Content warnings for this episode include: Deadnaming, Abuse, Animal death (Shank as usual), Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Transphobia, Homophobia, Birds, Gun Mention, Strangulation/suffocation, Misgendering, Emotional Manipulation, Bugs, Body horror
Intro - Second Best
You have always been second best. Even from the early days. There was always another, more naturally skilled, more full of talent, more loved by the Director. How it would have stoked the embers of your spirit for you to be protege. Chosen and recognized for your hard work and talent. Instead there is only hunger, and it consumes all that it is given, and leaves you forever flickering on the edge of starvation. But in a way, it fueled you. Gave you the simmering rage that hones and draws your power to your cool surface. The library and the Director are long gone now, and you have had to rebuild from nothing only to find that you will never be a more beloved investigator or officer than Scout City’s darlings, and once again you walk unnoticed. But the difference is that now there is no one who can call thunderclouds to extinguish your flames, who can control the fires that you set spinning out of your heart and into existence, who can calm you with a Hello From the Hallowoods.
Theme.
Right now, I am looking up the winding road that leads towards the mountain formerly named Mount Rushmore. It is carved with the heads of three former presidents and one former king. Behind it there is a door hidden in the cliffside where humanity’s important historical records were supposed to be kept for future civilizations to understand. The door leads to an empty hallway and a dead end as the project was never finished, and neither for that matter was your history. The hall of records is inaccessible to the automobile that lies several twists of the road below. The theme of tonight’s episode is ignitions.
Story 1 - Humpty Dumptied
Ray had never been one to tire easily. It was one of the things that had made him so good at his job. His ability to drive all night, every night, or to grind out the endless hours that it took to become a celebrity ghost-hunting personality. The marketing and the phone calls and the late hours filming and the long waiting for anything to happen that would be remotely visible on camera and make for good television. And after he’d been run off the road, and his soul had been trapped within the prison of protection glyphs and binding symbols he’d polterproofed his automobile with, well, the need for sleep had gone. He didn’t run on coffee and gasoline anymore; it was his big endless soul, combusting in the engine, flickering in the dash lights, shining down the highway, and propelling him at a brisk seventy miles an hour every night for a couple birthdays short of a century.
But then he’d gotten sawed in half by a laser, and spent most of a year strung up over the streets of yesterday deep within the Spindle’s layer while it humpty dumptied him together again, nut, bolt and gasket. A year of listening to the Spindle talk about its tin soldier collections and spinning his flywheels and missing the sunlight, the moonlight, the road. But ever since he’d been set loose, well, it just wasn’t quite the same. Maybe it was that he could feel rust creeping in his shocks, or that there were metal shavings in his oil pan. There was a rattling when he started, a gut-wrenching clunk in his transmission when he moved from first to second gear. He felt tired, for the first time he could remember. And days like this didn’t help.
“I’m absolutely sure,” said Moth in a hushed voice, perched beside him on the roadside of crumbled asphalt halfway up the drive to Mount Rushmore. Their guest had wandered over to the other side of the highway, where he was more of a blip in Ray’s peripheral sense than anything. A blip that Ray was tracking acutely in case he drew closer, or took off unexpectedly. “It’s not a runaway or straggler from the king’s court that we’re carrying. It’s the King of America himself.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you Moth, you’d know better than I would,” Ray said, swiveling his front tires in place contemplatively. “I just don’t know what we do with that choice bit of identification. It’s not the first time we’ve transported a controversial celebrity.”
“Celebrity?” Moth whispered. “Ray, the issue is not that he’s well-known. It’s that he’s dangerous. He leads a gang of tyrants and thieves and they’ve been the hoity-toity kings of this country for years. Exploiting villages, protection rackets, picking fights. He’s the worst person by far that we’ve ever given a ride to. I feel ashamed we even picked him up.”
