense that he had been there a moment before—and that, in some way, he still was.

Something rattled behind him. Doc jumped, heart hammering. He turned, expecting anything, but there was nothing. Only an old leather-bound book lying on a rickety card table.

This was, he decided, an excellent time to leave. If only he could find a way out.

The room appeared to be sealed, without so much as a window to offer an escape (though, in truth, Doc would never have contemplated risking life and limb by climbing out of anything higher than a couple of feet). He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his head in his hands.

“Think, Willoughby, think,” he muttered. “There has to be a way… there just has to be.”

It was then that the laughter started.

Not a happy, belly-wobbling laugh, but harsh and mocking.

Doc looked around wildly, but there was no one. Even the figure in the mirror had vanished. The laughter grew louder, swelling to fill the room—to fill his head. He reeled, clutching his temples—

And everything went black.

—

It was still daylight when Doc Willoughby regained his senses. He was sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, the embers still faintly glowing.

“I must have dropped off,” he thought. “Thank goodness for that. Just a horrible dream.”

As he rose to leave, his gaze drifted to the little door in the corner. The memory of his dream made him hesitate. He smiled at the absurdity of it—jars on a shelf, eldritch tenants floating in glass, absurd nonsense.

Unable to contain his curiosity, he crossed the room and pushed the door open.

He expected a kitchen. Or a boot room.

His blood froze.

Lining the wall was an orderly row of glass jars. Something inside one bobbed to the surface and appeared to wave at him.

Doc slammed the door and stumbled outside into the welcoming chill and mist of a Hopeless afternoon.

“I need a drink,” he declared.

—

The Squid and Teapot was quiet, much to his relief. Hopeless, Maine had never been known for its afternoon drinkers (or much of anything else, for that matter), but the doors of the inn were always open to anyone in need of rest, homespun therapy, or simply a stiff drink. Today, unusually, Doc Willoughby ticked all three boxes.

Rhys Cranham placed a generous glass of the Gannicox Distillery’s finest spirit into Doc’s shaking hand. He had never seen him so distressed and wisely decided against asking why. The man seemed to be in a trance-like state.

It was only when Septimus Washwell burst into the room that he stirred.

“It’s The Anomaly!” Septimus blurted. “It’s gone. Disappeared completely!”

The Anomaly had been an ugly gash in time and space, the product of one of Durosimi’s more unfortunate experiments. It had been hanging in the air for weeks.

“The Anomaly has disappeared?” Doc repeated, his voice oddly distant.

“It seems so,” said Rhys.

“And so has Durosimi,” Doc murmured, as if in a dream.

He stared into his glass.

“Is that a coincidence, do you think?”

 

One of Durosimi O’Stoat’s earliest memories is that of his father bringing a raven into the house. He recalled that it was a cold evening, the sort that seemed to seep into his young bones, no matter how close he sat to the fire. The bird, bedraggled and glaring, dripped rain onto the floorboards as his father held it aloft, inspecting it with the cool, critical eye of a man accustomed to weighing the worth of things that should not be weighed.

“An omen,” his father declared, his voice rich with satisfaction. He turned the bird’s head from side to side, studying the glint of intelligence in its black eye. “Or a gift. Either way, it’s ours now.”

Durosimi, small and silent by the hearth, watched as his father set the raven upon the mantelpiece, where it stood, disheveled but unbowed, as if considering its next move. The boy knew better, of course, than to ask where the creature had come from; things regularly arrived at the O’Stoat house in ways best left unexamined.

The bird remained perched insolently on the mantelpiece. It did not fly, nor did it attempt to leave when doors were left ajar. It did nothing but sit and watch. It always watched, even when his father muttered arcane incantations over leather-bound books, forbidding looking grimoires that smelled of damp and age. The raven watched until, unexpectedly, one dark and dismal midnight, it decided to find its voice.

It spoke not nonsense words, nor the garbled mimicry of an ordinary bird. No, the raven spoke in whispers; whispers which slid beneath the door frames and into Durosimi’s dreams, smooth and slippery as oil. Names he did not know but somehow recognized; places he had never visited, but was able to picture with unsettling clarity.

