Tag Archives: trickster

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

Charlatan!

Leave a comment

By Martin Pearson

Had this latest half-dozen ‘Tales from the Squid and Teapot’ been a Netflix mini-series, not only would I be extremely rich, but each episode would have been prefaced with the words ‘Previously on…’, based upon the assumption that even the most dogged follower might have lost the thread (and indeed, the will to live) after such a long and rambling plot. So…

In previous tales it was revealed that the sorcerer, Durosimi O’Stoat, using a mixture of drugged ale and magic, had enslaved six young men in order to shift enough rocks to re-open the route to The Underland. Only Septimus Washwell had escaped, due mainly to the fact that he had, as a gesture of solidarity with his wife, given up alcohol for the duration of Mirielle’s pregnancy. While the other slaves toiled, zombie-like beneath the earth, Septimus returned to his family and friends, having no idea as to where he had been.

It was fortunate – albeit temporarily –  for the five remaining slaves that Trickster, in the guise of a huge, demonic toad, decided to seriously upset his old sparring-partner, Durosimi. That was how The Lost Boys, as we will now call them, escaped Durosimi’s power, to be hospitalized at the Orphanage until they recovered what was left of their wits.

Durosimi, fearing the consequences of the islanders of Hopeless learning the full extent of his treachery, decided to put an end to his erstwhile slaves. When the Lost Boys were walking along the beach, returning to the dubious comforts of ‘The Crow’, he conjured a thick and mysterious fog that seeped into their very souls, and served to lure them into the arms, not to say teeth, of some particularly vicious, but vocally pleasing, sirens.

Septimus, meanwhile, had found an unlikely ally in Trickster, who by now had possessed the body of one Erasmus Cam, the son of a wealthy merchant who lived in Newhaven, Connecticut. Make no mistake, Trickster’s apparent altruism had little to do with Septimus’ welfare, and everything to do with the long-running cat-and-mouse game that he was playing with Durosimi. Posing as a stage hypnotist, Trickster/Erasmus agreed to hypnotize Septimus and bring his memory back… and now you are up to date.

Septimus gazed into the mesmeric eyes of Erasmus Cam and thought to himself,

“This is definitely not going to work.”

“Yes it is,” said Trickster, quite forgetting that the owner of his current meat-suit was not supposed to be telepathic.

Suddenly panic-stricken that the elegant young man standing in front of him was able to dredge the darkest depths of his psyche, Septimus immediately resolved to try and not think of anything remotely embarrassing or intimate. As most will realise, such a resolution is worse than useless, and his mind was suddenly awash with a plethora of words and images that would have made a sailor blush. As it happened, these things meant nothing to Trickster, who had been present at the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, witnessed the worst excesses of the Roman Empire, slyly drifted through the caverns of the Hell-Fire Club, and attended several clandestine parties in Number 10, Downing Street.

Trickster was sure that it would be something of a fait accompli that Septimus would succumb to his hypnotism. After all, he had been around for eternity in various forms, and had confounded thousands, from the legendary Herakles to England’s King George lll. But something was not right. Either Septimus was unusually resistant to his powers, or this latest form he had taken, the meat-suit called Erasmus Cam, was beginning to falter already. So much for good looks and elegance! It was suddenly apparent that Erasmus was much weaker than Trickster had expected. He was even frailer than Mozart had been! Trickster had to get this hypnotism thing over and done with as quickly as possible, before the wretched creature fell to pieces entirely, which would be embarrassing, to say the least.

“You are getting sleepy… listen to my voice,” croaked Erasmus, in increasingly weakened tones.

“Nothing is happening yet,” said Septimus.

“Pah! I think that you are no more than a charlatan,” chirped in Mirielle, who had been standing in the shadows.

In his haste to get the job completed while Erasmus was still able to stand, Trickster had quite forgotten that Septimus had brought his wife along for moral support.

“No, no, it won’t be long now,” Trickster gave what he imagined to be a reassuring smile through Erasmus Cam’s rapidly sagging face muscles. “Nearly there… Septimus, you are getting sleepy…”

“No, sorry. I don’t think I am,” declared Septimus.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” snapped Trickster, losing his temper.

“Charlatan!” repeated Mirielle, “Come on Septimus, we have wasted far too much time here,” and with that, bundled her husband out through the door.

Trickster could only look on helplessly as the last few vestiges of strength left his meat-suit and, falling to the ground, Erasmus Cam was no more.

A moment later an opportunistic crow flew down, aiming to assess how many meals the human might provide before it was taken away.

Seizing his chance, Trickster evacuated the corpse of Erasmus and slipped into the crow. It would not provide a feathery meat-suit for very long, but would, at least, give him the opportunity to fly to some other part of the island, where he could find a new host.

“That poor young man,” said Philomena Bucket. “He survived a shipwreck, only to die unexpectedly a few days later. I wonder what the cause was.”

“We shall never know,” said Reggie Upton. “In the midst of life we are in death, and all that.”

Philomena nodded.

“It seems that Mirielle and Septimus were talking to him just a short while before he died,” she said. “They both said that he was acting strangely.”

“If everyone who acted strangely on Hopeless keeled over and died, the island would be empty in a week,” observed Reggie with a wry smile.

“It is a mystery what happened to those five lads,” said Doc Willoughby, eyeing his empty glass. “They were walking the coast path to The Crow one minute, and gone the next.”

“I imagine that they were probably swept away by a freak wave,” said Durosimi unconcernedly, pouring the Doc another generous glug of single-malt. “These things happen. And what of young Washwell? Is he still suffering from amnesia?”

“It seems so,” said the Doc, “He even tried using a hypnotist, but the poor fellow died half-way through the procedure, or so I’m told.”

“How sad,” drawled Durosimi.

“Speaking as a medical man,” declared the Doc importantly, “I think that Washwell’s memory is gone for good.”

 “I sincerely hope so,” thought Durosimi, “for his sake and mine.”

It was the very end of October, and a bitter wind raged through the city of Newhaven, Connecticut. Jeremiah Cam sat at his desk in Hillhouse Avenue and re-read the letter for the hundredth time. It was creased and, in several places, fresh tear stains blotched the ink, but it did not matter. Jeremiah knew the words by heart.

My Dear Father,

It is, with a heavy heart, that I have to inform you that my physicians in Switzerland have confirmed that there is no known cure for my affliction, and that I should put my affairs in order with all haste.

In view of this, I have resolved to return home for the last time, and spend my remaining few months with you in Connecticut. At my demise I wish to be buried in the family plot, next to my darling mother.

I have contacted your employee, Captain Nathaniel Stonehouse, and he has promised me a berth in the schooner ‘Rosie’, which will be, I understand, carrying a cargo of barrels of English cider. The vessel is due to dock in Newhaven no later than mid-September.

Do not be despondent father, for I will have the compensation of sharing my final days in your company, which is worth more to me than a hundred years spent here in Europe.

September will soon be with us, and I look forward to our meeting, once more.

With fondest regards,

 Your loving son,

Erasmus.

