Many of you will be aware that some of the characters who have appeared in these Tales of The Squid and Teapot have, in a short time after arriving on the island, become ghosts. The teacher, Marjorie Toadsmoor and Father Ignatius Stamage immediately spring to mind, both having been killed in unfortunate circumstances. Obadiah Hyde, the Mad Parson was probably pushed off Chapel Rock by a disgruntled parishioner. By coincidence, he had been the self-appointed executioner of Lady Margaret D’Avening, The Headless White Lady who haunts the flushing privy of the inn. She had been dead for centuries when she came to Hopeless, transported in a pile of dressed stones that once comprised part of her stately home, in England. Each of these have one thing in common; they are bound to some solid object and are only able to wander from the immediate area if the artefact which they are haunting is moved.
Other ghosts are more mobile, but doomed to follow a set path. Think of The Little Drummer Boy, or Lars Pedersen, The Eggless Norseman of Creepy Hollow, who has spent a millennium searching for his missing eggs. Then there is Clarissa Cockadilly, who will dance you to death, then throw you into the swamp at the end of the notorious, and to be avoided, Forty Second street. It is not just the land that has its spectral wanderers. The foggy skies of Hopeless are home, of course, to the maiden ladies of The Mild Hunt, who, with their irritating yapping spaniels and flatulent mules, are apparently damned to spend eternity plodding through the heavens, searching for some irretrievably lost pamphlets.
Finally, we have a third and more select group; these are the vocational ghosts, phantoms for whom the call of duty is greater than the demands of death. These people had no intention of letting something as trivial as mortality get in the way of their busy schedule. The prime example of this variety is Miss Calder, who is more than able to administer the daily running of The Pallid Rock Orphanage, despite being dead. I guess we can also include Philomena Bucket’s beloved granny here, whose spirit has migrated to the island solely to protect her grand-daughter. Perhaps less obviously, this group contains the wraiths of the various Night-Soil Men. Here we have an unbroken line stretching back to the arrival of the Founding Families, and the first to bear the lidded-bucket, the introverted Killigrew O’Stoat. Despite their lowly calling there is an almost mythical stature attached to these men (they have always been men) and, though unseen, their spirits continue to wander the island, watching over the ever-unfolding generations of their calling.
Naboth Scarhill had every right to feel aggrieved. At the tender age of sixteen years he had been deprived of life, cruelly slaughtered by a vicious thought-form, a creature brought into existence by a person, or persons, unbeknownst to him. Reduced now to no more than a protoplasmic mass that had taken on his earthly shape, he raged impotently against the unfairness of it all, vowing to take revenge on his killer.
“Don’t do it, Naboth.”
The voice was little more than a whisper through the bare, stunted trees.
Naboth looked about but saw no one. He was surprised to feel a tremor of fear pass through him. That made no sense. He was a ghost, dammit! He was supposed to do the frightening.
“I will be avenged,” he cried defiantly, but somewhat shakily, into the night.
The whispering became louder. There seemed to be many voices now. Then he saw them.
Almost indistinguishable from the mist, glimmering in the late evening air were dozens of Night-Soil Men, clustering all around him.
“Welcome Brother Naboth,” the voices said. “Take your place with us. Do not seek revenge, it will not return you to life.”
“Maybe not,” said Naboth defiantly, “but it will make me happier.”
One of the Night-Soil Men stepped out of the throng.
“I was once Elmer Bussage,” he said softly. “Like you, I was ripped to pieces and desperately craved for revenge. Then one day I discovered that the creature who had killed me had been cast down into the bottomless sinkhole at the end of my garden. I thought it would make me happy, but I felt nothing. Not relief, not pleasure. Nothing. Accept your lot, Naboth, and join your brethren.”
But Naboth’s ghost was angry beyond reasoning. He drifted through them like smoke and allowed himself to go wherever the night took him, while the wraiths of his predecessors looked on in despair.
A long time had passed since Trickster was last on Hopeless. Some of you might remember that he was previously seen in the shape of a white hare. When he first possessed her, it had not occurred to Trickster that, although he was fearless and immortal, the hare was not. When irate spoonwalkers attacked, he tried to escape but found himself trapped within the hare’s body, careering madly through the foggy night in a headlong flight towards the rocky cliffs and restless ocean. It had taken some considerable time for him to extricate himself from the watery clutches of the Atlantic and discover another suitable host. No one can say that Trickster is not persistent, for here he was again, back on this strange little island that so suited his needs. Having assumed the form of a beautiful young woman, he had quickly and easily insinuated himself into what passes as society on Hopeless, using his charm to gain a foothold into the lives of those whom he believed might be useful. One such was Durosimi O’Stoat. Trickster knew all about his plotting to kill the Night-Soil Man, and was amused by the way in which Durosimi’s plans had backfired badly when Naboth died instead of Rhys Cranham. This was such an easy place to cause mischief.
“You can see me?” said Naboth, astonished. “And you’re not scared?”
“Of course not,” the girl replied, “I’ve seen loads of spooks. You’re better looking than most, as well.”
Naboth, although a ghost, had not yet shed enough of his mortal instincts to be anything less than a red-blooded sixteen-year old. The young lady standing before him was certainly alluring, and he wanted to impress her.
“Well, I shouldn’t be dead yet,” he confessed, “and I’m looking for revenge. Once I find out who did it, the person responsible for killing me is really going to pay. Big time”
“Oh, that was Durosimi O’Stoat” said the girl airily. “But it won’t be easy getting to him.”
Naboth said nothing. He had no idea how she knew, but she was right. Durosimi would be difficult to hurt.
Trickster wandered into the night, happy that things had gone so smoothly. All that was needed now, after letting Durosimi know that he was to be the victim of a vengeful spirit, was to stand back and watch the fun.