“Well now, we didn’t know that when we offered him a ride,” said Ray. Moth’s pulse was fast; moth’s footsteps erratic as moth paced beside him. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“What do we do now?” Moth said, crouching down beside his tire as if to hide from the gaze of the King entirely. Their guest seemed to stand politely on the far side of the road, observing the scenery and no doubt picking up most of their conversation despite the request for privacy. “We could ditch him.”
“I have never ditched anybody,” Ray buzzed, and his engine revved momentarily. “But hey, it’s solving itself. He’s leaving.”
Moth looked up, and Ray reversed, swinging back into the middle of the road. He thought he could hear the echo of engines from somewhere far away.
“Hey,” he called, amping up his volume. “Where you going, buddy?”
The King of America turned to face him; he could feel the shape of the angular man standing twenty feet down the highway. The King raised his hands in a shrug, although he was unsteady on his feet.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” called the King of America. “But my presence appears to be causing you some discomfort. I had best be going.”
“Going where?” said Moth, and then Moth was pacing towards him. Ray crept along at a similar pace, on the other side of the road. “It is miles back to Rapid City, or anywhere else really.”
The King paused. “It’s alright,” he said, although the words left him reluctantly. “I’m sure I will find the walk refreshing. Where I am going is none of your concern.”
“Frankly,” said Moth, continuing. Ray could detect vibrations now, in the asphalt beneath him. Someone was on their way. “I am not sure what we should do with you. Did you come here to kill us for picking up the people you throw away? Is that it? Are you summoning your gang to chase us down?”
“Rest assured, I had no idea the ghost car of America’s highways was still on the road,” said the King. “Neither did I care. Our meeting was an unhappy coincidence, nothing more. I shall count whatever grudge my court has against you as paid in exchange for the service you have shown me. You may be on your way, subjects. Farewell.”
“Something happened to you last night,” said Moth. “Did they finally turn against you? Have they had enough of you?”
“I’ve had enough of you,” said the King, and he turned back to face them, fists clenched. Ray crept forward a little more, positioning himself so that he could get between Moth and their guest if needed. The King continued. “You dare talk to me that way. I rule this country and everyone in it. I am immortal. I have lived for… lifetimes. And I will be as unchanged as the mountain behind you while you age and wither in your mortal bones. Be thankful that I am departing in grace rather than tearing both of you to pieces.”
The crackling thunder of engines poured up the road that led back down the mountain, and it was followed a moment later by its source: an assortment of motorcycles coasting up the highway towards their guest. A firearm went off—a musket perhaps?—that seemed to catch in the King’s shoulder, as the King cried out and was flipped off his feet onto the pavement where he writhed.
Ray did not hesitate, but lurched into motion, spinning his tires and swinging open a door for Moth, who leapt in as he swerved past.
“Who do we got?” he said.
“The Count’s men,” said Moth, sliding over to the driver’s side. “Bikers, probably twelve, with guns. I don’t think they’re after you. If you’re thinking about driving away, now's the time.”
“Moth, buckle up,” said Ray.
“What are you doing?” Moth said, but Ray had no time to answer; as soon as he felt the click of the seat buckle, he spun into motion. The King of America lay prone on the road, and a bike broke free from the pack, rushing towards him with a long silver lance whistling in the air. Ray’s tires squealed across the pavement as he did most of a donut, and swung his back end into the motorcycle with a crunch that sent it skidding off sideways into a metal guard rail and then, wreck and rider, into the trees beyond.
“Ray!” Moth said. Ray backed up at an angle to put himself between the group of motorcycles and the King of America, and he popped open his passenger door discreetly as someone from the group of bikes called across the road.
“You can’t run,” said a gaunt man in a dark helmet. “Turn him over and no one else needs to get hurt. He’s not a king anymore. America will have a new one, and we owe him a debt of vengeance.”
“Unfortunately I’ve offered him a lift,” Ray echoed. “And that means he’s under my care. Now here’s the deal. Rock beats scissors. Fender beats bike. I may be old but I can still run you off the road. Buzz off.”