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Prestidigitator

Leave a comment

By Martin Pearson

“That young fellow,” declared Reggie Upton, “must have the luck of the devil himself.”

Philomena Bucket nodded in agreement.

“At least he survived the shipwreck, which no one else managed to do,” she said.

“And without a scratch,” said Reggie. “Why, even his clothes look as though they had been bought only yesterday.”

No one approved of good tailoring more than Reggie, but the well-dressed young man who had presented himself at the door of The Squid and Teapot, claiming to be the sole survivor of the recent catastrophe at Scilly Point, seemed almost too good to be true.

“Well, maybe he was just born lucky,” said Philomena. “Let’s just be thankful that things have turned out well for him.”

As related in the tale ‘Sea Fever’, the shipwreck, and the subsequent survival of the vessel’s only passenger, had been the handiwork of Trickster, and was all part of a plot to make Durosimi O’Stoat’s life totally miserable. While Durosimi would never win any prizes in a popularity poll, and had more than his fair share of dark secrets, the reason why Trickster was conducting a vendetta against him in particular is anybody’s guess. Trickster, of course, does not need a reason, and rarely has one. He would not be Trickster otherwise.

The well-dressed young man had introduced himself to all and sundry at The Squid and Teapot as one Erasmus Cam, prestidigitator and stage-hypnotist extraordinaire. As might be expected, this caused a small flurry of excitement among the patrons of the inn. While most had absolutely no idea what a prestidigitator is or does, the words ‘Stage-Hypnotist’ happily suggested the possibility of some distracting entertainment on the immediate horizon.  It would be an excuse to roll out the Edison Bell phonograph again, get Les Demoiselles Can-Canning, and persuade Bartholomew Middlestreet to crack open a fresh barrel of Old Colonel for the common good. This last matter usually involved a certain amount of negotiation, which invariably led to Bartholomew’s agreeing only on the condition that he and his wife, Ariadne, be allowed to perform their deathless, (and drastically cleaned-up for polite society) rendition of ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’.

Erasmus – who, of course, was Trickster, draped in his meat-suit – took little persuasion to take part in the event. This fitted his plans perfectly.

“It is, at times like this,” he mused, “that I really love the people of Hopeless, Maine.”

Whatever you may think of the strange ways of the islanders, there is no denying that these days they can arrange a concert at the drop of a hat. This, however, has not always been the case. It was the arrival of the Edison Bell phonograph, replete with a collection of wax discs, that gave them a glimpse of a world that few scarcely knew existed. Evenings of music, interspersed with poetry and monologues, soon formed a popular distraction from the horrors that abounded, and ‘Molly Malone’ became the unofficial anthem of the island, with its rousing refrain of ‘Alive, alive-o’. Later, when Les Demoiselles de le Moulin Rouge turned up on Hopeless, the entertainment stakes moved up a notch.  Their Can-Can, to the strains of Offenbach’s ‘Infernal Gallop’, inspired many to take up dancing themselves, and Les Demoiselles opened their famous dance studio to accommodate the growing demand. And now this latest arrival, a young man who claimed to be both a hypnotist and a prestidigitator (whatever that was supposed to be), promised to bring a real frisson of excitement to the proceedings in the town-hall.

The evening was not a disappointment. After the obligatory chorus of ‘Molly Malone’, Les Demoiselles changed the mood entirely, giving their usual spirited performance, even though their heavily pregnant leader, Mirielle, had been replaced by the unfortunately named Hilda Shambles. Hilda was an ex-orphanage girl who had been trained at the dance studio, and exhibited a rare talent for this particular variety of the Terpsichorean arts. Most anticipated, however, was the mysterious Erasmus Cam – or The Great Erasmus, as he styled himself that particular evening.

To the great relief of Philomena Bucket, Erasmus really seemed to be no more than a run-of-the-mill, second-rate illusionist, performing tricks with playing cards and silk scarves, which he drew from a borrowed top-hat. Given his miraculous escape from the shipwreck, Philomena’s fear had been that the young man possessed supernatural powers and had come to the island for nefarious purposes. Besides that, Drury, the skeletal hound, had taken an instant dislike to the magician and, unusually, had not come to the concert. Of course, the barmaid should have trusted Drury’s instincts,

Had it suited Trickster, Elephants could have materialised from thin air, dragons would have flown through the town-hall doors and angels and demons might have danced, hand in hand, to the strains of ‘Come Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl’.  All that, however, would have been too much, and given the game away completely, for Trickster was not called Trickster for no reason. The biggest illusion that he pulled off that evening was to convince the audience that he was charming, good-natured and a very, very ordinary young man.

For the last part of his act, The Great Erasmus invited a member of the audience on to the stage, promising that he or she would be placed in a hypnotic trance. A grinning Norbert Gannicox swaggered up, confident that he was incapable of being hypnotised.

“I promise that I am not going to make you look foolish,” said Erasmus. “Instead I will regress you, and together we will dredge up memories from your very earliest childhood.”

Some of the audience looked crestfallen. They had hoped that Norbert might have been hypnotised into believing that he was a ballerina, or something equally undignified, and be forced to break into a pirouette or plie whenever he heard the word ‘rhubarb’.

The Great Erasmus was as good as his word, and before long the sceptical Norbert was reliving the events of fifty years earlier. This was so convincing that his elderly mother, who was sitting in the front row, was reduced to tears.

The evening ended, as usual, with another blast of the strangulated Irish tenor singing ‘Molly Malone’, via the miracle of the Edison Bell phonograph, and all that remained was to pack up, and for the audience to go home to their beds.

The Great Erasmus was stowing his playing cards and silk scarves safely in his borrowed top-hat when Septimus Washwell, nudged forward by his wife Mirielle, wandered up to him and shyly said,

“Erasmus, I wonder if you can help me, please?  I seem to have lost a couple of weeks of my life. Do you think that you would be able to help me get them back?”

Septimus was referring, of course, to the time not long ago, when he had been a slave, spell-bound and drugged, and in thrall to Durosimi O’Stoat.

Trickster shivered with delight in his meat-suit. That had been even quicker than he had hoped.

“Of course I will,” he smiled. “It would be a pleasure.”

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

Sea Fever

Leave a comment

By Martin Pearson

Sea Fever

“I must go down to the sea again,

To the lonely sea and the sky.

And all I ask is a tall ship,

And a star to steer her by.”

Philomena Bucket looked at Reggie Upton in surprise.

“Did you make that one up yourself?” she asked, admiringly. “It’s very good.”

“Good Lord, no” laughed Reggie. “It’s by a young chap named Masefield. He’s a bit of a poet who once persuaded me to buy a copy of one of his books. It was called ‘Salt Water Ballads’, and was full of that sort of thing. That particular poem came to mind after I saw the sailing ship that had floundered on the rocks, down by Scilly Point, yesterday.”

“Oh yes, I heard about that,” said Philomena. “Do you know if there were any survivors?”

“None that I have heard about,” replied Reggie, sadly. “I am fairly sure they would have made themselves known by now.”

