Illustration by Lisa LineaFriends I have never met are with me, camping at an old farm.
The longer we stay, the more it seems that something sinister is going on up at the old farmhouse; a grey stone, crumbling building lived in by an elderly woman in rags.
I investigate while she is sleeping upstairs, using a small brown dog to sniff out suspicious areas in the house. His senses lead him into small spaces where only he can fit. We fear the Woman is a witch of sorts, and is dismembering campers for some dark purpose.
When the dog smells blood, I do.
I head back to camp to tell the others about things, but they are nowhere to be found.
I hear clattering up at the farmhouse, as if I have unwittingly woken the Woman.
The dog has become my cat.
Urgency.
Cat & I must leave a.s.a.p.
After running for a long time,
Constantly checking she is ok,
Pulling her out of scrapes as she runs beside me,
I come to a different place.
It's very quiet.
Pine trees, blue-grey light.
Hazy, white winter forest at dusk.
Too still.
Unease.
Thick snow is falling.
Figures between the trees draw closer around me.
They are gentle and kindly; human shapes with animal heads.
Some are like deer, some woodland animals.
Tentatively walking around as deer might, serene but wary.
Suddenly, it dawns on me that these are the missing people from the farm, transformed by dark magic. Given the mentality and qualities of docile, skittish innocents, they are perfect victims for the Old Woman, as they don't put up much of a fight.
The place is a beautiful tomb.
Although the creatures don't seem to recollect their metamorphosis, enough fragments of memory seem to exist in them to make them furtive. I explain everything and set out to put things right, all the time feeling tracked and hunted.
Finding a chart on a wall somewhere, I realise I need to find a particular shaped hole in some ice in order to break us free of this place. Another clue to our escape is a list of names next to the diagram of the hole.
The animals gather around me, afraid.
A frantic chase ensues with the unseen enemy, across the landscape.
Eventually finding the correct ice-hole, I shatter the surface, and we dive in en force.
Change of scene, change of worlds.
In a stormy night sea alone.
A yellow fish trying to steal my crown.
I plunge in and out of the heavy waves to dodge it.
On the creaking wreckage of a ship now.
Shark circling fathomless water below.
She has a shark body and a human head, with blonde hair.
In a immense crash of waves and spray, she leaps through the bough onto the ship, with an unearthly, deafening scream.
Utter pain, anger and loss.
Thrashing and shrieking through a storm of her creation,
She is weeping the ocean from her eyes.
I investigate while she is sleeping upstairs, using a small brown dog to sniff out suspicious areas in the house. His senses lead him into small spaces where only he can fit. We fear the Woman is a witch of sorts, and is dismembering campers for some dark purpose.
When the dog smells blood, I do.
I head back to camp to tell the others about things, but they are nowhere to be found.
I hear clattering up at the farmhouse, as if I have unwittingly woken the Woman.
The dog has become my cat.
Urgency.
Cat & I must leave a.s.a.p.
After running for a long time,
Constantly checking she is ok,
Pulling her out of scrapes as she runs beside me,
I come to a different place.
It's very quiet.
Pine trees, blue-grey light.
Hazy, white winter forest at dusk.
Too still.
Unease.
Thick snow is falling.
Figures between the trees draw closer around me.
They are gentle and kindly; human shapes with animal heads.
Some are like deer, some woodland animals.
Tentatively walking around as deer might, serene but wary.
Suddenly, it dawns on me that these are the missing people from the farm, transformed by dark magic. Given the mentality and qualities of docile, skittish innocents, they are perfect victims for the Old Woman, as they don't put up much of a fight.
The place is a beautiful tomb.
Although the creatures don't seem to recollect their metamorphosis, enough fragments of memory seem to exist in them to make them furtive. I explain everything and set out to put things right, all the time feeling tracked and hunted.
Finding a chart on a wall somewhere, I realise I need to find a particular shaped hole in some ice in order to break us free of this place. Another clue to our escape is a list of names next to the diagram of the hole.
The animals gather around me, afraid.
A frantic chase ensues with the unseen enemy, across the landscape.
Eventually finding the correct ice-hole, I shatter the surface, and we dive in en force.
Change of scene, change of worlds.
In a stormy night sea alone.
A yellow fish trying to steal my crown.
I plunge in and out of the heavy waves to dodge it.
On the creaking wreckage of a ship now.
Shark circling fathomless water below.
She has a shark body and a human head, with blonde hair.
In a immense crash of waves and spray, she leaps through the bough onto the ship, with an unearthly, deafening scream.
Utter pain, anger and loss.
Thrashing and shrieking through a storm of her creation,
She is weeping the ocean from her eyes.
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