“You can hear it too, can’t you?” his father asked one evening, catching the boy’s gaze.

Durosimi nodded.

“Good.” 

His father smiled, and it was not a comforting thing to behold. “Then we will keep it.”

And so they did.

The years passed, and the raven — whom Durosimi never named, for it felt somewhat foolish to name something older and cleverer than himself — remained. It did not age. It did not falter. It whispered secrets, and, in the fullness of time, Durosimi whispered back.

By the time he was grown, when his father had long since disappeared into whatever dark business had finally claimed him, Durosimi was well-versed in the language of the bird. He knew what lay beneath the island, what stirred in the mist, what bargains could be struck if one had the stomach for them.

Then one day, as he stood by the window of the house that had always been too large and too full of ghosts, the raven hopped onto his shoulder, close enough for him to feel the icy chill of its breath.

“It is time,” it said.

Durosimi did not ask for what. He simply nodded, reached for his coat, and stepped out into the night…

But that was years ago and, at the time, many on the island believed that he had disappeared forever, just like his father before him. Little by little, Durosimi faded from the recollection of most folk, until one day, to the surprise of all, he returned. He was not alone; in his arms he carried a child – a child named Salamandra, his daughter, by all accounts. And a wild child she was, too, but that is another tale, and not mine to tell. 

Durosimi sat in the darkness of his parlour, alone with his memories. Cradled in his arms was the magical tome, recently gifted to him by Philomena Bucket. Durosimi was no fool. He and Philomena could hardly be called friends, and she would only have given him such a prize if she knew that it was something that needed to be mastered, but over which she would never have control. It was true, she could beat him hands down when it came to the application of Rough Magic, the province of witches. This particular book, however, demanded the attention of one versed in the High Magic, and the practice of High Magic has never been the business of a witch, however powerful she might be. 

The book was quiet now, and trembled in his arms, like a hare rescued from the hunters. 

It was in the deepest hour of the night when he, at last, heard it. The book whispered to him in the way that the raven had whispered, all of those years before. 

“It is time,” it said…

Those who have read the previous instalment of this tale (entitled ‘Scriptus Tenebrarum’), will be aware that Philomena Bucket, Rhys Cranham and Reggie Upton had descended upon Neville Moore’s mausoleum-like abode in the hope that Neville – who was wise in such matters – might know something about a worryingly sentient tome (the eponymous Scriptus Tenebrarum) that Philomena had unearthed in one of the attics of The Squid and Teapot. Not unreasonably, they assumed that the appearance of the book, which had become increasingly badly behaved, was somehow connected to the arrival on the island of the mysterious Glimmer-Man, who, much to everyone’s disquiet, had suddenly decided to loiter outside Neville’s window, inconveniently lingering there for hours, and to all intents and purposes looking for the grimoire.

Philomena quietly reflected that there are many places in which one might find oneself trapped — some more regrettable than others, such as a malfunctioning privy, a collapsing mineshaft, or an inexplicably carnivorous wardrobe. Few locations could match, however, the singular misery of being confined within Neville Moore’s house, particularly when it was well past opening time, and the custodianship of The Squid and Teapot had been left in the somewhat less-than-experienced hands of Tenzin, the young Tibetan Buddhist monk. 

“Please make sure you sit firmly on that grimoire,” said Philomena to Reggie, who was currently perched on the unruly tome like an obstinate rooster, and swiftly coming to terms with the realisation that life seemed to be becoming more undignified by the minute.

“If you get up, the book might do something far worse than flutter a few pages and wheeze occasionally,” she added. “You know what these things are like.”

Rhys, peering nervously through a gap in Neville’s purple curtains, said, 

“And if you do get up, I think we all know what might happen next.”

The glowing orbs of the Glimmer Man’s eyes hovered in the mist outside, watching. Waiting.

Neville, standing unhelpfully in the middle of the room, sighed as though his evening had been ruined by the incompetence of others. 