It was true. Most newcomers to the island of Hopeless, Maine, seemed to turn up at the door of The Squid and Teapot eventually.  

Trickster looked down at his new meat-suit with approval. It had taken little effort to persuade the drunken sea captain to drive his ship on to the fog-bound rocks. Trickster was an old hand at things like that. More difficult was the task of ensuring that the well-dressed young man, who appeared to be the schooner’s solitary passenger, survived the catastrophe unscathed.  Trickster did not know, or indeed care, that the owner of the merchantman was, even then, waiting anxiously for his son to arrive on the quayside at Newhaven, Connecticut. All that the lad meant to Trickster was the means to a very desirable meat-suit; one that no one on the island had seen before.

“That chair has got four legs,” scolded Mrs Ephemery.  “Break it, and you’ll be sorry.”

The well-dressed young man flashed the landlady a charming smile and dutifully eased his weight forward, allowing the chair to sit squarely, once more, upon the floor of the inn.

It was such a pity that he had to frequent The Crow in order to conclude his business. Unfortunately, it would be to here, and not to the far more hospitable environs of The Squid and Teapot, that those lads, whom the islanders insisted on calling ‘The Famous Five’, would be returned, now that they had almost recovered from their ordeal at the hands of Durosimi O’Stoat. There was still the issue of their amnesia, of course, and that was something that Trickster wanted to put right. Naturally, this was not out of any sense of altruism, or wishing to help the Famous Five. It was purely a means of making Durosimi’s life a little more uncomfortable, for if the truth of their captivity was to get out, Durosimi would become even less popular than he was at present; it might even lead to violent retribution. One could but hope.

Trickster had no wish to physically harm Durosimi; he was perfectly content to do no more than create the circumstances which would provide the sorcerer with an occasional, but generous, helping of misery. If, on the other hand, a series of events should lead to Durosimi’s downfall, then so be it. In the meantime, he would linger here in The Crow, eat their lousy food, and wait to restore the memories that those five young men had so inconveniently mislaid. Like the best laid plans of mice and men, however, Trickster’s schemes do not always come to the pleasing conclusion that he has envisaged.

The Famous Five were, by now, deemed eligible for discharge from the Pallid Rock Orphanage, where they had been hospitalised for a week or so. It was with light hearts and optimism that they set off that morning, bound for their local inn, The Crow, where a welcome-home party had been arranged. To begin with all seemed fairly normal, or as normal as could reasonably be expected on Hopeless. It was after little more than a few hundred yards into their journey, however, that they noticed how the perennial fog, which wraps itself coldly around the island, seemed to be growing unusually thick, and stealthily creeping in from the sea with all the subtlety of a well-worn Gothic cliché. Despite this, the young men wandered into its chilly embrace with good spirits, laughing and singing with all of the exuberance of youth. It was only when other voices joined theirs that they paused to listen. These new songsters sweetened the air with pure and melodious harmonies, intoxicating and irresistible to those young ears. As one, the five turned and walked through the unrelenting fog to where the voices called them, totally bewitched and besotted. They stumbled over rocks, through soft sand and sucking mud, until the cold Atlantic lapped around their feet, but still they did not stop, drawn ever onward by the seductive siren-song. Not until the water had reached their chests, and insistent, unseen hands drew them beneath the waves with preternatural strength, did they realise, too late, their awful fate. It was only then that they beheld, with horror, the hideous creatures who had serenaded them.

A solitary figure stood in the already thinning fog. He knew that summoning the sirens would have its cost. There was always a price to be paid. He really hoped that the five fresh victims would be payment enough, but he had his doubts.

 Durosimi sighed, and wrapped his cloak tightly around him.

“It was necessary to do this,” he told himself. “That only leaves young Septimus Washwell to attend to now.”

As the day wore on, Trickster became more and more convinced that something was amiss, and that Durosimi was at the bottom of it. The Famous Five should have been back hours ago. Even Mr and Mrs Ephemery, who managed the inn, had given up on them, and was taking down the crude bunting that proclaimed “Welkum Home Famus 5”

With an angry kick, Trickster sent his chair spinning across the room, where it shattered into matchwood against the far wall. Freezing Mrs Ephemery’s spluttered protestations in mid-sentence with a wave of his hand, he strode out of The Crow in a rage, slamming the big oak door behind him.

“It is time to go to The Squid and Teapot,” he muttered. “At least there I can plot my revenge on O’Stoat in something resembling civilized comfort.”

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Famous Five

Leave a comment

Story by Martin Pearson art by Tom Brown

“I would hope that Mirielle will now have the good grace to apologise to Septimus,” said Reggie Upton. “She did not believe him when he told her that he had amnesia, and now that those fellows have returned with the same symptoms, it proves that he was telling the truth.”

He paused for a few seconds, then added, “But, sadly, knowing Mirielle, as we both do…”

He let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished. The nod of agreement from Philomena Bucket was enough to tell him that there was no need to say more.

“It seems as though he got off lightly,” said Philomena. “Septimus is only suffering from memory-loss, whereas those other poor lads seem to have lost their reason altogether.”

“Hopefully it’s only temporary,” said Reggie. “Still, it’s a dashed mystery where they have been all this time, and to get into such a state.”

The reappearance of the five young men, who had been secretly enslaved by Durosimi O’Stoat, had caused quite a stir on the island. Most people had given them up for dead. When they eventually emerged, blank-eyed and brain-addled, having been subjected to a toxic mixture of drugged ale and Durosimi’s cloaking spell, they were deemed by some to be little more than walking corpses. Fortunately, Septimus Washwell’s refusal to drink the drugged ale had allowed him to escape after just three days, with nothing worse than having no recollection of where he had been.

It was generally decided that, rather than return them to their homes immediately, the young men should be temporarily housed in one of the empty dormitories of the Pallid Rock Orphanage, where the ghostly Miss Calder, and her equally ghostly assistant, Miss Toadsmoor, would be able to keep an eye on them, and monitor their progress around the clock. There was a certain downside to this arrangement, however, as both of these ladies are – as the word ‘ghostly’ might suggest – no more than shades, albeit friendly and helpful ones. As such, they would be unable to carry out the various physical tasks associated with nursing care. It had been hoped that Reverend Davies and his wife might be willing to lend a hand, but strangely, both had found their diaries to be unusually full for the foreseeable future.

Some might claim that it was purely a burst of community spirit that saved the day. My own view is that the main driving-force was curiosity. Whatever the reason, there was soon a constant flow of island residents, each eager to see, for themselves, the ‘Famous Five’, as the lads were now known, and every visitor was expected to do their bit to help. Such expectation was often greeted with dismay, but Miss Calder’s undisputed charm, coupled with her unnerving habit of absent-mindedly replacing her very pleasant facial features with that of a grinning skull, were enough to convince most that it would be wise to comply.

