HFTH - Episode 187 - Ashes

Content warnings for this episode include: Child Abuse (beating), Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Transphobia, Homophobia, Gun Mention, Emotional Manipulation, Body horror, Religious Violence, Child Sacrifice (mention), Puppets

Intro - Guardian Angel

When you were young, you met an angel, and it shielded you from harm. And ever since as you have walked through all the troubles of your life, you have wondered—is it still watching over me? Where was it every time your mother drew her rod to discipline you? Where was it when you were brought through dark and deadly doors? Where was it when a knife was raised that would have opened up your world, and the blood of a vicar was fed to a black altar?

Angels are as unreliable as devils, you have come to decide, and perhaps it is best that they do not walk alongside you, for they might be frightened of what they see. The real world is not prismatic or beautiful; it is hideous, and burns with the flames of its reckoning, and trees as they are rendered into embers scream Hello From The Hallowoods.

Theme.

Right now, I hover in the flame-filled night. Much violence has happened this night already, and there is still more to happen before the dawn. This house in the Stumps neighborhood of Scout City is comprised of one gigantic tree stump, upturned roots forming a roof that stretches over seventy feet, the gaps filled in with woven branches. Designed to house a large family, it now is home to only one occupant, who scrapes in the dust for anything to hold onto. The theme of tonight’s episode is Ashes.

Story 1 - Deceiving Angels

Jedediah Wicker braced himself. The fire and blood he had already been through that night was tolerable in comparison to what he had to confront next, the latest in his neverending string of tribulations, the angel of revelation that loomed over his end of days.

He pushed open the door.

“Ma?” he called, and peered into the darkness of the Wicker den. The orange glow that filled Scout City’s skies shone through the windows of the cavernous open space. Most of the Wicker children had flown from the nest, leaving only the old mother bird to peck around in it by herself.

“Jed?” his mother crowed, and turned from one of the far windows. Her cold eyes were wide, and her bony hands clasped together. “What’s going on out there? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” said Jed, holding his side as he limped in; he did not bother wiping his heavy black boots on the mat. He sank into a chair by the long dining table. “Just pulled something… helping with the fire. There’s a fire, in the Stumps. They’re evacuating this neighborhood. Get a bag, quickly, and let’s go.”

“I don’t… Jed. Where are your brothers and sisters?” said his mother. He did not roll his eyes on the surface but he felt it. It was either going to be viciousness or confusion in the face of a crisis, and she’d chosen confusion.

“Well Joshua is dead,” said Jedediah, which sent a cold shock through his mother. “Everyone else is out hunting the one who did it. The pig-man caused the fire. Jacob’s taking the lead, and the rest have split into groups to track him down. Don’t worry, we’re going to get him before the night’s out, I bet. Now would you get your things please.”

“Jed…” she said again, but then glanced to the orange sky and gulped, and nodded. “Alright.”

If the fire had been any closer, she would have burned to death with the amount of time she spent worrying over this and that—which heirlooms to take, where had her glasses gone, how long would she be gone. It took the better part of an hour of infuriating pushing before she finally had a bag packed,and even as he dragged her out of the door she was still looking back.

“I swear, if this was Sodom and Gomorrah, you’d be salt,” he said.

“Well, it’s not far off,” she mumbled, shaking his hand away from the strap of her bag. “Jed, I think I forgot my scarf…”

“Ma, we’re not going back,” he said, stomping slowly to avoid running away without her, as much as he wanted to. The long dusty streets of the Stumps were lined with folks in similar predicaments, coming out of their doors, loading wagons, hefting bags and children, turning their backs on the fire and making their way for the dark safety of Scout City’s roots.

He hated to see Scout City in this shape—it had been his home, after all, for the better part of his life, and miles better than the hole in the mud his mother had raised him in. It was just going to take some work to make sure it stayed a good place to build a life—but that would have to wait a little, until he had dragged his mother through the crowds, increasingly dense, that flooded through Scout City’s titanic gates into the root district. They shuffled one step at a time toward the great arch of the roots that led into the basement caverns of the city. And although the world was loud with screaming children and shouting parents, it was not loud enough to drown out his mother’s voice.

