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’.