One person who managed to avoid carrying out nursing duties was Doc Willoughby, who insisted that he was visiting in his capacity as a medical professional, declaring that he would certainly be able to diagnose the problem and suggest a cure. Following a stream of important-sounding “Ahs” and “Hmms”, accompanied by a series of pokes and prods, he pronounced the five to have a rare and life-threatening condition, known to the medical world as Urtica dioica.

“Unfortunately,” he announced gravely, as he left, “there is no known cure.”

“Could you smell alcohol on his breath?” asked Miss Calder, as she watched the Doc wandering unsteadily down the pathway.

“Yes,” replied Marjorie Toadsmoor, with a flickering grin, “and he’s just diagnosed the lads to be suffering from stinging nettles. It must have been a bit of Latin that he heard somewhere, and it stuck!”

The two phantom carers shrieked with laughter, causing the hair of more than one passer-by to turn prematurely white.

Not everyone celebrated the return of the ‘Famous Five’ with enthusiasm.

For the past week Durosimi O’Stoat had been cowering beneath his bed-clothes, terrified that the huge demon toad that had foiled his plans to gain access to the Underland would pursue him. When Doc Willoughby came hammering on his door, bearing news of the reappearance of the five young men (whom he had recently diagnosed as having a nasty case of stinging nettles), the sorcerer was not thrilled. He realised that he had been made a fool of, and there was only one being who frequented Hopeless who was able to pull off such a stunt. Trickster!

To the Doc’s great disappointment, he was dismissed with unseemly haste, and not a mouthful of whisky for his trouble.  Still, he reflected, it was probably all for the best; when Durosimi was in this mood it was as well to be as far away from him as humanly possible.

Durosimi paced the floor, smouldering with anger, his mind racing.

Why had Trickster saved those youngsters? That was not his style; what could he up to?

Did he plan to use those five young men against him? That must be it. Well, two could play at that game. But no… that was not right.

Durosimi was well aware that, despite his magical skills, he was no match for Trickster. The old rogue was as old as time itself, and if he had you in his sights, then you were done for. But Trickster was not infallible, not by a long way; he made mistakes. He had even been chased, while in the guise of a white hare, over a cliff by a band of spoonwalkers (as was related in the tale ‘The Kindness of Spoonwalkers’).

Durosimi smiled to himself grimly. He would tread carefully around Trickster. But those young men – what was it that people were calling them? The Famous Five, they were his immediate problem, his weak link, his Achilles heel. Them, and the Washwell fellow. The effects of the ale and the cloaking spell would not last forever, and if the truth of their abduction was to get out, there would be condemnation and a thirst for retribution, which even he might have difficulty in controlling. All six of them needed to be silenced, and sooner rather than later.

“They must all disappear, and this time for good,” he said aloud, and the air around him grew icy.

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Lost Boys

Leave a comment

By Martin Pearson

“The British Empire,” declared Reggie Upton, proudly, “is the greatest and most powerful that the world has ever seen. It is rightly called The Empire Upon Which The Sun Never Sets.”

“Pah!” exclaimed Mirielle D’Illay, dismissively. “That is just as well. No one would ever trust an Englishman in the dark.”

Reggie managed to stifle a smile, although his eyes twinkled with merriment. Despite Mirielle’s apparent Anglophobia, the old soldier could not help but like her. He had witnessed her vulnerability in recent weeks, when her husband, Septimus, mysteriously vanished. The patrons of The Squid and Teapot had scoured the island looking for the young man, but to no avail. When Septimus suddenly reappeared after a few days, having no memory of where he had been, Mirielle was torn between anger and relief. This was something that Reggie could understand and empathise with, for these were emotions that had plagued him a dozen or more times during his military career.

“Would you two please stop bickering,” groaned Philomena Bucket, totally misreading the situation. “We all need to focus our attention on what is important, as we are no closer to finding those lads who went missing from The Crow than we were a week ago.”

It was true. The young men seemed to have disappeared completely. While such occurrences were not rare on Hopeless, for five people to simultaneously go missing from the same place, and for no apparent reason, was a little odd.

“Philomena,” said Mirielle, gently, “we have looked everywhere. I cannot help but feel that those boys are a lost cause by now.”

“We shouldn’t give up,” said Philomena, defiantly. “I still think that Durosimi O’Stoat is behind all of this and I’d bet anything that he knows where they are.”

Philomena would have won her wager, for Durosimi did, indeed, know, but he was not likely to tell anyone; not about the hidden cave, or of the zombie-like slaves toiling deep beneath the surface of the island.  

For long years, Durosimi had been desperate to find a route to the Underland. He had stumbled upon vague rumours and references to the existence of such a place, but there had been nothing concrete, no first-hand accounts from explorers. Then that blasted Bucket woman, along with Gannicox the Distiller and Middlestreet from The Squid, had found a secret passageway that led to its entrance. Oh, it was so unfair, that this meddling witch should accidentally chance upon the very spot that he, a great and powerful sorcerer, had been seeking for decades. To make matters worse, the foolish woman had recently destroyed the tunnels before he could find a way of getting into them. She had deliberately made the magical cavern inaccessible to anyone, declaring it unsafe.  

Durosimi had fumed and brooded over this for months. Of course it was unsafe! It was meant to be unsafe! The Underland was no place for amateurs like the Bucket woman and her cronies to be tramping around. It was meant for the wise, for the initiated – for himself.

It had been Doc Willoughby who had inadvertently sown the seeds of hope that another way might be found to the Underland.

“I overheard the Bucket woman telling Ariadne Middlestreet that she had successfully destroyed the first hundred yards of something she called ‘the west tunnel’,” the Doc had confided, holding out his glass for a refill of whisky. “Although, I must admit, I have no idea what she was talking about. I thought that you might be interested, though.”

Durosimi had found it useful to invite Willoughby to his home occasionally, ply him with copious amounts of alcohol, and listen to the gossip circulating in the Squid.

“Hmm… it might be worthwhile to find out what she meant,” said Durosimi, his offhand tone in direct contrast with the excitement welling up inside him.

Metaphorical wheels were soon set in motion. It had not been too difficult to find a convenient means of ingress into the earth, and from there plot the line leading westward from The Squid and Teapot, to the portal of the Underland. Neither was it difficult for Durosimi to recruit some gullible young men to do the heavy lifting for him. The whole project, however, required great secrecy. Fortunately, Durosimi was very, very good at secrecy.

Of course, young Washwell had proved an annoyance, managing to escape as he did. Still, an annoyance was not necessarily a problem. Durosimi congratulated himself on securing the hidden cave with a cloaking spell, which also served to render his slaves totally unaware of where they were, or why.  Except for this small detail, everything seemed to be progressing well.

It was under the cover of foggy darkness, during the few days that fell between the waning of the old moon and the waxing of the new, that Durosimi went to check how the work was progressing. He carried with him a bag containing a few meagre rations; food must be running low by now, and those youngsters would need all of their strength for the task before them.