“I think they should come with me,” she said, her gnarled hand squeezing his too tight. He moved to hold her wrist instead. “I don’t want to lose any more sons, Jed. What if the pig-man kills another…”

“Oh now you care about losing sons?” he said. “Good on you for growing.”

“Jed, you act like I let the church sacrifice you,” she said, twisting her wrist out of his grasp and stopping in the road. The crowd bumped past them on both sides. “I didn’t. I didn’t do it. Why are you so cruel to me?”

He turned around, and the breath in his chest was bottled and furious. Corked up arsenic. He couldn’t let himself explode, though, not with the crowd here.

“Jacob was the one that shot the friar,” he hissed. “The gun was in his hand. You’re like this every time something goes wrong, you freeze and cry and roll in self-pity until it’s too late to actually do anything.”

Her hand was half raised, trembled. Eyes misty and pitiful.

“What?” he said. “Are you going to hit me? Just like old times.”

“Jed, I haven’t struck any of you for years,” she said, laying the hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. “I know I made mistakes raising you. I have repented to the lord. I have repented to you and each of your siblings over and over again. What else do I have to do? I’ve changed since then…”

“You haven’t changed at all,” he grimaced. “You never will. I guess in your big book of fairytales, you say sorry and everything is fucking perfect. But, repentance doesn’t work that way. In the real world, it has to be earned.”

She looked up at him a long moment, as the crowd streamed past them through the archway of twisted wood that led down to Lurch Lake.

“I can go the rest of the way on my own,” she said. “So you don’t have to bother. Go find your brothers and sisters. Tell them to stay safe. Please. More than anything. Revenge on the pig-man, revenge for Joshua’s life, is worth nothing if I don’t have you. You’re all I’ve ever cared about.”

“Just go straight,” said Jed, pointing. “Stay there where the people are gathering, until they announce it’s safe to go home.”

He waited until there was some remote gleam of comprehension in her eyes, and then turned.

“I love you, Jed!” she called over the crowd. He did not answer; he was thinking of hell, where she would probably spend her eternity, and heaven, which was filled with crystalline light. High up and far away and out of reach. Salvation was a process, he thought, and Scout City was working its out with fear and trembling.

When he found Jacob again, it was on a high ledge rooftop overlooking the blaze in the distance; any Scout City resident that had willing hands were forming chains to pass water along. It felt a waste to see it go to preserving the houses of the Stumps, and even then it did not seem to be doing much as the flame flickered and crept through one city block after the next. Jacob was standing vigil over the blaze, with Jemimah and Jessica in their matching camo jackets and buzz cuts. Jemimah had ten years on Jessica, and yet Jessica was the more frightening with a rifle. All three held guns in their arms.

“Ma’s safe,” said Jed. “As safe as she’ll ever be in Scout City anyway. Where are the others?”

“They’re combing the neighborhoods on the left and right,” said Jacob, and he lifted his hand to point towards the edge of the Stumps. “But I have a feeling that’s where he’s bound. I think he’s going to make his way out, and north. That way.”

“Back towards the logfall,” Jedediah said.

“Right,” Jacob said, and extended an object towards Jed; it was a pistol, black handle glinting in the firelight. He seemed to study Jed as if evaluating whether he’d finally earned his respect. “So? You coming?”

I can’t lose another son, she’d said.

“I’ll just get in your way,” said Jed, and put his palm on Jacob’s hand and the pistol handle alike, pushed it back. “You go make him pay. Try not to get hurt.”

“Suit yourself,” Jacob smiled grimly, punching Jed in the shoulder. Elder brothers, like mothers, saw weakness long after it had left. “Get somewhere safe, alright?”

