A week had passed since the rooster and his adoring harem of hens had arrived on Hopeless. Pyralia Skant had hinted that this small flock of domesticated fowl might be special, though so far they had behaved in exactly the way one might expect of chickens. They scratched at the earth, indulged in petty squabbles, and deposited the occasional egg in some inaccessible corner.

As for the rooster, he spent his days strutting importantly around the yard, occasionally attempting a rough sort of romance upon his companions. When five-year-old Caitlin overheard an off-colour remark from Reggie Upton upon this very subject, she reached the not-unreasonable conclusion that the rooster’s name must be Roger. And so Roger he became.

It was just past midnight when Roger crowed. Not the cheery herald of dawn, but a deep, rasping sound that seemed to rattle the shutters of The Squid and Teapot.

Philomena sat bolt upright in bed. From childhood she had learned that roosters do not crow in the middle of the night without good reason. She hurried into the passage and met Tenzin coming from the children’s room, Oswald half-asleep in his arms, Caitlin wide awake and grinning.

“Roger says it means something is coming,” Caitlin whispered, as though reporting on a secret pact between herself and the bird.

By morning the story had already run the length of the island: the cock had crowed at midnight. According to long-established pub-lore (which, in truth, had been invented on the spur of the moment), this foretold the arrival of a stranger.

And so it proved. Just before noon, a boat appeared out of the fog. Its single occupant was a gaunt woman in a tattered dress, her eyes sharp as fish-hooks. She claimed to have been blown off course, though no one believed it. No one ever “just arrived” at Hopeless.

The rooster met her on the quay. He crowed once, then strutted in circles around her, feathers bristling, eyes glittering with something far older than any barnyard fowl ought to possess. The woman hissed like a cat and backed away, muttering in a language that tasted of salt and brine.

“That’s no fisherwoman,” Pyralia said grimly, suddenly at Philomena’s shoulder. “The rooster knows her. She’s one of the Sluagh, the Soul Hunters. She is looking for shelter, and as many souls as she can carry.”

Philomena’s blood ran cold. She had heard of the Sluagh, but always believed they were no more than tales to keep unruly children in order. 

As Roger advanced once more, the woman shrieked and flung herself back into the sea, vanishing into the fog with scarcely a ripple. Roger crowed again, this time with a note of triumph.

By supper, the tale had already grown. Some swore he had spat fire; others claimed his hens rose in a glowing circle to drive the intruder away. Whatever the details, all agreed on one thing: Roger had saved them.

Even Drury, usually disdainful, gave a grudging clack of bone and sniffed about the bird in what might almost have been respect.

That night, long after the children were asleep, Philomena sat by the fire with Pyralia, while Roger perched outside on the windowsill, silhouetted against the misty moon.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Philomena said quietly.

Pyralia didn’t answer at once. She was watching Roger with a look half-respect, half-apprehension. At length she said, “Of course… and young Caitlin knew what she was asking for when she wanted a rooster. Guardian spirits take odd shapes. He may strut and crow like any common cock, but he is no barnyard bird. Not anymore.”

Roger hopped from the sill, ruffled his feathers, and with a low, satisfied cluck, tucked his head beneath a wing. His hens gathered close, shifting in their sleep with the faint rustle of silk.

Philomena shivered, though the fire was warm. She remembered Pyralia’s vow to change the island and begin what she called ‘The Unmaking’. And she wondered whether Hopeless itself had just accepted its new sentinel.

The following morning, Philomena was jolted awake not by Roger’s crowing, but by a furious commotion in the yard. She threw on her shawl and hurried outside.

There was Drury, clattering and snapping in high dudgeon, trying to herd Roger away from the inn door. The rooster, feathers puffed to twice his size, strutted defiantly, his hens massed behind him like a feathery chorus of supporters.

“Honestly,” Philomena muttered, rubbing her eyes.

Drury gave a contemptuous clack of his jawbones, as if to say Guardian spirit was my job first. Roger answered with a triumphant crow that echoed off the cliffs.

Caitlin, peering from the doorway, clapped her hands in delight. “Ooh, they’re having a competition! Shall we keep score?”

“Absolutely not,” said Philomena, although she suspected that, one way or another, the island itself would.