He wandered deep underground, down the steep pathway to where his slaves toiled. He noted, with satisfaction, that the dim lights he had set into the wall still glowed with an eerie luminescence. Despite this, the all-pervading silence told him that there was something wrong. Upon reaching the cavern where the work was meant to be going on, he found it deserted. The light in here was even poorer than in the passages, so Durosimi lit the lantern he had brought with him and held it aloft. It took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust to the comparative brightness, then he gasped in horror. What he had imagined to be a mound of rocks proved to be a huge toad, towering above him, warty and squat. The toad’s eyes glittered and regarded him with unbridled malevolence.

“You are not welcome here mortal,” it rasped, its wide slash of a mouth leering unpleasantly.

“My workers… what have you done with them?” said Durosimi, his voice trembling.

The toad said nothing, but flicked its long tongue disconcertingly close to Durosimi, deftly relieving him of the bag of food that he was carrying.

Durosimi froze. The next time that tongue came out, it could be the finish of him.

“Be gone, and do not return, unless you wish to join them,” said the toad.

Durosimi cautiously stepped away, not daring to turn his back on the repulsive creature until he was safely out of range of that awful sticky tongue. Then he ran. He ran until he was well clear of the cave, to fall gasping and retching upon the doorstep of his house.

What had those lads unearthed? What was that awful thing?

Well, it was a demon, that was for sure, but none that he had ever heard of. These thoughts rushed through Durosimi’s mind in a torrent. He knew his own limits and decided, there and then, that it would be nothing but folly to go back into the cave. That thing had probably lived down there for years – hundreds of years, or maybe more. Discretion, Durosimi decided, was, on this occasion, the better part of valour.

Deep beneath the surface of the island, the toad stirred. It shook its huge body and, if anyone had been foolish enough to be an onlooker, they would have been more than a little surprised to see it start to shrink, gradually becoming as diminutive and shapeless as a deflated balloon. In that half-light they would have witnessed a figure lifting itself from the rocks around its feet, and casually dust itself down.

“Well, that was fun,” chuckled Trickster, smugly. “It has been far too long since O’Stoat was last put in his place.”

He looked about him at the five young men who stood unmoving in the shadows. They were still zombiefied, Trickster noticed, but there would be no permanent harm. Well… probably not, but that was not his problem.

“Come on,” he said, “it’s your lucky day, lads. After that satisfying little episode with O’Stoat I’m feeling unusually generous. Let’s all get out of here now –  and I haven’t visited The Crow for ages.”

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

Durosimi’s Difficult Week

Leave a comment

By Martin Pearson

“I must say, you disappoint me, O’Stoat.”

If Durosimi was surprised, you would have been hard-pressed to notice. This was despite the fact that he had been quietly sitting in his study, poring over a scholarly tome of some description, and feeling confident that he was quite alone.

“Well, I am indeed sorry to hear that,” he said, nonchalantly, turning to face the intruder. “And I am sure that you have your reasons.”

Durosimi had endured a frustrating and totally fruitless week. It had been his plan to conjure Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god, tasked with guiding souls into the afterlife. While this was certainly ambitious, the information that the old god had apparently visited Hopeless in recent centuries, in his role of Psychopomp, led Durosimi to suppose that enticing him back was not an impossibility.

The difficulties in achieving this ambition had been purely logistical. The only clue that Durosimi possessed for summoning Anubis was contained in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, a copy of which had been gathering dust on his bookshelf for years. Unfortunately, the process required a fresh corpse and a group of people with wonderfully strong stomachs to carry out the evisceration rites. After putting out a few feelers to find if a such band of hardy souls could be found on the island, Durosimi drew a blank. He was not squeamish by any means, but, with the best will in the world, felt that he could not be expected to single-handedly perform the whole ghastly business of evisceration, store the brain and internal organs in jars and mummify the body, while simultaneously reciting the various spells necessary to invoke Anubis. It was just too much for one person to do, even Durosimi. There had to be another way.

He was in the process of consulting his library of spell-books, epigraphs, cosmologies, bestiaries, grimoires and encyclopaedias, but so far, to no avail. That was when his investigations were interrupted by the scruffily dressed young stranger who had seemingly manifested in his study.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” said Durosimi conversationally. “I have no idea who you are, but, somehow, feel certain that have we met before.”

“Yes, our paths have crossed once or twice,” conceded the stranger. “And I have always considered you to be somewhat wiser than the other buffoons inhabiting this miserable rock.”

“I am flattered,” said Durosimi, dryly. “So, who are you?”

A green mist crept into the room and swirled around the body of the stranger, which began to flex and change alarmingly.

With a mixture of fear and fascination, Durosimi shrank back as he watched the metamorphosis. The whole room appeared to shift and grow in order to accommodate the terrifying form of the god, Anubis.

“You dare seek to summon me, mortal?” growled the jackal-headed deity, in dead and dreadful sepulchral tones.

“Then you will know no mercy. I will flay your skin and set your body alight.” 

Towering over Durosimi, he reached down and laid a huge hand upon the sorcerer’s throat.

“Mercy, great lord. I did not wish to offend you,” whimpered Durosimi.

Anubis drew back and regarded Durosimi for what felt like an age. Then he laughed. He laughed until the tears rolled down his jackal’s face, which dissolved back into the young stranger, once more restored to human size.

“Oh, stop grizzling, for goodness sake,” he said. “Do you honestly think, even if you were able to raise him, that Anubis would bend to your will as easily as that quack of a doctor who seems to be inordinately fond of your whisky?”

“Then who the devil…?” Durosimi stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly aware of the identity of his visitor.

“You!” he snarled. “Trickster!”

“It took you long enough,” grinned Trickster, bowing with a flourish.

“The last news that I heard, was that you were chased over the edge of a cliff in the guise of a white hare. Running from a band of irate spoonwalkers, by all accounts.”

“Hmm, that was unfortunate, especially for the hare,” admitted Trickster, “but I’ve kept an eye on this place several times since then.”

Durosimi went to a cupboard and withdrew an unopened bottle of single-malt whisky, and two Waterford crystal glass tumblers.

“I’ll be honest, old friend, there have been odd times when I have really detested you,” he said. “And today, probably ranks highest among them.”

Trickster grinned.

“We are birds of a feather, Durosimi,” he said. “And that is why I won’t ask where your whisky comes from; it is best not to know. By the way, do you like my new meat-suit? I found it slumped on a bench outside ‘The Crow’.”

Several hours, and half a bottle of whisky, later, Durosimi and Trickster sat companionably in the glow of a dozen candles.

“So, those dog-headed Psychopomps turning up over the last three hundred years. They were all you?”

“Of course they were,” said Trickster. “And you, of all people, fell for it, hook, line and sinker.”

“But why?” asked Durosimi.

“Why not? It was fun. The clue is in my name.”

“I’m surprised you fooled Drury. That blasted dog is a lot more intelligent than most of the islanders.”

“That was easy,” laughed Trickster. “I told him that all dogs are sacred, and when he was sick of the island, he could come to me.”

“So, no one was sent to Purgatory?”

“I wouldn’t know how to get there.” 

 Durosimi grew suddenly serious.