There was a crack of powder, and Ray felt a dent impact his side. Another and his driver’s side window splintered as Moth shrieked and ducked down. A barrage of bullets stung his metal, ripped through his soft top, shattered his headlights, until he smoked and fumed and a haze separated them. He sighed, and flexed. As long as the runes went undisturbed, he was stuck within the metal, and god was it a beaut. He popped back the dents in his side, clenched and sealed the fibers of the top, pulled shattered glass up into shape and felt it bleed together.
And then he tilted to face them, and revved his engine, flashed his perfectly intact lights. They stared in disbelief, and then, eventually, in fear. Ray revved forward suddenly, and bikes scrambled to get free, but he went zero to sixty before they had even flipped up their kickstands. He clipped four as he passed, sending riders and double-wheeled doohickeys skidding across the ground in showers of sparks, and the leader of the riders leapt free of his bike moments before it went under Ray’s tires with a satisfying twist and crumple, and then Ray was flying down the mountainside, the hunters staring after him as he accelerated.
“I should ask you again, bub,” said Ray. “Where were you bound?”
“Wherever you’re going,” breathed the King of America, slumped low in the passenger seat, trembling. “Wherever you’re going is good.”
Interlude 1 - Fire Warning
Attention residents of the Scout City municipal area. The Scout City Sheriff’s Department has issued a no burn order. Due to unseasonably hot and dry weather, it has been determined that the danger of runaway fire is high, and no risks can be taken that might endanger the city, or even worse, aggravate the forest. Please avoid creating campfires outside, leaving barbecues unattended, dropping lit cigarette butts, or burning bodies on pyres in the forest. Please also take caution in the event that you need to burn down the house where a past version of you lived, who was unhappy and alone, where all of the bad things in your life ever happened to you. Think before catharsis when the fire danger dial is on the red. And remember: if ever the forest burns, the giant guardian bears that live in the Northmost Woods will hold you personally responsible.
We go now to one who is prepared to light a match.
Story 2 - Move, Dead Girl
Riot remembered a movie. It came to her rather suddenly, as often did small pieces of her past lives. The movie had a line of young men with slicked-back black hair and black leather jackets snapping their fingers and singing, which somehow reminded her of Scout City Deputy Ignatius Thorpe as he snapped his fingers and set a whirlwind of fire into motion on either end of the street where they stood. She wished she’d remembered something useful, like what was going through her head when she’d swung a spiked bat into the Instrumentalist’s face. But instead she stood in the middle of a road in the Stumps neighborhood of Scout City, with wrath and plague themselves trying to arrest her friends—the stitched-together friend who’d come back from the end of the world, and the one-armed detective who she was told she had once loved unshakably deeply and now she could barely understand, and a giant murderous bloodsoaked pigman who Shelby was convinced was somehow innocent. But then again, two lives lived in the Hallowoods had taught her that creatures that tore flesh with scissor fingertips, ghosts and toothy giants, witches that burned with electric light, talking automobiles and girls who could dive through dream could become your lifelong friends. That monsters were not always what they seemed. And so she would stand to their defense as she had before, and before. Riot gripped her broom handle tighter, although it lacked the proper heft and spike of a bat, and pointed it at Ignatius.
“Hey,” she shouted. “This is between me and you.”
“No it isn’t,” said Shelby.
“This is between me and the pig,” Ignatius returned. His fingertips glowed with light, and orange light rippled in his hair like wind through drybrush, and shined like ember points in his eyes. He glared at Riot. “Though every single one of you is under arrest.”
Shank had come to stop a few paces behind her; looking over she could see that he had frozen at the appearance of the floating bonfires that hovered at Ignatius’ command. Shelby was poised behind Shank, face unreadable. Riot looked back to Ignatius; behind him Diggory was still in the alley, facing off against Deputy Oswin, whose skin was shrouded in white gloves and a silk shroud.