By breakfast, peace had been restored, after a fashion. Roger perched proudly on the taproom sill, while Drury sprawled sulkily by the hearth. Neither would admit defeat, but both kept a wary eye on the other.

“Two guardians,” Tenzin said cheerfully, pouring porridge. “On Hopeless, one can never be too careful.”

Roger crowed his agreement. Drury responded with a bone-rattling sneeze. And so the uneasy alliance began.

Although not often mentioned in these tales, you will doubtless remember Tenzin, the young Buddhist monk who left Tibet beneath a yeti’s armpit and emerged on Hopeless through one of Mr. Squash’s mysterious portals. Since settling at The Squid and Teapot he had been unfailingly eager to help with any task that needed doing. Unfortunately, years of chanting, meditating, and spinning prayer wheels had left him supremely unqualified for the daily business of running even so eccentric an inn as one on Hopeless.

Philomena, recognising this, decided he would be better employed looking after her adopted children, Caitlin and little Oswald. His English was excellent and, after all, he was scarcely out of childhood himself. Apart from the chanting and wheel-twirling, he must surely have some idea of what youngsters required.

Tenzin warmed quickly to his new post, keeping the children happily occupied by day. At night, when they were tucked into bed, he came into his own. Drawing on a treasury of Tibetan folktales, he aimed to send them into sleep filled with magical dreams. That was the theory, at least.

Philomena, who had always enjoyed a good story, sometimes lingered outside their door to eavesdrop.

“Once upon a time,” Tenzin began one evening, “high in the mountains there lived a kind young girl named Langa Langchung. She had a father and sisters, but one dreadful night a hungry demon came prowling. It devoured them all in a single gulp, and only Langa escaped, weeping into the cold dark.”

“That’s what happened to Primrose Nibley’s daddy,” said Caitlin, matter-of-factly. Philomena shook her head sadly; life on Hopeless was often as terrifying as any fairy story.

“Alone and frightened,” Tenzin continued, “she wandered into the forest. But she was not without friends. A faithful dog came and licked away her tears.”

“Like Drury?” asked Oswald.

“Um… sort of,” said Tenzin diplomatically. The children had never seen a living dog, and although Drury did his best, licking away tears was not among his accomplishments.

“Even the wild birds whispered, ‘We will help you,’” he went on. “And then, from nowhere, a rooster crowed and perched upon her shoulder.”

“What’s a rooster?” asked Caitlin.

“It’s a large, colourful bird,” Tenzin explained. “Bigger than a raven and as fierce as… as Granny Bucket’s ghost when she’s on the warpath.”

Philomena smiled in the shadows.

“The demon was not finished,” Tenzin said. “It wanted Langa too. But each time it chased her, the rooster flapped and crowed so loudly that the spirits of the mountains awoke. The dog barked at its heels, the birds swooped and pecked, until at last the monster stumbled into a ravine and was swallowed by the earth itself.

Safe again, Langa returned home with her animal friends. The rooster, who had crowed bravely through every danger, became her guardian spirit. To this day, the people of the valley say that roosters crow at dawn to chase away darkness and monsters, and to remind us that light always returns. So the girl, the dog, and the rooster lived together in peace, unafraid of the night.”

“We’ve already got a dog,” Caitlin said, counting on her fingers. “And there are lots of birds. Can we have a rooster too, Tenzin? He could be our guardian spirit.”

“Oh, please,” said Oswald, who had already forgotten what a rooster was, but it sounded promising.

Tenzin hesitated. Even if one could get a rooster onto Hopeless, which seemed doubtful, the chances of him surviving for any length of time would be slim, whether he had Granny Bucket’s spirit or no. Tenzin fell back on the ancient refuge of grown-ups everywhere.

“We’ll see.”

—

The next morning Philomena and Pyralia Skant were revising The Squid and Teapot’s menu. Pyralia, since taking up residence, had steadily improved the bill of fare, introducing delicacies from who-knew-where. No one asked too closely.

“What are the chances of us having a rooster?” Philomena suddenly asked.

“To eat?” Pyralia looked appalled. “That’s not really my line…”

“No, no,” Philomena interrupted. “The children would like one as a pet.”

