Tales Magazine - All Hallows' Eve - Issue 4, October 2016

ISSUE NO. 4 OCTOBER 2016

WWW.TALESMAGAZINE.CO.UK

tales from all hallows’ eve ISSUE 4

Hannah Gordon-Smith - COVER PHOTOGRAPHER

Nefi Weller

- MODEL & STYLIST

Alexander Wainstok

- INSIDE COVER PHOTOGRAPHER

Published 2016 Founded 2015 Creative Director: Kathrina Wainstok Chief Editor: Melissa Legarda-Alcantara

Get creative & get connected www.talesmagazine.co.uk Instagram: mag_tales Twitter: talesmags Facebook: /magtales #talesmagazine

enter

welcome The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

- ALFRED NOYES

Welcome, dear readers, to All Hallows’ Eve - the fourth edition of

tales.

October. Trees are bare. Dead leaves fluttering to the ground, blown by chilling invisible winds. Streets are grey and empty. As the sun sets, twilight falls. The ghouls come out to play.

This is All Hallows’ Eve, our latest issue, filled with colour and vibrance, frights and delights.

Between these pages are tales of darkness, of graveyard seamstresses spinning golden yarns by darkened tombs; tales of madmen and murderers, blood and bloodlust. Illustrations and visuals abound of the gothic, the glitzy, and the glamorous. Horror can be glamorous, no? (Rocky Horror Picture Show, anyone?)

You’ll find inspiration from the famous Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a festival celebrated across Mexico and Latin America, and a glimpse into the life of American Magpie Ethel, known to some as The Collector, who lives the Halloween season all year round.

We’re really proud of this one.

Enjoy, Melissa and Kathrina

x

check out some of our past issues

curious

airborne

explorer

contents Horror

Glamour

Pumpkin Head ................................................... 12 by photographer James Docherty

This is Luna Howl .............................................. 47 by photographer Hannah Gordon- Smith & stylist/ model Nefi Weller

Ode to Pumpkin ................................................ 14 by writer Harry Radcliffe & illustrator Hannah Seakins The Collector ..................................................... 18 by collector Magpie Ethel & Sam Holden Samhain night ................................................... 24 by illustrator Hannah Graff The Graveyard Seamstress............................... 28

by Martin P. Burns & Illustrator Jess Bowman Candy Coated Dream ....................................... 40 by illustrator Chloe Fisher Mr Jones Watches .............................................. 42 by photographer Pierre Laporte´ Confessions of a Bad Man ................................ 52 by writer Chloe Laight & illustrator Jessica Bowman Time Keeping ..................................................... 57 by photographer Kathrina Wainstok & tattoo artist Sunny Jim Perfect Stranger ................................................ 64 by writer Melissa L. Alcantara & photographer Alexander Wainstok

Burnt Soul Meets Notting Hill ......................... 61 by photographer Matt Tate Dia de los Muertos ............................................ 63 by illustrator Erin Aniker The Halloween Card ......................................... 66 by writer Louis Cennamo

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen, Voices whisper in the trees, “Tonight is Halloween!” ~ DEXTER KOZEN

12

James Docherty - PHOTOGRAPHER www.jald.co.uk instagram: jamesldocherty 13

Ode to Pumpkin Harry Radcliffe

- WRITER

Hannah Seakins

- ILLUSTRATOR

www.hannahseakins.com Instagram: hannah_seakins Tumblr: hseakins.tumblr.com

14

You finally think about me But when do you ever stop to think, About my people’s long history.

Oh sure, I’m all the rage in October, But by Christmas time I’ll be forgotten By then I’ll be long past my sell by date But it will be you, not I, who is rotten.

In the proud time of 1809 I was the cornerstone of the American diet but now when you see kadu ka halwa on the menu I’m somehow doubtful that you’d even try it.

What’s kudu kea hallway I hear you ask?

And I don’t find your ignorance surprising It’s a south Asian dish of buttered and spiced pumpkin And its popularity is slowly but surely rising.

You say, “Pumpkins are loved, look at pumpkin spice lattes!” Well isn’t that convenient?

But the pumpkin spice lattes so close to your heart CONTAIN NO REAL PUMPKIN INGREDIENT. But pumpkins are so yummy delicious and sweet that they use 50g of sugar and still can’t compete.

So if I see one in your hand as you walk down the street, I would kick you in the balls If I had feet.

Don’t pretend that you know what it’s like, you jerk - 12 months a year and one month of work To see capitalism buy your culture, it hurts.

But what do you care?

When was the last time you attended a pumpkin fair In proud Ohio’s Barnsville town square?

15

Because I was looking around and err, I didn’t see you there?

So many fantastic pumpkins, I cannot name them all, One even took Cinderella to a ball!

Granted he was the vessel of transport and not her date, But she was there on time, not a minute late.

And the fact that there was a pumpkin to hand Shows she was clearly at least a pumpkin fan!

And little did you know, and it’s very hard to tell but a fan theory suggests that the princess was a pumpkin as well!

And the prince, and the mice, and the fairy godmother.

AND SO IS NATIONAL TREASURE ROWAN ATKINSON! And don’t have a go at me that that’s obscene YOU HONESTLY THINK THAT A HUMAN COULD WRITE MR BEAN?!?

Don’t make me laugh with your squishy pink brains, the elevated comedy of Mr Bean would drive you insane!

You don’t know how over your head you are How the roots of this conspiracy spread so far Look around you, Who’s looking short, Short and round, Like a pumpkin of sorts Who turned up one day?

In the public eye?

Who do you look at?

And coo and cry You don’t know how doomed you are at this plan that I forged At the spearhead of it all, It is I, Prince George.

16

17

the collector speaking to Etsy shop owner and vintage collector Laurie “Magpie Ethel� Romanaggi

Magpie Ethel

- COLLECTOR

Magpieethel.typepad.com Instagram: Magpie Ethel Facebook: Magpie Ethel

Sam Holden

- WRITER Instagram: sameleanorphoto

18

19

"My oddest collection may be vintage swim caps."

Laurie Romanaggi pretty much has the best job ever, scouring local estate sales throughout Portland, Oregon to seek out vintage Halloween gems. You can bet your bottom dollar (well, pound coin) that you’ve never seen a collection like this before...

“I really like to collect. We moved about every three years as a kid and we were always purging for a move. I think that is perhaps why I love to gather things now. I am also the keeper of all our family treasures and hand-me-downs. On my blog I feature a collection each Tuesday, I am up to 275 collections...

I tend to gravitate towards the unusual or quirky. My oddest collection may be vintage swim caps.“

20

Laurie runs two Etsy shops: Magpie Ethel, which features handmade items created from her vintage finds, and E is for Ethel, where you can purchase all the strange and wonderful treasures she has come across in her pursuit of quirky items.