“Wait,” a voice called, and Riot looked up to find two people barrelling past Ignatius’ flaming marker; breaking past the small crowd of spectators. She recognized the lanky shape of Russell in his coveralls, and the stout one of Arnold hustling beside him, eyes wide and glassy in the light of the fires.
“Back away, boy scouts,” said Ignatius. “This is not your jurisdiction.”
“The Scout City Groundskeepers have a sworn oath to work with, understand, and mitigate the damage of supernatural creatures in Scout City and its surrounding regions,” squeaked Arnold.
“Very good,” said Russell, and nodded to Riot, although he raised an eyebrow at her stick. He and Arnold both carried silver-edged shovels.
And then there was a gunshot, deafening, that silenced the crowd, and she looked up to see Jacob Wicker standing amongst the parting civilians that were gathered beyond the flame, with only a brother and a sister behind. She searched for where he had fired, and found it in Shank; a fist-sized black ooze had opened up where the bullet had sunken into his chest. Shank rolled his head around as if to crack his neck.
“That’s for my brother,” shouted Jacob, and reloaded, and fired again despite Ignatius’ shouting. This time, half of Shank’s face came off with a bright flash of flesh. The gigantic beast sank to one knee, touching his jaw as if nursing a razor cut—except half of his piglike snout and cheek had been shorn away by the bullet’s impact, and beneath it was a writhing black mass that she could not easily identify, except for the row of human teeth and jawbone glinting within like uncovered treasure.
“Put the guns down, Wicker,” Ignatius screamed, and flexed his hands. The twin bonfires hovering in the air fanned out into long torrents, and travelled with the direction of his gesture to push back at the Scout City residents that lined the streets, until he had formed a torrent of fire that walled off both directions of the streetside, trapping Riot, Shelby, Shank, and the Groundskeepers within.
“Shelby,” said Riot, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of the flame, and before she realized that she had done it she had laid a hand on Shelby’s shoulder, and squeezed tightly. “What are we doing?”
“The alley behind the deputies connects to a dozen other exits,” Shelby whispered back. Whether the touch was okay or not, she gave no indication. “If we can get Shank out then he can escape into the woods.”
“Ain’t gonna take it no more,” muttered Shank. “Can’t push me around. Ain’t time for that no more.”
“Are you sure he deserves it?” Riot said. “What if they’re right? What if he’s a monster?”
“It’s like Heather used to say,” Ignatius said, stepping towards them, eyes burning, hands lighting two torrents of flame on either side. “We should never have started taking monsters into this city. Freaks of nature.”
Riot looked to him, brandishing her broomhandle, but was surprised to find his gaze trained on her as much as on Shank. He was stepping closer, and Shank still stood petrified.
“Dead things are supposed to stay in the ground,” he said.
Oh, Riot thought, and felt conscious of the stitches that ran across her nose, her cheeks, trailed down her neck, lined her collarbones. She was too stunned to speak, for a moment, and the broom handle was limp in her hands. Was that how Scout City saw her? Like one of them, like Diggory and Percy, the ones who had always been dead? Well, not always, she thought again. Just since she had come to know them. She supposed it was easy to become a monster. It was easier than she thought. She had barely noticed.
In some way, a burden was lifted, a burden of trying hard to decide what to do, how much to push the limits, how much was too much to protect the pigman from persecution. His fight was her fight, and if they lost, they lost together. Ignatius had gotten close enough to stand face to face with her now, and she was all that stood between him and Shank, who stood dripping fluids from his broken jaw.
“Move, dead girl,” Ignatius growled, and an inferno blazed in his orange eyes. Riot had seen eyes like that before, once. Had stared into their hypnotic depths.
“Oh fuck you,” she said, and connected his jaw with her broom handle.