“Well, obviously we need to resolve this,” he said, rubbing his temples. “We can’t all just stand about like nervous goats, while that thing hangs about outside.”

Philomena was about to retort, “So what do you suggest?” but she tactfully held her tongue. Everyone was getting tetchy, and falling out between themselves would achieve nothing.

The problem, of course, was that no one quite knew what the Glimmer Man was capable of. There could be a possibility that he was completely harmless, but it was important to remember that a barely-visible body was attached to those awful, glowing eyes.

 “Maybe we should open the grimoire and ask it what it wants us to do,” suggested Rhys.

“You say that like it’s the simplest thing in the world,” Philomena replied. “Opening an enchanted book, especially one as temperamental as this, has rarely gone well for anyone, in my experience.”

A faint tapping noise at the window made them all freeze. The Glimmer Man’s eyes had not moved, but something — perhaps a long, clawed hand — had briefly brushed against the glass.

Reggie cleared his throat. “We could always…”

A loud thump interrupted him. The grimoire, perhaps irritated by the weight of a retired British army officer squatting upon its cover, gave a sudden, annoyed shudder.

“Yes, well, let’s try and be clever about this,” Neville said, stepping forward. “If the Glimmer Man wants the book, then we should throw caution to the wind and give him the damned book.” 

“And hopefully do it in a way that doesn’t immediately get us all killed,” suggested Philomena, not without sarcasm.

“Details, details,” Neville muttered.

Outside, the glowing eyes did not blink.

The minutes ticked ominously by, until Rhys, still peering through the curtains, exclaimed.

“There’s something… no, someone else lurking out there! Wait a minute… it’s Miss Calder… and she’s talking to the Glimmer-Man.”

It was, indeed, Miss Calder, the ghostly matriarch of The Pallid Rock Orphanage. Those least pleasant inhabitants of the island of Hopeless, Maine (and there are many), hold no terrors for Miss Calder, who had once peered into the depths of the abyss, and reached the conclusion that it badly needed tidying, and perhaps a lick of paint. 

“What is she saying?” demanded Reggie, who had developed shooting pains in his left buttock, and was becoming increasingly keen to abandon his seat on the grimoire. 

“I can’t hear,” said Rhys, “but she keeps doing that skull thing, which might be very good, or possibly very bad.”

Miss Calder was famous for letting her usual form slip into a much less attractive skeletal mode when she became agitated or excited. 

“He’s going,” said Rhys, at last. “I do believe that the Glimmer-Man is going away.”

Before anyone could respond, Miss Calder, now happily in non-skeletal mode, drifted in through the wall. 

“Whatever did you do to get rid of him?” asked Philomena.

“Nothing,” said Miss Calder. “He only wanted someone to talk to; the poor fellow is lonely.”

“Lonely?” queried Neville. “He’s been terrorising the island for days.”

Miss Calder frowned, giving everyone a disconcerting view of her skull.

“Really?” she said. “What exactly has he been doing?”

“He’s been… well, he’s been glimmering all over the place, for a start.”

“He can’t help that,” said Miss Calder. “Glimmering is what he does. It’s harmless enough.”

“But what about the book?” asked Reggie, shifting his position slightly. “Didn’t he want it back?”

“Book?” queried Miss Calder. “What book?”

“The one that I’m sitting on,” said Reggie, testily. “And it’s dashed uncomfortable, I can tell you; it’s worse than riding a bally camel without a saddle.”

“He didn’t mention it,” said Miss Calder.

“So he’s harmless and doesn’t want this blasted book,” fumed Reggie. “Which means that we’ve been stuck here for hours for no good reason.”

“That seems to be the measure of it,” agreed Miss Calder, with a charming smile. 

“But that still leaves the problem of what we do with the grimoire,” said Neville, keen now for his visitors to leave. After all, he was supposed to be a hermit. 

“If the Glimmer-Man doesn’t want the thing, and I definitely have no use for it, what are we supposed to do?”

Philomena looked thoughtful. 