“A pet rooster?” Pyralia frowned. “Unusual. But… yes, I suppose so.”

“Caitlin thinks it could be a guardian spirit,” Philomena laughed.

Pyralia stiffened, eyes suddenly bright. “Why yes. That would work. But you won’t eat him, will you?” she asked sharply.

“Of course not!” Philomena protested.

“Or his wives?”

“Wives?”

“You may take a few eggs, but to eat the hens themselves would be most unfortunate.”

“You mean chickens? Here? How on earth would we keep them safe?” Philomena asked.

“They’ll be safe,” Pyralia said simply. And by her tone, Philomena knew it was true.

—

A few mornings later the island awoke to a sound almost no one had heard before: the insistent crowing of a rooster.

“It’s our guardian spirit!” Caitlin cried, delighted.

“Yes,” said Philomena, watching the proud bird strut with his little harem behind him. “And I think we may even have boiled eggs for breakfast.”

Pyralia Skant’s decision to take up residency at the Squid and Teapot had not gone unnoticed. Everyone on Hopeless was aware that the infamous area of headland, commonly known as Screaming Point, had migrated to the lighthouse peninsula, so it came as no surprise that the mysterious Doctor Skant would need somewhere slightly more peaceful to rest her head. To many her presence on the island still raised eyebrows. The familiar sight of her white lab coat and stiletto heels never ceased to be a novelty, but somehow now, by staying at the inn, she had become public property. By the second evening, half the regulars had sidled into the snug to get a good look at her. The other half pretended not to.

Norbert Gannicox, self-styled scholar of Hopeless oddities, leaned across the table and whispered to Bartholomew Middlestreet,

“She looks a bit stormy, don’t you think? As if she’s about to summon thunderclouds.”

Bartholomew nodded solemnly. “It’s probably best not to mention the lighthouse,” he said in hushed tones. “She’s touchy. Someone said ‘lantern’ earlier and she nearly brained them with a tankard.”

At the next table, Mirielle D’Illay gave a Gallic shrug and sniffed loudly.

“Mon dieu, imagine abandoning a perfectly good lighthouse. In France we stick to our homes. We’d stay if they were on fire, flooded, or even full of mad screaming Englishmen.”

Her long suffering, though devoted, husband, Septimus Washwell, looked up from his pint of Old Colonel and grinned mischievously. “We could always swap with her, Mirielle. She’d probably be delighted to live in the Dance Studio.”

Mirielle made a sound like a deflating accordion and was suddenly engrossed in studying the menu. It had certainly improved lately. Not French cuisine of course, but better than wall-to-wall Starry Grabby Pie.

Philomena, meanwhile, was quietly pleased to have Pyralia living in the inn. There was something admirable in the woman’s brisk refusal to be cowed by a geological tantrum.

“You’ll do,” Philomena had said over breakfast. “You don’t flinch at screaming cliffs, and besides, for the first time in living memory The Squid and Teapot has cottage pie, broccoli bake, rice pudding and rhubarb crumble on the menu.”

“Comfort food,” Pyralia smiled. “And if anywhere needs a bit more in the way of comfort, Hopeless certainly does. Rhys might even get to trust me, who knows? They say that the way to a man’s heart, and all that…”

“I’m sure he trusts you,” said Philomena, crossing her fingers under the table. Rhys had been reticent about Pyralia delivering all this bounty from goodness knows where. 

“You know the legends…” he had said to her. 

Rhys didn’t need to finish his sentence. Throughout her childhood Philomena had heard the tales of mortals being ensnared by eating Faerie food.

“She’s not Faerie,” said Philomena defensively. “Believe me, I’d have known in a minute.”

“Then what is she?” asked Rhys, “for sure as eggs are eggs, she’s not mortal.”

“I don’t know,” Philomena admitted, “but we should be thankful. For the first time since the arrival of the founding families, Hopeless is eating well. And it’s down to Pyralia… and I like her.”

Drury seemed to agree; he had developed the habit of lurking outside her door and dropping the odd morsel of flotsam or jetsam in greeting. Pyralia, unused to such devotion, began assembling the gifts in a neat row along her windowsill.