Jacob and the other Wicker siblings passed on either side of him as they made their way down the ledge towards Shank’s exit path, and Jedediah lingered a little, watching the flames. He fancied that he saw angels there. Angels could be deceivers, too, hiding destruction behind beautiful faces, offering heights no mortal could attain. No, tonight, no one was safe.

Interlude 1 - Emergency Gathering Point

The Lurch Lake Chamber of Prophecy serves as an immediate emergency gathering location for the nearby neighborhoods of the Stumps—keeping in mind that fire attracts large nocturnal carnivores, and thus open forest is rarely as safe an environment for humankind as it is for the other creatures that now dwell there. The cavern formed where Scout City has grown over this lake is some sixty feet high, and over a thousand feet wide, and on its shores Scout City residents are welcome to gather and wait while the Scout City Volunteer Fire Department attends to the fire in the Stumps.

The lake is gradually depleting as, since it is one of the only bodies of water left within a five mile radius of Scout City thanks to the recent heat wave, by mayoral decree its hallowed waters are being used to combat the blaze. But it is not a short distance that the water must travel, and the fire is moving quickly through the dry bark of Scout City’s outskirts. We go now to a mayor in distress.

Story 2 - Clouded Truths

“I need to go see her,” Valerie reiterated. Her security consisted of two combat scouts, Roger and Keiran, who had been handpicked by Virgil himself. And yet they would not budge from her front door.

“Ma’am—mayor—ma’am—I’m sorry, but it’s not safe. It would be a gross nerilection of our duties to allow you to leave,” said Roger.

“Derilection,” said Keiran. “Or neglection. Either but not both. But it would be both in this case. It seems likely they have gone after the McGowans in order to draw you out of this highly fortified and secure location, miss mayor—ma’am.”

“Tara and I have known each other for years,” said Valerie, standing with her arms crossed, looking up to Roger and down at Keiran. “What am I supposed to do, not be there? I am the mayor. If I don’t show up for the death of my friend’s daughter—who is also a Scout City deputy—what am I even doing here?”

“If I may, miss mayor—ma’am—you’re staying safe from the Instrumentalist killers,” said Roger.

“Who would probably rather there was no mayor at all,” added Keiran.

The three stood silent in front of her front doors a moment, until Keiran sighed.

“Ah, although,” he said. “If you would like to write a letter, I could deliver that.”

“A letter,” Valerie sighed, defeated.

“Perhaps it would even be easier for Mrs. McGowan,” offered Roger. “I’m sure she’s not feeling like seeing a lot of visitors right now.”

“And then you still remain safe,” added Keiran.

“Although you’ll be at half your normal level of security for half an hour or so,” mused Roger.

“You’re at least two thirds. Look at you,” said Keiran, and then looked back to Valerie. “I’ll deliver it whenever you’re ready.”

“Alright,” Valerie said, and tears filled her eyes as she turned away from the bags and went for the stairs to her study. The expansive windows of her office looked out over the higher boughs, and she could see hundreds of feet down to the cloud of orange light that drifted up from the Stump. Messengers had been coming to the house all night, missives carefully relayed through Roger and Keiran—she’d made the decision to empty water from Lurch Lake, which was not going to do her any favors when it came time for re-election, but it was the only reservoir that remained accessible in these sweltering times.

Death and flame followed her this year. Followed her through the street. Took her children, her friends, her friends’ children. If I’d known this was what being mayor meant, I never would have run, she thought, and ignored her city burning to ash outside while she fished for a sheet of pressed paper and a pen, popped off the lid, and sat at her desk by the window. She glanced at the open letter from Clementine—what remained of the box of files she’d been given had been turned over to the Scout City deputy’s office, but that she had kept. She ignored it as she wrote a letter of her own.

“Dear Tara,” she wrote. “Sorry about your daughter. When I lost my daughter for the first time I…”

She crumpled that one up and tried again.