“We could wrap it up securely, and give it away as a gift,” she said, a sly smile on her face. 

“Who the devil would want it… even as a gift?” asked Reggie. 

Philomena glanced at Miss Calder, who was becoming decidedly skeletal with excitement.

“Durosimi  O’Stoat,” they chorused. 

“You’d give an ancient magical tome to Durosimi?” asked Rhys, not a little shocked. “Is that entirely safe?”

“It’s old and crotchety, and won’t give up its secrets in a hurry,” said Philomena. “My guess is that it will keep him occupied for ages.”

Reggie eased himself gingerly off the grimoire, which seemed to be sulking. Groaning, he vigorously massaged his aching backside.

“The book’s not the only one who’s old and crotchety…” thought Philomena with a grin. 

Philomena Bucket peered at the dusty tomes stacked haphazardly in the corner of one of the several attics of The Squid and Teapot. She was a woman on a mission.

Mr Squash, the Sasquatch, had assured her that The Anomaly, an unsightly gash in reality that was currently hanging between the trees and occasionally belching out small, tentacled nightmares, would eventually disappear. While she had every faith in Mr Squash (who knew about such things), this, for Philomena, was not happening quickly enough. The Anomaly’s very presence was unnerving people, and something needed to be done. After a certain amount of thought and soul-searching, she felt sure that if Durosimi O’Stoat could conjure this thing up, she was more than capable of getting rid of it. After all, the attics were full of books that no one wanted, and there was a distinct possibility that one may yet be found to yield information on portals, dimensional rifts, and other similar matters.

Philomena pulled out a particularly ancient volume bound in cracked leather. As she lifted it, the book gave a faint but distinctly irritable sigh. Philomena frowned. Books, in her experience, did not usually sigh.

“Perhaps it’s just settling,” she muttered, though she did not believe it for a second.

Downstairs, Rhys and Reggie Upton were in the middle of a rather serious discussion about how so many diminutive, but particularly aggressive, tentacled creatures could be consumed by a single raven, when Philomena entered, book in hand.

“This book just sighed at me,” she announced.

Rhys closed his eyes briefly, as if making peace with the knowledge that his day had just become more complicated.

“Are you quite sure?” asked Reggie, eyeing the tome warily.

“As sure as I am that Durosimi’s last ‘experiment’ was responsible for dropping those nasty little horrors,” she replied.

At that moment, the book decided to give a distinct and rather petulant harrumph.

“It definitely sounds as though you’ve disturbed it,” observed Rhys, unhelpfully.

Then he added, “if it starts quoting ominous prophecies, I’d rather it did it somewhere other than in The Squid and Teapot. That sort of thing would be really bad for business.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Philomena. “But you’re right, though. The Squid’s not the best place, now that the book seems to have woken up. I think we should take it along to Neville Moore.”

Reggie looked puzzled.

“Why Neville?” he asked.

“He’s always pondering over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,” said Philomena. “And he’s known to be a bit of an expert when it comes to this sort of thing.”

“Well, you’re not going there alone,” said Reggie, firmly. “Tenzin and I saw that Glimmer-Man chap – well, we saw his eyes. He was hanging around the Raven Stone the other day. I don’t know what he’s capable of, but I wouldn’t take any chances.”

“I’ll come too,” said Rhys, somewhat peeved that Reggie had beaten him to claiming the role of Philomena’s protector. “I haven’t seen Neville for ages.”

An hour later, with the sighing, harrumphing book wrapped securely in brown paper (because, as Philomena put it, “one ought to be polite when transporting sentient literature”), the three of them set off toward Neville Moore’s mausoleum-like home, hoping that whatever the book had to say was merely inconvenient rather than outright apocalyptic.

Lenore, perched on her favourite, guano streaked, statue, took one look at their approaching figures and rasped, “Neville Moooooore!” before adding, in a distinctly smug tone, “Doom!”

It did not improve anyone’s confidence.

“Take no notice of Lenore,” assured Neville, carefully undoing the book’s wrapping paper. “She’s been coming out with all sorts of strangeness lately. I think it’s to do with her change of diet.”