“Are you not concerned that you might have offended those three deities?” he asked. “I imagine they can all be horribly wrathful when they want to.”

“Gula and Xolotl are pretty much forgotten,” said Trickster, “and no one has seen hide nor hair of Anubis for a couple of thousand years. When people stop believing in the old gods, they die. It is as simple as that.”

It was a typical fog-strewn Hopeless night when Trickster left Durosimi’s home.  The waning crescent mood gave scant illumination as he wavered drunkenly through the trees.

If the visibility had been better, and his young meat-suit less infused with alcohol, Trickster may have spotted the huge and ominous shape of the decidedly less-than-amused jackal-headed creature who drifted silently behind him.

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

Marigold

Leave a comment

Part of an ongoing Tale from The Squid and Teapot by Martin Pearson.

Almost two weeks had passed since Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, had brought Marigold Burleigh to the door of The Squid and Teapot. Rhys had discovered her body upon the Gydynap Hills, cast down like a broken and discarded toy.  Thinking her dead, and therefore unheeding of his noxious odour, he carried her into the town; Rhys had no wish to leave the her as fodder for whatever night-creature might chance by. He knocked on Doc Willoughby’s door but it was apparent that the curmudgeonly physician had no such sensibilities. The Doc had refused to lift a finger to help Rhys, but brusquely told him that the girl was dead and therefore beyond help, before slamming the door in his face. Miss Calder, the ghostly administrator of The Pallid Rock Orphanage, however, disagreed. She assured the Night-Soil Man that there was still a spark of life flickering within Marigold – and who could be a better arbiter of judging the fine line between life and death than one who had passed over it herself? She advised that Rhys should take the young woman immediately to The Squid, where she could be properly cared for.  

Although Marigold had regained consciousness within a few hours, it had taken a week or more for her to be well enough to leave the confines of the inn, and even then all memory of her past life evaded her. When she first appeared on Hopeless she had told islanders that she was a nurse, but in truth, she knew nothing about nursing, for the words had not been hers, but those of the dark entity who had possessed her.

Those who have followed these tales will recall that Trickster had been making trouble on Hopeless for quite some time. Previously, using Linus Pinfarthing as his ‘meat-suit’, he had caused death, misery and mayhem before his downfall had put a stop to things for a while. Later, taking on the form of an innocent-looking white hare, he had been thwarted by the unlikeliest of heroes, a raiding-band of spoonwalkers, who had driven him into the sea. However, Trickster was determined, if nothing else, and this rejection only served to encourage him in his mission to spread as much mischief as possible throughout the island of Hopeless. The unfortunate white hare soon perished in the cold Atlantic but Trickster found other meat-suits, or, more properly, fish-suits and fowl-suits; bodies which lasted long enough to take him to the mainland… and that is where he spied the pretty girl wandering along the seashore.

Marigold Burleigh, if indeed that was ever her name, had little idea that the sudden strange sensations gripping both her mind and body had anything to do with Arctic Tern that had plummeted from the sky, to lie dead at her feet. It took only a matter of seconds for all memory of her old life to slip away forever, and for the creature that was Trickster to become her puppet-master.

I will leave you, the reader, to imagine how Marigold might have persuaded the captain of the scruffy Down Easter to take her aboard. Trickster had no scruples, and whatever indignities his attractive young meat-suit may have suffered in order for him to achieve his aims, were neither here nor there, as far as he was concerned. Similarly, the way in which the captain and crew of the Down Easter perished troubled him not at all. It is sufficient to say that by the time the small craft beached on the shores of Hopeless, having miraculously avoided floundering upon any of its treacherous rocks and hidden reefs, Marigold was the only survivor. All this, of course, was hidden from Marigold, who later assumed that she was suffering from temporary amnesia.  

Ariadne Middlestreet was the first to notice Marigold’s change of character. Before the episode on the Gydynaps she had appeared confident to the point of arrogance, but now she had become withdrawn and given to wandering around the island, as if searching for something. Even those who have lived on Hopeless for all of their lives would be fearful to do this, but Marigold seemed to see no danger. Ariadne tried to alert her to the hazards that lurked around every bend, but to no avail.  

“She’ll be fine,” said Philomena Bucket, reassuringly. “I’m always out and about at all hours of the day and night, and no harm has befallen me.”

“Yet!” said Ariadne, pointedly. “Although, I sometimes think you lead a charmed life, Philomena.”

The barmaid coughed awkwardly. It was unlikely that a truer word had ever been spoken in innocence. Philomena was well aware of the strange abilities she had inherited from her ancestors, but had never shared this secret, not even with her closest friends.

“I’ll ask Rhys to keep an eye on her if he sees her wandering around at night,” she promised, not realising that this is exactly what the Night-Soil Man did whenever he spotted Philomena herself walking the hills after dark.

Over the centuries – millennia, even – few have survived possession by the Trickster. Linus Pinfarthing lasted for a short while, but only by regularly drinking himself into a stupor, a strategy which eventually killed him. Marigold, on the other hand, survived because she had appeared to be physically weaker than she actually was. Now that Trickster had left her, taking with him all recollection of her past life, a gnawing ache was left; an ache to know who she really was, where she had come from and if she had any family. Unaware that Hopeless held no answers for her, Marigold resolved to not rest until the truth was uncovered.

“What can possibly go wrong?” she wondered.

To be continued…

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Woman of the Hill

Leave a comment

“I must be mad,” Trickster thought. “Why did I not recognise what she is?”

He had found himself trapped. Trapped again, if the truth is to be told. How long ago was it? Hundreds… no thousands of years had passed since the last time, but that was no excuse. He should have realised before trying to take such a creature.

Once, a very long time ago, Trickster attempted to possess one of the women of the Tuatha de Danann, the mysterious race who once inhabited the island now known as Ireland. Beguiled by their pale, almost translucent beauty, he had talked himself into believing them to be easy prey.  Biding his time, Trickster waited until the Tuatha were driven into the hills by the fierce red-haired invaders, with their bright iron swords. He assumed defeat would have weakened and demoralised them. Oh, how patiently he had watched from the shadows, counting the long years until the race had passed from memory and into myth; until they had come to be thought of as the Faerie folk, their women the feared Bean Side, or Banshee. Women of the Hills. Trickster was as old as anything which had ever crawled upon the earth, but these Old Gods were more ancient still. They were the spirit of the land. What was it that the bard, Amergin had said, when invoking them?

I am the stag of seven tines,

I am a wide flood on a plain,

I am a wind upon deep waters,

I am a shining tear of the sun,

I am a hawk on a cliff,

I am fair among flowers,

I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.

I am a battle waging spear,

I am a salmon in the pool,

I am a hill of poetry,

I am a ruthless boar,

I am the roar of the sea,

I am the ninth wave of the sea.

Who but I know the secrets of the unhewn dolmen? 

Why had he not realised what Amergin was saying? He had been standing next to the man as he spoke the words, but the meaning had eluded him at the time. What a fool he had been. It had taken all of Trickster’s strength and cunning to escape from the enchanted flesh of the Bean Side. And here he was again. Trapped.