As time passed, the novelty of Pyralia’s presence wore off. She was folded into the inn’s routine: taking her evening absinthe in the snug, giving brusque advice to anyone fool enough to ask it, and occasionally marching down to Screaming  Point to shout obscenities at it.

“It’s like having a houseguest who’s brought her own thunderstorm,” Reggie Upton remarked, smoothing down his moustache. “But she dashed well gingers the place up, I must say.”

Over the previous hundred years or so, The Squid and Teapot had seen stranger boarders: men who never took their hats off, women who spoke only in riddles, sailors who dissolved entirely into brine after a fortnight. Pyralia Skant, in comparison, was reassuringly human. Or at least, she appeared to be. 

And so Screaming Point lost its best tenant, and the Squid and Teapot gained one more eccentric regular.

The inn itself seemed rather pleased about this. Its rafters creaked more warmly, the beer kept its head a little longer, and even the cutlery (though somewhat depleted, thanks to spoonwalkers) could be said to clink together with a certain degree of satisfaction.

The Squid and Teapot had taken Doctor Skant to its heart.

Screaming Point has always been one of Hopeless’s more trying (not to say bloody annoying) features. Most aspects of the island offer a vague sort of comfort, or at least predictability. You can always rely on the tar pits bubbling on schedule, spoonwalkers pilfering cutlery with a sort of professional courtesy, and even the odd poltergeist only occasionally rearranging one’s furniture. Screaming Point, however, is an entirely different sort of nuisance.

It doesn’t just scream, though that is bad enough, being a sound somewhere between a banshee giving birth and a foghorn with indigestion, but it has the irritating habit of wandering about. One can almost believe that the headland entertains ideas above its station, lifting up its skirts of shingle and trudging about the island as if looking for better company.

Doctor Pyralia Skant awoke one raw morning to discover that her lighthouse, her pride, her magical workshop, her fortress, and when she remembered to light the lamp, her beacon, now stood atop of Screaming Point, and the screaming began at dawn. It was like being shaken awake by a sackful of dying bagpipes.

“Really,” Pyralia muttered, stuffing two cloves of pickled garlic into her ears (the only remedy she’d discovered thus far, though it left her smelling like an angry delicatessen). “This will not do.”

She staggered out onto the gallery and glared down at the land itself, which gave a particularly smug wail in reply. The shingles shuddered with self-satisfaction.

The problem was not just the noise. When Screaming Point shifted, it dragged all manner of geographical features with it. The once-reliable horizon now appeared to dip sideways. The sea, never the politest neighbour, slopped in odd directions. A family of limpets had come unmoored from their rock and were shuffling about indignantly in a tin bucket by her door.

After three sleepless nights, and hurling no fewer than fourteen items of kitchenware at the cliff with no discernible effect, Pyralia gave up. She stuffed her belongings into a trunk, locked the lighthouse door, and marched along to the Squid and Teapot.

At the inn, Rhys Cranham was trying to convince Drury, the skeletal hound, that sleeping on the cellar steps while barrels were being shifted was not a good idea. One can only conclude that Rhys was not well enough to attend school on the day  that the proverb containing the words  ‘Old Dogs’ and ‘New Tricks’ was taught.

Philomena Bucket looked up from her morning cup of nettle tea to see an harassed looking Pyralia Skant come clattering in. Her white lab coat was flapping angrily around her calves, and she trailed an embarrassing twist of bladder-wrack, which had caught around the heel of one of her trademark stiletto shoes.

“I require a room,” she declared, dropping her trunk, which seemed to emit a muffled oath. 

“For reasons beyond my comprehension this wretched island seems to have grown tired of the geography it was blessed with, and decided to deposit some of its less desirable bits under the lighthouse, and the damned thing keeps screaming.”  

“Ah, that would be Screaming Point,” said Rhys, wondering where the smell of garlic was coming from. “It  hasn’t  been on the move for ages. Don’t worry, it doesn’t scream all the time.”

“No, I’ve learned that,” said Pyralia, bitterly. “It usually waits until I’m asleep, or engrossed in some particularly difficult problem.”

“I can only think you’ve done something to attract its attention,” said Rhys, unhelpfully.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Pyralia, then added, “How long does it normally hang around before it gets bored?”

