31 Days of Halloween #10

Some slight relief from all the tragedy. ;-) The Goosemother Scroll - Episode 5

Text below.

Pyg fainted and dreamed terrors. Nightmares of strange symbols spelled out in her brothers’ blood. Of tall, hairless creatures with large, rat-like claws. Of shadows that sucked her in like quicksand.

But it was a prickly, tickly feeling that finally woke her. It felt like a dozen tiny hairs were brushing just-so against her cheek. Pyg opened her eyes to a dim orange light and saw, perched upon her nose, a mouse in a long gray robe.

“Ah! Awake at last. Good, good!” the mouse said pleasantly. His whiskers twitched as he smiled. “I was beginning to worry!”

The mouse felt around her snout with his paws as if unsure and then hopped down beside her upon the bed. How Pyg wound up in a bed, she didn’t know, but she hadn’t the will to ask any questions now. She saw that her bed was in a humble, cavelike room lighted by candles. Instead of walls, there were dull brown curtains, and she suspected by the sounds outside that her little curtained room was one of many.

“Brother Redfern!” the mouse called to someone out of sight. “I have good news! Our patient has woken up. She’ll be needing some hot dandelion tea, I should think. And bring that, uh, scrap of cloth, if you will.”

The mouse turned back to her. “Now, let’s see here. I am Father Longtail. Do you know where you are?” he asked gently and then, chuckling to himself, answered his own question. “No, no, of course you wouldn’t. You, my dear, are in the hospital of the Southtunnel Abbey.”

Pyg finally found her voice. “Are you an eldermouse?” she asked in amazement, but then a small white fox with ears like wings came through the curtain, carrying a cup of steaming tea, which he placed on the table beside her bed. Next to the tea, he slipped a torn piece of white fabric. Pyg noticed a spot of what looked like blood on it. The fox’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Father Longtail is not simply an eldermouse,” he told her. “He’s one of the Blind Brothers! The Goosemother herself took their sight to keep them from evil and in exchange granted them extraordinary wisdom!”

“Thank you, Brother Redfern, that will be all,” said the eldermouse. To Pyg he shook his head.  “Bless them! The stories they tell themselves! My sight was taken by a brain fever when I was still a pup. What else is a blind mouse to do but join the safety of the abbey? The Goosemother didn’t make me a fool. Such is the life for most of us down here. We cannot, for one reason or another, serve the world above, and so we go below.”

“Oh,” said Pyg, still thinking about the cloth. But then Longtail became very serious, and Pyg feared what he had to say.

“You’re a very lucky pigling, you are,” said the mouse. “We found you on cursed ground where the Ghosts of Men are known to rise. With so much blood spilled, it’s a wonder they didn’t find you before we did. I am sorry about your brothers. They were your brothers, were they not? We have buried their remains.”

It pained Pyg to think of her brothers, but she had no tears left to cry. “I didn’t think the Ghosts of Men were real,” she said quietly.

“They are very real, and very dangerous!” said Longtail. “More dangerous than the wolves who attacked you. Their fear of the Ghosts is likely why they did not stay to kill you.”

“How did you know it was wolves?” asked Pyg.

“There is no mistaking their work, pigling,” Longtail told her. “But there was also this bit of cloth left behind. The one I asked Brother Redfern to bring. Take it, please, and tell me what you see.”

Pyg took the cloth with the blood spot and examined it up close. Embroidered on one corner was a strange insigne showing a black claw with its reverse in gray below it like a shadow.

“The symbol of the Master’s Legion,” Longtail explained, “a vast army of wicked beasts spreading across the world like a plague. They follow the orders of a king they call Master. We do not know him, but it is at his command they kill and torture and destroy. From the stories I hear, his power is increasing. Do you know the Scroll, child?”

Pyg nodded.

“Then you know whom we fear has come.”

“You mean the Shadow Bringer, don’t you?” asked Pyg. She felt the hairs of her chin stand up.

“We see no other possibility,” said Longtail.

Pyg immediately threw the blankets off and sprang from the bed. She found her cloak across a chair and put it on at once.

“Where are you going, pigling?” asked Longtail.

“I have to get back home,” Pyg answered. “My mother is all alone!”

“And you think you can defend her against the Shadow Bringer yourself?” asked Longtail. “No, little pigling. You must not go home now. The way back is crawling with evil, and though you may be brave, you are but one, and you have no weapons. Not even claws.”

“But I can’t just leave her there!” Pyg protested. “I have to try!”

“Listen to me, Child,” said Longtail. “It was no accident that you survived. You were meant to come to us. Perhaps not to overthrow the Shadow Bringer yourself, but each of us plays his part.”

“My part is played at home now,” Pyg insisted. “Thank you for taking care of me, but I have to go.”