“Dear Tara, I just heard the news about Heather. Please come to visit if you need someone to talk to; I am so sorry for your loss and we will do whatever it takes to avenge her. I can’t imagine what you’re going through but I am always here. Love, Valerie.”

She stared at it for a moment. The truth was she could imagine what it felt like, and she had lived in a state of grief for at least one of her daughters for a decade and a half. And there was a lie at the end, that she was always there, because it was only a letter instead of her attending the Scout City infirmary herself. But nevertheless, she tucked it into an envelope, and sealed it with the great tree seal of Scout City, and then hurried back downstairs.

“Alright,” she called as she stepped down, “I think it’s…”

She trailed off as she came into view of her hallway and front door; the door was open, and neither of her bodyguards were visible.

“Roger?” she called from the stairs. “Keiran?”

There was no response, and she tucked the letter into her vest, and crept down a few more steps. There was a rustle and a thump from further down the hall behind her, in the first floor meeting room or parlor perhaps.

She said nothing more, but skirted down the rest of the stairs, double-checking that she could not see anyone yet, and then pressed her front door shut and locked it, and drew an object from her umbrella stand—a dented aluminum bat. It had reminded her of a wooden one Riot had made off with when she departed the bunker, minus some spiky hardware. Valerie crept down the hall, bat in hand, and caught a glimpse of a tall figure in dark clothing in the doorway of the meeting chamber. She went lunging out towards them, bat swinging with a scream.

Her bat froze in the air; it was caught, she found, by a hand of five long black knives, and several faces she recognized torn apart and sewn onto a single skull. A single pale eye peered back at her from the darkness.

“Good evening Valerie,” said Diggory Graves. “I hope this is not a bad time to drop in.”

Marketing - Queen of America

Lady Ethel Mallory

Greetings, dreamers of America’s wilderness. It has been almost fifteen years since I opened up this channel so wide, speaking directly into the dreams of the entire nation. Unless you’ve been picking up stray signals, you likely don’t know that I, Lady Ethel Mallory, have been all but ushered in as the new C.E.O of the Botulus Corporation. You might blame this company for ruining your nation, for ruining your life. For most of you, I’m sure that’s a fair belief. I am busy now undoing the vast damage that the Botulus Corporation has done to our country. But I am not reaching into your dreams to advertise the Botulus Corporation. I’m here to talk about you. Like you, I have spent the last few years living outside, in the real world. Believe it or not, Lady Ethel Mallory is a survivor of the Black Rains just like you. And it is becoming increasingly clear, what with the collapse of a recent empire of extortion, that you need someone to be your champion. Someone who understands your plight, who will advocate for your needs and a better future for all Americans. I am that woman. I am Lady Ethel Mallory, and I’m asking you to support me as I nominate myself as your next Queen of America.

Story 2, Continued - Clouded Truths

Isn’t being queen of the depressingly self-important sexegenarian marketing professional burnout club enough?

We return now to Valerie Maidstone.

“What have you done to them?” Valerie said, looking past Diggory; Roger and Keiran were both propped up limply in chairs in the darkened meeting chamber.

“I have given them some pleasant dreams, I think,” said Diggory, looking back to her security guards. Their eyes were dark and open, and reflections of green starlight turned within them. “Or at least, I would find them pleasant. They will wake soon—they did not wish me to visit you but I thought it was urgent.”

“I… see,” said Valerie, choking down this information. “Diggory, they are here to protect me. From the Instrumentalist killers. Why are you here?”

She watched the movements of Diggory’s sharp fingers with a hint of nervousness. Her relationship with the revenant had always been complicated, and all the more so by fifteen years of disappearance without coming to tell her what had become of her daughter. A person could change a lot in fifteen years. And their reappearance had been the very same month as the wave of new Instrumentalist killings.