Rhys pondered for a moment, then said,

“A week, a month, a year…? Twenty years if it’s really taken a shine to the area.”

Pyralia’s face dropped.

“Oh, it’s taken a shine alright,” she said. “It’s not only screaming, it has started singing to the lighthouse, would you believe? The worst of it is that the masonry has started to hum along. I caught the stairwell whistling last night.”

“That’s awkward,” said Rhys, as though discussing the weather.

Drury wagged his bony old tail, clearly approving of the situation.

“Well, you’re more than welcome to stay,” Philomena said, avoiding Rhys’s disapproving  glare. “Though you may find our walls no quieter at the moment. Lady Margaret’s been shrieking in the privy lately. Apparently there is some unwritten expectation that headless ghosts will shriek from time to time, and she’s scheduled hers for the next three weeks. She’s always been a stickler for the rules.” 

“Oh let her shriek,” Pyralia sighed. “Anything is better than a headland trying to sing harmony with my lighthouse.”

And so she moved in, taking a small room overlooking the Atlantic, or it would have, was it not for the heavy sea mist which obscured everything except an even heavier sea mist following in its wake.

“Life isn’t going to be the same with Pyralia living here indefinitely,” said Rhys, later that day. “But if nothing else, it will please Reggie, the old goat that he is. He’s trimmed his moustache and ironed his regimental tie twice today already, all the time muttering ‘Dashed fine looking woman’ to himself.”

Pyralia sat in the snuggery of the Squid and Teapot, sipping her absinthe and basking in the comparative peace, while Drury laid his skull on her stiletto shod feet, and Philomena cheerfully explained the local menu.

“I can’t live on Starry-Grabby Pie, darling,” Pyralia said, after a short silence. “I’ve said often enough  that the diet on this island is lacking one or two essentials… such as flavour and nutritional value, for instance. No… things are definitely going to have to change in the kitchen, Philomena.”

“I can only work with what we have,” said Philomena, a hint of irritation in her voice.

“I know that, and you come close to working miracles with those ingredients,” said Pyralia, patting the other woman’s wrist. “But I’m here now…”

“And what difference will that make?” asked Philomena, suddenly confused. 

“Because darling,” said Pyralia, with a grin and a slightly worrying glint in her eye, “I really can work miracles…”

The first thing anyone noticed about the man who called himself “Mr. Delkin” was that his boots were new and impossibly clean. Not even Reggie Upton had managed to achieve such a feat when he first arrived on Hopeless. Most people’s boots tended to look as though they had been dredged from the belly of a whale.

And yet here was Mr. Delkin, standing in the doorway of the Squid and Teapot, smiling faintly as though he had simply wandered in from a fitting in a shoe shop.

“A room for a few nights, if you will, landlady,” he said, regally. “I’m just passing through.”

This last remark rippled through the bar like spilled gin. Passing through? Passing through what? There was no “through” in Hopeless. For most it was a one-way journey. 

Within the hour, rumours swirled thick as fog. Some swore that Delkin had come by sea, although no vessel had been sighted. Others said he had marched straight out of the marshes with a lantern that never guttered. A few insisted he had stepped bodily from a mirror, blinking at the sudden smoke and candlelight. None were correct, of course. Only the woman who had watched his arrival with suspicion, from her seat in a shadowed booth beneath the stairs, had any inkling of the truth. Dr Pyralia Skant did not greet him, nor did she so much as lift her glass, but her eyes lingered on him with the faintest curl of disdain. It was the kind of look that said she already knew how the story would end.

Philomena Bucket leaned on the bar and peered at the newcomer. “And where, exactly, are you bound for?” she asked.

Delkin’s smile deepened, though his eyes did not. “Oh, here and there. You know how it is.”

“No,” said Philomena flatly. “No one ever knows how it is. That’s the trouble.”

By the following evening, The Squid and Teapot was awash with gifts, flattery, and thinly veiled bribes. Reggie Upton pressed his second-best waistcoat upon Delkin and hinted, in his roundabout military way, that a gentleman who could come and go at will might be prevailed upon to take a passenger or two. Norbert Gannicox turned up with a bottle of the distillery’s finest spirit. Even Drury, ever the equal opportunist, deposited a long-dead seagull at Delkin’s feet, in what could only be described as a gesture of goodwill.