Pyg marched toward the curtain but didn’t make it far before a blood-curdling sight stopped her in her tracks. Showing through the curtain fabric was a silhouette she feared above all others. Had her throat not been choked by mortal dread, she would have screamed.

31 Days of Halloween #8

The Goosemother Scroll Episode 4Text below for those who'd like to read along.

There were only seconds to make a decision, but three decisions were made, and only one was wise.

Pyg looked behind her and saw a brick stove in the corner. “This way!” she mouthed to her brothers and ran to it, climbing up inside the chimney just far enough to stay out of sight.

Strongheart followed her until he spied some forgotten kindling off to the side. He grabbed a stick from it and broke it over his knee, making a crude spear. Then he crouched in the shadow of the stove and waited.

Meekfoot panicked. He spun this way and that way until he found a pile of straw much closer to himself than the stove and dove underneath it just as the creatures from the attic arrived.

What are they doing? Pyg wondered of her brothers, but she was afraid to look lest she attract attention, and the creatures were much too close. She could hear them. There were so many! The floorboards creaked from their weight, and they had claws that tapped upon the wood as they moved. They panted like dogs, and she could hear the wet sound of tongues as they licked their chops. Wolves. They had to be!

“My, oh, my!” said one of them. His voice was rough and deep. “I am so very hungry. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had ourselves some fat little piggies right about now?”

The others laughed in their snarling way.

“Yes, indeed!” the first continued. “And wouldn’t it be even lovelier if there were a plump little piggy just waiting for us...”

He moved past the stove.

“Right...”

He was at the straw pile.

“HERE!”

Pyg heard Meekfoot squeal in terror as he was dragged out from his hiding place. Then there was a horrible sound like a snapping of twigs, and Meek squealed no more. Pyg wanted to cry, but she couldn’t even breathe. At times she thought she’d lose her grip and fall right out of the chimney.

“This one’s for you boys,” said the first wolf. “I believe I spotted at least two more with him. Find them. Why, I’m so hungry I could eat an entire family of fat little piggies!”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” said one of the other wolves. Pyg could hear their noses working at the air, and she knew it would only be a matter of time before they found her out.

But Strongheart had other plans. He jumped out from his hiding place, brandishing his pathetic spear.

“Think you can gobble me up? You’ve got another thing coming!” he threatened to much laughter. He fought bravely for being so defenseless, but his bravery merely delayed his inevitable and gruesome end.

Pyg felt the world spin around her. She could barely hear a sound beyond her heart pounding in her ears, but she thought she heard one of the wolves say, “There’s too much blood, sir. We shouldn’t stay in this place.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” agreed the one they called Captain. “Boys! Time to move out!”

There was snarling and howling and other frightful noises, and then those sounds grew further away until there was nothing. Not a whisper. Not even the gossip of crickets.

31 Days of Halloween #6

The Goosemother Scroll Episode 3 Text below for those who'd like to read along.

In spite of the tragedy that marked the three little pigs’ birthdays, their childhoods were as happy as any pig’s could be. And though they lived in desperate poverty, their home was always rich with love.

That isn’t to say their lives were easy.

Strongheart was always getting himself into scraps with the boys from the village. He swore he always fought fair, but Mother wished he wouldn’t fight at all. “It’s just... the things they say about us, Mother!” Strong would insist. “Are only words,” Mother would finish. And Strong would feel awful for a day or two, but he would be back at it soon enough.

Meekfoot was a sweet boy, but the poor child was afraid of his own tail. He wouldn’t play with other children. He wouldn’t even go out into the garden by himself. “Ah, my dear Meek,” Mother would say to herself. “If only he were a little more like his brother, and his brother a little more like him.”

The daughter was nothing like either of her brothers. For one, she had never been given a proper name, for all her mother’s joy was gone by the time she remembered to name her. She was simply called Pyg.

Pyg did not mind her namelessness. She was no less loved by her mother and brothers. The only trouble about it was that having no name meant everyone else called her something different, and it was hard to keep it all straight. To the teacher who sometimes visited from the village, Pyg was Miss Snout-in-a-book, for she was nearly always reading. To the shopkeeper who bought her mother’s truffles from her, she was Old Sage Ears, for she seemed so much wiser than other children her age. To many others, she was Our Blessing. For everyone remembered the night she was nearly taken away, though no one liked to talk of the brother who was.

The little family in the cottage did the best they could, and they were very happy. But trouble was spreading all across the land. There was talk of wars in nearby kingdoms, and food became more expensive. The Hog King imposed new taxes, too, and soon no one could buy Mother’s truffles.

“I can no longer provide for you, my piglets,” Mother cried one day. “You will fair better out in the world where you may find some work to support yourselves. Promise me you’ll watch over each other, dear loves! My poor heart could not bear to lose you forever!”