“The Quartet. Valerie, we need your help,” said Diggory, retreating into the meeting room to stand by the table. Their jacket was embroidered with red thread patterns of Evelyn’s tattoos; their lips had once spoken for Riz, the knuckles of a hand reminded her of Chance. One eye was out now, and it only further reminded her of who and what Diggory was—a corpse sewn up of all her dead friends, given the chance to stalk along on its legs again. One who had helped Riot cross a country to save her, yes. One who had later taken her into the north and returned alone.

“I’m listening, Diggory,” she said. “Is Clem… is Riot, safe? What’s wrong?”

Diggory held up a long-clawed hand.

“Tonight, no one is safe,” they said. “I do not know how much you have followed the Scout City Almanac. But it is… twisting the truth. Shelby and Shank are not responsible for the killings in Scout City. They have been hunting down the actual killers—the Quartet. The Quartet want Scout City afraid. They have been feeding lies to the Almanac.”

“The photo of Shelby and Shank in the alley,” said Valerie.

“She has been… collaborating, with Shank, it seems,” Diggory frowned. “To hunt down the Quartet. And this led, I believe, to the start of tonight’s conflict. I wanted you to hear all of this from us. You may wish to sit.”

“I think I’m alright,” said Valerie, grip still tight on her bat. She moved to the opposite side of the table from Diggory, across from her sleeping security. She wondered which of her friends their pale eye was from. August, perhaps. “What do you know about tonight? You’re saying it was the Quartet that killed Heather?”

“Shank caught up to the Quartet,” Diggory said. “Or rather, walked into a trap they had set for him in the roots district. He survived, although he was injured deeply. He killed one of their members.”

Here Diggory paused, and looked down to the table.

“It was Heather McGowan, Valerie. She was one of the four that have been murdering Scout City’s residents.”

Valerie stared silently, twisting the bat in her hand.

“Heather,” she said. “Heather was a deputy. She was tracking down the killers.”

“So we all thought,” Diggory said, looking pained.

“Who told you this?” she said. “How do you know?”

“Shank was very clear…” Diggory began.

“Oh well, there you go,” she said. “Diggory, I know you. I know you’re very… trusting. Has it occurred to you that maybe Shank is lying to you? That he’s killed others and he killed Heather while she was trying to arrest him? The Scout City deputies’ report from the warehouse says they found Heather inside. She was on patrol, and she must have run into him. Do you have anything else before we tell the city the daughter of our beloved doctor, a deputy who was killed on duty no less, was actually stringing corpses up on cables the whole time?”

“I am trusting,” said Diggory. “I do not doubt Shank. He has no grudge against Scout City; he wants revenge only against the Quartet. They have framed him as the killer…”

“Did he or did he not kill Joshua Wicker?” said Valerie. “They have been pounding on my door ever since demanding action.”

“I do believe he was responsible for that,” said Diggory. “Although there was a reason…”

“Diggory, I can’t listen to anymore,” she said, rubbing her head, and she leaned heavy on the back of one of the meeting room chairs, grinding its feet into the floor. “Right now I am trying to write a letter to Mrs. McGowan to let her know how sorry I am that her daughter was murdered tonight. I cannot tell her that her daughter was a murderer based on the word of the thing that murdered her.”

“Shelby also found a button…” Diggory began.

“What are you asking me to do? Why are you here?” Valerie said, looking up.

Diggory studied her singly, and sighed, black-tipped fingers twisted together.

“Valerie, there is a conspiracy against us in this city that seems to grow daily,” said Diggory. “Against people like me, who have come back from death. And if the roots of the Quartet’s doctrine hold true, against anyone who the Quartet thinks is sinful or degenerate or unrighteous. Each death, each article written to stoke fear in this city—it is all intentional. I just wished you to be aware. That I and my friends are here. That we are still your friends. That we are not the ones committing this violence. That we are still fighting.Please remember us kindly, in all that is to come.”

“What is to come?” said Valerie. “What are you planning?”