But others whispered uneasily. Mrs Beaten declared that no one ever came to Hopeless without consequence. If this stranger had slipped in, then there was a reason, and what might that be?

On the third night of his stay, the inn seemed quieter than usual, as though everyone’s ears had been pricked by the stranger’s presence. He sat by the fire, his smile stretched a little too wide, his eyes reflecting the flames in a way that was not entirely human.

From her shadowed corner, Dr Pyralia Skant regarded him over the rim of a glass of absinthe. Her expression was the sort that could wither ivy and make mirrors crack out of sheer self-preservation.

At length, she spoke,  not loudly, but with the unerring precision of a knife sliding between the ribs.

“Funny thing about skins,” she said. “They’re never quite the right size, are they? Too tight here, too loose there… never quite your own.”

The traveller’s grin faltered for the briefest moment, like a mask slipping. An uneasy murmur ran through the room.

Pyralia drained her glass, set it down with a deliberate clink, and rose.

“Do carry on,” she said, sweeping past the traveller without a glance. “But don’t mind me if I choose not to shake your hand.”

And with that, she left, but not before quietly taking Philomena by the arm and leading her into the snuggery.

“He’s no traveller,” she rasped to Philomena, when they were alone. “Believe me, that’s a borrower. It has worn out its last skin somewhere else and went hunting for a new one –  and has no intention of  giving it back.”

Philomena returned to the bar and regarded Delkin warily. He was laughing at some story being told by Reggie, but his mouth was moving a fraction too slowly, as though trying to remember what laughter felt  like. His hands were careful. Too careful

Philomena felt a shiver go down her spine. 

“This feels unwholesome to me,” she thought. “He’ll drain the soul out of this place, if I let him.”

The climax came swiftly. On the fourth night of Delkin’s stay, to everyone’s horror Drury dragged in the body of a fisherman, or what was left of it. The face was gone, as though peeled away, leaving only rawness beneath.

Philomena confronted Delkin there and then, in the middle of the inn.

“I know what you are,” she said, her voice steady. “You’ve borrowed that skin, and it’s time to give it back.”

Delkin’s smile faltered. The hands flexed. The voice, when it came, was no longer measured but hollow, as though stretched across several worlds at once.

“This shape is pleasant,” he growled. “I think I shall keep it.”

The room erupted. Shadows sprang from the corners, black and writhing, as though drawn to the words. Patrons scrambled for the door. Guided by nothing but instinct, Philomena reached for the lantern that hung above the bar. To all intents and purposes it was dead and cold, but she was keenly aware that this was the Lamp of the Penitent that had so recently helped rescue Reggie Upton’s shadow from the Marsh Thing. It could only do good. 

She thrust it forward, and suddenly the flame flared hotly within, throwing out a dazzlingly bright light.

The thing called Delkin screamed. The skin shrivelled, sloughing away like parchment in fire. What stood revealed was not a man at all, but a shape of smoke and bone, eyes like wet coals. With a final shudder it fled upwards, dissolving into the rafters and out into the night, leaving behind it the faint reek of pitch.

In the silence that followed, Philomena watched a pair of blackened boots fall with a thud.

She replaced the lantern on its hook. Its flame guttered back, once more feigning to be cold and dead.

Reggie brushed plaster from his waistcoat, and muttered, 

“Well, that’s dashed inconvenient. I’d rather fancied that the blighter might have given me a lift back to England.”

Philomena snorted. “A lift, indeed. A lift into the grave, most likely. Anyway, I’ve got a feeling that you’d have a problem recognising England anymore. And Reggie… the Squid wouldn’t be the same without you.”

It had been a long night, and a sullen blanket of sea-fog hung over the rooftops of Hopeless, ringed by its reefs and marshes and snarls in time.

The traveller was gone, and what scraps remained of him were not the sort one gathered up willingly.

Rhys was contemplating locking up for the night when the unmistakable sound of stiletto heels rattled along the cobbles outside. Dr Pyralia Skant wandered in, her signature black bag in her hand.