“Everything I craft has a vintage component to it. I think that is what makes my things unique. I hunt all year and craft with what I have collected and found. The hunt is half the fun for me. I love Halloween and most of my decorations are from the 40s to 60s. I don’t do blood and gore and do a more friendly spooky.”

“My kids (both in their 20s now) always loved the crazy Halloween house that I decorated each year. I really enjoy pulling out decorations each year and seeing what new treasures I have added from my estate sale jaunts. I also really get a kick out of the trick or treaters that come to my door and tell me that ‘I have the coolest Halloween house.’ It really is fun to share it with the neighborhood.”

21

Laurie’s Halloween display at her home is something to be envied. There is a real fun element to it all - especially her pumpkin themed window that lights up at night to give off a creepy Jack-O-Lantern glow!

It’s not just a dizzying maze of Halloween collections in her possession however. Just about every holiday is catered for including the one that is already on its way – yep, Christmas!

Find more on Laurie’s crafts and how you can purchase from her at www.magpieethel.typepad.com

22

23

24

samhain night Hannah Graff - ILLUSTRATOR

hannahmillustrations.tumblr.com Instagram: hannahmargaretillustrations Facebook: HannahGraffIllustrations

25

“She steps into the dark woods where the Birch trees are ever watchful and with her she holds a harvested pumpkin. There is a single candle lit within that glows and helps her find her way in the dark forest. She places the pumpkin on the cold ground and leaves her gift to this spirit of All Hallows’ Eve.”

balancing act Hannah Graff - ILLUSTRATOR

26

27

The Graveyard Seamstress She’d left a few people abandoned to the elements and their fate, had Io.

There was no guilt. It was a feeling she wouldn’t take part in. She had chosen to face those very things – her fate and the brutal elements – she’d imparted upon others. If she could find the bravery and the soul to address them, to refuse to shy away, why couldn’t others?

They were being unsparing, the elements; every one of them.

The Latin elementum, the rudiment parts of something. It was complicated, though. There were too many of them for Io to leash together and each one of them was in the midst of playing a trick. The wind had faces in it, voices that tickled the ear with an idea of how frightening the void was. The sun was hot enough to blister the emotion out of you. Once, during an infrequent downpour, Io had seen a figure standing next to her, the raindrops coalescing into a phantom that couldn’t bring itself to look at her. Io had tried looking its way, but with only one eye focused upon the outside world this had proven a futile task. Every time she’d turned her neck, the figure had stepped back, playing shadow.

It was a land of myths she now walked through.

All through her nascent life, Io had lived within a small area, a sample of the world. Lived felt instinctively wrong, a false verb. Survived; much more appropriate. Choosing the correct term for something made Io happy. If there was one skill she had (... I have many more, just watch... ) it was an ability to command her native language. This was not just a dextrous craftsmanship of everything spoken. She knew how to get to the very heart of a word, to its very bones.

From there, she could make it dance.

“Take a waltz with me...” she mused as she chuckled at the thought of skeletons dancing.

Her pace was a lot less musical. She trudged over the landscape, unable to implant herself in the unforgiving ground. This was a world away from her home, though she’d only crossed the threshold a fortnight ago. “I was up above, tho’!” she exclaimed in explanation. True, she’d flirted with a lucky escape while taking a flight in a balloon. The balloon...

The vehicle had been a wonder unseen before. The experience had been frightening enough for her be content with learning a lesson from it, then confining it to the land of Lethe and never thought about again. She could still feel the snap of the small rodents’ ribcages at the bottom of the balloon’s basket.

Escapes were becoming de rigueur this year.

Skeletons were all around her even now. She was walking through a countryside that had been assaulted. Trees held their shape and their posture, but nothing else. Not a single leaf trembled in the expressive breezes. The downpour of recent times, so short and sweet it had felt like the opening of a flower, had done nothing to incite growth. Thirsty bark had guzzled the last bit of moisture from out of the air, giving the bark such a sheen it made Io feel like she was walking through a sparse woodland of rusting tridents. A dry and cracked riverbed, as wide as a city avenue, had held onto the rain for about an hour. It had brought Io to a standstill. Only when she realised that the waterline was receding back into the sandy earth did she move. There’d been just enough time for Io to fill up her flasks. Just enough time to remind the soil of how life had been.

But men were a silly breed; still were. They had never been the most proactive of creatures and so when the Calamity struck – it was still spoken of reverently with a capital letter – all they had been able to do was react. Too late, too late. Women fared better. They were designed to look ahead, after all: the gestation period of a calving mother was exactly that. Nine months of forward planning. All men had needed to do since gardening in Eden was remember how to shoot.

She couldn’t have travelled that far in such a space of time, balloon or no balloon. The land she’d been raised in was not one known for its rivers, deltas, streams, cataracts.

28

29

“Spectres that had lingered were forced on, to follow in the footsteps of other escapees.�

30

guessed - to brunn, braun, derived from bher, which as well as brown was something shining. Those who lived when the continents were a-jumble confused the two. The dark animal of their world was the bheros. The brown shone for Io now, burnished trunks and twinkling branches leading her forward to heavens’ knew where.

Io’s suspicions had been raised. She must have known this riverbed, she was sure. It was so hot and dry, however, that her memory was as parched as the rest of her. It could barely function. Now she knew why – as a child - the world outside had been so less-than-inviting. It had been greener then, of course, but the acreage of her home had been as tempting as lavender was to the mosquito. Despite the trials of family life, nothing without had offered a preferable option. Familiarity had blinded Io to the possibilities beyond.

It would have made her happy to know that even though the green around her former home had evaporated with the family lifeblood, at least the magnolia had won. The white of its petals leached into the air, clarifying the past. Spectres that had lingered were forced on, to follow in the footsteps of other escapees.

As the years had passed, so her eyes focused. She became less and less blind. The world became less and less uninviting. The trials within became so unendurable that desperation forced her to look further afield. “Afield.” She thought about that. A, on. Veld, the open country. On the open country. With one hidden eye she could understand a meaning.

With the other exposed she began to see opportunities, much to the detriment of her parents’ wellbeing. Io’s left eye may have been covered with a worn and stained bandage – an aid to the aesthetic as well as her talent - but the right was alright. It saw as any other did. And the more it saw, the more it suspected.

These were the terrors that trailed Io, without her being aware of them. She had lived through terrors of her own, and not only of the elemental variety. At home, the backdrop to her youth had been decorated with certificates stamped with dubious achievement. With distance came respite. The flash of damp in the air the other day had done much to wash away the dirt of such an upbringing. Now, there were only wisps of white in the sky above Io, laughing at the suggestion of precipitation.