“We are going to fight back,” Diggory said sadly, shaking a long tuft of dark hair away from their eyes. “You were not here when we fought the Instrumentalist, but Riot, Percy and I… even Shelby, even Shank. We cannot continue to let the Quartet kill everyone who still has courage in this city. We will lure them out of Scout City if we can. I fear we may kill them. I do not wish to. But it may happen. And I am sorry, because there are three more masks, and I do not know whose faces we will find beneath them.”

“No more killing,” Valerie said. “For the love of god.”

“For the love of god,” Diggory mused, and frowned. “I have seen now much death on account of this. I would like not to see any more.”

Diggory stepped out from the table, and walked past her, gliding like a large black spider down the hall.

“Diggory,” Valerie called. “Don’t make Scout City bury any more of its kids. Keep Riot out of this, please.”

Diggory paused, and looked back from her front door.

“Val,” they said, “I could not keep her away from a fight if I tried.”

Interlude 2 - A Glade, A Single Tree

Someday, when I am impossibly ancient, dreamer, my eyes will close for the first and last time and burn out one by one. The core of energy, stored in my heart and spread throughout every square inch of your universe, will gather for a farewell, and then expand as it dies. You will be able to view the demise of my heavenly body in your skies, although both you and the heavens may be gone by then.

If I die while the universe still has time—while there is life anywhere—there will no doubt be treasure in the dust of me. Rare particles, substances unforeseen by the universe. The bodies of indescribable life are full of surprises. I have begun lately to picture that in the vast field of my absence, new life might abound. Perhaps not as glorious as an orchard, but a glade, or perhaps a single tree. Assuming that I am not burned instantly away into nothingness by the weapons of my peers, of course. We go now to one who is about to confront death.

Story 3 - New Blood

The old man had paused, seeming like his heart was going to heave out of his chest—and in that pause, Cole had gotten quite close. Something was happening in Scout City; the outline of the Stumps in the distance were ringed with a spark of flame as what seemed like an open flame had just begun. It had scarcely been a few hours since he had donned that drum-skin mask, and had a silver-bladed dagger pressed into his palm, and joined the other three members of the Quartet in moving out into the woods in pursuit of the spies who had been listening in on their meeting.

His world reeled. Everything had changed. On the one hand, Heather’s trust in him, and the idea of a world free of all the cursed strangeness of the age. On the other, his duty as a Scout City Deputy investigating the very same murderers Heather had been perpetrating. Even for a good cause, who was she to decide who lived and who died? Who next needed to disappear in order to clean up the city of its worst elements?

And now in the moment, he was standing, a black cloak and loose-fitting clothes hiding his deputy jacket, the breath hot within his mask, a knife in his hand, staring at the old man he had been commanded to capture. It was Vincent, he was almost sure—the undertaker who had been presumed dead after Shank broke free of his morgue. The puppet was nowhere in sight. What indeed had the suspicious old codger been up to?

“Stop running,” Cole commanded, stepping out of the bushes. “You’re coming with us.”

Too much like a deputy, he thought.

Vincent turned and there was a flash of fear in his glassy old eyes. It sent a kind of exhilarating feeling through Cole—he wasn’t a Scout City deputy and son of the sheriff in this getup. He was an anonymous darkness, a black hole. All the world could see was the Quartet.

“Oh. I’d rather not,” said Vincent, limping onward, and Cole took several fast steps towards him, catching up quickly.

“Where have you been, Vincent?” he said, trying to figure out how to do a voice that did not sound like him, and rather stumbling his way through.

“Do I know you?” gasped the old man, and Cole tripped him with a swoop of his boot, which caused Vincent to fall and then slide down a root embankment. Cole went sliding down after him, readying the length of cable that hung at his side to bind the man’s wrists, but then there was a phosphorous green glow in his peripheral vision, and he whirled around to see a sight he was just getting used to—a specter, a ghost, a human soul, much the same as the ones that had been bound to the church organ in the stone chapel. Omens of the end.