Marketing - Takeover
Lady Ethel Mallory
Sad. Really sad. Don’t you think, dreaming family? That I am out here, every day, campaigning for your rights, your interests, and Oswald sits in his little box and can’t think of one thing to say. What a shame. But this is the kind of cowardice that made him hire me instead of speaking for his company himself. Where is he now to defend all these terrible decisions he’s made? He’s too ashamed to return my broadcasts. It’s because he knows I’m right. At midnight eastern time, I’m going to change another Dreaming Box to my upgraded Prime Dream. Which one will it be? I suppose it’s a complete surprise. But if your box wasn’t chosen, don’t worry. I’ll do another the night after, and the night after, and the night after that, until this entire corporation shines.
Story 2, Continued - Move, Dead Girl
I need to speak to Danielle about getting rid of her again. That is, if Danielle would forgive me for my long absence. That is the difficulty with making human friends. If Xyzikxyz and I speak every million years, I count our communication as constant. Miss mere moments of a human’s lifetime and they are halfway gone.
We return now to Riot Maidstone.
Ignatius had not been expecting the broom handle to the face, and when he doubled over, the long scythes of flame that he had been dragging through the air scattered and found homes in nearby rooftops and the canopy of Mr. Nicecream; the wooden mascot took light immediately. The street darkened as the greatest source of illumination was temporarily quelled, and Ignatius straightened up just in time to receive a massive arm lunging past Riot for his throat. Shank’s clown-gloved hand clamped like a vice around Ignatius’ neck and lifted the deputy fully free of the ground. Ignatius blazed to light again, and alternated between pulling at Shank’s massive hand with both of his and firing gusts of spiraling flame at Shank’s head. Riot smelled crisping fat, could see charred black spread out across Shank’s skin wherever the fire lingered, but if Shank was paralyzed with fear, this time it was with Ignatius’ neck in his hand, and then Ignatius’ flame was turning a dull white as his hair and eyes flickered.
“Peace be upon you all,” said Oswin, and the crowd began to scatter as the second deputy lifted their white veil. The skin that Riot could see beneath was iridescent black, oil-slick shines of purple and green in the firelight, and immediately she doubled over, retching, not because of any sight or smell she could detect. She was not alone; Russell and Arnold were similarly compelled until they pulled scarves tied around their necks up over their mouths and noses; Shelby ducked away from Shank and coughed furiously into her coat sleeve. Neither Diggory or Shank seemed to flinch, to which Oswin seemed to respond by pressing metallic green lips together and blowing, and a stream of tiny emerald particles filled the air; she could see them twirling, pirouetting, growing tiny strands of filament.
“Diggory, take them down,” Riot called, although she did not know exactly what she was looking at. Diggory gave her a regretful look that she had rarely seen from the revenant, and then said “Oswin, I am sorry. You seem quite pleasant, but if you will not stop bothering my friends I will be forced to deal with you.”
Oswin turned to them; meanwhile Riot could see the little green spores they had filled the air with, which had descended onto Shank’s skin like fireflies and attached themselves to the pig head and the exposed black tendons beneath, and then seemed to latch on and begin to drill into the flesh on a nearly microscopic scale.
“Careful Diggory,” Riot called, and Shelby went up to punch Shank in the side.
“Shank, drop him,” Shelby said.
“Not looking so hot now, are ya?” said Shank, leering up at the suffocating deputy. Almost every spark of light was gone from Ignatius.
“Shank,” Shelby repeated.
“It’s your lucky day,” said Shank, and then threw him across the block, where Ignatius went through the second story windows of a stump house; there was screaming from within.
“The alley,” said Shelby. “Move it.”
“This is not what I signed up for,” Arnold screamed, carrying his shovel past Riot; with the walls of Ignatius’ flame gone, there were dozens of people watching them in the street. Families, yellow Scoutpost jackets riddled with badges of their achievements, their monument to survival. Riot grit her teeth. She could see it in their eyes; she had finally crossed the line. She wasn’t one of them anymore, and now she was just part of the spectacle, the terror that haunted their streets. Russell pushed her forward, and she began to move after Shelby and Shank as the pigman hobbled forward across the street. On the far side, Diggory flexed their knifelike black fingertips, and stepped towards Oswin. Oswin took a step back.