The sky was an old woman.

Let’s go and have a look, a part of her told herself. Let’s throw off these shackles.

She stared upwards. Her right eye squinted while her left pulsed, blood rimming the pupil and coupling with the bandage. A schakel between friends. Io probed, naming the blue cruelty above.

Shackle: sceacul, a word from her ancestral ghosts, a fetter. It was a word that was itself coupled, shackled to another: the Dutch schakel, something twinned or locked in the act of coupling. To unfetter herself - to uncouple her life from the drudgery she’d been raised in - Io had whittled down the shackles to their bare bones, danced with the skeletons and freed herself.

“A wisp. A wisp, wisp, visp. A handful of hay, used to brush. But the skies? A handful of vapour? I shall get no rain from this. None!”

It was unfortunate what had happened to her parents. Should something get in the way, it was imperative that it be moved aside. Wasn’t that the way of the world?

Death can be preordained or accidental, but it can never be avoidable. Aside she’d pushed them, her deserving folks. Away from her: afield. There’d been more tenderness in Io’s fingertips when caressing the magnolia branches out of the way as she’d stepped beyond the garden and into the dark forest around her former home. There had been green, once upon a time in her life. Even a splash of pink.

It was frustration and it made her eyes hurt. Io hated to lose her grip on a word.

Colours had faded. From green to brown as the directionless days on foot turned into weeks. Groene to bruin.

From the colour of living plants – ‘Old Northumbrian,’ she

And the trees around her were still refusing to bud, the ground had shifted. Her feet had failed to clock this. Either Io had started descending or the earth had pouted above and

She was pained to admit just how lost she was.

Naturally, she was going to be lost out here in the wider world anyway. This felt more than that, this felt lost and disappointed.

No vistas had unfurled in front of her to take her breath away.

No great cities had schismed from the ground to welcome her in. She knew all about the Calamity, everybody did. She just hadn’t expected it to be all-encompassing.

31

over her: she found herself walking under a lip of rock, a wave of granite that was bruin and bher, brown and shining. Stone had acted without Io realising. The sky – wisps, blue, the hallucination of a skein – was slowly being eclipsed by a gibbous escarpment.

She could rest here, for there was shelter from the daylight. The topography of the land funnelled the movement of the creeping shades behind her, but Io heard nothing. Her eyes were acute, in their own separate ways. Her ears were untrained. A child can be deaf to its own trauma and Io had yet to re-master the skill of listening.

She released her forehead from the strain of a ponytail. The fabric of her kidskin trousers creaked against her muscles as she lowered herself to the ground. Swigging from one of her flasks, there was no surprise in tasting a ferrous tang to the water she’d collected. Nothing lasted long out here: a quick and vital lesson. She drank on. It tasted like she imagined the leakage from her left eye did.

There had been little in the way of rations. Once the first few days had passed, she’d known nothing else apart from supplementing one’s diet from the ground and the slow waters.

Out here the challenge was felt hourly.

“You’ll have to do,” she said to an inanimate tangle nearby. It was the only vegetation that bore more than bruin, so it was the only comestible within reach. The leaves were large, faded from too much aridity. They were heart-shaped, but hearts belonging to somebody unloved. Their edges were not crisp. A smattering of clichéd star-shaped flowers implored skyward, asking for the heat to abate. Thankfully - for Io’s stomach was twitching painfully and had been for a day or two - there was fruit hidden within the tangle. The majority of it was green and the size of a skull and just as inedible. Two ridged squashes peeped out at Io and commanded her to eat. It would be a hard meal, but it would be a meal. Beggars could be choosy only when it came to life or death.

It was no easy task, scalping one of the orange globes. Shavings of waxy skin shot off with the staccato rhythm of Io’s wrist. Her stubby blade was made to work. A small teaspoon with an overly-intricate handle was used to scoop out the flesh and stringy pulp. It caused Io to retch. The stink of cack. Her thirst had been slaked with iron, her hunger sated with a searingly ripe gourd.

She sat on buttocks that were feeling the weeks’ walking. Small pebbles bit into her through trousers that failed to protect. Feeling dead from the waist down, she decided to busy her hands, mostly to keep herself from leaning against the rock’s curvature and falling asleep. Exchanging the spoon for her dwarf’s knife - the more natural of implements to hold - she stabbed at the face of the squash.

She carved as her buttocks dug into the pebbles.

With a shimmy to one side, just an inch, she could keep herself awake. Pressing into the stone she was sat upon. Squashing.

“Squash,” she channelled. “Quassare, which I’m sure is the Latinate action of shattering. Give it an ex- at the start, make the shattering a shattering outward. Our French snoots would have destroyed it: escasser. Crushing and squeezing.”

The pebbles stopped hurting. Io had rid the action of its power.

With the carving finished, she dropped her blade carelessly and lifted the gourd up in both hands. They were face to face. Io found it impossible to conjure a smile half as gleeful.

“What’s there to be happy about?” she asked it.

Her left eye pulsed underneath its bandage. A shot of adrenalin ran through the back of her head. This was the askutasquash. “How extraordinary!” It was unfathomable how she knew this. It was a word from a different language, a language from another time and another world. Water – where and when there was water – separated her from this tongue. How had her powers come to make the connection?

Askutasquash. That which is green and raw and can be eaten.

Had her escape caused her abilities to expand? It was said that travel broadened the mind, but she’d never expected this!

Finally, she let her body relax. Leaning against the concaved cliff behind her, she laid the grimacing pumpkin in her lap. “Still happy, I see.” The plant from whence it had been plucked looked at her with one beady gourd left, the same sunset colour as her surroundings. Io had left the plant with one eye. “Use it to your advantage,” she off-cuffed flippantly.

32

33

“There was gold in her locks, like some fairytale gone rogue.”

A dot of orange, a tangle of groene, and dun dun dun. The colours of her surroundings were beginning to bore her. The sand of the soil, the tan of her hands. The amber of the vegetative skull in her lap. It could hear the music, obviously: its body would be dancing like those other skeletons. Not a yard away, a rod of white arrested Io. It appeared that the skeletons had stopped dancing, for close to her feet was an osseous protrusion. A bone was poking out of the ground. It was not sun-bleached wood, it was not something manmade. It had unquestionably been a limb.

A bone, and one with a brown edge to it. How had it come to fall here? Io couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a traveller whose footsteps she was following in, or a body left here to help a perpetrator with their guilt, or whether her imagination had caught the wrong end of the skeletal stick and it was merely the forearm of a rabbit, the leg of a deer.