Strongheart vowed no one would hurt his siblings without taking him out first. Meekfoot sobbed but swore he’d try to be brave. Pyg promised she’d keep her brothers out of trouble. And then the three set out upon the road, heavy-hearted but hopeful, to find their fortune.

A few miles from home, they found an abandoned farm on which to rest for the night.

“How lucky we are!” said Strongheart. “I thought we’d have to sleep in the grass.” “Perhaps we could stay here forever!” said Meekfoot though he knew that wasn’t possible.

Pyg was about to say something when a sound caught her attention. A creaking sound, coming from above them within the farmhouse.

“Somebody’s here!” Meekfoot whimpered.

Not just one somebody, but a dozen, and each with long claws that went click-click-click as they descended the stairs from the attic where they had been waiting for a meal to come wandering in.

31 Days of Halloween #4

The Goosemother Scroll Episode 2 (with music by Papalin)

Text below for those who'd like to read along.

But inside the humble little cottage there was only joy. Four piglets were soon born to boar and sow: three sons and one daughter. In the tradition of all swine, they named the firstborn Strongheart, for he was born squealing and kicking as if to fight. The secondborn they named Meekfoot, for he came into the world shivering and quiet. The third was so tiny and still they feared he had not lived, but when he lifted his head and loudly squeaked, they rejoiced and called him Dawnsong.

Before the fourth child could be named, however, a dreadful sound pierced through the night. A howl, long and cruel and close. I am here, this howl said. As mother and father pig looked at one another fearfully, that awful note was answered by other howls farther away. Yes, brother, they said. And we are here.

“Why?” asked Mother. “What could they want?”

In answer, the door burst open and then fell from its hinges, and in the doorway stooped a wolf as tall as the cottage itself. He wore a red hooded cloak that was much too small, and the grizzled snout protruding from it dripped with blood.

“What do you want, wolf?” Father asked in his bravest voice, stepping between his family and the intruder.

The wolf let his hood fall. His face was horrible to look upon. It was scarred and matted, with two yellow eyes that could turn the bowels to water. He pointed to the babe in Mother’s arms and snarled.

“That one.”

Mother gasped and clutched the girl child close, but the wolf only laughed.

“Either you give me one of your children, or I’ll take them all!” he threatened. “For tonight the wolves take our due.”

Father charged, prepared to defend his family with his life. And with his life he did, but it was the wolf who won. The ragged monster moved toward Mother but stopped short.

“Not you,” he growled. “You will tell the others. Tell them to fear.” Then he leaned down and plucked Dawnsong from his bedding before disappearing into the night, leaving Mother alone with three crying piglets to comfort and a husband to bury.

The stories say the screams that followed the wolves that night could be heard all the way to the abbeys below Mount Historius. That night, the stories say, the heart of hope itself was broken.

31 Days of Halloween #2

The Goosemother Scroll Episode 1 Text below for those who'd like to read along.

Once upon a time, many once-upon-a-times ago, the beasts of the earth spoke a common tongue and walked upright like men. Each of a kind followed the laws of his own ruler, and all beastkind followed the laws of the First. The First Beast, the Great Winged Watcher, the Goosemother, they called her. Legend told that the world had been created when she first unfurled her mighty wings, but grief over its future had turned her to the stone that made Historius, the Mountain At the Top of the World.

Her laws, written upon an ancient scroll and kept by the Eldermice deep below the mount were but three:

No beast chooses himself above his herd. No beast shall take more than he must to survive. No beast shall eat of his own kind.

But the scroll also contained a prophecy. A terrible day would come when the earth would be cloaked in the shadow of a profaner. This Shadow Bringer would break all three of The First Laws before crushing the world under his feet. The scroll spoke of countless agonies, of famine, of babes snatched while suckling. Peace would shatter, kings would be forced upon all fours, and the Ghosts of Men would awaken to serve the Shadow Bringer just as his ancestors served them when the world was Man’s. And his coming, it was said, would be announced by the howling of a thousand wolves.

Of a savior, the scroll said only this: If there be an end to this blight, the end will be small.

Over a thousand years, these ominous words had softened to little more than a tale to quiet restless children. “Sleep now, little ones, lest the Shadow Bringer hear you when he passes!” The Ghosts of Men were reduced to crude masks worn by revelers every year on Howler’s Day.

Only the wolves suffered from the prophecy in those years of calm. Reviled as the lowest of beastkind, they were cast out from every corner, forced always to wander. And yet, those who drove them away did not remember why they hated them. Only that everyone else did, and that was enough.

One could say this was how the prophecy began to fulfill itself, but those who would choose to forget their ancestors’ cruelty would say it began on a dark night in an isolated cottage where a young sow gave birth as her boar husband watched anxiously on.