“With any luck those tentacled things will disappear forever, before long,” said Philomena. “I was hoping the answer to getting rid of The Anomaly might lie in this old grimoire, but when it started sighing and harrumphing all over the place, it seemed common sense to get a second opinion.”

“Don’t bank on anything that’s written in these pages as being remotely helpful,” said Neville, wielding a large magnifying glass. “I’ve seen volumes like this before. They’re all talk and no substance.”

 At that, the book suddenly sprung open, it’s pages fluttering and shuffling with such violence that they managed to ruffle Neville’s purple curtains.

“I think you’ve upset it,” observed Reggie.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Neville. “Sometimes these things need a bit of a push to get going.”

After another moment or so of suddenly subdued librarius page whiffling, the book succumbed to a fit of wheezing and coughing, sending small dust clouds around the room.

“It seems to have worn itself out,” said Reggie, almost sympathetically.

“I’m not surprised,” agreed Neville. “Looking at the writing, I would say that this particular grimoire is really old. Ancient, in fact. I suspect that it’s a Scriptus Tenebrarum – what you might call a Book of Shadows – and most definitely the work of a Scriptomancer.”

“A Scriptomancer?” queried Rhys.

“A sorcerer-scholar who wields magic through writing,” Neville explained.

“I wonder…” said Philomena, half to herself. “Mr Squash reckons that the Glimmer-Man was probably once a sorcerer who went a step too far and ended up in The Anomaly.”

The others looked at her expectantly, wondering where her train of thought was taking her.

“It just seems too much of a coincidence that, after all this time, this old book should choose to wake up not long after the Glimmer-Man appears.”

“You mean…” began Neville.

“Yes, I do,” said Philomena, cutting him off. “And I don’t doubt that he’ll be looking for his Scriptus thingamajig.”

“Tenebrarum,” corrected Neville.

Just then a raucous squawk rent the air.

“Neville Moooooore.”

“That’s Lenore, and she sounds uncharacteristically panicked,” said Neville, uneasily.

Instinctively, the little group turned, as one, and peered through the window. Dusk was gathering outside.

“Look!” exclaimed Rhys. “Coming through the trees…”

Two glowing lights, like tiny twin suns, hovered in the evening air, just a few yards from Neville’s front door.

The pages of the ancient book rustled in the fading light.

“Oh dear,” said Philomena. “I do believe that it’s the Glimmer-Man.”

You can say whatever you want about Durosimi O’Stoat, but he is definitely not a man known to frighten easily. During his lifetime the sorcerer has battled with an assortment of demons, ghouls and night-stalkers, each intent on finding ever more novel means of assisting him to shuffle off his mortal coil in as violent and unpleasant a manner as is possible. 

On the occasion of our tale, however, Durosimi was feeling real fear. His heartbeat was irregular, his legs felt weak, an icy hand gripped his heart and his bowels and bladder were dangerously close to deciding that preparation for flight would be decidedly preferable to fighting. One could be forgiven for not daring to dwell upon the terrifying nature of the creature threatening him. 

Just a few minutes earlier he had been quietly poring over some ancient grimoire when, to his great surprise, the front door had inexplicably blown open, scattering books and parchments all over the room, tipping over his desk and chair, and pinning him to the wall. Filling the space where the door used to hang properly stood an ominous figure, a pale goddess, huge and menacing, with dreadful, merciless eyes. In her right hand she carried a brazen spear that crackled and spat blue fire.

‘Oh no, it’s the Morrigan,” Durosimi whimpered as he slid to the floor, half-dazed. 

When he opened his eyes, a few seconds later, some semblance of normality had returned, although the front door still dangled precariously from one hinge. Standing before him, not wielding a flaming spear, but a rolling pin, was Philomena Bucket.

“Do you have any idea what you have done?” she raged, her usually wan features flushed with anger. “Your meddling has opened the door to all sorts of nightmares.”