Add an eye of newt and I could feel a spell coming on...

The guilt of a perpetrator.

“Guilt,” she whispered to the wisps and visps that were now further away from her. “Gui –“ and there she stopped.

She knew this one.

34

It was gylt, a failure of one’s morals. She had been raised in a pretty amoral environment so the question of duty was a rather reflective surface to her. It glared. It was a blinding topic for Io, and this for a girl with only one eye open to the world. To her, gylt was from gieldan, which spoke of debt and the owing of one. What debt did she owe? To whom? To her parents, now lying in a position similar to that protruding...

from the corner of a lax mouth.

The figure leaked back into the air. A breeze that was far from elemental or rudimentary pulled at Io’s loose hair. There was gold in her locks, like some fairytale gone rogue. There was gold shimmering in the oxygen around her. Sights and sounds.

She was too dehydrated to think about it. Hilling one knee up, she shook the pumpkin off of her lap. Weakened from climatic insensitivity, it cracked as it hit the rock and then continued to roll away. As it fell off the edge of the stone strand Io was shading on, it gave one last smirk. Smirk, from smerian.

Io recognised the duality here. It could be a laugh or projected scorn. She was left forever doubting how the pumpkin had said farewell to her.

For this time of day, it was still hot.

She was still hot. Her clothing adhered to the fine hairs on her arms and legs. This was an unseasonable heat. Not that the seasons had shown themselves for an age now. Whether winter or spring, the sun had blazed as if the owner of infinite candle-ends. The seasons had passed, never to return. The world sweated under one singular front now. Even now, at this hour, there was still an orange sphere glowing above. Io had ridden herself of that Jack-the-lad squash, but the sun was performing an encore. It must be Fall, she reckoned: simply because. It just didn’t feel like it.

But there it was: a remembrance in the air of things passed.

Io suspected the Saintly Eve was upon them.

The air sank into a gold evening. A haze settled around her and a song echoed around her memory. “... sights and sounds pulled me down ...”

The sight in front of her was of home. It was a trick of the light. She saw her mother, a laywriter who always sang her creations before she recorded them for posterity. The vision in front of Io was of such a strength she saw the toe of a boot in front of her, standing on the very precipice of the rocky decline.

It was alone, just the one. Its owner had stepped off into the void, but was unable to completely let go.

The sky tried to darken as Io calmed her breathing.

The spectre afore her had pointed for just a second before vanishing into the aether.

“She has gone. She has gone!”

It was nearly the last, gasping utterance from Io before she curled up and slept.

Io winked her right eye. The apparition disappeared.

The gold deepened. It was gold turning into gieldan, owing a debt to night. She owed a debt to herself, did Io. To sleep, to rest and clear the head of the tenacious history she carried around with her. She was going to have to own up to some sin one of these days; only then would she be able to put it down.

The Calamity had played havoc with everything once known about the world. Time had always been slippery enough, but now it was positively serpentine. Io had left home a few weeks back; two, maybe three. A few days had been lost, but no more than that. Only a week before the culmination of her plans, a neighbour had brought in his harvest. October must have been drawing to a close. They’d stopped eating meat at home. Was Samhain upon the land already? Was this why the spirits were drawing themselves out of the air?

If so, it meant they were entering the darker half of the year. Saints be praised.

The face of her mother appeared suddenly, causing Io to yelp and scramble backwards. A face that was blank and confused at such feelings it felt. If eyes were the windows to the soul, these were open to a stagnant hell. Io recognised the particular shade of lifeless blonde her mother wore in her hair; reticent. She tried to move away and the pebbles underneath Io’s arse scraped against her skin. Crushed and squeezing against her. Escasser. Her control eased off, the shock of the sight before her loosening Io’s power. It was a metallic face that looked at her. The pupils were like coins. Quicksilver dribbled

Lowering herself supine, Io took stock of her surroundings. Beige in the air, but at least stillness. Her

35

36

hands were like a potter’s, caked. Her outfit had figured the environment into its condition. Dirt was just another layer.

What a condirtion... She smirked to herself: a laugh with a trace of scorn in it. Wordplay was sometimes just that: play. Such a modern pastime, so fashionable, to find the portmanteau in every few words. The coupling of things together.

was, but she knew this river. This was the Widewater. Not half as wide as the name suggested, which felt like a cruel hoax in these thirsty days. Io was aware of things that had been spaced widely before. They were rare. This was what rare meant: spaced widely. Maybe it was a fitting name, after all. Water water was not everywhere. There were only drops to drink.

“Sceacul. Look at me,” she said to the listening world in a voice that belonged under the waves, in the hollow of oaks.

It was too deep to float around shoulder height. It sank as she did into sleep.

With so little ground covered this morning, she should have forged ahead. Io had no timetable to work to now, so she halted. Tentatively, she peered past the ground and into a water almost blue. Almost was about the best she was going to get.

Morning came upon her as her guardians once had.

It felt like a trick of the hours.

Her bandage looked terrible, as if it had been used as toilet paper. There was small respite in the fact that her right eye was catching the sun’s burn. It was another piece of gold for the day, her iris having the shade of Tutankhamen’s mask.

Even he had been wrapped in bandages! Enough was enough.

Freedom...

Her right eye was as gummed as her protected left.

Grit had clogged it up. As she stood, she felt her clothes shift.

They were falling off and away from her body. The trousers remained tight around her calves and thighs, but the waist had come loose. The elbows in the sleeves of her shirt were weirdly thin. What had she been leaning on? Her walking boots were the shabbiest of chamois. If she’d reckoned right, today was a Holy day. Io was too clever to make jokes about the holes she carried.

With a total lack of hesitation, she untied the intricate muslin knot at the back of her head and peeled the fabric away from her face. If her world hadn’t become a red stinging, she would have heard the stretch of skin and eyelash and dried blood. A strand of her loose hair became caught just underneath the eye, stuck to ichor. Tears came forth. The pain was exquisite, reverberating across the bridge of her nose. She cried, which had the upshot of washing a small amount of crust away.

The most intact piece of fabric on her person was the muslin over her left eye. It was the part of her that deserved the utmost protection. She exhaled away any angst at the notion of freeing up the sinister. Keep it on, keep it on. If she resumed her walking through this calamitous wasteland, she wouldn’t think of the bandaging. She thought of a Mummy lying patiently for millennia, wrapped in strips and coping with the constraint.

Io opened up the satchel she carried. It was full. This was not junk she’d picked up along the way but the trappings she’d thought necessary to take with her from home. Mostly necessary, anyway, catching sight of the door handle she’d unscrewed from her home’s front portal. That was a souvenir and a war wound both. Remembering how she’d taken the door off of its hinges, she momentarily forgot what she was looking for.