Philomena Bucket had no idea that she had a guardian angel. Well, a guardian Night-Soil Man, to be accurate. Rhys Cranham had made it his business to watch out for Philomena whenever she ventured alone into the darkness, which she often did.

Rhys had smiled to himself when he heard her footsteps outside his door, leaving the usual gift of starry-grabby pie and a brace of bottles of Old Colonel. He watched from the window as she disappeared into the dusk, but something was not right. She should have been making her way back to The Squid and Teapot, but instead had headed off towards the Gydynap Hills. You may recall that Philomena had told Bartholomew Middlestreet that she needed some time to herself; just an hour or two to collect her thoughts together. The trauma of recent events, and the disappearance of the ghost of Granny Bucket, had taken its toll upon the usually effervescent barmaid.

“Oh, Philomena, for pity’s sake…!” he muttered, quickly dragging on his boots.

Keeping a safe distance behind, and well downwind, Rhys had followed, with Drury rattling quietly by his side.  He watched, with a pained expression on his face, when she buried her face in her hands and wept. He wanted to comfort her but knew that there was nothing he could do, guessing that his malodorous presence would achieve nothing, but only make her troubles worse.  While he looked helplessly on, another appeared on the scene and stood next to Philomena. It was Nurse Burleigh, a bright young woman, fairly new to the island. That was good. She would know what to say.

The Night-Soil Man was dismayed, however, when, after a while, the pair began to walk up into the hills, further into the gloom. Stealthily, he followed.

It was an unusually fine night on the island of Hopeless, Maine, and so the storm that suddenly raged about the summit of the highest hill took Rhys by surprise.  It was totally unexpected.

Thunder and lightning was common enough, but not on a night like this, and besides, it was the sort of thing that might be reasonably expected to emanate from above. This particular meteorological event appeared to be rising up from the Gydynaps themselves.  More worrying was the fact that Philomena and Nurse Burleigh were certain to have been caught in the centre of it. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the storm abated and all was silent, as if nothing had ever disturbed the misty night. Minutes passed, then, to his relief, Rhys saw a pale figure emerge through the folds of darkness. It was Philomena, her pale skin and hair bathed in the meagre moonlight to bone-white. But where was the nurse? Something was very wrong.

Silently, almost ghost-like, Philomena drifted by, no more than a few yards from where Rhys and Drury stood. The old osseous hound growled softly. If he had possessed hackles they would have risen. This was not the usual way in which Drury greeted his friend.  Rhys felt uneasy.

Philomena seemed not to hear, or realise that they were there. It was then that Rhys noticed another woman making her way down the hill, some distance behind Philomena. It was Marigold Burleigh, staggering like a drunkard. No, not drunk; she was weak and probably injured. Without heeding his awful smell, Rhys ran towards her, not a moment too soon. Marigold collapsed into his arms. She was obviously in a bad way, her face drained of all colour.

“She’s dying,” he thought, in alarm.

The nurse raised a feeble arm in Philomena’s direction. Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

“That creature… killing me… killing me,” she gasped.

“Oh, Philomena,” groaned Rhys, “What have you done?”

To be continued…

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Unhappy Medium

Leave a comment

Drury, the skeletal hound, was curled up contentedly on an old blanket in the corner of the Night-Soil Man’s cottage, affectionately known to all as ‘The House at Poo Corner’.

As far as Drury was concerned, all was right with the world.  To all intents and purposes Philomena Bucket had stopped wasting her time worrying about being a powerful witch, or getting married, and was once more ensconced behind the bar of The Squid and Teapot. Even better, Rhys Cranham was back in his rightful place, servicing the cess-pits and outdoor privies of the islanders of Hopeless Maine. All thoughts of marriage appeared to have left them both, at least for the time being. The status quo had been restored to Drury’s satisfaction.

Rhys looked down fondly at the bony old hound. It would soon be time to drag on his boots, strap on the lidded bucket and once more venture out into the darkness. Doubtless, Drury would accompany him, as he did on most nights. Rhys could not help wondering how things would have changed, had his and Philomena’s wedding plans come to fruition. The role of Night-Soil Man had taken up half of his life, first as apprentice to Shenandoah Nailsworthy, then, after Shenandoah’s death, as Night-Soil Man in his own right. Would he have coped with married life? He had no idea; it might have been a disaster. After leaving the Pallid Rock Orphanage, the night soil business was all that he had ever known. It was probably best not to dwell on the question. Happily, Philomena was still a good friend, leaving a couple of bottles of Old Colonel and a wedge of starry-grabby pie on his doorstep every evening.

Despite the all-pervading misery that seemed to seep into every nook and cranny of the island, The Squid and Teapot generally managed to maintain its reputation for good cheer. A visitor could always expect a warm welcome and, more often as not, entertainment, of a sort. Tonight the venerable Bell-Edison phonograph, which always added a frisson of excitement to proceedings, had been taken out to provide the music for Les Demoiselles de Hopeless, Maine, the troupe of Moulin Rouge dancers who had been shipwrecked on the island a year or so earlier. To the strains of Offenbach’s Infernal Galop (or ‘The Can-Can’ to most of us) the aforementioned young ladies performed their ever-popular routine to an appreciative audience. By a strange coincidence, whenever Les Demoiselles performed in the inn, some of those who rarely patronised the establishment found themselves with a pressing need to pay it a visit.

“Reverend Davies, we don’t often see you in here,” said Bartholomew Middlestreet, with no surprise in his voice whatsoever.

“Quite so,” said the Reverend importantly. “I’ve come to see Miss Bucket, if that is convenient.”

He failed to mention that he had already seen Philomena; she had been walking in the opposite direction.

“Sorry Reverend, she’s out at the moment and won’t be back for a while. She said she needed an hour or so to herself.”

“That’s a shame,” replied Davies unconvincingly. “I can’t wait an hour, but as long as I’m here I may as well have a small drink and watch the… er… cabaret.”

Philomena walked purposefully towards the Gydynap Hills. She was troubled and needed to be far away from other people for a while. Despite the hazards of venturing out into the night on Hopeless, Philomena never felt herself to be in danger. It seemed that the ghost of Granny Bucket was right – or maybe she was just lucky.

Granny, and Philomena’s friend, Doctor John Dee, had both impressed upon her that she possessed great magical ability. Unfortunately, Granny was no longer haunting her and John Dee had returned to Elizabethan England. This was bad enough, but to make things worse, her marriage to Rhys Cranham had been called off, following the violent death of his apprentice, Naboth Scarhill. Philomena felt horribly alone in the world and this feeling that her magic was growing more powerful by the day was not helping. She had never been comfortable having the dubious gift of ‘The Sight’, but now it was as if she had been given an even more burdensome gift, like that of some great wild animal, which she had no idea how to tame. If only Granny was here to help. Philomena sat down on the grass and wept in the misty darkness.

“Are you okay?”

Philomena had not heard the young woman approach.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just being silly,” said Philomena, wiping her eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it? I can sit with you for a while. I’m Marigold. Marigold Burleigh.”