Neither knew what evil crept outside their door nor the many days of torment that would soon follow for all beastkind.

Happy 31 Days Eve!

It's 31-Days-of-Halloween Eve! The fun starts tomorrow. Because I'm trying to juggle a schedule that includes two cartoons, a book, preparing to move a thousand miles away, and work, I'm going to make this one a little easier for myself. There will be sixteen illustrations alternating with sixteen audio episodes (the last one will be posted with its illustration the same day). Tomorrow's installment will be a "cover" illustration, and it will be up tomorrow night. First audio episode goes up on Tuesday! But tomorrow's when you'll find out the title and get to see a few of the characters.

There might be a chance for some audience participation before the very last episode, so make sure you follow along! Are you ready? I SAID! Are! You! Ready!

Okay, pep rally over. Time to get some sleep before the big month. Watch this space for more!

Once Upon A Time In The Pacific Northwest...

After ten years in Los Angeles, I'm leaving Hollyweird behind and moving on up to Portland, Oregon! I'll be hitting the road on December 1st. My mailing address will probably stay the same as it just forwards to wherever I am. Wish me luck! Or wish me something. Something nice, though. But not too nice. Can't lose my edge, you know. ;-)

New stuff and other stuff

The new Skary Shop is almost ready. It'll be opening some time in the next week. We're currently working out some kinks on that, but it'll be super nifty once it's up! Here's a glimpse: The new SkaryShop

The third and final installment of Death & Elsie will also be out soon, but I'm taking a break from that for a little while to go back to working on the next book. I promise you won't have to wait too long for D&E 3. I've just got some plate juggling to do. Not literally, though. I like my dishes too much to throw them around (they have octopuses on them!). Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, right. Busy! I am busy.

 

Let's talk about bullies.

I know this may come as a shock to most of you (a-hem), but I was a weird kid. I was awkward. I had funny hair and bad skin. I liked creepy things. All those "mean" teachers who seemed like they hated everyone? They loved me. Meanwhile, some of the really popular teachers were calling my parents to express concern over the stories I wrote (for which I can't actually blame them. Subtlety, like pimples, takes time to master). So, yes, I got my share of bullying. Every day. Everywhere. And the sad part is? There were kids who had a rougher time of it than me, but I didn't feel like I could stand up for them without making my own situation worse. It shouldn't be like that, but it still is. You can tell kids "It won't be like this forever" but it's impossible to see that far ahead when just getting through each day without being noticed is an impossible feat. Just when you think you've had a good day, some well-meaning Home Ec teacher gives you an award in front of the whole school for Best Improvement in Lemon Meringue, and it starts all over again.

That's why I've signed the Choose Kind pledge. We can all help to end bullying. If you're an adult, listen to kids when they talk to you. If you're a kid, be kind to your peers. Kindness will make you feel far better about yourself in the long run than teasing someone less fortunate than you now.

Anyway. Sermon over. Go sign the pledge. And don't stop at adding your name to a list. Be there for someone.

Choose Kind Pledge

P.S. Tip to other Weird Kids: your classmates probably don't have every Hitchcock movie memorized. I know, I know. I'm just saying, be patient with your peers.

Hold your mail!

I'm changing my PO Box! The old one is officially closed. I'll post my new address once that's all set up. So, if you were wanting to send me letters or books to sign, please hold onto them! My PO box mail will not forward! Stay tuned for the new address. More news:

  • As usual, whenever I release anything, I get a lot of questions about Boy. Boy is still in the works, though I've had to put it on hold for other projects. Death & Elsie is something to keep you all entertained for a while as I work on those other projects, which, at the moment, include another novel. But I'm reallyreallyreally going to try to put Boy out before 2012 is a distant memory! Cross my heart!
  • About that other novel: the one I'm currently working on is not a sequel to Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow, but I think it's something you'll all like if you liked Carousel. I can't say much about it right now, but I'll continue to make posts now and then about the process.
  • By the way, I get a lot of questions about an audiobook of Carousel. I'm not aware of any plans for an audiobook right now. The excerpts I posted were just a little something for the people who weren't able to attend the readings I did when the book first came out. If it ever does come up, however, I'll be sure to announce it. If my daydreams came true, Tim Jones would get to do the honors.
  • Death & Elsie Part 2 is called An Elephant's Memory and should, cross my fingers, be ready by this weekend. Part 3 will be out soon after.

E-Junkie Interview

I recently read somewhere that most of the people want to spend their old days enjoying the quietness of life, away from the city but Katy Towell the creator of the Childrin R Skary wants to be a scary old lady living in a house which would be famous among the neighbourhood kids for its spookiness. Strange! isn't it?

Read more from Katy Towell: Illustrator, Writer, And Designer Who Likes To Tell Skary Stories over at E-Junkie!