“I think you all need a little tranquility,” said Oswin. “I’m sorry this night turned out to be unpleasant.”
As they spoke, they removed a long silk glove; their hand beneath was bare tendon, mottled green and black strands wrapped around skeletal fingertips.
“You have beautiful hands,” frowned Diggory, flicking their fingers uncertainly. “Are you sure that I must move you by force?”
“Nothing moves me,” said Oswin, and reached out for Diggory’s chest. There was a thud, then, as a thick black crossbow bolt came to rest in Oswin’s shoulder, and Riot looked over to find that Shelby had fired her crossbow after all. Something seemed to pour from where the bolt had stuck and spill across Oswin’s deputy jacket, then, crawling in all directions, as though they had been a balloon full of spiders. Riot’s vision dropped, and she felt her body connect in a dull way with the pavement, and fully lost consciousness as something powerfully wretched overcame her. When she gained a blurred sense of her surroundings again, she was aware that she was being carried over Diggory’s shoulder, and Shelby was trudging behind her.
“What happened,” she said. Alleyway passed her on both sides; the smell and sound of wet stomping told her that Shank was treading ahead of them. She looked down to find that Shelby’s bone saw was splattered with black and green.
“Oswin is pure poison,” Shelby grunted. “And Ignatius knows how to knit his bones back together. They’ll be after us any minute. We’re at war now, you understand? Scout City is at war. With us, with itself. This is going to be rough.”
And Riot realized, as Diggory hauled her out through the stifling darkness of the alley and into a side street, that there was a plume of smoke reaching out of the Stumps as tall as the great tree of Scout City itself, and an orange light that shrouded the night sky with its glow.
Interlude 2 - Which Came First?
I am not to this day sure if the Orchard was formed so that gods could be born there, or if gods are born in one strange place and that is why they began an Orchard there. I will have to ask Syrensyr, when I have a chance to speak with him. Indescribable life comes to exist in all sorts of forms, of course. Vast categories that would take as long to classify as it would to describe the beings that exist in them, which is of course impossible. Or at least, impossible in any way that you could understand. If you were to try and know me, dreamer, not just the fragment that I present to you as a timely narrator, you would have to… It would be like… I do not know even where to begin. It might be like listening to everything I have ever said to you, and ever will say. The structure of each word is my genetic sequence. Your emotions changed by them are my identifying facets. I am when you listen, and somewhere between my words and your imagination, filling the dark expanse of your dream with light and color, would be a single one of my countless, countless eyes.
You are a more simple creation, with your toes and fingers and baby teeth. Pineal gland, the veins over the back of your hand, that hair that grows in a weird place. Oh to be so easy to understand.
We go now to one who has left his body behind.
Story 3 - Holy Fire
“Maybe we can lift him,” said Percy, burning with inner frustration. The haunting tones of the pipe organ echoed out from the old chapel of the Church of the Hallowed name and played a hymn that echoed throughout the forest. “My dad used to have his horde of ghosts do that, carry him around.”
“Like how?” said Ratty. “Each grab an arm and hope he doesn’t fall apart?”
“I do not require any lifting,” Vincent gasped, pulling himself up over the edge of the bark, but then he simply lay on his back at the top. “I am… I am…”
“This isn’t working,” said Ratty, drawing her head closer to Percy. She shone with such a beautiful flicker of light, even in the deep dark of this awful place. “We’re going to have to do something else. They’re faster than us. And they’re coming.”
“We’re going to have to fight,” said Percy, looking back up to the forest; there was neither glow nor masked figures yet, but he knew that they were coming.
“Hell yeah,” said Ratty, tilting her head, and she studied him with her big black eyes. “Time to totally go sicko mode.”