This one had a forked tongue, and a fluff of hair, all-black eyes with tiny white pupils, a pale mirage of a dead punk. A translucent hand was reaching for his head, and he blocked it with his knife, and there was the strangest rush of electricity as his knife held back the phantom’s grasp, and then his fighting training wicked in as he slipped the knife past the palm and then went for the chest. The ghost caught his blade through her palm and shrieked with a voice that raised the hair on his neck, and pushed back against the hilt.

“Not very cool of you to pick on an old guy,” said the ghost, bracing her impaled hand with her free one. “Vincent, keep it moving.”

“Right,” said Vincent, shrinking into the darkness of the underbrush.

The ghost twisted her hands, trying to take his knife away, and he went to shoulder-check her but passed straight through her body, and went rolling across the forest floor, pulling his knife free as he moved. The knife was the only thing that could interact with the phantom, it seemed. He could work with that.

“Stupid,” said the spirit, cracking her neck by twisting it all the way around. Her palm had a black opening in the phantom-light skin where he had ripped an open hole in her that did not close. “It’s like you’ve never fought a ghost before.”

Not going to get under my skin, Cole thought, and rolled to his feet, searching for Vincent. There was still a rustling in the bushes in the distance. But then the ghost skipped towards him in the air, pretending to box, and threw a punch at him. He raised the blade to catch her knuckles, but her other fist came rolling past, and for that he raised his own hand to block. Her fist passed through his as though it was not there, but then became crackling-white and solid just before making contact with his helmet, puncturing the skin of the drum with a blackened hole over one eye.

He stumbled backwards as a spectral buckle boot swung up between his legs, and then a second caught him in the side of the helmet as she spun, bowling him into the underbrush. He rose again with his knife, whirling around, but now could not catch any sight of her.

“So like, do you think this is the part where I kill you?” her voice echoed around him in the air. He turned constantly, waiting for her to reappear in any direction.

“You should have stayed dead,” Cole breathed, finding his voice. “Nothing about you is natural.”

“Heard that all my life,” she said. He swept the knife through the air, hoping to catch her if she was invisible somehow. She chuckled.

“Hey skinhead,” she said. “Up here.”

He looked up to find her hovering upside down directly over him, with a hand reached down to his helmet.

“Lights out!”

There was an overwhelming surge in his brain, electric fingers crawling through his synapses, plunging his thoughts into darkness.

When he woke, it was to blurry sound and vision, and a twisted kaleidoscope appeared before him, one that eventually took the form of a mask of splintered piano keys.

“Hey new blood,” said Piano. “You lost a fight with an old man?”

“With a ghost, actually,” Cole grunted, and sat up. He went to remove his helmet, but piano’s hand shot out to catch his.

“Never take it off,” said Piano. “Not while you’re on the job.”

Piano was squatting beside him, and their mask turned to look out at Scout City.

“What’s happening?” said Cole. “The fire’s grown.”

“It’s our lucky night,” said Piano. “The others have gone ahead to check things out. The pig-man got in a fight with Scout City, and they’re finally fighting back. Monsters making a mess in the street. They’re ready to accept our message now. And we’re going to make it one Scout City can’t ignore. Better dry your eyes—we’ve still got work to do.”

Outro - Ashes

Ashes. The flames of change are here, dreamer, and they are fluttering quickly across all that you love. They race, carried by dread winds whistling in from the future, and give no peace, leave no tree untouched.

But we shall still be here, when the bark has blackened and the smoke has stained the sky. We shall be here when buds return to the charred boughs, and as green sprouts take roots in black soil well-fed by all we have lost.

We shall be here when the ashes of our past reveals pinecones, twisting open after the heat, filled with the young and curious eyes that will seed the future.

Until the forest grows green again, I am your loyal host Nikignik, waiting in dust for your return to the Hallowoods.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Emerald Dreams' 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, please make sure that your cigarettes are entirely extinguished and do not throw cigarette butts into the underbrush of wildfire-prone national parks. The wolves have Yellowstone and could activate it at any time, so it is best not to do anything that might provoke their wrath.