“Ah. You’ll be the nurse I heard tell of. Sit, by all means, but I don’t need to talk, honestly” replied Philomena.

She had no idea why she was being so cautious, but somewhere, deep inside Philomena, alarm bells were ringing.

Trickster could feel subtle changes happening to the meat-suit already. That was a pity. He was enjoying being female and they usually lasted longer than this. The other one, the young man Linus, had given him months of wear. On reflection, Linus had resisted and done his best to get rid of Trickster. He had rarely been sober; that probably had some bearing on things. Anyway, all that was in the past, and this girl was not going to hold together for very much longer; he needed someone new to possess.

“That’s fine,” said Marigold, sweetly, “but I’d quite like us to be friends. How about you and I go for a quiet walk in the moonlight? I’m sure we’ll be safe enough if we’re careful.”

She offered the crook of her arm to Philomena, who took it warily.

“Gotcha!” thought Trickster

To be continued…

Uncategorized

What Every Ghost Should Know

Leave a comment

Sixteen can be a difficult age. For Naboth Scarhill things had escalated from being somewhat difficult to becoming annoyingly complicated when he discovered that he was dead. It was not the business of not being alive that concerned him particularly. To begin with he had tried to look on the bright side. At least there was no more work to do, his days and nights unhindered by the niggly little inconveniences that bother the rest of us, smug in the knowledge that our mortal coils are as yet unshuffled. There was no one to berate him for leaving his clothes on the bedroom floor, or neglecting to put the toilet seat down, or forgetting to wash behind his ears, all things that the average sixteen-year old boy might be forgiven for not doing. He found that there was no great joy to be had, even if he decided to revel in this new-found freedom. It would have meant nothing, for Naboth was now a ghost, an apparition as insubstantial as the grey mist that lingered sullenly over the island of Hopeless, Maine.

Being murdered is not at all pleasant. There is more to it than simply having one’s life taken away; there is the sense of being targeted and knowing that someone, somewhere has gone to the trouble of singling you out for a particularly unpleasant method of extermination. It is, indeed, a dreadful thing. More dreadful still, however, is when your violent death has been brought about by a case of mistaken identity. Can you imagine it? Oh, the injustice of it all, especially when you are, or, more correctly, were, just sixteen with the exciting promise of life sitting before you like a map, waiting to be unfolded. This left the shade that was Naboth raging and howling through the night, intent on revenge but having no idea how to exact it.

He had learned from Marigold Burleigh – whom, regular readers may have gathered, had been possessed by the recently returned Trickster – that his death had been caused by a vicious thought form, conjured by Durosimi O’Stoat. In the dim chaos of its mind the thought form only knew that it was to kill the Night-Soil Man, a post that Naboth had held for just one day. You can see why he was not best pleased.  Now the angry spirit of Naboth Scarhill desired nothing more than vengeance, and to see Durosimi suffer horribly. The drawback to this plan was that, while Naboth had both a voice and ghostly presence, he had no power to inflict physical harm upon anyone. When he burst into Durosimi’s home and tried to frighten the sorcerer, the only reaction was scorn.

“You cannot frighten me, you deluded fool,” scoffed Durosimi, derisively. “I have consorted with dæmons, ghouls and foul creatures of the pit, each more hideous than you can imagine. Do you think some stunted phantom muck-shoveller is likely to concern me? Now clear off, go and haunt one of your vile cess-pools. That’s all you’re good for!” 

To say that Naboth was taken aback by this response would be an understatement. It had always been his understanding that almost everyone is frightened by ghosts, and even those who aren’t would not be so dismissive of an obviously angry spirit. He needed to go away and think of what to do.

It was a few nights later when he next appeared in Durosimi’s parlour, screeching, wailing and banging his bucket lid up and down.

“Go away, little man,” said Durosimi languidly. “Did you not hear me the first time? I am not scared one iota by you.”

“Fair enough,” replied Naboth, between wails. “But I ain’t going nowhere. I’m going to haunt you every night. You’ll get no rest from me…Oooooooooooooooh.”

And so, for night after night, over the next two weeks, Naboth made Durosimi’s life a misery, until, out of the blue, the sorcerer said,

“Alright, I give up. I apologise for killing you. Now please go away.”

“No chance,” said Naboth, “you’re stuck with me. Dusk until dawn for the rest of your days… oooooooooooweeeeeeeeeee.”

A few more nights passed by in this way, until it seemed that Durosimi had really had enough. Clapping his hands over his ears he ran like someone possessed, out into the darkness.

“I cannot stand this anymore,” he wailed, “I’ve got get away from this awful noise before it drives me mad.”

Delighted, Naboth chased after him, through the trees and out into the folds of the Gydynaps, banging his bucket lid for all he was worth and screeching like a banshee. This was more like it!

Durosimi ran frantically into a dark, yawning cavern etched into the side of the hill. Enjoying his new-found power, Naboth followed.

“Enough, I beg you stop,” cried Durosimi, holding out his hands, as if in supplication.

“Never!” laughed Naboth, “I’ll never give you any peace… ooooooooaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhh”

‘His wailings are becoming ridiculously theatrical,’ mused Durosimi to himself, then, quite unexpectedly, washed the cavern in a ghastly green light, and smiled unpleasantly at Naboth.

“This is one I made earlier,” he said, sprinkling a handful of salt on to the floor, and completing the circle into which the spectral Night-Soil Man had drifted.

“Try and get out, by all means, but I can assure you that you won’t, not as long as the salt circle is unbroken. This is something that every ghost should know. Oh, and by the way, just in case that bony mutt, Drury, comes looking for you, I’m going to block up the entrance when I leave. Goodnight dear boy. Enjoy Eternity.”

And with that Durosimi was gone and the cavern was plunged once more into darkness, save for the faint luminesce that hung about Naboth, eerily reflecting on the ring of salt that encircled him.

In the distance he heard the tumble of rocks, rigged earlier that day to block the cavern’s mouth.

Philomena Bucket laid a basket on the doorstep of The House at Poo Corner. As usual she had brought Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, his supper of starry-grabby pie and two bottles of Old Colonel, courtesy of The Squid and Teapot. Rhys would always consume this half-way through his round, often giving a scrap or two to Drury, whose attempts at eating always ended with the chewed food dropping through his skeletal frame on to the ground, later to be enjoyed once more, but this time by the crows.

Tonight Philomena discovered that Rhys had left her a letter. Intrigued, she picked it up to peruse later, in flickering candlelight, back in her room at The Squid and Teapot.

“My Dear Philly, I hope you are well. I am just letting you know that the troubled spirit of poor Naboth seems to have disappeared. I have not seen him for some time now. I think, maybe, he has come to terms with his dreadful fate and has found some peace at last… “

There were some loving words following this, but these are for Rhys and Philomena’s eyes only.

The barmaid read the note once more. Had Naboth really found peace? The old magic that resided deep within Philomena stirred restlessly.

Something was definitely wrong.