“We can’t both do it,” said Percy, straightening up in the air. Vincent had rolled onto his side and was beginning to descend the other side of the massive hill of bark that formed a single root among hundreds of roots for thousands of trees. “They can’t hurt you and I, not like they can hurt him. And they will. We’re not going to outrun them. So I’m going to buy us some time. Can you get Vincent home, please?”
Ratty pressed her shape into his, and made herself firm enough that he could feel her lips intersect with his, the flick of her forked tongue, and then her static receded from his, and she grinned.
“Don’t kill yourself trying,” she said. “Go show them who they’re dealing with.”
Percy nodded, and floated past her, lit himself into a bright white blaze. Vincent nodded to him as he passed overhead, and then slipped into the darkness, Ratty leading him on through the forest floor as a trace of light. And then Percy was alone, a beacon shining bright over the underbrush.
“Hello,” he called. “You want me? Come and get me, assholes. You think your secrets are safe? You think you can hide? When Scout City learns what you’re doing they’ll disown you forever.”
“When Scout City learns what we’re doing, they’ll thank us,” said a voice, and Percy watched a robed figure step into view between two massive trees; the mask was of a shattered fiddle. “Your secrets aren’t safe either, Percy.”
“You had the privilege of being raised by the Instrumentalist himself,” said a second voice; the piano-key mask he hated the most, and it leered from a tree branch higher up. He wondered how long they’d been perched up there, watching. “But you weren’t thankful at all. Do you think he would have loved us more, if we were his children?”
“You people have no idea who he even was,” Percy said loudly, looking around for the others. “How dare you try and honor him, make him into some kind of hero. How dare you pretend like you understand anything that he stood for.”
“Your father knew what this world was becoming,” said the brass mask, suddenly present in a third direction, standing on a root archway. “Did you even listen to what he said? He tried to do what was best for you and you killed him for it. You robbed us of his greatness. Oh, we have had long conversations about what deserves to happen to you, Persephone.”
A fourth figure had appeared, a drum stretched over a frame that concealed the face, saying nothing. But over the figure of the drum, there were other spirits—faces that Percy did not recognize, arms and bodies twisting through the trees. There was the phantom of a bearded man with a burning head, a tall old man who was pierced through with wires, four twisted bodies like cherubim contorted in broken directions, a boy his age who had stigmata of cello strings. All seven were tied to a far-off instrument, and circled him as much as the Quartet did, curling and dancing to the command of the Fifth String, who Percy knew was the only one left to be playing the dread organ. Percy closed his eyes, and breathed out.
Fire was precious.
His soul was precious.
And he was going to burn so much of it tonight.
Suddenly the world was white, and he was the sun, blazing bright at its center, casting the clearing in daylight. His heat was scorching, and desiccated leaves and ivies of the underbrush dissolved into electric static and then to flame, and he screamed as he lashed out to greet the array of silver-edged daggers and agonized spirits that flew to meet him.
Outro - Ignitions
Ignitions. If you dwell in the dark, dreamer, and pray for a light, there is the hope that there is a god who listens, and that the fire and dawn shall come in their time. But not all gods who listen can do such a thing. For instance I am only eyes, and have no tangible physical form at all. A prayer directed to me in the temple of dream in Distant Kazanth is like no prayer at all. In failing this, then, you may wait for someone else to strike the match and stoke the flame of hope. You might be waiting a long time, dreamer, for someone braver than yourself. It may be you that holds the match. It may be you that need light the first spark. With a single candleflame, you might gather others who have been similarly waiting, holding tinder and gas. It does not take much to start a revolution, but it does take someone to start. Until the universe is reignited, I am your loyal host Nikignik, waiting inflammably for your return to the Hallowoods.
The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Front Door' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamers, if it does not start in cold weather, hold the key for ten seconds on and ten seconds off. Then try again. Some houses refuse to wake and rise when the weather is chilly, on account of their many stiltlike legs being thin and sensitive to temperature. Most would prefer to work their legs into the ground and nestle, dormant, until the weather warms in spring.
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