“You must be exhausted, darlings,” she said. “Luckily I found a litre bottle of Napoleon Brandy in the back of my cupboard.  Could anyone fancy a drop, or two? I might even have some coffee and dark chocolate in my bag.”

Brandy! Chocolate! Coffee! These were luxuries that washed up on Hopeless all too infrequently, although since Pyralia had come to the island there had been a marked improvement in the standard of available refreshments. 

The next hour or so passed by in a most agreeable fashion, and Philomena, Rhys, Reggie and Pyralia could be found sitting in the snuggery. The brandy bottle was somewhat depleted, and they were now mellowly wallowing in the comforting ambience of fresh coffee.

“Stolen skins never last long,” Pyralia quietly murmured, almost to herself, though the sound carried clear as bells in the deep, velvet hush of the early hours.

“You’ve seen this sort of carry-on before, m’dear?” asked Reggie, helping himself to another square of chocolate.

Pyralia smiled enigmatically and winked. 

“More coffee, anyone?”  she asked.

It is not easy being a gentleman without a shadow.

Reggie Upton – formerly Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton – had been without one since magnanimously sacrificing his to the creature known as the ‘Marsh-Thing’, for the sake of his fellow islanders. He thought it would be no great loss. However, for a sacrifice to mean anything, it has, by definition, to be a great loss. Within a very short time its absence weighed heavily on Reggie’s mind. Wherever he walked, light did not follow him properly. He stood out, quite literally – and on Hopeless, that is never a good idea.

Philomena Bucket had been sympathetic from the outset, determined that the shadow should be returned. Pyralia Skant, on the other hand, was indifferent, seeing the sacrifice as being necessary, but even she confessed that the sight of Reggie strolling across a lantern-lit room, perfectly visible while the floor remained blank beneath him, was a trifle unsettling. Granny Bucket muttered darker things about a man without a shadow being halfway to a corpse. Reggie himself tried to carry on with his usual insouciance, though he admitted privately to Drury the skeletal hound, who would be very unlikely, not to say unable, to repeat something told in confidence, that he felt “quite unfinished, “like a boiled egg without a spoon.”

It was Bartholomew Middlestreet who first mentioned the Lamp of the Penitent.

“It’s mentioned in an old document I found in the museum,” he said, as though that were sufficient explanation. It was only when Granny Bucket fixed him with a spectral eye that it occurred to Bartholomew that it might be a good idea to expand on this nugget of information. 

“It seems that it came here with a boatload of monks, centuries ago. The story is that it was lit once a year to coax back the shades of the penitent. Shadows, spirits, the bits of you that slip loose when you’ve been a bit careless.” 

He paused and gave Reggie a reassuring grin.

“If your shadow is still trapped by the Marsh-Thing, the lantern could call it home again.”

“Well, we all know where my shadow is,” said Reggie, brightening. “But where the deuce is this dashed lamp kept?”

“It’s not too far from the Marsh-Thing’s lair,” Bartholomew replied. “And housed in a ruined chapel, dedicated to St Ermintrude.”

“I can’t say that I’ve heard of her or her chapel,” said Philomena doubtfully.

“According to the museum records, she’s quite obscure,” explained Bartholomew. “Patron saint of Marsh Dwellers apparently …”

“And this chapel is out in the marshes?”

Bartholomew nodded.

“Just a stone’s throw away from the Marsh-Thing?” suggested Philomena, warily.

“That would depend very much upon the size of the stone, and who was throwing it,” said Bartholomew, trying to sound positive.  

“Well at least my shadow won’t have to go too far to find me,” said Reggie. 

“You’ve all forgotten one thing,” broke In Granny Bucket, who had been unusually quiet until now.

“You sacrificed your shadow to stop the monster terrorising the islanders,” she said. “It’s unlikely to give it up without a fight.”

The ruins of St. Ermintrude’s Chapel lay where the boggy ground was at its most treacherous. Accompanied by Philomena, Granny Bucket and Drury (who insisted on carrying a femur as if it were a map), Reggie made his way through the reeds.

They found the chapel door half-swallowed by mud. Philomena muttered a charm to coax it open; Granny supplied a glare that would have split granite, and the stones of the ruin yawned like an old and obedient dog.