“Ah, something for this mess.”

“Have some perspective, Io .”

She descended the escarpment, flinching as she came out from underneath the granite overhang and into the slap of the sun. The non-existent path led her down to the cracked, dry riverbed again. It was thinner than an avenue now and because of this had held onto the other day’s rain for a time longer. Io stopped on the inch-high bank and allowed her suspicion to run rife. The water was clearer than before. Oddly, this caused her to believe it would taste ranker.

A visp would’ve done nicely.

She rifled around, pushing aside implements and mementoes and her folder of collected papers. They were papers she had written, the formulation of words and the power she could draw on. She noticed the ragged corner of one. Without

This was Io’s first excursion as a wanderer. She shouldn’t have been as in touch with the wilderness as she

37

looking at it, Io saw the word it parsed. Threshold. Perxold. The prexwold, the threxwold. The first step into the wold; the wood.

Into the darkness. This was the darker half of the year... And then she’d been free! The paper had been crumpled with youth’s hasty celebration. She’d attempted to smooth it out between the pressure of its fellow leaves, yet still it had a dog-eaten look about it, some words having slipped off the edge while others held tightly onto the groups they’d been sentenced within. The leaves were loose, but the words were guarded. She spelt like an expert and could linguistically cast one just as well.

The papery leaves in her bag were not the only sort of leaf that day. It took her some time before she made out a blur on the other side of the river. It was a patch of groene.

On went the bandage again, now dampened from the clear water. In went Io’s feet, the river viscous. The wade through the water was anything but religious or hallowed. Critters nibbled through the deteriorating chamois, mutated fish entered the holes in her boots. Those who had sworn in the nuclear age had a lot to answer for. Her mother Laura had been one of them and suddenly the degree of guilt Io owned, or owed, was minimised.

Songs about reactor cores may have felt like contemporary folk, but it hadn’t been music to the ear of civilisation. Io’s ability to hear this music had been killed off with the last vestiges of a salvation.

The seventh stage of civilisation had passed, which left them all ... Where? Io wondered. She surveyed the land after hopping out of the river, but nothing belied her whereabouts.

The green may end up being nothing less than an oasis, but she’d head towards it regardless.

What she was greeted with took her breath away. She had to inflate her lungs from deep underneath her diaphragm just to keep her bloodstream pumping. The gates themselves weren’t much to write home about, or even write here about.

She kept her papers and coloured pencil crayons in her satchel.

They were thin and old and ready to snap. But behind them ...

It was a cemetery.

“How extraordinary,” she catchphrased.

I was here. How was that possible? That was the extraordinary thing. Io had been here. Here. She had seen this place and not in a dream or a painting or the telling of a tale. Just as she was wandering the overgrown paths now, threading her way between gravestones and urns and overreaching crosses; so had she done before. She tried to parse some of the sights in

front of her. The graves, the græf that was really just a ditch. An ignominious end. The graf, graban, a tomb. Roots growing over the body. The word had its roots in ghrebh, which was a frenzy of digging and scraping. It was hallowed ground. Hallow from halgian, the old sanctification of an object. Halgian, helagon and all the way back to kailo: uninjured. But there was injury all around here. Io could parse nothing in the way of command in this forgotten graveyard. Control had been wrested from her. Nothing made sense, not yet. Even more peculiar - (... peculium, property that is privately owned, but not the property of a modern age; cattle, the coin which used to drive trade, pecu being a flock... ) - was a tombstone that stopped her in her tracks and tricks.

It was small and circular, the size of a manhole covering. Unlike its peers, it did not stand but was planted onto the earth. The name of the occupant was barely legible. She had been Anjela C______. That was all; all Io could make out. A manhole for the dead. Disrespectfully, she emitted an out-ofplace chuckle. This marker wasn’t for a man, the name made sure of that.

Io had her face pressed against the past. Even if she didn’t know it.

There was a liminality. Here was another threshold, the Latin līmen. From one world to another. Io had entered another, most certainly. And she was unable to move away from this spot she’d found. Away from this Anjela, who must have been buried standing up, or performing a headstand. She kept her left eye closed, tighter than normal. The blood was drying fast to glue lid and lash together. Washing her bandage had been pointless. She closed her right eye as well, hoping to see in the dark despite the furious ball above.

You can see in the dark, through the eyes of Laura ... So the laywriting mother would have sung. If Io could sing now, maybe she’d be able to see more clearly.

“You can see –” but she couldn’t, her words were failing her.

She was answered.

“Even with your eyes covered and closed, I’m sure you can see, girl.”

38

Io may never have heard this reply had she not turned at that precise moment. She read the lips as the last half of that sentence was spoken. Sure you can see.

Amongst the green of the graveyard was a grey. It was a grey lady.

There was almost no movement from the woman, saving her hands. She was sewing, though in the gloom that was pervasive of the cemetery, Io couldn’t make out either what was being sewn or what was being used to sew. The space the woman inhabited was as grey as she was. Grey like guilt, formless, but it was a grey with a gold seam. A seam, a saumaz, sam, som, zoom. All of them to bind. She was sewing something that bound, but Io saw only the gold edge of a thick needle. It was the same gold as her right eye; as the sun gasped before sinking; as this lady wore sparingly underneath the grey. A flash, not of lewdness, but of a richness that was hidden. The grey was a disguise, Io could see that, even if she couldn’t see what it was disguising. A disguise held together by gold seams. She thought of the seams holding together the balloon she’d flown in not a week ago.

“I had a renowned garment weaver sew the colours you see above you, sewn together so that they leak into each other like ‘bow light. They have seams, but they are seamless. She wove magics into them, I can assure you!”

The words came back to Io with a strength stronger than voice. What had happened to the lady who had spoken them? What had happened to Oonagh Itchclear? She’d been abandoned to the elements and her fate. Io was responsible for this, as she was so much else.

The grey lady kept on sewing. The needle was more like a dagger. Further flashes of gold. A gilt edge, a gylt edge.

Debts owed.

Io’s legs buckled beneath her and she slumped to the ground. Her powers were useless here. She would have to listen: a problem in itself. Though the grey lady’s face was masked by shadow and cloth, Io could see the lips enough to read their words.

“I am Mommo. I have been waiting for you as I believe we have a few things to discuss. Something you wish to get off your chest?

You already know that this is the perfect evening in which to do it, for the dead are listening. Stay sat where you are. Have some soul cake.”

Io had to admit that she thought the sombre quality of the air had interfered with her understanding of what the lady was saying. It was true she wanted to absolve herself, though quite how the grey one sat here sewing knew that ... Well, Io was flummoxed.

Flummox, from ... from ... Uncertain origin. How could she know askutasquash and not this?

“Don’t panic, girl. Once you’ve left here your talents will return. And I shall let you leave. We just need to address first.

This evening you are much safer here than anywhere else. We won’t be eating meat, though the cattle have been slaughtered for the darker half of the year. I am sewing something for you from the hide of one of these animals. Brown and shining. You will be able to hide sooner than you think.”

Io looked at the lady, with both of her eyes. The right saw only a movement of hands and a thread of gold in the gloom. Her left grasped at the thousand words that made up her picture, but they were as slippery as time and the perpetration of guilt.

“Should ever a night be given over to terror, this is the one. I know what you’ve heard, what has been going on since the Calamity. Babies floating out of windows, vacationing families sinking along with the islands they bathed on, cyclones blowing down from Oz, the rich eating the poor.”

The word was yet to be broken but Io could see now that guilt was an entity much scarier than death. She was safe here, in this graveyard, with this seamstress.

The child guised as the lady in grey and gold, the seamstress of the graves, giggled. The sound came out as a viral cough, but Io didn’t hear it. She’d left a few people abandoned to the elements and their fate, had Io. Now she had to address her own, it seamed. Zoom.

Martin P. Burns

- CREATIVE WRITER

Jessica Bowman

- ILLUSTRATOR

Instagram: jessicaleighbowman Facebook: BowmanIllustrations

39

such bitter sweetness falls within a candy coated dream “And the world tastes good, ‘cause the candy man thinks it should. ” ~ Roald Dahl

Chloe Fisher - ILLUSTRATOR

Instagram: chloefisherart Facebook: chloefisher

40

41

42

43

Mr Jones Watches Mr Jones Watches is the cult watch brand from London. We believe that a watch should do more than just tell the time - it should make you think, start a conversation or simply make you smile. Our products are designed

by Crispin Jones and are conceived and executed following his singular vision.

Today everyone has a mobile phone for checking the time. This liberates the watch from being a purely functional object and means that we can be more playful with it. We work hard to create interesting and unusual ways of representing the time on the watch face. We produce all our limited edition models in our own workshop in London - we print, assemble and adjust each watch we make there by hand.

Pierre LaportĂŠ - PHOTOGRAPHER

44

45

46

Pierre Laporté

- PHOTOGRAPHER

47

48

49

50

Pierre Laporté

- PHOTOGRAPHER

51

confessions of a bad man People of the jury, please know I never intended to be a bad man. A mad man maybe - a little eccentric. But never truly bad in the most unvarnished sense of the term.

52

I paid my taxes in full and always on time, I was polite, I was courteous. I was a success with the female form with a queue of ladies who both loved and loathed me (due to my desire and insatiability of those little beauties) and I simply adored the Opera.

them back off me each wet morning. The ceiling fan worked, but worked only superficially: the damned hum of the thing far out did its ability to project any real cooling satisfaction. I was often alone when I awoke, as my father (a busy man - a car salesman) was often working, and I didn’t have a mother. She had died during our then-annual boating trip to the small Island in the middle of the Lake Lacamoré. I don’t know specifics and I would dreadfully hate to bore you. All I recall was that the pebble beach made perfect for sandwiches. Nevertheless, mine was a happy childhood and the unfortunate but not altogether unwelcome fact of my motherless-ness along with my companionless-ness led me to discover my utter adoration for exploration.

It subdued me. All these things on paper, added, re-added and added again, presume me to be quite the genteel man. That was always my aim: to be a gentleman first and foremost. This world is lacking so much class you see, and I did succeed in many aspects of life I add for the sake of this testimony. But, alas, Fate - as he usually does - has a way of creeping up and changing the course of life, acting as the star performer in the show of my life: the catalyst that would morph me into the monster you see before you. Listen close, Ladies and Gentleman, as I unravel the roots of my depravity. Listen as I sew the seeds of reasoning in your so quick-to-judge minds and show you all how it was so easy - nay, enjoyable - for me to take the little lives of so many feeble people.

I guess it might never have happened at all if it wasn’t for that initial, most unfortunate and rather accidental accident. It was the twelfth summer of my early life and I was living with my father in a small and dusty apartment just off the coast of the South of France. I can’t quite remember the exact date for the long years and the fog of the past (that go hand-in-hand so well) often cloud my judgment at my tender age, but roughly I think, for the sake of you dear listeners, it was mid July. You see, there was a heavy kind of humidity that hangs to those days which could not be possessed by any other month by far - a thick dankness in the air that drowns the memories of my youth.

I remember my young skin would stick to the dampening sheets and I would savour the feel of the peel of linen as I gently rolled

53

Most mornings, if not too hot as to risk fainting as my delicate head so often permits, I would take my bike down into the woodland on the outskirts of my town (for formalities and decency’s sake, let’s just call the damned place Opping) and would attempt to ride farther and farther each time. It wasn’t long however, before I came across a small and secluded opening in amongst the trees about halfway in. The lack of trunks created a large enough circle for a small boy to play - yet small enough to pace its entirety in a matter of mere meters.

The ground was oddly even, no lumps or bumps, and covered in a leaf-carpet of dry yellow and oranges with barely a stump interrupting the modest space. At first, my little discovery intimidated me as I recall - I was too far away from town to hear any town-noise and even the birds had even seemed to stop singing. Yet I was brave, and brave enough to spend a couple of hours in that woodland, abandoning my bike on a thick trunk, playing and imagining things that only a twelve year old boy with thin arms and a belly full of adrenaline could.

This became my most beloved routine and dedicated my time to making four or five trips a week there. Fate soon intervened however, when, in the act of aiming a sword (a twig) at my opponent (another twig - thicker and this time vertical) I noticed a small lump of a thing at the foot of a large tree. Sword in hand I, cautiously and courageously, tip-toed over on my big toe and proceeded, quite unceremoniously in fact, to tap twice the tip of the furry mound. It didn’t move, not even a tremble or feeblest of flinches. After a close inspection of a lengthy ten minutes and a lot of clumsy fumbling on my behalf, I concluded that it was after all: a dead rabbit. Or hare. Details like that don’t matter now - the only thing that does was the effect it had on me. The effect it still has on me. To this very day, my dear Jury, that image of that moonshine fur matted with scarlet blood stirs my own and fills me with an insatiable, indescribable desire. I never fully recognised what had actually killed the animal, but the blood was dry and slightly peeling away. Some little flecks of it got inside down the back of my nails. I savoured scraping them out.

Bike abandoned at the lamppost opposite the entrance to our block, I unbuckled, buckled and re-buckled (nerves had the better of me, I confess) my belt as to free the creature from the frame and into my arms. I didn’t care to secure my bike and, taking two at a time and clutching my treasure to my chest, I leaped up the steps to the fourth floor and flung myself into the flat and slammed the door behind me. The lights were out but the afternoon sun pierced through the windows and attached itself in three squares across the floor boards, the squares strong enough to illuminate the whole room. It was damp - the netting had stuck to the panes and my hair to my face - and the hum of the fan was deafening. My father was never home until just after seven so I knew I had hours to play with and so, with great gentleness, I placed my friend on two pieces of kitchen roll on the dining table and set to work.

Now, sensitive and delicate listeners, I do not wish to choke your mind with images of that poor creature and the hours I laboured over it with a butter knife (and a pair of left-handed and severely blunt scissors). Only know that peering into the inside of that animal, excavating and handling all of its little purplish swellings fuelled in me an unquenchable fire that only grew more insatiable from then on. For years I picked up animals from the side of roads, and when they ran out - killed them myself from back gardens and parks, and took each and every of them home to perform my duties upon. It was my duty, you see dear Jury. It was like this until my twenties and nobody suspected a thing. My father was blind to the surgeries that took place in his own home as I made sure I disinfected twice before he unlocked the door. Being in your twenties poses a lot of dilemmas for a lot of young men and usually being the case, they resolve these by setting down with the nice boy or girl from across the street, finding a steady job in a law firm, buying a fresh, new cadillac blah blah blah. Mine was only how to increase the pleasure I dissected from my animals. My fate-fondled mind concluded

The next part is slightly harder to conjure. All I know is from one minute I was caressing the poor thing in my arms, the next it was strapped (leather belt to bind. Intuitive. Yes. Thank you) to my bike and I was on my way home and I strapped it so as to see into its dead eyes as I rode. Opping reared its ugly head and appeared in the distance far faster than previous trips, the elation I think had ebbed its way into my child legs and they pushed with a perpetual passion that I didn’t know existed within me. There was a mother walking along with her little girl who shouted as I passed and covered her poor dear’s eyes as I flew by them. I assumed our local flasher was exposing himself behind me. There really were some deplorable characters in that town of mine and you really ought to have been careful, you see. Still, I couldn’t be sure for certain and I didn’t have time to care about them then. I pressed on: weaving through cars and pedestrians like a rabbit avoiding a hunter.

54

my only course of action was to step up the food chain. So you piece one or two things together and you start thinking to yourself. You devise a plan. You find a nice victim. Maybe that old lady that lives two floors down on her own who always used to give you a penny for carrying up her shopping on Saturdays.

Maybe that scantily clad girl who hangs around at the bus stop and purses her cherry lips when you pass by.

That’s exactly what I did. For forty, fruitful, flourishing years that’s what I did. Waifs on the street were my favourite I have to admit - there were never any questions about those, until now. I must have been careless, so unlike me, in my last few killings. Age does have an unkind way of creeping up on a person and in my case it was the flaw of forgetting the few key elements in getting away with such a crime. That is no matter now though. Now you all see me, you beautiful, scared things. And I see you. I see each and every one of you. Squirmish and squeamish, fidgeting in your seats. Not looking me in the eyes, not knowing where to look at all: I wonder, do I make you uncomfortable? Your feet.

Yes, yes that’s probably the best option my loves. Who knows, maybe I won’t notice you that way. People of the jury, please know I never intended to be a bad man but you see, with you all seated there before me, with those big and bewildered doeeyes, the feeling just melts over me. It takes over me. My hands are getting itchy and I need to put them to good use: they are not satisfied with only wringing each other. I think, for my next act, I will choose -.

Chloe Laight - WRITER

Jessica Bowman

- ILLUSTRATOR

Instagram: jessicaleighbowman Facebook: BowmanIllustrations

55

Time keeping.

For the unconventional.

MrJonesWatches.com

56

Ambassador Watch by Mr Jones Watches

57

58

59

60

61

Kathrina Wainstok - PHOTOGRAPHER

Instagram: kdwcreates Twitter: kdwcreates

Sunny Jim

- MODEL/ TATTOO ARTIST Instagram: sunnyjimtattoo

Watches by Mr Jones Watches Special thanks to

Diamond Jacks Tattoo Parlour 62

63

sunny jim

64

Photography by Kathrina Wainstok Sunny Jim wearing Inordinate Fondness of Beetles by Mr Jones Watches

65

66

67

68

MELISSA L. ALCANTARA - WRITER

Instagram: illumelation Twitter: melissalegarda

ALEXANDER WAINSTOK

- PHOTOGRAPHER

69

this is

Luna Howl

70

71

72

NEFI WELLER - MODEL & STYLIST

Instagram: nefiweller Facebook: nefi.weller

Hannah Gordon-Smith - PHOTOGRAPHER

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

Karen wears Silver Jewel Peekaboo Catsuit by Burnt Soul Photograph by Kathrina Wainstok

81

82

Burnt Soul meets Notting Hill Matt Tate

- PHOTOGRAPHER matt-tate.co.uk Twitter: matthewjr_tate Instagram: matthewjr.tate

Ebba Nygren

- HAIR & MAKEUP

Instagram: ebbalution

Catsuits by Burnt Soul www.burntsoul.com

Kate wears Reflective Reversible Siren Catsuit by Burnt Soul (opposite)

83

Karen wears Silver Jewel Peekaboo Catsuit by Burnt Soul (above) Kathrina wears Reflective Reversible Siren Catsuit by Burnt Soul (right) Photography by Matt Tate

84

85

Melissa wears Siren Sleeved Backless Catsuit by Burnt Soul

86

87

88

If human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their

costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.

— Douglas Coupland

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

Dia de los Muertos Erin Aniker - ILLUSTRATOR

www.erinaniker.com Instagram: erinaniker

97

These illustrations are inspired by Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a festival celebrated in some Latin American traditions as beginning on All Hallows’ Eve. Dia De Los Muertos is internationally recognised as a Mexican and Latin American national holiday on the 1st and 2nd of November.

Not to be confused with Halloween, Dia De Los Muertos is an annual Latino tradition, and a celebration of departed loved ones. The festival has been made instantly recognisable by the intricate and colourful sugar skulls which adorn the altars and homes of many during this time, which inspired my first illustration.

My second illustration is of an altar called an ‘Ofrenda’ (offering). Photographs of loved ones, sugar skulls, religious iconography, marigolds (flowers of the dead) and a bread known as ‘Pan de Muertos’ (bread of the dead) adorn the ‘Ofrenda’ alongside a number of other significant items and observed traditions.

I find the whole concept of Dia De Los Muertos such a communal and meaningful way to celebrate the lives of your departed loved ones. I have always been interested in the way certain communities gather, celebrate and observe specific traditions, across borders. I am fascinated in particular by Latin American, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures and traditions, and aim to celebrate their rich diversity throughout my work.

98

99

100

the halloween card The emissary was in reflective mood.

He knew that he knew much about much, much less about much less, and very little about very little. He was in the ever present, reflecting on reflection itself.

It brought his attention back to Earth, the revolving blue bubble, itself a reflection, a mirror-world of mystery stories, in a spectrum-lit ‘universe’ of darkness and light, a oneness he knew to be both vast and minute all at once.

The enchanted spirit studied this paradox, from his forever home deep in the heart of silence. In this realm above, a spiritual sky of the finest, most subtle dimensions, he took rest before embarking on missions to his beloved blue planet, the mysterious polar world. Gravity and its ensuing grave matters within the revolving blue sphere were foremost in his thoughts now and he knew he must go there to satisfy his curiosity.

‘Halloween!’ Monad picked up a thread. ‘A mystery… why are earthbound spirits so afraid of their own shadow?’

His thought waves spread out in concentric circles on a lake somewhere in his imagination and grew wider before fading back into stillness. Propelled by love, his question leapt from the stillness into motion. Out of silence great looms began to spin, and the fabric was a story. From the whole cloth, Monad chose a garment to weave - the material world of ‘dreams made real’ drew him back .

‘And what of nightmares?’ he asked himself.

‘Must there be good and bad dreams? In this polar world must everything have an opposite?’

The storyteller knew he must enter the story in order to write it and in no time was there within a time that passed to other times.

He could see a thousand Halloweens flashing on the screen of his mind, they flicked and flickered and spread out like old cigarette cards of a bygone age. One card jumped out from the pack, there were moving pictures on it, from a sceptred isle he knew of old.

He saw spirits, in high spirits, making lanterns, carving faces into pumpkin gourds and donning scary masks to spook each other playfully. They were making light of the fear that lurked in the shadows, making light of Halloween, the Eve of All Hallows’, and the advent of the forces of darkness.

These were the low spirits, who played on the superstitions of bubble dwellers lost in the plot. They thrived on spreading fear, making death an enemy of life, which he knew was untrue. As an emissary of light, Monad knew he must intervene, enter the bubble from the north, from where the legend of Halloween was known to the mass.

His quiet teleportation on to the Halloween card was as smooth as one might expect from someone with no physical dimensions, he took a human shape and merged into the scene, having travelled there at a speed no-one on Earth could detect, it was as if he had always been there.

A party was in full swing, partygoers in fancy dress - witches, warlocks, phantom faces and scary outfits everywhere. He saw the light and the shadow now as the revellers made merry with the macabre, having fun at the expense of the underworld, unaware of the menace amongst them - real ghouls and blackhearts rubbed shoulders with them, having joined the party from the dark side, unnoticed.

They were conveniently disguised as themselves, and this of course was their night, their coming out, and the midnight hour was their time to spread darkness, cast their pall of fear and do

101

their damnedest to vanquish the light. It was approaching.

Monad did his best to conceal his own light under the cloak he wore, until the time was right. Then there would be an explosion of colour, like sunbeams colliding with rainbows, too bright for the wicked to see, but he knew the hallows, whose vision was of pure love like his own, would see it like a beacon and would know what to do when the midnight hour struck. Tomorrow was their day after all, and he knew they would come.

The enchanted storyteller observed meanwhile, as the ghouls and their cohorts sized up their would-be victims, those pretend witches, warlocks and phantoms now worse for wear, their suggestive minds vulnerable to the infiltrators from the dark zones of their own imagination. The low spirits had taken the form of every child’s nightmares and at midnight would pounce on the inebriated spirits and take possession of their vacant minds.

The higher plane emissary gathered up his inner forces, this was HIS Halloween Card and he knew that love was immeasurably

102

more powerful than fear. He also knew there was nothing to fear in darkness, the mere absence of light, and it was no bad thing in itself, except when low spirits lurked in its shadows.

Earth time seemed to slow down as the revellers, in various states of gay abandon, partied on, the same abandonment the dark ones were waiting to seize upon.

‘Time for the fun to begin.’ It was time to make light of things.

Monad sprung into action as church bells all over the sceptred isle struck the first of twelve chimes.

He knew that the low spirits were bound by ancient laws and could not do anything until the twelfth chime on the midnight hour. He had time to practise his evocation: ‘HALLOUMI,’ he cried. Nothing happened. ’No, wait- that’s a cheese!’.

He delved deeper…

‘HALLOWS TO me!’ he reaffirmed, adding ‘ABRACADABRA’ for dramatic effect.

103

It was just ‘in time’ as the last bells faded into a nanosecond of silence that only he knew was time standing still. Then: chaos, all hell breaking loose as the dark forces advanced, the innocents falling under their spells, the blue bubble at bursting point, the world tilting on its axis, its light about to go out. All through the dark night there was uncertainty.

Where are the hallows?

But the storyteller knew they would come. As their day dawned, all the advancing hallows brought with them the light of a new sunrise, and the spells of the dark ones were reversed, their power diminishing with the golden dawn light and they themselves were now quaking with the same fear they had cast over their fellow spirits. They knew the score, they were sore about it but on every Halloween Card the forces of darkness would win a few battles, but always lose the war. The sowers of fear and hatred reaped their own harvest, as did those that sowed seeds of love.

Monad reflected once more on why the earthbound spirits were so afraid:

‘Why the fear? ...Must remain a mystery, in a world of mysteries that’s natural.’

On his way home he returned the Halloween Card to the great astral library, where every imaginable story is kept for all time, wiser for being none the wiser.

In the blissful silence, he cast another thought on to the great lake of his imagination, to sum up his story, and watched its concentric ripples grow wider before fading back into the stillness of forever that every story is born from.

‘ Everyone loves a scary story….. and Halloween was scary, but fun.. ‘

104

LOUIS CENNAMO - CREATIVE WRITER

105

106

tales of the empowered Call for submissions !

We are seeking submissions for our fifth issue, with the theme empowered Where does your power come from? The time is ripe for renewal and reimagining. It’s time to reclaim and re-energise, to rise from the ashes.

Liberate your creativity. submit to submissions@talesmagazine.co.uk don’t forget to read through the guidelines at www.talesmagazine.co.uk

107

until next time . . .

108

ISSUE NO. 4

OCTOBER 2016

WWW.TALESMAGAZINE.CO.UK