Durosimi wilted beneath the force of Philomena’s fury. True, to look at her she appeared small, weak and vulnerable, but this surging wave of vituperation carried upon it the combined might of countless generations of powerful witches, a force that threatened to crush Durosimi into a quivering pulp.

Despite this, Philomena could not help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the wretched man cowering in the corner. After all, plenty of her ancestors had allowed ambition to be their downfall. 

“What did you do, exactly,” asked Philomena, in a more conciliatory tone. “Maybe you… we… can put it right.”

Durosimi shook his head.

“I don’t know what can be done,” he confessed. “The spell was meant to open a portal. There was no clue as to how it can be sealed.”

“And meanwhile,” said Philomena, bitterly, “all sorts of abominations are dropping through it.”

“Maybe your friend the Sasquatch might have an idea,” suggested Durosimi, hopefully. “He seems to be adept at opening and closing portals.”

“Not ones like this,” replied Philomena, “but I suppose it will be worth our while asking Mr Squash.”

“I’ve been studying this new phenomenon,” said Mr Squash enthusiastically, “and it’s rather interesting. I’ve noticed that most of those creatures dropping through it have very short lives, mainly because they are eating each other.”

“Ugh!” spluttered Philomena in disgust. “What about that man-thing that came out first?”

“Oh, you mean the Glimmer-Man?  He has crept off into the forest. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him, unfortunately.”

“But do you have any idea how we seal the portal?” asked Durosimi.

“No,” said Mr Squash. “And I don’t think that it is a portal, as such.  However, I believe its presence explains a lot about why Hopeless is so strange.”

“Really?” said Durosimi, keen to salvage something worthwhile from this catastrophe.

“I call it my Fried Egg Theory,” said Mr Squash, only too happy to expound.

“Think of Hopeless as the yolk, and the egg-white surrounding it as a realm of Chaos, by and large cocooning the island from the normal laws of time and space. Occasionally people get here from any point in history, and much more rarely, some have been able to escape.”

“What about the Underland?” asked Philomena. “There’s a way out through there.”

“Only to a point,” said the Sasquatch. “As you know only too well, it’s a dead end that will take you so far and no further.’

“But you manage to come and go as you please,” protested Durosimi, not a little enviously.

“That is because I am, what you humans ignorantly refer to as, a cryptid. We travel at will through the dimensions.”

“So could you go to this Chaos place?” asked Philomena. 

“Not willingly,” said Mr Squash, with a shudder. “Anything which ventures into that realm could find itself changed beyond recognition. Our friend the Glimmer-Man is a case in point. He was probably an over-curious sorcerer once.”

Durosimi paled, and suddenly felt the need to sit down.

“As for the anomaly,” said Mr Squash, “in my experience, such things heal up after a short time. Even my portals need remaking every few months. Until then, you’ll just have to put up with those things dropping out of it – but as I said, they tend to devour each other.”

“I wonder if Durosimi  has learned his lesson from all of this?” said Philomena to her husband, Rhys Cranham later that day. They were sitting in the snuggery of the Squid and Teapot. Drury, the skeletal hound, lay snoring in the corner. 

“Do you think that the sinkhole at the bottom of the garden at Poo Corner leads to Chaos?” asked Rhys, who had been the island’s Night-Soil Man until little over a year ago. “It has been the burial place for generations of Night-Soil Men. I’d hate to think that they’d been transformed into something nasty.”

“I really hope not,” said Philomena. “But maybe it’s a tradition that should stop.” 

“There’s also a legend that Killigrew O’Stoat, the very first Night-Soil Man, had a dog,” said Rhys. “When the dog died, Killigrew was so heartbroken that he couldn’t bear to bury it, lest something dug it up and ate the poor animal. To avoid that, he cast the dog’s corpse into the sinkhole.” 

The pair both turned their gaze to Drury, who had been a presence on Hopeless for more years than anyone could guess. He was snuffling and twitching, chasing spoonwalkers across his dreams.

“Maybe something good did come out of it, after all,” smiled Philomena. 

Authors note: The story of Killigrew and his dog can be seen in the tale ‘A Dog’s Life’.