Inside lay the dust of centuries, perfumed by the stale reek of the marsh. Resting on top of a cracked altar sat the lantern. It was simple ironwork, yet within its glass a faint glow smouldered, though no candle burned.

“The light of repentance,” said Philomena softly. “Or perhaps the light of regret. Those things are not too far apart.”

Reggie, without a second thought, lifted the lantern and raised it high. The glow thickened, spilling over the stone like honey, and although the lamp shone brighter, the chamber seemed to darken. 

And then it came.

Not a shadow cast by Reggie, but a shadow seeking him: a slinking, upright silhouette, moving as though through water, with his own outline unmistakably stamped upon it. It crept from the wall, thin and famished.

Philomena gasped. Granny hissed. Drury barked enthusiastically, attempting to catch it in his teeth.

“Steady on, old fellow,” Reggie murmured, extending his hand. “I believe this one is mine.”

The shadow wavered, as though reluctant, then lunged. It clung to him, wrapping round his boots, his hands, his face, before settling into its rightful place at his heels. Reggie staggered, then stood taller than he had for days. He stamped one foot experimentally; the shadow obeyed.

“By Jove,” he whispered. “I’m whole again.”

But Granny Bucket was frowning.

“When the Marsh-Thing realises his hostage has gone,” she said, “there will be big trouble.”

As she spoke the glow within the lamp dimmed almost to nothing, the last ember flickering against the glass.

For a moment all was still, then the light winked out entirely. A susurrus of whispers filled the chapel, like dozens of unseen voices sighing at once. Something unseen shifted in the shadows beyond the lantern’s reach.

Granny Bucket shook her ghostly head. 

“That lamp loosened more than your shadow, and now the Marsh-Thing is waking up, you mark my words”

They each stood frozen to the spot, wondering what could be done. Every second that slipped by felt like an hour, then Drury barked and Philomena caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. 

The old hound was wagging his tail at something, or someone, materialising next to Reggie. 

“Annie,” Reggie gasped. “Is that you? I thought you’d deserted me long ago.”

The figure standing next to him was that of a short, quite pretty woman in her late thirties. 

In his younger days in India, Reggie had enjoyed a passionate relationship with a mystic named Annie Besant, who had introduced him to various occult practices. Before they parted, Annie taught Reggie how to create a thought-form, a Tulpa, in her image. The Tulpa had been a presence in the old soldier’s life for almost forty years, but since his arrival on Hopeless she had been less in evidence. 

Philomena and Granny saw the thought-form blow Reggie a kiss. Before he could respond she had drifted away like smoke, seeping through the chapel wall, towards the lair of the Marsh-Thing. Reggie stared after her, suddenly understanding what was happening, and aware that his last link To Annie Besant had gone forever. 

They left the crypt in silence, each conscious of the marshes seeming far darker than when they had entered. 

Back at the Squid and Teapot, Drury deposited the femur on the hearthrug and wagged his tail, apparently unconcerned. Granny muttered charms under her breath. Philomena tried to smile for Reggie’s sake. 

“Did you know that Annie was still around?” she asked, cautiously.

Reggie smiled ruefully, and nodded.

“I was being a fool hanging on to her like that, and thinking that she could ever replace the real Annie,” he said. “She was a thought-form, nothing more. And everybody knows that a Tulpa has no proper existence.”

“I don’t agree,” said Philomena. “She chose to take the place of your shadow. That’s not the actions of a mindless entity.”

“But without me she’ll fade away eventually,” said Reggie. “Then that dashed Marsh-Thing will be looking for its little trinkets again.”

“Then we’ll have to cross that particular bridge when we come to it,” sighed Philomena. 

She gazed gloomily out of the window, where, beyond the inn, the darkness seemed to move of its own accord.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The raven fixed her with a beady stare.

‘They do now,’ came the caw.

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

Above, the corvids muttered like a drunken choir.

“Shinies, shinies, shinies.

The Marsh-Thing promised.

We bring scraps.

It gives shinies.

Fair trade, fair trade…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do I have a choice?” Skant replied.

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

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

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

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

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

The Marsh-Thing stilled. “Despair?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“WHO DARES TO DO THIS?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then the magic misfired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pyralia Skant allowed herself a smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued…