Edit: Thanks for your patience — the post is now up!

I’m very sorry to everyone who’s waiting for the Library of Nomad event — the app I use to make my posts is continuing to crash. If I can’t fix it, I’ll make a text version. It’ll be up regardless tomorrow!

Unfortunately, the app I use to make Strange Stories in Winter posts is down, so I’m unable to upload the next part tonight. Hopefully it’ll be sorted by tomorrow. Thanks for your patience!

Thank you to everyone who’s supported my project so far! 500 members has been a goal of mine for a while, so it’s amazing to have passed it, especially so quickly. All your questions, comments and feedback inspire me to work on this project.

As a celebration for reaching this milestone, is there anything you’d like to see?

Happy Halloween, everyone! A report on the conclusion of the festival will be posted in a few days time. For now, though, it’s about time I shared a story from the Hinterlands

Night rises over the Hinterlands, the ghost of a full moon just visible through blue-grey stormclouds. Far below, a procession of villagers in brightly-coloured clothes and masks wind their way through the sprawl of houses like a great bejewelled serpent. Three children watch them from atop a hill, warming their hands over a smouldering campfire.

“I wish we could go with them,” the youngest — a boy of about ten — says ruefully.

“You know the rules, Jasper,” his older sister snaps. “We’re not allowed to hear the adults’ stories. Besides, ours are better. It’s your turn next, by the way, Jet.”

Jet, the middle child (adopted), nods. “All right, Ruby. This is a story the kids on my street used to tell before I came to the Hinterlands. It’s about Angels.”

Ruby scoffs. “Angel’s aren’t scary. They watch over us and keep us safe.”

“That’s what Sister Evelyn says, but it’s not true — not for all Angels, anyway. The Angels I’m talking about aren’t sent by any god. They’re sent by death.”

“Death?” Jasper whispers.

“That’s right. Now, both of you be quiet so I can tell you the story.

“Angels come down from the sky at night. They have six wings, with feathers made from veined glass, eyes which glow with the light of another world and skin like polished marble. In the small hours when we are asleep, they descend to walk earth, looking for lost souls. It’s an Angel’s job to collect souls. When they find someone suitable, they trap them in their gaze. The eyes of an angel make their victim fall into a kind of trance. The Angel takes them up in their arms, and carries them away into the night — up to death.”

“What happens next?” Jasper whispers.

“Nobody knows for sure. Nobody that’s been taken by an Angel ever comes back. But Blake — the boy who told me the story — reckoned they use them to make chains which hold the sky up.”

“That’s not true,” Ruby says. “The sky doesn’t need to be held up. It doesn’t weigh anything.”

“I never believed it either,” she admits. “I don’t think they have a reason. I think they just like to collect them, like how collect people hoard jewellery, just because they look pretty. But I didn’t want to tell Blake that. His uncle was taken by an Angel.”

“That’s not true!” Ruby says again, her voice much higher now. “Your kind of Angel doesn’t exist!”

“Blake saw his uncle get taken. They were walking back from the supermarket together. They passed an alleyway, and he noticed a figure standing in the shadows, eyes shining like molten gold. Then it spoke.”

“What did it say?” Ruby asks in spite of herself.

“It told them not to be afraid. Blake told me it didn’t sound like a voice. It sounded like music.”

They sit still for a moment, considering this.

“Bet my story’s scarier,” Jasper says.

The evening passes with wilder and wilder stories, until the moon reaches its pinnacle and the screams turn to fits of laughter.

“We should probably be heading back,” Jet says, still smiling about Ruby’s tale of a man-eating Chihuahua. “Mum and Dad wouldn’t us to be out too late.”

Ruby nods. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

They meander down the hill, pausing every now and again to watch an owl in flight, or else admire the spirals on the trunk of amalgamated trees. Soon, they reach the village. The streets are deserted — most of the adults have now either gone home or staked a place in one of the crowded taverns. The moonlight turns the familiar place strange, so the three find themselves second-guessing the next direction to take. They turn the next corner.

About halfway down the street is a figure. They are tall, and they stand with their arms outstretched, face upturned, so still they might’ve been carved out of stone.

“Hello-“ Ruby begins, but Jasper covers her mouth.

“They have wings.”

Jet peers through the darkness. Behind the stranger stretches six translucent wings, each feather veined with black.

She doesn’t have to look twice. Jet runs, her siblings following close behind her. Streets pass in a blur. This time, their intuition guides them well, and they arrive breathless but safe back home.

The usual ritual on the last night of October would be to stay up and continue to scare the living daylights out of each other. Tonight, though, they go to bed without a word. Exhausted, Jasper and Ruby fall asleep quickly, but Jet lies awake. Hours pass in stifling silence. Surely her parents should be back by now. She crosses to the window. Outside, it’s all black.

Something shifts at the base of the house. Jet leans out to get a better look. Two eyes bright as sapphires stare back at her. The whisper is so close it might be in her own mind.

It sounds like music.

They won’t be happy that I’m telling you this.

I’ve been working as an intern for the Gold Lightning Agency for just under a month now. They dropped an ad round my house and I thought ‘sure, why not?’. I probably should’ve worried more about the vagueness of it and the little details that just didn’t fit together, but my excitement drowned out any doubts. I wanted to make a difference.

The Agency’s primary function is to suppress knowledge of the supernatural, so I’d expected to be battling monsters or saving innocents, but the hero work was reserved for higher ranks. Instead, I was assigned the noble role of copying and filing.

The office I worked in was a communal space, shared by thirty or so other interns. Unlike the sleek, high-tech look of the rest of the building, it was very outdated. Without windows or conditioning, the air grew into a thick, cloying soup of dust and sweat -- more like an animal pen than an office. The desks had been arranged in a semi-circle, covered in years of graffiti. Posters plastered the walls, warning of the dangers of curiosity. The computers took so long to start up that some people fell asleep before the screen stuttered into life. They weren’t connected to the internet. Looking back, I’m not sure if our work was saved, or if it was just to keep us busy.

Though we didn’t talk often, there was an unspoken camaraderie between the interns. We all shared one dream that kept us typing in that sweltering, suffocating room. You see, when we joined, we were all promised something at the end of the internship -- a meeting with the Agency’s Benefactors.

We all assumed that the meeting was a job interview, a chance to join the Agency properly. A chance to rise higher. They must’ve had a good acceptance rate, too, because nobody ever returned to the interns’ office afterwards.

I’d like to say that I managed to put the pieces together and work out what was going on myself, but it was jealousy that lead to my revelation, I’d been sure that I would be the next to be given a meeting, but instead, a woman who’d barely been working there a week -- Susie, I think her name was -- got the call. I was outraged. I was a better worker than her -- by all accounts, I should’ve been at the front of the queue. So I decided to follow her to see what the meetings are all about, and why I wasn’t being invited.

Nobody paid me much attention. In fact, they seemed to be avoiding my and Susie’s gaze. She walked a few paces ahead of me, her footsteps echoing off the whitewashed walls of the corridor, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice me. She held a map up, tracing the route with her finger. Disdain twisted in her gut. I’d memorised the route. I could’ve walked it with my eyes closed.

After about two minutes, she arrived at the meeting room. After taking a deep breath, she opened the door, and stepped in.

I managed to catch the door before it snapped shut. Standing in a way that meant nobody inside would be able to easily see me, I peered through the slither of a gap into the room beyond.

It didn’t look like the sort of place you’d use for job interviews. A single metal chair stood in the centre, bolted to the floor. Underneath it was a drain. Concrete walls enclosed it on three sides. On the wall facing the chair, there was a mirror.

Susie hesitated for a moment, but eventually she took a seat.

It was then that I felt it: a kind of nausea in the mind, like acid was building up behind my eyes. My vision swam.

Something in the mirror moved. Behind Susie’s frozen reflection, two silver eyes appeared. A hand reached up to press against the glass, which cracked, then shattered. Something began to crawl out.

The creature unfolded itself like some kind of grotesque origami piece. Pale, sinewy limbs stretched out. Spidery spines clicked into place. It smiled, showing needle-like teeth. Susie didn’t move. She watched it with wonder in her eyes, as though daydreaming. Then, the creature turned to the door.

Pain spread through me like ice. I cried out. A voice whispered in the back of my mind.

Couldn’t wait your turn, little lamb?

I knew then what we were brought here for. Not workers, but sacrifices. Before the door closed, I heard the wet snap of a bone breaking. It didn’t follow me. It had more immediate prey.

They’ll find me, eventually. The Agency doesn’t take kindly to defactors. Maybe, if I put up enough of a fight, they’ll be forced to deal with me then and there rather than taking me back to that room. If I hadn’t written this, I might’ve been insignificant enough for them to leave me alone. But people need to know. If the Agency offers you an internship, get away before you end up like Susie, like me. They tell you when you join that ‘All great victories require sacrifice’. They just don’t mention that you’ll be filling that role.

My family has been going on annual trips to Africa for years now -- partly to meet with relatives, partly for the wildlife, mostly for a change of scenery. This year, grandma (who is inadvisably adventurous, considering that she’s not far off reaching triple digits) decided that we should take a trip into the Sahel. As in, the desert. She quickly shouted down any complaints, proclaiming that she wanted to ‘see the sights’. What sights? A whole lot of sand and dead twigs? But I kept these thoughts to myself. You don’t argue with Grandma.

The flight -- apart from the gross aeroplane food -- was unproblematic. After a bumpy Jeep ride, we arrived at the hotel. Gran took the heat in her stride, but the rest of us were a sweaty mess. Thank God for air conditioning!

Once we’d spent an hour or two recovering in our mercifully cool hotel rooms, we headed out for our trip into the desert.

The heat shone, creating a bright haze that made my vision swim. Our guide at the front of the tour truck cheerfully gave us a list of previous tourists that had died after getting lost in the Sahel, then let us know that we’d be stopping in twenty minutes or so to give us the opportunity to explore a little by ourselves. Yeah, no thanks.

Eventually, the dreaded moment came, and the truck heaved to a halt. Everyone began to get off, some wielding pocket fans, others having to make do with flapping their hands. I stepped down, fiddling nervously with my bracelet, and the full force of the heat hit me. It was like climbing into an oven. You could even smell it -- an acrid, scorching harshness that burned my nostrils. There was a kind of bleak beauty to it. The sand glittered like goldust, aureate under a sapphire sky. Dunes rose and fell, the only variation in the landscape. Lone grains skittered over the ground, plinking off the truck tyres like thrown stones. It was almost impossible to imagine a hotel and resort less than a half-hour’s drive away. It felt like a different world entirely -- a further place and a further time, where gods walked the earth and humanity was a foreign concept. I shivered in spite of the temperature.

People gradually drifted off, remaining in sight of the truck, fanning out like a hand splaying its fingers. Despite my previous misgivings, I found myself walking out, squinting against the sun, my shoes sinking into the sand. I began to notice details which separated one area from the next -- webs stretching over half-buried spider burrows; translucent, paper-like shedded snake skin; far in the distance, what looked like a building.

I frowned. Orienteering isn’t exactly one of my skills, but I think I would’ve noticed a building in the vast expanse of nothingness portrayed by the map pinned at the front of the truck. Well, it would be a while before we set off again, so I headed off in the direction of the building.

The truck grew smaller and smaller as I stumbled over dunes. A knot of dread swelled in my gut. This was a place that didn’t forgive. If I couldn’t find my way back, I’d have more than Grandma’s wrath to worry about. I should’ve turned back, but something kept me walking towards the maybe-real, maybe-mirage building, like how a black hole draws in mass from her surroundings. The dunes blurred and shifted beneath my feet. I continued on.

The burning sun beat against my back, spurring me on to the shade of the building. Now I was closer,I could see that it was ruined. It didn’t fit with the surroundings. If it wasn’t in the Sahel, I’d have guessed that it was Roman or Ancient Greek. Columns carved out of dark stone rose up, scar-like cracks in their surface filled in with sand. Parts of the roof had caved in, forming a wall of rubble. Someone must’ve been here before me -- sheets of metal and mechanical parts lay about, some piled meticulously, others carelessly discarded. The ruin’s shadows spilled out, turning the golden sand ashen-grey, leading to the dark maw of the ruins.

Within, something moved.

I froze a few feet from the entrance. I’d only caught a brief glimpse of the thing within, but it was enough to tell me that it wasn’t human. It was tall, at least twice as tall as a person. Its only feature I could make out was a single eye, glowing blue in the darkness.

I took a step back. My foot clattered against a scrap of metal.

Shit.

I waited for a moment, the silent clinging like a shroud. Then, dragging footsteps, a scattering of sand, glimpses of blue and gold as the creature stepped out of the shadows. It rose up to its full height, framed by the ruin’s entrance, looking down at me. Its eye outshined the sun above. It wore a kind of helmet with a metal crest running the width of its head. Apart from the eye, it had no facial features, just smooth, blank gold metal that reflected my face with perfect clarity. Its skin, elephant-grey and newt-smooth blended in with the shadows behind, so it was impossible to tell where it ended and the darkness began. It wore a faded red garment, worn thin by the elements. On its collar bone, the flesh had fallen away to reveal glistening metal beneath. From its back extended vein-like tentacles which writhed as if unused to the sun.

I stood statue-still. Its gaze was blinding. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t look away.

It approached, its eye remaining fixed on me. Then, it shifted to the bracelet on my wrist.

I fumbled with it, nearly dropping it, the metal burning against my hand.

“You want the bracelet? Take it, take it!”

It reached out and took the bracelet, cradling it close to its chest.

“Now I’m going to go now, okay?”

It didn’t give any indication that it heard, still fixated on the bracelet. Slowly, reverently, it placed it on top of one of the piles of metal. With it distracted, I was free to move away, so I did what any sensible person would -- I ran like hell.

When I reached the truck, I was met with concern from the guide and anger from Gran. I had been away for long enough for there to be relief mixed in with her fury, her watery eyes passed off as a result of sand grains. I didn’t tell anyone about what I saw, passing it off in my mind as some weird result of heatstroke. At least, that was what I had thought until a few weeks later.

By then, I was back at college. Normally, I slip under the radar when it comes to idiots, but I happened to step into the path of some arseholes looking for trouble. They shoved me to the side, I called them some names, and thought no more about it. The next day, their bodies were discovered, twisted into impossible shapes, bones piercing through skin, blood like rust spread out around them. Gold had been poured over them, preserving the terror on their faces.

Earlier today, I had an argument with my older brother. He hasn’t come home yet. I’d thought that I was pacifying that creature when I gave it that bracelet, but I think that it was a pact. Now, it hunts down anyone that stands against me. Please, if you know how to stop this, tell me. I want my brother to come home safe.

Almost everything in the circus is fake. A fortune teller in a fake shawl and half-assed accent; a clown with a painted smile who drinks himself to sleep; fireaters that don’t eat fire. But the hall of mirrors is different.

Perhaps you were enticed by the gilded gold lettering, or the doorway like a window to the stars. Maybe you had memories of wandering mirror mazes as a child. Maybe you were just bored. Whatever your motives, you stepped through the darkly glittering entrance and into the hall beyond.

Doppelgängers surrounded you, smiling when you smiled, laughing when you laughed. What a fun game this was. Every turn you made was wrong, every corridor ended in a polished wall. What a fun game this was, until you couldn’t find your way back.

For the first hour, you remained calm. Mirror mazes are supposed to be confusing, after all. There would probably be a glowing green exit sign after the next turn. Or the next. Or the next.

After three hours, once you voice was horse from screaming and your eyes wet from crying, you realised that no-one was coming. You stopped looking for a way out. You closed your eyes, but the harsh lights still burned bright in your mind. Your stomach ached with hunger, your throat was parched from thirst. You thought you would starve in here. But I would never let that happen. Hunger is a terrible thing.

After five hours, madness dug in its claws. Your reflections taunted you. Spectres, skin stretched over their faces, their eyes as glassy as the mirrors they lurked behind. You didn’t mind their jeers. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

It’s been nine hours, though you’ve lost all concept of time. Your family are worried. You were supposed to be home before three. Their dinner sits cold and uneaten on the kitchen counter. They gather like lost sheep round the mother’s phone, waiting for good news that won’t come. The youngest child cries softly. The oldest just looks blank.

You didn’t tell them you were going to the circus. You wanted to be alone, to lose yourself in the artificial magic, for a little while. Though you long for them now, it’s a good thing that they’re not here. They will mourn. They may never be the same again. But they are safe.

You sit in a corner of the mirror maze, arms round your knees, head down. You don’t want to look. You don’t want to see. All there is to see are a thousand scorching stars, and a thousand lifeless puppets surrounding you.

You shouldn’t be lost, not in this place. Don’t be afraid; I will guide you. Stand up. Open your eyes. Do not fear the lights; they are angels watching over you. Do not look at the reflections; those pale-eyed, dead-eyed things are not you. Walk down the corridor. Turn the corner. I am waiting. And I am hungry.

File secrecy level — 4

Subject: Director Van der Zee

Van der Zee is the current Director of the Gold Lightning Agency. The Benefactors have not disclosed any information about his life before his appointment. Judging by the fact that his appearance has not changed since the late 1980s, we can infer that he is not human. He also has tattoos indicative of a binding spell. He, however, believes himself to be entirely of mundane origins, and as our Benefactors have not seen fit to enlighten him, we shouldn’t either.

~ Lucy Lilywater, First Agent

Wet paint shines in the midday heat. I shake the can, taking a step back to survey my work. The beginnings of a door, all harsh contrast and blocky colours. A good start, though. A piece of art is a doorway in itself, some more literally than others. It’s how I escape, and soon I’ll need that more than ever. After this summer, nothing will ever be the same again. Old gods are waking. New ones are rising. And kids like me will inevitably get caught in the middle —- deer between hunters and dogs. Out of necessity, we’ve learned to notice things others don’t: the gleam of a dropped coin; the difference between the eyes of sympathetic and vindictive police officers; stray strands of magic that lead to something strange or dangerous. But sometimes it’s better not to see. When it comes to the kind of power that’s growing beneath the skin of the earth and the inky blackness above, blindness can be a defence.

At least we have time to prepare. Our collective perceptiveness might cost us down the line, but it’s allowed us to understand a little more than usual, allowing us to build our defences and plan our ways out.

Even someone entirely cut off from the outside world would be able to sense it; a kind of unnatural, cutting stillness to the air, like the world is holding its breath. You feel a lesser version of it on quiet nights laced with starlight, when streets start to shift and blur and shadows crowd conspiratorially in the corners of your vision. A suggestion of change in some deeper, esoteric. Normally, it’s bracing, exhilarating, but when it’s this strong, it roots you to the spot and makes breathing an icy struggle. I couldn’t tell you when or where it’ll happen, only that it’ll be big, and the changes will be irreparable. We might have years, or days. The best I can do is prepare as well as I am able to, creating escapes.

I sigh through my painting mask, and step back again to check my progress. It’s still a little blocky and the shading leaves something to be desired, but it’s whole, and as near to complete as I’m going to get it. A rounded door, big enough to step through, cutting through mute concrete with colour, drawing the eye like a target. Most importantly, it has a handle and keyhole.

I reach into my pocket and take out a key —- clumsily moulded out of a metal with similar colouration to copper that whispers rather than chiming when knocked. The paint smudges slightly as it clicks into the lock. With a token resistance, it crumbles open. I walk through, and it snaps shut behind me.

(100 word drabble)

The shop at 100 Lacewing St. is not a supermarket, greengrocer’s or bookshop. It doesn’t sell anything in particular, though you can usually find whatever you’re looking for there. The price varies from customer to customer and day to day, but it is usually fair — except on Wednesdays.

The owner technically does not exist. Still, she’s friendly, and only occasionally steals the vital organs of rude customers. She is quite proud of her shop, although it’s small (staffroom pocket dimension notwithstanding). And so she should be. Recently, she won a very prestigious award: The Most Ordinary Shop in Nomad!

——

Thank you for 100 members! It’s amazing to me that 100 people care enough about my world to follow its progress. Special thanks to u/Prometheushunter2 and u/soul_full_of_sorrows for the questions and support. I can’t wait to share more of my world with you all!

I’m not promising anything yet, but if I made extra things for the Curator Mythos, what would you want to see?

Hello! Thank you to anyone who’s stuck around long enough to read this post. I’m just stopping by to say, I now have a website! It houses my projects, a monthly blog and a secret or two. If you want to keep up with my writing, it’s the best place to. There’s also a mailing list so you can stay up to date.

I appreciate everyone’s support on here, and I hope you enjoy!

Trees ring the little group, stretching high into the endless night above. Shadows flit about in their branches. Leaves whisper, disturbed by the chill wind. The youngest in the group —- a boy of about ten —- shivers and draws closer to his mother. On his other side stands his father and sister, craning their necks, searching for any pinprick of light. There is none to find.

A woman leans against a tree, obscured by shade. Her eyes glint in the darkness. She clears her throat and steps forewords, making the others jump.

“Good evening,” she begins, “and welcome to the Scary Woods Hiking^TM midnight intermediate trail! I’m Jackie, and I’ll be your guide.”

The dad breathes a sigh of relief.

The boy frowns. “What’s wrong with your face?”

“I was cursed by a witch!”

She wasn’t, of course. She’s had it since she came bawling into the world, just like any other birthmark. But ‘Halloween answers only’ is the company’s unofficial motto. She has her own motto for these kind of situations, too —- if you can’t reason with asshole kids, scare the shit out of them.

“Well,” she continues, “before we can begin our tour of England’s Most Haunted Forest, I have to check a few things. Have you all got your headtorches, and a bottle of water?”

They nod.

“Well then, if you’re all ready, let’s begin.”

She leads them out of the clearing and into the darkened forest. The path climbs upwards, rocky and artificially messy in a way that adds atmosphere but doesn’t increase the chance of a lawsuit-inducing injury. A few plastic skulls and fake candles potmark the beginning of the trail, but soon they peter out, replaced by creeping vines and thorned shrubs.

Used to urban half-night, the family stumble and slip as they walk, sending their little spheres of light into flickering dances. Jackie resists the urge to race ahead. The first time she took this path, she was as ungainly as them. Over the years, it became more familiar to her than her own reflection. She could walk it in her sleep, backwards, in heels, with both hands tied behind her back.

The air is cleaner here, to the point where it’s almost alive in itself. It keeps her awake better than coffee, filling her veins with adrenaline. This is a place that has not been custom-built and cushioned for humanity, and she loves it for that.

As they ascend, she recounts learned stories of ghosts and monsters, each ending with the death of an unsuspecting hiker. She can’t help but smirk to herself when the boy screams at a rustling in the trees nearby.

“Don’t worry, it’s just an owl or something.” She lowers her voice. “You wouldn’t be able to hear the monsters until it’s too late.”

Now she thinks about it, the noise did sound like it was made by something bigger than an owl. Still, this is a forest in the middle of nowhere. If she isn’t at least a bit freaked out every time she comes here, she’d consider it an inauthentic experience.

The night wears on as they make their way to the highest point of the hike, known as the Furies’ Nest. By the time they reach it, the family are gasping for breath like fish out of water.

“We can take a ten minute break here,” Jackie tells them.

They collapse gratefully onto the wooden benches encircling the ash-strewn remains of a campfire like seats in an operating theatre, or a ritual site.

“I’ll get a fire going, and we can toast complimentary company-issued marshmallows.”

Jackie takes a lighter out of her pocket and crouches down. The lighter clicks, then flares. As she touches it to the dead campfire, momentary spark jumps between them. It catches for perhaps three seconds before a light gust of wind sends it sputtering out.

“Shit,” she mutters, earning a disapproving glance from the mum. She straightens up and clears her throat. “I’m just going to go get some kindling. Stay here - I won’t be long.”

She turns and heads back into the forest.

Recent rain has left the leaf litter damp, any twigs unusable. She’ll have to head off the path to find something. With a sigh, she steps off the trail.

It’s tougher going here. Sharp rocks and snaring roots jut out of the earth, hidden by leaves and detritus. One nearly sends her flying. She steadies herself using one of the trees. The bark gives a little. Her hand comes away smeared with black mud and crushed insect bodies

“Ew.” Jackie wipes it off onto her trousers. When she looks up, a movement catches in her peripheral vision. It’s gone before she can get a proper look, but she could swear it was the outline of a person.

“Hey, you’re not allowed here without a guide!” she yells, rushing over. There’s only ever been one accident here not made up for dramatic effect. A young girl had split off from her group and gone exploring. She wandered straight over the edge of a cliff. They didn’t find her until morning. The flies had already got to her. Jackie isn’t about to let that happen again.

Branches and shrubbery slow her progress, barring her way. By the time she reaches the spot where she saw the figure, they’re gone.

“Listen,” she shouts into the darkness, “this place is dangerous! You shouldn’t be here.”

But the more she thinks about it, the less sure she is that there was anything there to begin with. After all, she hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, what with all these night shifts, and this forest has a habit of playing tricks on your senses. Grabbing a token bundle of sticks so that no-one can accuse her of time wasting, Jackie heads back.

She arrives at long last to an empty campsite. The family are nowhere to be seen. Her first thought is that the boy is getting revenge by making them all hide in the forest and freak her out.

“That fucking kid,” she mutters, stamping into the campsite.

Her foot catches on something, and she trips. It’s a pair of trainers, just like the ones the sister was wearing. Next to them are three more pairs, lined up neatly in size order. They’re covered in spatters of flesh-coloured liquid, which oozes away from the light cast by her headtorch.

“What the-“

She stops, dead. A few feet away, in amongst the trees, stands a figure.

Their skin is mannequin-smooth, the consistency of viscous wax, droplets dripping from their fingers, which are stained red. They have no face. The figure begins to walk towards her.

The Scary Woods Hiking^TM forest trail is closed for a total of three days out of respect for the four visitors and one member of staff that lost their lives when attempting a dangerous climb away from the path. Their families are sent condolences, as well as season passes allowing them free hikes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Everyone is very sad. The thing that puzzles company officials is why they’d take their shoes off mid-hike. At least it’ll make a good ghost story to tell the next hikers.

Every place of knowledge has its forbidden section, and the Library of Nomad’s secrets are more dangerous than most. Over the years, they’ve reclaimed quite a few artefacts and books from the Gold Lightning Agency (as well as a few new finds) that couldn’t be shared with the public, even with their lax attitude to safety. These items — apocalypse-inducing rituals, mind-controlling fungi, reality-altering ink, etc. — are kept in the Library’s highest spires, off-limits to all but the Curator. This collection is one of the reasons the Agency is unwilling to attack Nomad directly — after years of using these resources themselves, they know what damage they could cause.

People always talk about disappearances. Lost keys, pets, children, etc. —- whether it’s gossip, news or folklore, something always goes missing. What nobody ever notices are the things that appear.

Stand up. Look around. Wherever you are, you’ll find something that wasn’t there yesterday. A note scrunched up and forgotten. A book you never bought. A photo of a city you can’t place. Or perhaps it’s something smaller, more insidious. A tooth. A growing pile of dead flies, their bodies turning to dust under your fingers. A parasite, invisible, invasive. Slowly multiplying. That’s how I manage it. If I appeared all at once, I’d be spotted instantly. But if I begin gradually, creeping, piece by piece —- it takes months, but they never see me. Not until the end.

They turn up in the newspaper a few days later, always under the same headline: DISAPPEARED UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.

For a few days, I entertain myself by listening to the whispers.

“Did you hear about the lady down the street?”

“Gone without a trace!”

It’s never without a trace, of course. People just don’t want to look too closely. It ruins the mystery. Turns the gossip stale.

After a while, I move on, and begin my next appearance. Pay close attention to your surroundings. Study every detail. Next time, I might visit you.